Hello dearest readers! I must first apologize sincerely for the lack of postings, I have my final one from travel week about ready and then I will work on catching you up on my last few weeks in Piter. They have been ridiculously busy, just to give you a preview. I am currently back in the US of A (back in the USS back in the USS back in the US of A just went through my head, not sure what that says about me) but not quite home. My flight from JFK (New York City) to DCA (Washington, D.C.) was cancelled yesterday evening on the account of Reagan National airport being closed because of the ‘blizzard of 2009’ as the Weather Channel was calling it this morning. So instead of heading to DC and my aunt and uncles and getting a pedicure with Katie today, I headed to the hotel that my mom had thankfully booked a few days ago just in case and collapsed to the Wizard of Oz after eating a rather ridiculous amount of New York pizza and watching Mamma Mia. We had booked a Southwest flight today that would (hopefully) get me to Baltimore in time for my original flight from Baltimore to Cleveland. As of this moment, my flight to Baltimore is scheduled for 4:35 – but there is really no telling what will happen since there is still plenty of fallout from the storm.
The blizzard dumped 26 inches on parts of Virginia, Reagan Airport had more than a foot when everything was said and done. More than 800 flights were cancelled in and out of NYC, and more than 1000 in and out of Washington D.C. airports. So we were incredibly grateful when the wheels of our plane from Helsinki hit the ground at JFK. The trip up until then had been uneventful, we stayed out late the night before so I actually slept for about a ½ hour on the first flight from Piter to Helsinki, but then of course couldn’t sleep at all on the next flight. Kelly and I switched with some people so that we could sit next to each other which was great, it makes it so much more comfortable when you’re sitting next to someone you know. Watched 500 Days of Summer, Four Christmases, and parts of Julie & Julia, Up, and Home Alone. Kelly and I also discovered some ‘learn a new language’ game on the entertainment console so Kelly started learning German and I tried to learn some French! It proved quite entertaining, and then we played buzztime trivia – same game as the one at BW3s which I rock at as part of team Taymor with the Newmaners. By then it was time to land, and we got the news that neither of us were going to make it to DC. But both of us got flights for today, and hoped for the best. I tried to stand in line at the American counter and ask about rebooking but by that point mom had told me that there weren’t any seats on the direct flights to Cleveland today on American and I was getting very frustrated at the guy in the front of the line who was trying to tell the American worker how to do their job when clearly he wasn’t going to be able to get where he wanted to go. So mom found the southwest flight, booked it, and I headed to the hotel to crash. Fell asleep pretty early – yay jetlag – and then woke up at 4 am – yay jetlag again – and took a shower with like 0 water pressure (wasn’t in a Marriott unfortunately) and then almost blew up the blow drier when I tried to use it. Oh well, hair is in a braid now instead. Cannot wait until I get to have Erica fix the terrible scene that is my hair on Tuesday. Seriously cannot wait.
Have been very grateful to almost everyone I have come into contact with since arriving in the US, from the airport worker who walked me to where the hotel shuttle would pick me up last night to the front desk worker who made sure I ordered real New York pizza to the shuttle driver this morning who told me where to find the bus to Laguardia from JFK to the Southwest check-in worker who was funny and incredibly helpful in getting my bags checked through to Cleveland to the waiter who DIDN’T CARD ME when I ordered a glass of white wine – despite the fact that my hair is in braids which always makes me look like a 5-year-old. I am also very grateful for the romaine lettuce and croutons that were in my Caesar salad for lunch (don’t laugh dad, haven’t seen real Caesar salad for four months) and the ice that was in my glass of water, and the real ketchup that was served with my French fries (Stef I wish you had been there so I wouldn’t have looked so silly eating a whole bottle of ketchup by myself!) and the friendliness of the wait staff. Maybe its that I’m returning from such an unfriendly and unhelpful place (with the wonderful exceptions of Irina Borisovna and my host mom of course) that I feel much better than I usually do when returning from abroad, or maybe its something else, who knows. I was definitely very frustrated last night regardless, bummed to be missing out on time in DC with my family and also that there was a chance I might not get home for a long time, but today has been much better. If these flights get cancelled my family will come get me, and I absolutely cannot wait until I am decorating the tree with them and my girls, even if its later than we’d planned. Thank you all so much for all the prayers, they have helped me realize I’ll get home eventually and that is what is important. I’m sorry I can’t bring you all the delicious New York pizza I had last night, but hopefully my smiling face will be a consolation prize soon enough ☺ All the very best to you and yours at this beautiful time of the year!
Update! I am now in Baltimore at BWI, where Google has provided free wireless internet through the holidays, until Jan. 15th! Yay! I am just hanging out waiting for my flight now, it has been delayed until 9:35 but as long as it says ‘delayed’ and not ‘cancelled’ after my flight number the time doesn’t really bother me! The bests are still coming over and dad just called while driving to pick up our cheese dip from Cozumel, so as long as this flight doesn’t get pushed back until tomorrow there will be a successful end to this little adventure! Thanks once again for all of the prayers, and keep them coming for all of the travelers still hoping to get on standby and make it home. Much love from Baltimore!
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
The Travel Chronicles Part III: Feeling at Home in a New City
Tuesday morning dawned early, though we had decided to allow ourselves a little bit of sleep in time to make up for the very wet nature of the night before. We ate a late breakfast at a cute café across from the hostel and I finished my hot chocolate and Tom his yogurt while we walked towards Bernauer Street, the location of the Berlin Wall Memorial. Like many places in Berlin, the wall on Bernauer Street ran along the sidewalk on one side, separating families, neighbors, and in this case a congregation from its church and a cemetery from the relatives of those buried there. The wall progressed in stages, from bricking in windows to destroying the buildings on the boundary line – including the church. It was ordered destroyed, and all that now remains is the cross from the top, twisted and bent. This is the only place in the city where you can still see how the death strip would have looked, the area between the east and west that was guarded by watch towers, dogs on lines, and rows of trenches or barbed wire. There is a memorial museum across the street, and a platform you can climb to see across the wall and onto the death strip. (You can also see the restoration work they continue to do on the cemetery that was cut by the wall.) Inside the museum are countless documents and photographs from all the different stages of the building of the wall. It was very interesting to be able to compare the foreign coverage with that of East Germany. The museum was very well done, there were even headphones where you could listen to some of the propaganda songs produced by the government, quite ridiculous things about the blue sky over the wall and the glory of the East German government. Was enough to make you sick when the next thing you read were the stories of those who died trying to escape.
From the museum we walked towards Checkpoint Charlie, passing through a great area of restaurants and fun shops. For lunch we got baguettes at one of the million little bakeries, and I had to get a pretzel too. We took pictures at Checkpoint Charlie and spent a while walking up and down reading all of the information on the area, but while I knew I wanted to go in the museum Tom wasn't so sure, so we agreed I would go later in the week and we would head through the center to go up inside the dome of the Reichstag building – Germany's Bundestag is its representative body, and the Reichstag is its home. It was late afternoon, which worked perfectly since we had wanted to go up in the dome when it was dark out. We had to wait for a while, but knew that the free trip up the elevator would be worth it. When we got to the top we were given audio guides, mine in German and Tom's in English of course, and they must have been super-smart-audio-guides or something, because they would tell you to stop and look in one direction, and interrupt themselves to ask you to stop again if you had kept on walking. Quite incredible. The city was beautiful at night, and we were proud of how much of it we had already covered and could recognize. The dome is open at the top, so it was a little chilly, but luckily the rain had relented. I absolutely love the design of the dome, you can see into the chamber below through a system of mirrors in the center, the transparency it represents is a great concept and it also is just very interesting architecture. Next time I am in Berlin I will make it a point to sit in on a session of the Bundestag, definitely. We got a little cold up in the dome, and what better way to warm up than margaritas and nachos?! Even in Germany? We thought we would give it a try. We had been eating at small café-type places so far, and decided we could splurge a little for one dinner after a great couple of days. And the nachos at the Mexican restaurant not far from Potsdamer Platz didn't disappoint at all! Afterwards, we debated going down the giant snow-slide that the Austrian state of SALZBURG (sorry, couldn't resist the capitals) had sent to Berlin, but decided we would rather just watch other people slide screaming down it on inner-tubes. It was late already, and Tom had an early flight to Dublin the next day, so we had a drink at the bar at the hostel and headed to bed.
The next day was Wednesday, and I began the day with a delicious cup of coffee on my way to the Museum on Checkpoint Charlie. The museum was absolutely packed to the brim with papers, photos, artifacts, and videos. It was especially exciting because I could now read many of the signs from East Berlin that had been written in cyrillic, the Russian alphabet. The museum documents the building of the wall, largely from the perspective of the Allies, and then pays special attention to the many different types of escape attempts tried by the citizens of East Berlin. The restriction of freedom of movement is a concept I have often come into contact with in Russia – during the Soviet time you only had a right to free housing in the city in which you were born, and the registration system in this country continues to be absolutely ridiculous, if you are in any city for 3 days you must register with the police – and it was clearly the key issue for those who suddenly found themselves behind the wall. Compartments barely large enough were placed almost anywhere you could think of in all different kinds of cars, one woman sewed two suitcases together than cut a whole in the fabric so she could fit inside, others built a tunnel, and still others tried to fly or swim out of East Germany. Truly incredible. I could have spent all day in the museum, but eventually all of the photos and articles and artifacts become overwhelming and I needed some fresh air. I got a pretzel and wandered around the area for a little while, before deciding to head to the Jewish Museum which I knew was open until late so I'd have plenty of time. It, too, was jammed with artifacts and things to read and learn. It is largely about the history of the Jewish people in Europe, and I learned an incredible amount about their history, culture, and traditions. I loved being able to be a dork and read all of the signs explaining all of the artifacts since I was by myself. Though not expressly about the Holocaust, there is an extensive collection of documents – including many letters and official documents – about that most-infamous period of Jewish history, as well as the Holocaust Tower, a void in the structure lit by a tiny opening at the top. The architect left many 'voids' in the structure, another such space is called the Memory Void where a modern art sculpture stretches to the seeming horizon and the empty space above somehow is incredibly oppressive. I spent almost the whole evening in the museum, and it took almost the whole trip back to the hostel to process everything I had seen and read during the day. I'm not sure there are words to describe my inability to analyze and understand the things I had learned, but I was grateful for the long walk back to the hostel and the opportunity to realize that some things can never be grasped, unless you have experienced them. I was grateful to Berlin, her streets, her museums, and her people, for allowing me a somehow very intimate glimpse into different worlds in which I had no part.
To be continued…
From the museum we walked towards Checkpoint Charlie, passing through a great area of restaurants and fun shops. For lunch we got baguettes at one of the million little bakeries, and I had to get a pretzel too. We took pictures at Checkpoint Charlie and spent a while walking up and down reading all of the information on the area, but while I knew I wanted to go in the museum Tom wasn't so sure, so we agreed I would go later in the week and we would head through the center to go up inside the dome of the Reichstag building – Germany's Bundestag is its representative body, and the Reichstag is its home. It was late afternoon, which worked perfectly since we had wanted to go up in the dome when it was dark out. We had to wait for a while, but knew that the free trip up the elevator would be worth it. When we got to the top we were given audio guides, mine in German and Tom's in English of course, and they must have been super-smart-audio-guides or something, because they would tell you to stop and look in one direction, and interrupt themselves to ask you to stop again if you had kept on walking. Quite incredible. The city was beautiful at night, and we were proud of how much of it we had already covered and could recognize. The dome is open at the top, so it was a little chilly, but luckily the rain had relented. I absolutely love the design of the dome, you can see into the chamber below through a system of mirrors in the center, the transparency it represents is a great concept and it also is just very interesting architecture. Next time I am in Berlin I will make it a point to sit in on a session of the Bundestag, definitely. We got a little cold up in the dome, and what better way to warm up than margaritas and nachos?! Even in Germany? We thought we would give it a try. We had been eating at small café-type places so far, and decided we could splurge a little for one dinner after a great couple of days. And the nachos at the Mexican restaurant not far from Potsdamer Platz didn't disappoint at all! Afterwards, we debated going down the giant snow-slide that the Austrian state of SALZBURG (sorry, couldn't resist the capitals) had sent to Berlin, but decided we would rather just watch other people slide screaming down it on inner-tubes. It was late already, and Tom had an early flight to Dublin the next day, so we had a drink at the bar at the hostel and headed to bed.
The next day was Wednesday, and I began the day with a delicious cup of coffee on my way to the Museum on Checkpoint Charlie. The museum was absolutely packed to the brim with papers, photos, artifacts, and videos. It was especially exciting because I could now read many of the signs from East Berlin that had been written in cyrillic, the Russian alphabet. The museum documents the building of the wall, largely from the perspective of the Allies, and then pays special attention to the many different types of escape attempts tried by the citizens of East Berlin. The restriction of freedom of movement is a concept I have often come into contact with in Russia – during the Soviet time you only had a right to free housing in the city in which you were born, and the registration system in this country continues to be absolutely ridiculous, if you are in any city for 3 days you must register with the police – and it was clearly the key issue for those who suddenly found themselves behind the wall. Compartments barely large enough were placed almost anywhere you could think of in all different kinds of cars, one woman sewed two suitcases together than cut a whole in the fabric so she could fit inside, others built a tunnel, and still others tried to fly or swim out of East Germany. Truly incredible. I could have spent all day in the museum, but eventually all of the photos and articles and artifacts become overwhelming and I needed some fresh air. I got a pretzel and wandered around the area for a little while, before deciding to head to the Jewish Museum which I knew was open until late so I'd have plenty of time. It, too, was jammed with artifacts and things to read and learn. It is largely about the history of the Jewish people in Europe, and I learned an incredible amount about their history, culture, and traditions. I loved being able to be a dork and read all of the signs explaining all of the artifacts since I was by myself. Though not expressly about the Holocaust, there is an extensive collection of documents – including many letters and official documents – about that most-infamous period of Jewish history, as well as the Holocaust Tower, a void in the structure lit by a tiny opening at the top. The architect left many 'voids' in the structure, another such space is called the Memory Void where a modern art sculpture stretches to the seeming horizon and the empty space above somehow is incredibly oppressive. I spent almost the whole evening in the museum, and it took almost the whole trip back to the hostel to process everything I had seen and read during the day. I'm not sure there are words to describe my inability to analyze and understand the things I had learned, but I was grateful for the long walk back to the hostel and the opportunity to realize that some things can never be grasped, unless you have experienced them. I was grateful to Berlin, her streets, her museums, and her people, for allowing me a somehow very intimate glimpse into different worlds in which I had no part.
To be continued…
Monday, November 30, 2009
No snow in Piter...
Happy Advent to all, and Happy 23rd Anniversary (yesterday, 29th) to the best parents a girl could wish for! All is well in St. Petersburg – if unseasonally warm – and I thought I would catch you up a little bit on the goings on here and post another piece on my time in Berlin tomorrow or Wednesday.
Arriving back in Petersburg from Germany was a little difficult. The snow awaiting us on the ground was beautiful, but seemed to only serve to remind me that I was back in the land of the cold and the dark. The woman behind me waiting to go through passport control reminded me that I'm not sure who wrote that the Russians are patient, but I think they may have been severely mistaken. The people in the metro with their stone faces and their pushing and shoving and overall inconsiderate-ness did not exactly make our Sunday night. If I hadn't known that my host mom would be waiting with a smile – and most likely way too much food – I might have headed right back to the airport again. But when I walked in the door I heard a 'is that Beth?' from the kitchen and when I said yes Ira and Pasha came out to welcome me home, Pasha carried my duffel bag and purse to my room and Ira shuffled me into the kitchen for borscht and chicken and tea and cookies. They said they had watched the whole coverage of the Berlin celebrations on TV and looked for me and my umbrella but hadn't seen me. They asked if it was as fun as it looked on TV. It was absolutely great to be back with them and I knew I would get through the initial re-culture-shock just fine.
And I have. Classes have been great, we have had excursions galore and Thanksgiving went incredibly well. Though I haven't read all of Crime and Punishment, I went on a Dostoyevsky walk that proved very interesting. We wandered around the 'most criminal' district of St. Petersburg – its much safer today than it was in his day – and saw the corners, staircases, and bridges where much of the action in in his books takes place. Definitely made sure his books will be on my 'to read over break' list. (Currently reading: Picking Cotton and Atemschaukel and trying to limit myself to a couple articles a day from the German newspapers I brought back.) Then last weekend we went to a one-man play of Dostoyevsky's The Dream of a Ridiculous Man which was truly ridiculous. It took place in a regular apartment, and we sat along the walls as an incredible actor performed Dostoyevsky's work with masterful precision and scary eye contact. It reminded me quite a bit of the one-woman performance of Fräulein Else in Salzburg, very intimate and intense. Though this time the actor did not peel an apple with a knife while running in circles as the actress did in Salzburg, he did climb out of a trunk in the center of the room in the pitch dark while we all freaked out a little. It was a great experience, and reading the play again afterwards made me shiver at the memories of how the actor performed it, tons of thanks to Irina Borisovna for getting us tickets to our own showing.
Last Wednesday some of us headed to the Baltika factory after class – Baltika is one of the most popular beers here, and is brewed right here in St. Petersburg (as well as some other cities in Russia). Beer seems to be pretty standard, didn't learn too much about the process – the Guinness Storehouse experience is definitely going to be difficult to top – but got to see some of the fastest bottling machines in the world and then came the most important part…trying to figure out how we could fit all of the beer in the 3-football-field-size store room into our bags. We failed pretty miserably at that, but we did succeed at the really most important part – the taste testing, or 'digestion' if you're reading the Russian. Plenty of different kinds of beer – both good and terrible – and lots of friends made it a great Wednesday night!
Thursday, of course, was Thanksgiving! We had planned out the menu in advance, all making suggestions and then Kelly and Sarah went online on one of their breaks and found recipes to make sure we wouldn't be missing anything. I did some of the shopping earlier in the week so that Vika wouldn't have to carry it all, as we would be cooking at her dad's apartment all day. Kelly and I took the long marshutka (communist taxi) ride out to the apartment and started peeling apples for the apple crisp and potatoes for the mashed potatoes. Kelly and Vika headed to the store across the street to get everything else that we needed while I cut all the vegetables and cheese for our finger-food appetizers. Shortly after they got back from the store, Melissa and Sarah arrived from Smolny after taking their phonetics test. Sarah had her pumpkin pie with her, which had survived multiple types of public transportation and still looked – and tasted – wonderful!! Her parents had brought the supplies to make the pumpkin pie when they came in October, and we were all incredibly grateful. The cooking continued without a hitch, potatoes were boiled and mashed, vegetables and bread were cut for the stuffing, turkey pieces were basted, rubbed down with spices, and put in the oven. There were no sweet potatoes to be found in Russia, and the only green beans we could find we weren't sure we wanted to eat, so we had squash with brown sugar and walnuts and salad with feta and vinagrette instead. The turkey cooked almost perfectly, and Kelly and I successfully made gravy thanks to grandmama's recipe with just some flour and a little bit of milk to thin it out. It was absolutely delicious! (Though next time I hope I get to boil some giblets and use the giblet water!) Every one of our dishes was successful, and we had sung the day away to Christmas music and Love Actually. When it was almost time for the Russian guys to come over (Vika's boyfriend and one of his friends, who we have hung out with before), we found the Macy's parade online! The guys brought plenty of champagne and a rose for each of us, and our wonderful dinner began! We toasted our friendship, Thanksgiving in Russia, and a number of other things. It felt wonderful to be enjoying the traditional American holiday outside of the country, and after I came back home that night I skyped with my family which made the day complete and nearly perfect!
The Friday after Thanksgiving we left after class for a 'retreat' with some of the students from the political science faculty at St. Petersburg State. We weren't really sure what to expect, and after a few hours on a bus driving through the dark woods, we arrived at what looked very much like summer camp! One building was the cafeteria, another the sports center, and then a few more were dorm-like buildings. They were nothing special to look at, but that was ok because what you really wanted to be looking at were the woods by which you were surrounded! Though not too far from the road by which we had arrived, we were definitely looking forward to walking around in the wilderness for the weekend, and Irina Borisovna mentioned that there was also a lake a little ways back in the woods. Needless to say, we dumped our bags in our room (and pushed our beds together like little girls at camp with new friends), had a round of introductions and fun conversations with the Russian students, and headed off to explore the woods with Sarah's 'rape-light' in hand. (Pepper spray is illegal in DC where she goes to school, so I think her dad found her this flashlight that will temporary blind someone if you turn it on high and shine it into their eyes. It worked great in the woods, too. Though didn't see any animals we needed to blind.) It was great to just wander around in the woods, climbing hills! (We have none in Piter, unfortunately.) We found a sand dune and what looked like a tree farm, and walked back to the 'campsite' singing Moulin Rouge, Abba, and Disney songs. It made me smile, because it was Friday night for me and I knew the girls would be getting together back home soon and I almost laughed out loud remembering how annoying we were at Disney World when we decided we had to sing Little Mermaid songs all the way down Space Mountain. So now I've sung those songs wandering through the Russian fields too. We kind of all had the sense that this was how most of Russia probably is, away from the big cities and all of the people. The lakes and the forests just felt like they belonged.
We were up until about two, and were up at nine to head to breakfast at nine thirty before discussion club at 11. We got back into our groups from the night before, my group was a great mix of Americans and Russians, and everyone was very laid back but had interesting things to contribute. Saturday morning was informal discussion, and we spent most of the time talking about national holidays in Russia and the US and sports in both countries. My reaction was that many more American holidays center around celebrating with family and neighbors, and that there are definite differences in 'state' holidays. They celebrate international women's day, but not mother's day, and men's day but not father's day. There is a day for children, and every profession has a day dedicated to it. Most cities and regions also have their 'day', and then there are plenty of holidays that no one is really sure why they are there. So it was a very entertaining discussion, and I really liked getting to know some more students better. After discussions and lunch we went for another gorgeous hike, this time in the daylight, and came back and I played basketball and ping-pong for a long time! That night there was a disco, which was fun until some very drunk Russians tried to pull Kelly and I into slow-dancing with them, so we headed out and hung out in the dorm until pretty late.
Sunday's discussion club was a little more formal; we broke up into 'countries' and discussed the issues surrounding the Arctic Shelf and Ocean. I was on 'Canada' and it was actually an incredibly interesting discussion. I realized I know almost nothing about the issue, and also that it could (and probably will) become a very serious issue as the ice continues to melt and the international boundaries continue to be disputed. As everyone was role-playing, we didn't really talk about our own opinions beyond discussing whether we thought it was a big and important issue at the present time. It was still very interesting, and I learned quite a bit for a Sunday morning. We headed back to Piter in the early afternoon – Irina Borisovna organized a bus for those of us who had stayed the whole time so we didn't have to go wait for a marshutka.
It has been an incredible few weeks here in Piter, I can't believe it has already been such a long time since Berlin. And in less than three weeks I will be at home! Skyping with my family has been so wonderful, we even got Grandma in on it for a few minutes! I love being here and I am so grateful to my host mom for making me feel so at home, but I also can't wait to be lounging and causing trouble with the brother, cooking with mom, and teaching dad not to be afraid of the WiiFit anymore ☺ These next few weeks are going to fly by, we are going to Pushkin's Flat Museum on Wednesday, Thursday night is movie night at our director's apartment, and either this Friday or next Friday we are going on a walk about the history of Russian rock and roll in St. Petersburg! So I'll definitely have a lot to keep you updated on! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and don't forget to break out the Advent calendars! I bought a little book at a market in Berlin that has a picture and a quote for each day of Advent, I'm very excited to start looking at it tomorrow! Much love to all, and send some snow this way!
Arriving back in Petersburg from Germany was a little difficult. The snow awaiting us on the ground was beautiful, but seemed to only serve to remind me that I was back in the land of the cold and the dark. The woman behind me waiting to go through passport control reminded me that I'm not sure who wrote that the Russians are patient, but I think they may have been severely mistaken. The people in the metro with their stone faces and their pushing and shoving and overall inconsiderate-ness did not exactly make our Sunday night. If I hadn't known that my host mom would be waiting with a smile – and most likely way too much food – I might have headed right back to the airport again. But when I walked in the door I heard a 'is that Beth?' from the kitchen and when I said yes Ira and Pasha came out to welcome me home, Pasha carried my duffel bag and purse to my room and Ira shuffled me into the kitchen for borscht and chicken and tea and cookies. They said they had watched the whole coverage of the Berlin celebrations on TV and looked for me and my umbrella but hadn't seen me. They asked if it was as fun as it looked on TV. It was absolutely great to be back with them and I knew I would get through the initial re-culture-shock just fine.
And I have. Classes have been great, we have had excursions galore and Thanksgiving went incredibly well. Though I haven't read all of Crime and Punishment, I went on a Dostoyevsky walk that proved very interesting. We wandered around the 'most criminal' district of St. Petersburg – its much safer today than it was in his day – and saw the corners, staircases, and bridges where much of the action in in his books takes place. Definitely made sure his books will be on my 'to read over break' list. (Currently reading: Picking Cotton and Atemschaukel and trying to limit myself to a couple articles a day from the German newspapers I brought back.) Then last weekend we went to a one-man play of Dostoyevsky's The Dream of a Ridiculous Man which was truly ridiculous. It took place in a regular apartment, and we sat along the walls as an incredible actor performed Dostoyevsky's work with masterful precision and scary eye contact. It reminded me quite a bit of the one-woman performance of Fräulein Else in Salzburg, very intimate and intense. Though this time the actor did not peel an apple with a knife while running in circles as the actress did in Salzburg, he did climb out of a trunk in the center of the room in the pitch dark while we all freaked out a little. It was a great experience, and reading the play again afterwards made me shiver at the memories of how the actor performed it, tons of thanks to Irina Borisovna for getting us tickets to our own showing.
Last Wednesday some of us headed to the Baltika factory after class – Baltika is one of the most popular beers here, and is brewed right here in St. Petersburg (as well as some other cities in Russia). Beer seems to be pretty standard, didn't learn too much about the process – the Guinness Storehouse experience is definitely going to be difficult to top – but got to see some of the fastest bottling machines in the world and then came the most important part…trying to figure out how we could fit all of the beer in the 3-football-field-size store room into our bags. We failed pretty miserably at that, but we did succeed at the really most important part – the taste testing, or 'digestion' if you're reading the Russian. Plenty of different kinds of beer – both good and terrible – and lots of friends made it a great Wednesday night!
Thursday, of course, was Thanksgiving! We had planned out the menu in advance, all making suggestions and then Kelly and Sarah went online on one of their breaks and found recipes to make sure we wouldn't be missing anything. I did some of the shopping earlier in the week so that Vika wouldn't have to carry it all, as we would be cooking at her dad's apartment all day. Kelly and I took the long marshutka (communist taxi) ride out to the apartment and started peeling apples for the apple crisp and potatoes for the mashed potatoes. Kelly and Vika headed to the store across the street to get everything else that we needed while I cut all the vegetables and cheese for our finger-food appetizers. Shortly after they got back from the store, Melissa and Sarah arrived from Smolny after taking their phonetics test. Sarah had her pumpkin pie with her, which had survived multiple types of public transportation and still looked – and tasted – wonderful!! Her parents had brought the supplies to make the pumpkin pie when they came in October, and we were all incredibly grateful. The cooking continued without a hitch, potatoes were boiled and mashed, vegetables and bread were cut for the stuffing, turkey pieces were basted, rubbed down with spices, and put in the oven. There were no sweet potatoes to be found in Russia, and the only green beans we could find we weren't sure we wanted to eat, so we had squash with brown sugar and walnuts and salad with feta and vinagrette instead. The turkey cooked almost perfectly, and Kelly and I successfully made gravy thanks to grandmama's recipe with just some flour and a little bit of milk to thin it out. It was absolutely delicious! (Though next time I hope I get to boil some giblets and use the giblet water!) Every one of our dishes was successful, and we had sung the day away to Christmas music and Love Actually. When it was almost time for the Russian guys to come over (Vika's boyfriend and one of his friends, who we have hung out with before), we found the Macy's parade online! The guys brought plenty of champagne and a rose for each of us, and our wonderful dinner began! We toasted our friendship, Thanksgiving in Russia, and a number of other things. It felt wonderful to be enjoying the traditional American holiday outside of the country, and after I came back home that night I skyped with my family which made the day complete and nearly perfect!
The Friday after Thanksgiving we left after class for a 'retreat' with some of the students from the political science faculty at St. Petersburg State. We weren't really sure what to expect, and after a few hours on a bus driving through the dark woods, we arrived at what looked very much like summer camp! One building was the cafeteria, another the sports center, and then a few more were dorm-like buildings. They were nothing special to look at, but that was ok because what you really wanted to be looking at were the woods by which you were surrounded! Though not too far from the road by which we had arrived, we were definitely looking forward to walking around in the wilderness for the weekend, and Irina Borisovna mentioned that there was also a lake a little ways back in the woods. Needless to say, we dumped our bags in our room (and pushed our beds together like little girls at camp with new friends), had a round of introductions and fun conversations with the Russian students, and headed off to explore the woods with Sarah's 'rape-light' in hand. (Pepper spray is illegal in DC where she goes to school, so I think her dad found her this flashlight that will temporary blind someone if you turn it on high and shine it into their eyes. It worked great in the woods, too. Though didn't see any animals we needed to blind.) It was great to just wander around in the woods, climbing hills! (We have none in Piter, unfortunately.) We found a sand dune and what looked like a tree farm, and walked back to the 'campsite' singing Moulin Rouge, Abba, and Disney songs. It made me smile, because it was Friday night for me and I knew the girls would be getting together back home soon and I almost laughed out loud remembering how annoying we were at Disney World when we decided we had to sing Little Mermaid songs all the way down Space Mountain. So now I've sung those songs wandering through the Russian fields too. We kind of all had the sense that this was how most of Russia probably is, away from the big cities and all of the people. The lakes and the forests just felt like they belonged.
We were up until about two, and were up at nine to head to breakfast at nine thirty before discussion club at 11. We got back into our groups from the night before, my group was a great mix of Americans and Russians, and everyone was very laid back but had interesting things to contribute. Saturday morning was informal discussion, and we spent most of the time talking about national holidays in Russia and the US and sports in both countries. My reaction was that many more American holidays center around celebrating with family and neighbors, and that there are definite differences in 'state' holidays. They celebrate international women's day, but not mother's day, and men's day but not father's day. There is a day for children, and every profession has a day dedicated to it. Most cities and regions also have their 'day', and then there are plenty of holidays that no one is really sure why they are there. So it was a very entertaining discussion, and I really liked getting to know some more students better. After discussions and lunch we went for another gorgeous hike, this time in the daylight, and came back and I played basketball and ping-pong for a long time! That night there was a disco, which was fun until some very drunk Russians tried to pull Kelly and I into slow-dancing with them, so we headed out and hung out in the dorm until pretty late.
Sunday's discussion club was a little more formal; we broke up into 'countries' and discussed the issues surrounding the Arctic Shelf and Ocean. I was on 'Canada' and it was actually an incredibly interesting discussion. I realized I know almost nothing about the issue, and also that it could (and probably will) become a very serious issue as the ice continues to melt and the international boundaries continue to be disputed. As everyone was role-playing, we didn't really talk about our own opinions beyond discussing whether we thought it was a big and important issue at the present time. It was still very interesting, and I learned quite a bit for a Sunday morning. We headed back to Piter in the early afternoon – Irina Borisovna organized a bus for those of us who had stayed the whole time so we didn't have to go wait for a marshutka.
It has been an incredible few weeks here in Piter, I can't believe it has already been such a long time since Berlin. And in less than three weeks I will be at home! Skyping with my family has been so wonderful, we even got Grandma in on it for a few minutes! I love being here and I am so grateful to my host mom for making me feel so at home, but I also can't wait to be lounging and causing trouble with the brother, cooking with mom, and teaching dad not to be afraid of the WiiFit anymore ☺ These next few weeks are going to fly by, we are going to Pushkin's Flat Museum on Wednesday, Thursday night is movie night at our director's apartment, and either this Friday or next Friday we are going on a walk about the history of Russian rock and roll in St. Petersburg! So I'll definitely have a lot to keep you updated on! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and don't forget to break out the Advent calendars! I bought a little book at a market in Berlin that has a picture and a quote for each day of Advent, I'm very excited to start looking at it tomorrow! Much love to all, and send some snow this way!
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Travel Chronicles Part II: the fall of the dominos
Sunday night Tom and I headed out in search of food and an ATM, and to wander around a little bit. We thought we wouldn't get very far, our hostel was in the center but a little north-east of the very center of town. But we were surprised how much closer everything was than it looked on the map, and ended up walking all the way down to the Brandenburg Gate and the row of dominos. I was glad we did, because it was all lit up and the spotlights were shining and they were setting up all of the big video screens for the ceremony the next day. It was a gorgeous night, and though we were a little chilly by the time we walked all the back to the hostel we warmed up with DÖNER at a little stand real close to the hostel – more on that lovely place later. The next morning we got up pretty early and headed back down towards the center. This time we walked around the 'government quarter' of the city, with its modern architecture and even more domino stones. The dominos were even set up on a flight of stairs – only the Germans. We walked all the way down to the other end of the domino stones on the Potsdamer Platz (Potsdam Square) and got a late morning breakfast/coffee in a café that had once been split by the Berlin Wall. Currrywurst for lunch was Tom's first experience with the lovely food, and he liked it almost as much as he had liked the Döner. We found a lot of interesting sights around the Potsdamer Platz and enjoyed the fact that it wasn't raining – yet. Grabbed some snacks for later in a grocery store in a mall on Potsdamer and headed out to see if the craziness had begun. From about 5 PM – 11 PM we stood in pretty much the same spot, in front of the Brandenburg gate behind the dominos. We were technically on the Western side of the wall, and the ceremony started on the Eastern side and then moved to the west for the political speeches and things. It was incredible listening to the snippets of stories I could hear around me being told in quick East-German accents, with their 'sh' instead of 'ch' sounds and the emotion in their voices. There were lots of young international people there too, a couple of girls from Canada weren't far away and we could hear plenty of Americans and Europeans talking and laughing to distract themselves from the fact that it had now started to rain incredibly hard. By the time the orchestra started to play and the politicians had taken their seats – Hillary next to Medvedev, or at least close to him from what I remember – it was a regular downpour. Luckily our Russian umbrella held its own, and when the surprise came and the orchestra started playing 'Berliner Luft' everyone who knew the words (I only know the chorus) sang right along and drowned out somewhat the pounding of the raindrops.
The cheers when Chancellor Angela Merkel led the charge through the Brandenburg Gate were incredible. The group of VIPs walked from the east to the west (umbrellas in hand) on the same path that many had taken 20 years before, under such different circumstances. The mayor of Berlin began the speeches, thanking everyone who had made the incredible night of November 9, 1989 possible – especially the resistance members in Germany, Hungary, and the Czech Republic who were present for the anniversary. Merkel followed, and reminded the audience that there are two anniversaries that take place on the 9th of November. There is the happy holiday of November 9, 1989, the happiest day in the history of modern Germany according to a blog post of the chancellor herself. However, the date November 9, 1938 must also be marked. On that night Hitler ordered the Kristallnacht, and nearly all synagogues and many Jewish business were attacked and burned. I thought it was yet another interesting reflection on just how much the country has changed in this century. One part of me realized that it was politically necessary that she mention the somber 71st anniversary of the Kristallnacht, another found it interesting that it would be so prominently discussed (though, granted, she was the only one who really discussed it) on such a principally happy occasion. Coexistence in Germany, however, is a part of life, even when they must share one of their happiest days with one of the most painful and challenging anniversaries in their history. It made me pause in my translating to Tom – who doesn't speak German – and think about it for a second before I realized that she must have known she couldn't have let the occasion pass without discussing it. Merkel spoke very well, I always enjoy listening to her speeches and was incredibly excited that I could kind of see her head over the crowds of people, though I watched the speeches mostly on the big-screens since it was right in my line of sight and I didn't have to strain.
Representatives of the victorious Allied nations, Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy, Hillary Clinton, and Dimitry Medvedev all spoke after Merkel – who made sure to thank them as well in her speech for the Berlin airlift and all that they did to help reunite the city and the nation. Brown was rather boring, to be honest, I thought he got a little too political talking about the current crisis and some things that were rather UK-specific. Sarkozy was entertaining as always, and echoed quite a few of earlier statements about other resistance movements and cooperation etc. Medvedev talked very carefully around the fact that it was due to the forerunner to his nation that the city had been divided by concrete and barbed wire, and did a fairly good job of it I thought. I didn't really think he looked comfortable at all, he was speaking in Russian and they were translating over it (an interesting experience for me), whereas Putin would have spoken in the nearly flawless German he possesses thanks to his time in East Germany with the KGB. All kinds of interesting dynamics always come into play when you're talking about this country in which I am living. He talked about cooperation for the future and recognized those present who had dedicated their lives to the cause of freedom for Berlin and Germany. Hillary Clinton spoke a little on her own and then introduced a message from Obama – which was drowned out for about the first 5 seconds by loud cheers from Americans and others alike. She provided an interesting perspective, as a non-European and also without the yoke of the former Soviet Union on her shoulders, and praised Europe's progress in the last half-century and spoke specifically about the continuing work to overcome all walls. Many of the leaders, as well as some of the later speakers, spoke poignantly about the walls that still exist in the world – whether they be of poverty, the walls still faced by women, or the concrete walls in Palestine or Korea. President Obama apologized for not being able to make it to Berlin and praised again all those who personally played a role in the fall of the wall and what it began, as well as all those presently working to overcome walls in their own lives or the lives of others.
The dominos were to fall in stages, and at some point in the process of the speeches and the fall of the dominos it had stopped raining. Lech Walesa and Mikhail Gorbachov largely about the importance of freedom and the power that people have when they know something with a certainty that allows them to fight for it against incredible odds. (My civilization teacher here in Petersburg thought it was odd that Gorbachov didn't push one of the first dominos, whereas I was glad it was resistance leaders and not really political powers that pushed the first down.) While the dominos fell on the big screens, people who had been involved in the resistance in Berlin spoke about their memories and their emotions on the night of the 20th anniversary. It was clear that they were proud to have been a part of something so important, but also that they were just a few of many who deserved the credit for the changes that took place following the fall of the wall.
One of the most interesting moments of the night was when they told us that this would be the push of the dominos that would bring the falling row past the Brandenburg Gate and have the two ends meet. We all counted down, cheered, and turned our cameras on as we watched the falling dominos on the big screen approach where we were standing. However, the dominos appeared to misfire a block or so from the Gate, and there were plenty of boos to be heard. (I have a three minute video of nothing as a result, which I don't begrudge except it really killed my battery.) What quickly became apparent, however, was that it was an intentional stoppage rather than a mistake. The falling dominos (which I think were made of some type of foam or like material) had hit a domino that was clearly made of stone or concrete. That domino didn't fall with the weight of the others on it. This domino was to stand for all the walls that still exist, and how they prevent freedom and joy from being truly global and universal. There were two men from Korea there who spoke about the need to continue to work to tear down walls, and then a video piece showed people painting some of the dominos in places where there were or continue to be significant divisions in society – whatever the kind. Dominos came from South Africa, recently freed from its apartheid regime, from Korea, from Palestine, and from other places all over the world where freedom is not complete and populations often feel trapped. What appeared to be a mistake turned out to be one of the most poignant moments of the evening, despite the fact that it had started to rain again and we could no longer feel our feet. When the dominos finally came crashing down in front of us, it was an incredible feeling which unfortunately no words can describe. A fireworks display began on the gate at the same time, and everyone was smiling and hugging and jumping up and down, even as we headed out of the mud for some warmth in the U-Bahn station to head home to the hostel. It had been an incredible evening, one I will never forget. Unfortunately it is impossible to capture how it felt to be standing there, especially as a foreigner who feels so much at home among the Germans but, when it comes down to it, is an American. I feel incredibly blessed to have experienced such a momentous moment in the history of a country that I have come to love, and went to bed somehow feeling more experienced, older than I had started the day.
To be continued…
Friday, November 20, 2009
Back in Petersburg
Just a follow-up, this blog may get a little confusing as I’ll be posting a piece from travel week everyday (hopefully) and occasionally also a piece from present-day Piter. I hope it keeps you interested, doesn’t lose you anywhere, and occasionally makes you smile. I have mobile internet now, so I’ll be online more often and may actually figure out how to post pictures on here now that my internet is strong enough. I’ll write more in a piece devoted to ‘my return to Piter’ later, but suffice it to say that it’s a very good thing my host mom is so wonderful, otherwise I might have boarded the next plane back to Germany. My own mom has now met my host mom, via iChat of course, and seen our kitchen so I somehow feel like a new connection has been forged with my host mom too. So, all-in-all, I’m glad to be back in Piter and settling in for the last month. I’ll be home a month from today (Nov 20th), and I know its going to fly by.
So, look for me online, and look for posts chronicling travel week to come one at a time to keep you in suspense ☺ Not really, more like to make sure I don’t lose all feeling in my fingers by trying to catch up with my journal and the blog at the same time! ☺ All the best from Russia!
So, look for me online, and look for posts chronicling travel week to come one at a time to keep you in suspense ☺ Not really, more like to make sure I don’t lose all feeling in my fingers by trying to catch up with my journal and the blog at the same time! ☺ All the best from Russia!
The Travel Chronicles: Part I: White Snow on Red Square
The biggest city in Europe, Moscow has the buildings, the streets (and the traffic) and of course the people to prove it. And, not that it needs it, but it has plenty of the sense of imposition and painful history too.
We arrived in the capital city of Russia early on Friday morning by night train. I think it ended up being about an eight hour ride – needless to say none of us got a full nights sleep – of food, cards, talking, and laughing. Sarah, Vika, Tom, and I ended up in the same compartment and we were joined by some of the guys and Kelly and Melissa for some card games and to eat the rather ridiculous amount of food our hazaikas had given us/we had bought for the trip. When our alarms woke us up before seven the next morning we were already on the outskirts of Moscow, and Irina Borisovna was far too chipper and awake as she ran up and down the corridors making sure we were all alive and moving. From the train we piled onto buses and made the quick drive to the hotel – I remember seeing lots of small stores and dirty streets but we were all pretty tired – for breakfast. Not quite like the breakfast buffet in Estonia, but there was plenty to eat and there was even an omelet station! Perhaps more importantly, there was caffeinated tea and coffee, as we were set for a bus tour right after breakfast.
Our guide, Edward, proved entertaining enough to keep us awake (most of the time, as I think I did nod off a little just before Red Square) as we drove toward the center of the city. Without doubt, the Kremlin is the beating heart of Moscow. So we drove along the river – where an incredibly tall monument to Peter the Great towers over even the boats and the bridges – towards said beating heart. We were shocked awake by the cold when we got off the bosses, and then were shocked again to realize that the square is truly as beautiful as it looks in the millions of pictures we had all seen of it. With St. Basil’s at one end, the red brick of the Historical Museum on the other, and the other two sides formed by the Kremlin and GYM (pronounced goom, absolutely giant and beautiful mall), it was incredible to realize just where we were standing. Though we wouldn’t be going into the Kremlin until the next day, we took as many pictures as we could of the outside of it and of all the cupolas on St. Basil’s – under each of which there is a different chapel. It is an imposing place, has a different feel from the Palace Square of St. Petersburg with the Winter Palace and the Neva. This is probably due, at least in part, to the existence of Lenin’s mausoleum. It is such a strange concept, I am not even sure how to describe it. Apparently, according to our conversation teacher, there is often talk of moving Lenin to a cemetery or something but it has never really gotten anywhere. It was incredibly strange, to be taking pictures of the outside of something that we knew contained such a historic figure in such a strange state of preservation. Luckily, the warmth and fountains of GYM didn’t let us dwell to long on the rather creepy implications of the fact that we were essentially walking all over Lenin’s grave. We were freezing after waiting just a few minutes, and when it was finally almost time to get back on the buses Irina Borisovna taught the five of us girls a little folk dance to keep our feet moving. So I can now say I’ve danced in the Red Square. (Which, incidentally, is actually ‘Beautiful Square’ from the old Russian.)
From there we headed to the place where it is rumored Tchaikovsky was inspired to compose ‘Swan Lake’, for the name of the place is ‘Swan Lake’! It is just outside a convent where many royal wives were sent to live out their days when they failed in their duty to produce an heir. There are no swans anymore, but plenty of ducks – including some bronze ones given by First Lady Barbara Bush – and a playground! A few of us couldn’t resist a quick climb up the rope ladder and slide down the pole, much to the amusement of the Russian children playing there. Then it was back on the bus to head up to the main campus of Moscow State University, which is on a hill providing a great view of the stretching metropolis that is Moscow. We also got a close view of the ski jump used for the Moscow Olympics boycotted by the United States – it now looks very strange as just a lone piece of tall construction rising above the hill.
After driving – actually sitting in traffic was more like it with driving occurring only occasionally – through the center streets of the city past the national library, the main shopping district, many federal buildings, and plenty of embassies, we headed back to the hotel to check-in and rest. Our hotel (Beta) was part of a complex built for the Olympics, and had a supposedly ‘star-trek’ theme that manifested itself largely through a strange combination of silver metal accents, bright blue lighting, and interesting ‘other-worldly’ water and garden features. Star-Trek? Maybe not quite. Uniquely Russia? Oh yes. Everyone grabbed a couple hours nap and then headed out exploring. I went with the girls to St. Basil’s cathedral, which is a labyrinth of small chapels – it is two stories – that I can just as easily picture a child playing hide-and-go-seek in as monks wandering through the corridors holding candles and singing Gregorian chants. The icons were exquisite, and the paintings on the walls had an antique feel, as though they would need to be restored in a few years but would rather stay just as they were than be updated in brighter colors. The balcony on the second level provided beautiful views of the square and the city across the river. It was sometimes hard to believe we were standing inside such an important piece of Russian culture, it was so beautiful and authentic feeling. Which doesn’t even really begin to describe it, but I was never very good at describing churches. They have a feel, rather than a look, provide a sense rather than an understanding. Which, in my opinion, is as it should be.
We window-shopped for a while, but with Moscow being one of the most expensive cities in the world (if I can just get myself to Tokyo next semester I’ll have been in the top 3…just kidding!), were sure we wouldn’t be buying anything. Then we headed off in search of a Georgian restaurant that Melissa had read about in order to spend some of our food stipend! The Moscow metro is as different as can be from the Petersburg metro, has many more stops and is sometimes just a flight of stairs beneath the surface. Some of the stations were elaborately decorated with statues and other decorations, but others were more plain. Soviet symbols, however, could still be seen in almost every one. On our way to the restaurant, it had started to snow! It was the first snow of the season in Moscow, and though we had already had snow in Petersburg we experienced the excitement all over again as we slid our way to dinner. The proprietress of the restaurant welcomed us warmly inside, chattering away about how we must be frozen but wasn’t the snow just so beautiful and on and on. We had an absolutely adorable waiter, the service was incredible, the food delicious, and the wine even better! We slipped and slid our way to a café afterwards for some chocolate fondue, and caught the metro back just before it closed to crash for the night.
The next morning we were up early for our tour of the Kremlin, which was absolutely wonderful and incredibly interesting. Our guide explained that Stalin was the last leader to actually live in the Kremlin, and that many of the formers are also buried in its grounds. The Kremlin is the heart of Moscow, and therefore the heart of Russia – and the heart of the Kremlin is the square on which its churches are located, next to the bell-tower built by Ivan the Great (grandfather of Ivan the Terrible). The tsar’s dwelling and that of the patriarch were right across the square from each other, reinforcing the importance of their relationship. A giant cannon stands guard over the square – incidentally pointed at the building where the president now works, a situation that is apparently the subject of endless jokes for the Russians – and a giant bell that was never rung due to a crack sits just next to it. Every city on this side of the Atlantic seems to have something that you have to rub for good luck – Moscow has more than one – and one of Moscow’s is a part of this bell. So after appropriately taking off our gloves to gain some luck, we went in the cathedral where all Russian tsars were crowned, and also in one of the other three cathedrals on the square. The icons in the Kremlin, in my opinion, are unrivaled even by those in Novgorod and the museums. Perhaps it was the atmosphere, perhaps something else. In any event, from the churches we went to tour the ‘armory’, the museum of the Russian treasury to experience the splendor of the Russian empire preserved by the communists.
Whoever it was among the Bolsheviks who suggested that these pieces – not only the silver and Faberge and jeweled icon covers but also the churches we had just seen and the beauty of the Kremlin itself – were too important to the national heritage to Russia or even to the USSR to be destroyed has my eternal gratitude. In light of the destruction that they caused elsewhere and the havoc they wreaked on the beauty of the churches in the capital in particular, it is somewhat incredible to realize that everything in the Kremlin survived. Though some of the Faberge collection and other pieces in royal possession were sold or found their way abroad, the extensive collection on display at the armory pays testament to the fact that much was allowed to remain. From the beautiful carriages of Catherine the Great to the boots of Peter the Great and silver brought from diplomats from Germany and the icon cases from Russia herself, we spent a few hours just admiring the many beautiful things before us and being thankful that we were able to see them.
After the Kremlin – we had to vacate the area because of a military parade on the Red Square commemorating the march of the Soviet troops from there to the front – we wandered around the shopping and central districts of the city, making the obligatory stop in Starbucks (and don’t roll your eyes, I don’t even like their coffee but you would miss white chocolate mochas too and don’t deny it) before getting Russian food for lunch and doing some souvenir shopping. That night Vika and I were unsure of what we wanted to do and ended up talking in a coffee shop for a couple of hours which was great, we got to know each other a lot better and it was the perfect evening that I needed – I knew I’d be back in Moscow at least once or twice in the spring to visit the OU program there so I wasn’t worried about cramming everything in to our 2 day visit – because I wanted to arrive in Berlin at my best to prepare for the celebrations Monday night and a week of taking advantage of being back where I feel truly at home, never mind the fact that I had never been there. So we ended the night with chicken wings and blini.
The next day we said our good-byes and everyone headed their separate ways for travel week. I went souvenir shopping at the market with some of the guys – though couldn’t buy much due to space limitations – before heading to the airport with Kelly. The airport we were flying out of – I believe there are 4 – looked somewhat like a space pod and contained more duty-free stores than I believe I have ever seen in one place. Waiting to get on the plane, I couldn’t suppress (though I’m not going to say that I tried) the feeling that I was heading home from some strange trip. Its impossible to explain to someone who has never experienced the feeling, and saying that its an incredible feeling doesn’t seem to do it justice. I almost hugged the stewardess when she said good evening to me in German, and when I saw the newspapers I could have cried if I wasn’t so busy smiling like my face would break. So I spent the flight reading up on the excitement that awaited me…in Berlin!
To be continued…
We arrived in the capital city of Russia early on Friday morning by night train. I think it ended up being about an eight hour ride – needless to say none of us got a full nights sleep – of food, cards, talking, and laughing. Sarah, Vika, Tom, and I ended up in the same compartment and we were joined by some of the guys and Kelly and Melissa for some card games and to eat the rather ridiculous amount of food our hazaikas had given us/we had bought for the trip. When our alarms woke us up before seven the next morning we were already on the outskirts of Moscow, and Irina Borisovna was far too chipper and awake as she ran up and down the corridors making sure we were all alive and moving. From the train we piled onto buses and made the quick drive to the hotel – I remember seeing lots of small stores and dirty streets but we were all pretty tired – for breakfast. Not quite like the breakfast buffet in Estonia, but there was plenty to eat and there was even an omelet station! Perhaps more importantly, there was caffeinated tea and coffee, as we were set for a bus tour right after breakfast.
Our guide, Edward, proved entertaining enough to keep us awake (most of the time, as I think I did nod off a little just before Red Square) as we drove toward the center of the city. Without doubt, the Kremlin is the beating heart of Moscow. So we drove along the river – where an incredibly tall monument to Peter the Great towers over even the boats and the bridges – towards said beating heart. We were shocked awake by the cold when we got off the bosses, and then were shocked again to realize that the square is truly as beautiful as it looks in the millions of pictures we had all seen of it. With St. Basil’s at one end, the red brick of the Historical Museum on the other, and the other two sides formed by the Kremlin and GYM (pronounced goom, absolutely giant and beautiful mall), it was incredible to realize just where we were standing. Though we wouldn’t be going into the Kremlin until the next day, we took as many pictures as we could of the outside of it and of all the cupolas on St. Basil’s – under each of which there is a different chapel. It is an imposing place, has a different feel from the Palace Square of St. Petersburg with the Winter Palace and the Neva. This is probably due, at least in part, to the existence of Lenin’s mausoleum. It is such a strange concept, I am not even sure how to describe it. Apparently, according to our conversation teacher, there is often talk of moving Lenin to a cemetery or something but it has never really gotten anywhere. It was incredibly strange, to be taking pictures of the outside of something that we knew contained such a historic figure in such a strange state of preservation. Luckily, the warmth and fountains of GYM didn’t let us dwell to long on the rather creepy implications of the fact that we were essentially walking all over Lenin’s grave. We were freezing after waiting just a few minutes, and when it was finally almost time to get back on the buses Irina Borisovna taught the five of us girls a little folk dance to keep our feet moving. So I can now say I’ve danced in the Red Square. (Which, incidentally, is actually ‘Beautiful Square’ from the old Russian.)
From there we headed to the place where it is rumored Tchaikovsky was inspired to compose ‘Swan Lake’, for the name of the place is ‘Swan Lake’! It is just outside a convent where many royal wives were sent to live out their days when they failed in their duty to produce an heir. There are no swans anymore, but plenty of ducks – including some bronze ones given by First Lady Barbara Bush – and a playground! A few of us couldn’t resist a quick climb up the rope ladder and slide down the pole, much to the amusement of the Russian children playing there. Then it was back on the bus to head up to the main campus of Moscow State University, which is on a hill providing a great view of the stretching metropolis that is Moscow. We also got a close view of the ski jump used for the Moscow Olympics boycotted by the United States – it now looks very strange as just a lone piece of tall construction rising above the hill.
After driving – actually sitting in traffic was more like it with driving occurring only occasionally – through the center streets of the city past the national library, the main shopping district, many federal buildings, and plenty of embassies, we headed back to the hotel to check-in and rest. Our hotel (Beta) was part of a complex built for the Olympics, and had a supposedly ‘star-trek’ theme that manifested itself largely through a strange combination of silver metal accents, bright blue lighting, and interesting ‘other-worldly’ water and garden features. Star-Trek? Maybe not quite. Uniquely Russia? Oh yes. Everyone grabbed a couple hours nap and then headed out exploring. I went with the girls to St. Basil’s cathedral, which is a labyrinth of small chapels – it is two stories – that I can just as easily picture a child playing hide-and-go-seek in as monks wandering through the corridors holding candles and singing Gregorian chants. The icons were exquisite, and the paintings on the walls had an antique feel, as though they would need to be restored in a few years but would rather stay just as they were than be updated in brighter colors. The balcony on the second level provided beautiful views of the square and the city across the river. It was sometimes hard to believe we were standing inside such an important piece of Russian culture, it was so beautiful and authentic feeling. Which doesn’t even really begin to describe it, but I was never very good at describing churches. They have a feel, rather than a look, provide a sense rather than an understanding. Which, in my opinion, is as it should be.
We window-shopped for a while, but with Moscow being one of the most expensive cities in the world (if I can just get myself to Tokyo next semester I’ll have been in the top 3…just kidding!), were sure we wouldn’t be buying anything. Then we headed off in search of a Georgian restaurant that Melissa had read about in order to spend some of our food stipend! The Moscow metro is as different as can be from the Petersburg metro, has many more stops and is sometimes just a flight of stairs beneath the surface. Some of the stations were elaborately decorated with statues and other decorations, but others were more plain. Soviet symbols, however, could still be seen in almost every one. On our way to the restaurant, it had started to snow! It was the first snow of the season in Moscow, and though we had already had snow in Petersburg we experienced the excitement all over again as we slid our way to dinner. The proprietress of the restaurant welcomed us warmly inside, chattering away about how we must be frozen but wasn’t the snow just so beautiful and on and on. We had an absolutely adorable waiter, the service was incredible, the food delicious, and the wine even better! We slipped and slid our way to a café afterwards for some chocolate fondue, and caught the metro back just before it closed to crash for the night.
The next morning we were up early for our tour of the Kremlin, which was absolutely wonderful and incredibly interesting. Our guide explained that Stalin was the last leader to actually live in the Kremlin, and that many of the formers are also buried in its grounds. The Kremlin is the heart of Moscow, and therefore the heart of Russia – and the heart of the Kremlin is the square on which its churches are located, next to the bell-tower built by Ivan the Great (grandfather of Ivan the Terrible). The tsar’s dwelling and that of the patriarch were right across the square from each other, reinforcing the importance of their relationship. A giant cannon stands guard over the square – incidentally pointed at the building where the president now works, a situation that is apparently the subject of endless jokes for the Russians – and a giant bell that was never rung due to a crack sits just next to it. Every city on this side of the Atlantic seems to have something that you have to rub for good luck – Moscow has more than one – and one of Moscow’s is a part of this bell. So after appropriately taking off our gloves to gain some luck, we went in the cathedral where all Russian tsars were crowned, and also in one of the other three cathedrals on the square. The icons in the Kremlin, in my opinion, are unrivaled even by those in Novgorod and the museums. Perhaps it was the atmosphere, perhaps something else. In any event, from the churches we went to tour the ‘armory’, the museum of the Russian treasury to experience the splendor of the Russian empire preserved by the communists.
Whoever it was among the Bolsheviks who suggested that these pieces – not only the silver and Faberge and jeweled icon covers but also the churches we had just seen and the beauty of the Kremlin itself – were too important to the national heritage to Russia or even to the USSR to be destroyed has my eternal gratitude. In light of the destruction that they caused elsewhere and the havoc they wreaked on the beauty of the churches in the capital in particular, it is somewhat incredible to realize that everything in the Kremlin survived. Though some of the Faberge collection and other pieces in royal possession were sold or found their way abroad, the extensive collection on display at the armory pays testament to the fact that much was allowed to remain. From the beautiful carriages of Catherine the Great to the boots of Peter the Great and silver brought from diplomats from Germany and the icon cases from Russia herself, we spent a few hours just admiring the many beautiful things before us and being thankful that we were able to see them.
After the Kremlin – we had to vacate the area because of a military parade on the Red Square commemorating the march of the Soviet troops from there to the front – we wandered around the shopping and central districts of the city, making the obligatory stop in Starbucks (and don’t roll your eyes, I don’t even like their coffee but you would miss white chocolate mochas too and don’t deny it) before getting Russian food for lunch and doing some souvenir shopping. That night Vika and I were unsure of what we wanted to do and ended up talking in a coffee shop for a couple of hours which was great, we got to know each other a lot better and it was the perfect evening that I needed – I knew I’d be back in Moscow at least once or twice in the spring to visit the OU program there so I wasn’t worried about cramming everything in to our 2 day visit – because I wanted to arrive in Berlin at my best to prepare for the celebrations Monday night and a week of taking advantage of being back where I feel truly at home, never mind the fact that I had never been there. So we ended the night with chicken wings and blini.
The next day we said our good-byes and everyone headed their separate ways for travel week. I went souvenir shopping at the market with some of the guys – though couldn’t buy much due to space limitations – before heading to the airport with Kelly. The airport we were flying out of – I believe there are 4 – looked somewhat like a space pod and contained more duty-free stores than I believe I have ever seen in one place. Waiting to get on the plane, I couldn’t suppress (though I’m not going to say that I tried) the feeling that I was heading home from some strange trip. Its impossible to explain to someone who has never experienced the feeling, and saying that its an incredible feeling doesn’t seem to do it justice. I almost hugged the stewardess when she said good evening to me in German, and when I saw the newspapers I could have cried if I wasn’t so busy smiling like my face would break. So I spent the flight reading up on the excitement that awaited me…in Berlin!
To be continued…
Sunday, November 15, 2009
before Moscow there was...
Meant to post this before I headed to Moscow...so we'll backtrack and I'll have new posts for you this week :-)
Happy day of the people! (Or something like that.) Well, actually that was yesterday, November 4th. It’s a rather new holiday, instated a few years ago in place of the November 7th holiday that everyone had gotten so used to in the Soviet Union. No one quite understands the new holiday though, it is a blend of an old Imperial holiday marking the importance of the Kazan icon and the remembrance of the Soviet holiday, some say. My host mom wasn’t sure what the holiday was, but she knew that it was a day off of work and therefore a great day to bake! So some friends came over this evening and we made pelmenni to celebrate the holiday!
This past weekend was a lot of fun, though it didn’t include very much sleep! Friday night we went midnight ice skating after starting the night at a sushi restaurant. The ice skating was tons of fun, though would have been better if the skates and ice were better. Friends make up for everything though, and it was very entertaining to observe that teenage boys in hockey skates behave pretty much the same regardless of what continent you’re on and what language they’re yelling at each other in. Brought back great memories of Cleveland Heights and Athens too, except that in Russia they don’t mind if you take tons of pictures on the ice and skate backwards around the outside!
Saturday was Halloween, and Tom and I decided it would be a great day to visit a cemetery! The Alexander Nevsky Monastery is quite famous here, the patriarch of St. Petersburg lives there and it also houses a theological school. Within its walls there is also a gorgeous Orthodox church and plenty of cemeteries to wander on what turned out to be a sunny, if cold, fall day. It was wonderful to crunch through the leaves and look at the differences between Russian and American cemeteries, and just enjoy wandering around until our hands and feet started to go numb after a few hours. The cemeteries were also particularly interesting because of the grave ornaments – many had portraits or photographs of the person buried there, and many others had the communist star or the hammer and the sickle. The majority were still probably marked with Orthodox crosses, but the hammer and sickle on one particularly tall headstone definitely reminded us that we were not in Kansas anymore.
That night Sarah came over to my apartment and we got ready to go to the Halloween party hosted by the university at one of the big clubs in town – with a stop at a student bar first for some beer and garlic bread. By the time we got to the club it was already packed, and Jarlath had us completely fooled by his mummy costume! 5 of us danced the night away as the Spice Girls which proved to be a fun and very comfortable costume decision, if not the most creative of all time. Random contests and dances – costumed and otherwise – on stage broke up the night, but we were more than content to just dance and sing all night. I caught about an hour of sleep Saturday night and woke up to get myself to church. I was incredibly glad that I made sure I got up, because I actually met an OU alum after church! I had my OU sweatshirt on and he introduced himself to me afterwards, asking if I was really a student from Athens or whether I had just bought the sweatshirt somewhere. Turns out he is a ’74 grad in chemistry! He was just a tourist, not here for a long period of time, but it was still pretty crazy. Every time you forget how small the world is, something happens to remind you!
This week went by especially quickly because not only did we have the enticement of Moscow and our vacation week, we also had school off on Wednesday for the holiday-that-no-one-quite-knew-what-it-was. Spent the day relaxing with the host mom and then some of my friends came over and we made pelmenni and they were all so overjoyed by my host mom and how warm and inviting our apartment is. I have only been to one other apartment, but through listening to people I only know of a couple situations that are like mine in that respect. It just makes me more glad that I have decided to stay for next semester! And now off to skype with Stef and tonight, the train to Moscow!
Friday, November 13, 2009
Hallo aus Berlin!
Hello from Berlin, all! I actually have another blog written from St. Petersburg that I forgot to post before I left so that will be posted Monday if all goes well. But for now, let me share a few thoughts about my time in Berlin which is somehow already coming to an end.
We left Moscow on Sunday evening through one of the 4 major airports that service the capital. It resembled a space pod from the outside which was entertaining and the inside was massive, more duty free stores than I think I have ever seen in one place. The flight was delayed a little but nothing major, just enough to start to irritate all of the punctual Germans waiting in the gate area. The most exciting part of the flight was when we entered the plane -- there were TONS of German newspapers waiting for us. I grabbed a few and tried not to dance all the way down the aisle. I ended up having 3 seats to myself which never happens to me so I got to stretch out. The newspapers all talked about the festivities Monday night for the fall of the wall and the closer we got to Berlin the more I really felt like I was headed home for a big party. We transferred to a bus from airport Tegel with no trouble, and Tom and I got to the hostel probably around 8, but I dont really remember. He hadnt realized that I had never been to Berlin before, with all the talk about me coming home and all the things I couldnt wait to do. It was a strange feeling, knowing I had never been in this place but feeling like I should show Tom the best parts of it and explain everything as best as I could.
Ill skip to Monday night and then give you a brief overview of what Ive been up to, many more details to follow when Im in Petersburg -- especially since Ive decided to buy mobile internet for the month.
Monday we headed down to the Brandenburg Gate -- about a 40 minute walk from the hostel through the main streets so definitely not a boring walk -- to see how many people were around. We wandered the gallery of domino stones, more than 1000 larger than life dominos that had been painted by people from around the world and would be knocked over as part of the festivities that night, and made our way over to the quarter of the city where most of the government buildings are located which was at one end of the more than 1 km long row of dominos. The architecture of the Parliament and even the office buildings was awe-inspiring and clearlz very modern. We got Currywurst for lunch at one of the stands set up for the party that night, and then rested our feet in a little coffee shop for a few minutes. It was a good thing we did, because from 5-11 that night we pretty much stood in the same spot! (7 minutes left on the internet counter!) We were right in front of the Brandenburg Gate, and luckily the pouring rain wasnt dampening anyones spirit or enthusiasm, the most it did was cause some interesting umbrella wars as everyone tried to work to cover everyone! The orchestra played Berliner Luft, look it up on YouTube :-), and then the politicians gave their speeches. More on those later, but it was incredibly interesting and though Obama wasnt there Hillary introduced a message from him which the crowd drowned out for about the first 5 seconds with loud cheers. When the dominos came down a massive fireworks display started over the gate and behind us over the Tiergarten, everyone was smiling and some people were dancing around despite the rain that had started again. It was a great night, and I have learned a lot since then as well through visits to the Wall Memorial and death strip at Bernauer Street, the Checkpoint Charlie Museum, and the Jewish Museum. We also went to the Pergamon Museum yersterday to see the Pergamon Altar.
2 Minutes left on the counter now. I have loved every minute of being in this city, the friendly and diverse people in the coffee shops and cafes and on the streets, the architecture, and the language continue to make me feel at home. I promise to write more when I return to Peter! Much love to you all in these final seconds of internet and always!!
We left Moscow on Sunday evening through one of the 4 major airports that service the capital. It resembled a space pod from the outside which was entertaining and the inside was massive, more duty free stores than I think I have ever seen in one place. The flight was delayed a little but nothing major, just enough to start to irritate all of the punctual Germans waiting in the gate area. The most exciting part of the flight was when we entered the plane -- there were TONS of German newspapers waiting for us. I grabbed a few and tried not to dance all the way down the aisle. I ended up having 3 seats to myself which never happens to me so I got to stretch out. The newspapers all talked about the festivities Monday night for the fall of the wall and the closer we got to Berlin the more I really felt like I was headed home for a big party. We transferred to a bus from airport Tegel with no trouble, and Tom and I got to the hostel probably around 8, but I dont really remember. He hadnt realized that I had never been to Berlin before, with all the talk about me coming home and all the things I couldnt wait to do. It was a strange feeling, knowing I had never been in this place but feeling like I should show Tom the best parts of it and explain everything as best as I could.
Ill skip to Monday night and then give you a brief overview of what Ive been up to, many more details to follow when Im in Petersburg -- especially since Ive decided to buy mobile internet for the month.
Monday we headed down to the Brandenburg Gate -- about a 40 minute walk from the hostel through the main streets so definitely not a boring walk -- to see how many people were around. We wandered the gallery of domino stones, more than 1000 larger than life dominos that had been painted by people from around the world and would be knocked over as part of the festivities that night, and made our way over to the quarter of the city where most of the government buildings are located which was at one end of the more than 1 km long row of dominos. The architecture of the Parliament and even the office buildings was awe-inspiring and clearlz very modern. We got Currywurst for lunch at one of the stands set up for the party that night, and then rested our feet in a little coffee shop for a few minutes. It was a good thing we did, because from 5-11 that night we pretty much stood in the same spot! (7 minutes left on the internet counter!) We were right in front of the Brandenburg Gate, and luckily the pouring rain wasnt dampening anyones spirit or enthusiasm, the most it did was cause some interesting umbrella wars as everyone tried to work to cover everyone! The orchestra played Berliner Luft, look it up on YouTube :-), and then the politicians gave their speeches. More on those later, but it was incredibly interesting and though Obama wasnt there Hillary introduced a message from him which the crowd drowned out for about the first 5 seconds with loud cheers. When the dominos came down a massive fireworks display started over the gate and behind us over the Tiergarten, everyone was smiling and some people were dancing around despite the rain that had started again. It was a great night, and I have learned a lot since then as well through visits to the Wall Memorial and death strip at Bernauer Street, the Checkpoint Charlie Museum, and the Jewish Museum. We also went to the Pergamon Museum yersterday to see the Pergamon Altar.
2 Minutes left on the counter now. I have loved every minute of being in this city, the friendly and diverse people in the coffee shops and cafes and on the streets, the architecture, and the language continue to make me feel at home. I promise to write more when I return to Peter! Much love to you all in these final seconds of internet and always!!
Friday, October 30, 2009
decision time
Oh what a week! This week I have done or experienced all of the following: ran a fever, made blini, lost my voice, bought another month pass on my transit card, been barked at by a giant stray dog, got my voice back, tried an incredibly delicious type of cake that I have never seen before on my host mom’s birthday, broken a teacup by pouring hot water into it (my host mom did the same thing about a month ago, we’re not sure why most of the time its fine but sometimes they break), watched ‘Something’s Gotta Give’ in Russian, gotten an email from Claudia (German professor in Frankfurt whom I absolutely adore) with recommendations on books to look for in Berlin, and decided to stay with my host family next semester!
Yes, save the most important for last. After talking with Jarlath and thinking it over and then talking with my host mom, I have decided that it feels right to stay with my host family for the whole year. I am completely comfortable here and, while it might be nice to see another type of Russian lifestyle, I also know that it would be hard always comparing things to how they are now and that in my conversations with other students my situation is a comparatively excellent one. I have an extended Russian family, while most students live with just a host mom or host parents – I even met my host mom’s twin sister tonight via Skype, her name is Tanya and she lives in Kazakhstan and has a 2-year-old son – and while we may live 20 minutes farther from school than some students, I’ve decided that’s not a reason to change when I feel so comfortable here. So I asked my host mom last night (28th) whether she was planning on working with CIEE next semester (though I had already asked Jarlath the same question and he had told me yes), and she said yes, with a kind of funny look on her face. I asked if I could come back for next semester and she practically jumped out of her chair and said yes, of course, we told CIEE we didn’t want a different student and I’m so glad and on and on and how in May she will know English and I’ll know Russian so well and we can maybe go skiing in Finland in February for a weekend and she’s just so excited and that it’s the best birthday present that I’m going to come back and stay with them (her birthday is today as I’m writing this, the 29th), and it was so adorable and I knew I’d made the right decision. And if possible we’re even more comfortable all together now than we were before we talked about next semester! So I’m very excited, and it also means I’ll probably be able to travel home with just one suitcase, or two very light suitcases! I’m already looking forward to coming back in January, knowing I have this family waiting for me!
On the subject of her birthday, the most interesting thing happened. We went over to her mom’s for dinner and cake – more on the cake tomorrow but I have to write this before bed. Pasha stayed a little later but Irya and I headed home together, and I insisted on carrying her bag (not her purse, but we had picked up a pair of boots, a DVD we wanted to watch, and a few other things at her mom’s and they were in another bag), saying simply, “its your birthday, of course I’ll carry it!” and she looked at me kind of funny but let me carry it. When we got home and I gave it back to her in the hallway, she said that was the first time someone had said something like that to her. That she shouldn’t have to do something because it was her birthday. Even on ‘women’s day’ in spring, she said the men bring the women flowers but the women still slave in the kitchen over dinner and clean and take care of everything etc. I explained the concept of ‘breakfast in bed’ on Mother’s Day and she just laughed and shook her head and said how wonderful that must be. (I think I’ll teach Pasha a new tradition on Mother’s Day in May and we’ll surprise Irya.) A little while later when she unwrapped my birthday present to her (a vase to match the colors in the kitchen filled with her favorite candy), she remarked over and over how beautiful it was and how she would always remember when she looked at it how I had told her that she didn’t have to carry her bag because it was her birthday and how nice that was. I wish I had the vocabulary, in my own language or any foreign one, to explain to her or to this internet cosmos how that felt, and how badly I suddenly wanted to explain how grateful I am for everything she has done to make me feel at home while I’ve been here, and still I have no words. Her saying that seemed so candid – though she is never anything but honest – and I feel some stronger sense of connection with her as a result of that brief admission, and I cannot really explain why. But it seemed to me an experience which might help others glimpse a bit of the realness of the people here, and if not, I apologize for the detour and thank you for your indulgence.
Now its Friday! Classes this morning went just fine, though the bus ride there was a bit of a nightmare, and now I owe you some details on the cake! It was like a chocolate shell with a cake bottom and thick, sweet, whipped cream. It is incredibly light and sweet, and absolutely delicious! Most of the cakes here are already cut into pieces when you buy them, so there was no ‘cutting the cake’ but it was still a fun evening. This weekend should be all kinds of fun, going ice skating tonight with some friends really late, and then tomorrow heading to the Alexander Nevsky monastery during the day and the Halloween party for the university at Club Revolution at night! Then Sunday is All Saints, and next week Wednesday is a holiday so there is no school (though my host mom and host brother both didn’t know what the holiday is) and Thursday night we head to Moscow! And from there, Berlin! On the 9th of November Tom and I are going to try and be on the square where the Brandenburg Gate is for all of the festivities, so look for us if they’re showing it on the news. ☺ They are going to knock over more than 1000 giant painted dominoes along the path where the Berlin Wall stood right by the Brandenburg Gate, and we are going to do our best to be close enough to see at least part of it! I won’t have my computer with me in Moscow or Berlin, so posts will be shorter but I’ll type up my journal when I get back so don’t worry you’ll still get a full report! Then it will be the middle of November! Hope fall sticks around a little longer on the other side of the Atlantic, here the weather forecasters have decided that we are just about done with fall! Much love to all!
Yes, save the most important for last. After talking with Jarlath and thinking it over and then talking with my host mom, I have decided that it feels right to stay with my host family for the whole year. I am completely comfortable here and, while it might be nice to see another type of Russian lifestyle, I also know that it would be hard always comparing things to how they are now and that in my conversations with other students my situation is a comparatively excellent one. I have an extended Russian family, while most students live with just a host mom or host parents – I even met my host mom’s twin sister tonight via Skype, her name is Tanya and she lives in Kazakhstan and has a 2-year-old son – and while we may live 20 minutes farther from school than some students, I’ve decided that’s not a reason to change when I feel so comfortable here. So I asked my host mom last night (28th) whether she was planning on working with CIEE next semester (though I had already asked Jarlath the same question and he had told me yes), and she said yes, with a kind of funny look on her face. I asked if I could come back for next semester and she practically jumped out of her chair and said yes, of course, we told CIEE we didn’t want a different student and I’m so glad and on and on and how in May she will know English and I’ll know Russian so well and we can maybe go skiing in Finland in February for a weekend and she’s just so excited and that it’s the best birthday present that I’m going to come back and stay with them (her birthday is today as I’m writing this, the 29th), and it was so adorable and I knew I’d made the right decision. And if possible we’re even more comfortable all together now than we were before we talked about next semester! So I’m very excited, and it also means I’ll probably be able to travel home with just one suitcase, or two very light suitcases! I’m already looking forward to coming back in January, knowing I have this family waiting for me!
On the subject of her birthday, the most interesting thing happened. We went over to her mom’s for dinner and cake – more on the cake tomorrow but I have to write this before bed. Pasha stayed a little later but Irya and I headed home together, and I insisted on carrying her bag (not her purse, but we had picked up a pair of boots, a DVD we wanted to watch, and a few other things at her mom’s and they were in another bag), saying simply, “its your birthday, of course I’ll carry it!” and she looked at me kind of funny but let me carry it. When we got home and I gave it back to her in the hallway, she said that was the first time someone had said something like that to her. That she shouldn’t have to do something because it was her birthday. Even on ‘women’s day’ in spring, she said the men bring the women flowers but the women still slave in the kitchen over dinner and clean and take care of everything etc. I explained the concept of ‘breakfast in bed’ on Mother’s Day and she just laughed and shook her head and said how wonderful that must be. (I think I’ll teach Pasha a new tradition on Mother’s Day in May and we’ll surprise Irya.) A little while later when she unwrapped my birthday present to her (a vase to match the colors in the kitchen filled with her favorite candy), she remarked over and over how beautiful it was and how she would always remember when she looked at it how I had told her that she didn’t have to carry her bag because it was her birthday and how nice that was. I wish I had the vocabulary, in my own language or any foreign one, to explain to her or to this internet cosmos how that felt, and how badly I suddenly wanted to explain how grateful I am for everything she has done to make me feel at home while I’ve been here, and still I have no words. Her saying that seemed so candid – though she is never anything but honest – and I feel some stronger sense of connection with her as a result of that brief admission, and I cannot really explain why. But it seemed to me an experience which might help others glimpse a bit of the realness of the people here, and if not, I apologize for the detour and thank you for your indulgence.
Now its Friday! Classes this morning went just fine, though the bus ride there was a bit of a nightmare, and now I owe you some details on the cake! It was like a chocolate shell with a cake bottom and thick, sweet, whipped cream. It is incredibly light and sweet, and absolutely delicious! Most of the cakes here are already cut into pieces when you buy them, so there was no ‘cutting the cake’ but it was still a fun evening. This weekend should be all kinds of fun, going ice skating tonight with some friends really late, and then tomorrow heading to the Alexander Nevsky monastery during the day and the Halloween party for the university at Club Revolution at night! Then Sunday is All Saints, and next week Wednesday is a holiday so there is no school (though my host mom and host brother both didn’t know what the holiday is) and Thursday night we head to Moscow! And from there, Berlin! On the 9th of November Tom and I are going to try and be on the square where the Brandenburg Gate is for all of the festivities, so look for us if they’re showing it on the news. ☺ They are going to knock over more than 1000 giant painted dominoes along the path where the Berlin Wall stood right by the Brandenburg Gate, and we are going to do our best to be close enough to see at least part of it! I won’t have my computer with me in Moscow or Berlin, so posts will be shorter but I’ll type up my journal when I get back so don’t worry you’ll still get a full report! Then it will be the middle of November! Hope fall sticks around a little longer on the other side of the Atlantic, here the weather forecasters have decided that we are just about done with fall! Much love to all!
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Leaves and Cobblestones!
On this day in the last week of October, we have been blessed with warm temperatures, if not sunny skies. (You can’t have everything, even in Russia.) The ground around the Smolny cathedral is absolutely covered with yellow leaves and those little helicopter things, many of the trees on the grounds here must be maple just like the giant in our front yard in Cleveland Heights. Makes it a little slippery heading to school sometimes, but the beauty of the yellow leaves, bare trees, iron grate, and sky-blue cathedral more than make up for it. I’m here early at school, don’t have class until 11:40 when the second pair begins, but I got to talk to Anna this morning which is worth more than many hours of sleep! I have an exam in grammar this afternoon after lunch, but my host mom drilled me all last night in many of the things which we are expecting to be on the test so I feel well prepared – and well fed, since while she was drilling me she was also making and giving me blini! So I have an hour and a half to read, finish up some homework, and study a little more before my conversation class, and I thought I'd drop you all a line as well! Nothing exciting has happened since I last posted, though I do feel quite a bit better which is I suppose an important development! It is supposed to be very cold tomorrow evening, which immediately following a warm day like today could spell health-disaster but we'll take it as it comes! My host brother said about half of his school is out sick with the flu – apparently just the regular old flu.
Thank you for all the well-wishes, I really appreciate them! Hopefully I will continue to feel better, we are thinking of visiting the Alexander Nevsky Monastery on Friday or Saturday – there are a few famous graveyards there so it seemed appropriate for Halloween-time. Much love to you all, enjoy the fall colors!
Thank you for all the well-wishes, I really appreciate them! Hopefully I will continue to feel better, we are thinking of visiting the Alexander Nevsky Monastery on Friday or Saturday – there are a few famous graveyards there so it seemed appropriate for Halloween-time. Much love to you all, enjoy the fall colors!
Friday, October 23, 2009
Happy Friday!
It has already been a week since Estonia! It is interesting how you examine and refer to time differently when abroad. But a week ago, this moment, we were waiting at the border. And two weeks from last night we will be boarding a night train for Moscow. That will apparently coincide with some pretty cold weather moving in, I have been surprised at how stable the temperatures have been. I’m not sure whether I had expected them to just drop uncontrollably towards absolute zero or what I was expecting, but the hovering around +2 and constantly raining must not have been exactly it. I have learned a valuable lesson thanks to the rain, however – my black suede boots are not waterproof. Will need to treat them a few times over break.
In other news from Piter, my host mom has decided to investigate applying for a spot in the green-card-lottery. She just mentioned it the other day, I’m hoping to have a deeper conversation about it soon and I’ve been working on learning vocab that might help in a conversation about the benefits and drawbacks of life in the Soviet Union. I did learn that she is talking about the period under Brezhnev when she is nostalgic for the USSR, she was quick to say that of course the earlier years were terrible and her grandmother had horrible stories about the revolution and the early years. We have been talking about the life of Joseph Brodsky in my civilization class, which provides another interesting perspective to such conversations since Brodsky left the Soviet Union, received the Nobel Prize, and then was never able to see his parents again thanks to his homeland’s undeviating policies. My teacher remarked that such a system that cannot deviate in order to recognize the purpose of a parent’s journey to see their only son almost commands respect because of its pure constancy. (She’s not a fan of the Soviet Union at all, she taught in the US and essentially ended up divorced from her husband because of the way it changed her.) And in history class we have arrived at 1916, so I’m sure I will gain yet another perspective through our readings and discussions. My Russian language classes are going well too, I have a grammar test on Tuesday that I’m not too worried about, but I will be reviewing all weekend with my host mom anyway!
I’m also fighting off a sinus something-or-other, its been a rollercoaster couple of days, sometimes feeling just wonderful and other times wanting to curl up with tea and soak my feet in hot water. So my level of activity this weekend may be determined by where on the rollercoaster I find myself, I don’t want to miss any class and I want to be absolutely 100% for Moscow, not to mention Berlin. Plenty going on, as always, though. Concert tonight, there is a swing/jazz night at a little jazz club we like tomorrow night and we’re talking about getting Georgian food for dinner before hand! I also want to go to the zoological museum, which apparently is rather like a museum of stuffed animals, and we have to go shopping for some things for our Halloween costumes! Four friends and I are going to be the Spice Girls! It just worked out that there are five of us, and there’s a big party hosted by the university at a club in town which should be a great time! That’s next weekend already, so we’re going shopping this weekend for a few things. My host mom, sister, and I are also going shoe shopping at some point too, just to look of course J Trying to make it to Moscow with as much money as possible!
Thanks so much for reading, I hope all is well in the US and that you actually see the sun in the next week because apparently we aren’t going to! Keep the emails and comments coming, its strange having people reading about my life but its even stranger to feel as though I might be sending my life off into the void of the internet! Much love to all of you, have a wonderful weekend!
Monday, October 19, 2009
'I'm in Estonia and I don't want to leave!'
Hello from Estonia! (Well, I may not be in Estonia when posting this, but I am in Estonia writing this so hello from Estonia!) We are all definitely enjoying our weekend trip to the European Union, though perhaps I shouldn’t have gotten as excited about the internet as it has only worked briefly for my roommate and I though it has worked just fine for others. It isn’t a big deal, of course, as we pretty much only have time for the internet when we should be sleeping – no comment on what time it is now – since there is so much to see and do here, but I am sorry that I wasn’t able to use the opportunity to talk to some of you online at a more convenient time for you. I’m always sorry to disappoint you all!
Luckily, everything else about our hotel and about this beautiful city of Tallinn has been absolutely wonderful and enthralling – ok, except for the weather. We are in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, European Union member state and former part of the Soviet Union. But I am getting ahead of myself. Hours and hours ahead. You see, in order to get to Tallinn we had to take a bus across the border. We made it to the border on some nice bumpy roads that are what pass for highways in Russia, and then got to have some serious fun at the border for about 3 hours. Russia being Russia, we had to get off the bus with all of our baggage, go through passport control (pretty much what you have probably experienced when flying internationally), scan our luggage through a machine that the border guard wasn’t paying any attention to at all, and get back on the bus to wait for approval to cross the border. At the Estonian border – we were all debating where you actually are when you’re driving between the two, at this particular border the actual defining border I believe is a river – a border guard came on the bus to collect our passports and then they processed the whole stack while we watched a movie on the bus. (State of Play!) So all of this took a rather long time, and then we hit the EU-roads-without-potholes to finish our drive to Tallinn!
The hotel where we stayed in Tallinn was gorgeous, and they let us just drop our bags in the lobby and attack the lunch buffet that was set up for us, even though it was already after 4 pm Tallinn time. Most of us had forgotten that we would gain an hour just by driving across the border. After a wonderful lunch/dinner we headed up to exclaim over our views of the sea and the old town, we switched some rooms around so that Vika and I were rooming together, and then it was time for our walking tour of the old city of Tallinn. Estonia has a very brief independent history, for most of its existence it has been Russian, German, or Swedish territory. So there were clear Western European influences as well as Russian ones, and winding around the old cobblestone streets and ducking down stairways often reminded me of getting to know the streets of Salzburg. There is an upper and a lower part to the old city, built under different ruling powers. Our guide was very funny and entertaining, I went on the all-Russian tour with the girls I wanted to hang out with later and was really excited that I understood almost all of what he was explaining about the city. It was sometimes difficult to remember that we were in a capital city, but we walked past lots of embassies and federal buildings that were small but very beautiful. Estonia has a largely Protestant population, but there is also a prominent Orthodox church in the center of the old town. Tallinn has a very romantic feel as well, aided by all the cobblestones and archways. It was great to start off with a walking tour to get us oriented, it was already getting pretty dark but our guide gave us suggestions about where to shop, what things Tallinn is known for, what kinds of beer to try, and a few fun facts about the Estonian language – which is related to Finnish and Hungarian and sounds and looks incredibly strange sometimes as it has a tendency to use lots of letters with umlauts (those funny little dots on top of letters) right next to each other. We also wandered around quite a bit on our own after the tour, finding a couple of cute cafes and scoping out menus for dinner the next day.
One of the exciting things about our hotel was the fact that we had free access to the sauna, fitness room, and swimming pool in the morning. So Saturday started at 7 with a workout, a swim, a trip to the sauna, and a wonderful breakfast and we were all ready to go. We had a bus tour to see some areas just outside the city; the new art museum, a monument to the sailors of a ship that sunk on its way to Finland, a beach looking across the Baltic, and the Folk Song Festival grounds where Estonians gathered in 1991 to seek their independence. Then we were free to explore! After our big and delicious breakfast we weren’t in the mood to eat, so we shopped at a couple of markets for handmade goods and then in a Western European-style mall with coffee shops and stores like the Body Shop. Then we decided to wander around the old town and go in some of the churches and buildings. By this point it was raining, and chillier than it had been in the morning on the beach and our bus tour. The Orthodox church was beautiful inside, I am always struck by how dark they seem and how different that makes the paintings and icons appear. The Lutheran church was also very beautiful – it had those old pews that still exist in places like Colonial Williamsburg where families had their own pews that they sat in every week. The walls of the church were covered with different coats of arms, those of families, areas, and countries I would imagine. It also had a gorgeous organ, something that is always missing from Orthodox churches since there is no music during Orthodox services.
After wandering around, visiting the churches, taking plenty of pictures, shopping in the marzipan and medieval stores, and getting a little wet, we headed back to the hotel to warm up and pick up Sarah for dinner, who had gone back to nap earlier. We had made reservations earlier that day for one of the restaurants right off of the square, called the Pepper Sack. When we arrived for dinner we were glad we had made the reservations, as it was completely packed. We were seated in a corner which turned out to be perfect as we could still hear live music and dancing being performed but weren't self-conscious and were able to be completely ourselves, laughing as loud as we wanted. Tallinn is actually known for its use of garlic, so we got a few orders of garlic bread – slightly different from ours, its almost as though the pieces of bread were covered in garlic and then fried in garlic, it was delicious – and we all had cider or beer (or ginger ale, in Sarah's case). Everything was delicious, in fact, I had baked chicken in a cream sauce with rice and mango – which turned out to be more like pineapple – salsa that was simple and hearty and very good. One of the funniest moments was when Kelly suggested that since there were 5 of us we should get one of each of the five desserts on the menu – and we did! Crème brulee, white chocolate truffle ice cream with cherries in rum sauce, house cake that was like chocolate and gingerbread together and delicious, ice cream with fresh fruit, strawberry ice-cream-like cake!!! After dinner I walked back to the hotel with Sarah at like 11:30 while some people went out to a bar in the old city.
Sunday after breakfast it was time to head back to Russia, with a stop in the Estonian border town of Narva for lunch. We were all rather sad to be leaving Estonia, but the castle restaurant where we had lunch was very good and their chicken noodle soup distracted most of us from worrying too much about going back to Russia. After a quick tour of the castle fortress of Narva, which has been under just as many rulers as Tallinn and is even older, we piled back on the double-decker bus to head across the border and back to St. Petersburg. Or, rather, we piled back on the bus to wait for them to tell us that we could try to cross the border. So, we waited for a while, and went through the whole process in reverse, except there was more waiting doing nothing and I think it took even longer. We were all pretty tired and were either napping or trying to. At one point when the bus was off and the driver opened the vents on the roof to keep us from all getting sick and too warm, some of the guys rigged an umbrella opened over the vent and tied to a chair to let air in but keep the rain out. A few times we thought we would be Mary-Poppins-ing back to St. Petersburg! It might have been faster.
We made it back to St. Petersburg eventually – though too late for the metro. As always, though, the program took good care of us and those of us on the island zipped across the bridge just in time (we had already missed one of them) and were dropped off at our doors. I felt bad for the directors having to be out so late dropping us all off (and then waiting for the bridges to go back down again) but we were all very grateful for the door-to-door service and they always put our safety first so it worked out just fine. Today we don't have school, but we did have to drop off our documents to be re-registered now that we have left the country and come back. You always have to do this when you leave and return, it is quite an entertaining system. Great news on that front though, my visa has been extended all the way through next May so I'll be able to do much more travelling spring semester if I want to, because I'll be able to get on trains! Yay! This week I am meeting with my conversation partner to chat over coffee after class, then Wednesday we have a tour of the national library and this weekend Jarlath, one of our directors, is playing again with his band! Then the next weekend is halloween and we're going to the university halloween party at one of the dance clubs here – I know it won't have anything on Athens but it will still be a good time – plus a walk about the history of rock music in St. Petersburg. And after that…Moscow and Berlin. It is insane, but time continues to speed up!! I am still loving being here, though was reminded this weekend of the many differences between Russia and its European neighbors. It was a great weekend with lots of new experiences and great friends – and how many people can say they were in the tallest swimming pool in Tallinn? ☺
Much love to you all, and I'm sorry that the internet didn't work out the way I would have liked this weekend. Hopefully all is going well in the US of A and I'll be able to catch up with you soon ☺ All the best and lots of love from Russia – beth
Luckily, everything else about our hotel and about this beautiful city of Tallinn has been absolutely wonderful and enthralling – ok, except for the weather. We are in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, European Union member state and former part of the Soviet Union. But I am getting ahead of myself. Hours and hours ahead. You see, in order to get to Tallinn we had to take a bus across the border. We made it to the border on some nice bumpy roads that are what pass for highways in Russia, and then got to have some serious fun at the border for about 3 hours. Russia being Russia, we had to get off the bus with all of our baggage, go through passport control (pretty much what you have probably experienced when flying internationally), scan our luggage through a machine that the border guard wasn’t paying any attention to at all, and get back on the bus to wait for approval to cross the border. At the Estonian border – we were all debating where you actually are when you’re driving between the two, at this particular border the actual defining border I believe is a river – a border guard came on the bus to collect our passports and then they processed the whole stack while we watched a movie on the bus. (State of Play!) So all of this took a rather long time, and then we hit the EU-roads-without-potholes to finish our drive to Tallinn!
The hotel where we stayed in Tallinn was gorgeous, and they let us just drop our bags in the lobby and attack the lunch buffet that was set up for us, even though it was already after 4 pm Tallinn time. Most of us had forgotten that we would gain an hour just by driving across the border. After a wonderful lunch/dinner we headed up to exclaim over our views of the sea and the old town, we switched some rooms around so that Vika and I were rooming together, and then it was time for our walking tour of the old city of Tallinn. Estonia has a very brief independent history, for most of its existence it has been Russian, German, or Swedish territory. So there were clear Western European influences as well as Russian ones, and winding around the old cobblestone streets and ducking down stairways often reminded me of getting to know the streets of Salzburg. There is an upper and a lower part to the old city, built under different ruling powers. Our guide was very funny and entertaining, I went on the all-Russian tour with the girls I wanted to hang out with later and was really excited that I understood almost all of what he was explaining about the city. It was sometimes difficult to remember that we were in a capital city, but we walked past lots of embassies and federal buildings that were small but very beautiful. Estonia has a largely Protestant population, but there is also a prominent Orthodox church in the center of the old town. Tallinn has a very romantic feel as well, aided by all the cobblestones and archways. It was great to start off with a walking tour to get us oriented, it was already getting pretty dark but our guide gave us suggestions about where to shop, what things Tallinn is known for, what kinds of beer to try, and a few fun facts about the Estonian language – which is related to Finnish and Hungarian and sounds and looks incredibly strange sometimes as it has a tendency to use lots of letters with umlauts (those funny little dots on top of letters) right next to each other. We also wandered around quite a bit on our own after the tour, finding a couple of cute cafes and scoping out menus for dinner the next day.
One of the exciting things about our hotel was the fact that we had free access to the sauna, fitness room, and swimming pool in the morning. So Saturday started at 7 with a workout, a swim, a trip to the sauna, and a wonderful breakfast and we were all ready to go. We had a bus tour to see some areas just outside the city; the new art museum, a monument to the sailors of a ship that sunk on its way to Finland, a beach looking across the Baltic, and the Folk Song Festival grounds where Estonians gathered in 1991 to seek their independence. Then we were free to explore! After our big and delicious breakfast we weren’t in the mood to eat, so we shopped at a couple of markets for handmade goods and then in a Western European-style mall with coffee shops and stores like the Body Shop. Then we decided to wander around the old town and go in some of the churches and buildings. By this point it was raining, and chillier than it had been in the morning on the beach and our bus tour. The Orthodox church was beautiful inside, I am always struck by how dark they seem and how different that makes the paintings and icons appear. The Lutheran church was also very beautiful – it had those old pews that still exist in places like Colonial Williamsburg where families had their own pews that they sat in every week. The walls of the church were covered with different coats of arms, those of families, areas, and countries I would imagine. It also had a gorgeous organ, something that is always missing from Orthodox churches since there is no music during Orthodox services.
After wandering around, visiting the churches, taking plenty of pictures, shopping in the marzipan and medieval stores, and getting a little wet, we headed back to the hotel to warm up and pick up Sarah for dinner, who had gone back to nap earlier. We had made reservations earlier that day for one of the restaurants right off of the square, called the Pepper Sack. When we arrived for dinner we were glad we had made the reservations, as it was completely packed. We were seated in a corner which turned out to be perfect as we could still hear live music and dancing being performed but weren't self-conscious and were able to be completely ourselves, laughing as loud as we wanted. Tallinn is actually known for its use of garlic, so we got a few orders of garlic bread – slightly different from ours, its almost as though the pieces of bread were covered in garlic and then fried in garlic, it was delicious – and we all had cider or beer (or ginger ale, in Sarah's case). Everything was delicious, in fact, I had baked chicken in a cream sauce with rice and mango – which turned out to be more like pineapple – salsa that was simple and hearty and very good. One of the funniest moments was when Kelly suggested that since there were 5 of us we should get one of each of the five desserts on the menu – and we did! Crème brulee, white chocolate truffle ice cream with cherries in rum sauce, house cake that was like chocolate and gingerbread together and delicious, ice cream with fresh fruit, strawberry ice-cream-like cake!!! After dinner I walked back to the hotel with Sarah at like 11:30 while some people went out to a bar in the old city.
Sunday after breakfast it was time to head back to Russia, with a stop in the Estonian border town of Narva for lunch. We were all rather sad to be leaving Estonia, but the castle restaurant where we had lunch was very good and their chicken noodle soup distracted most of us from worrying too much about going back to Russia. After a quick tour of the castle fortress of Narva, which has been under just as many rulers as Tallinn and is even older, we piled back on the double-decker bus to head across the border and back to St. Petersburg. Or, rather, we piled back on the bus to wait for them to tell us that we could try to cross the border. So, we waited for a while, and went through the whole process in reverse, except there was more waiting doing nothing and I think it took even longer. We were all pretty tired and were either napping or trying to. At one point when the bus was off and the driver opened the vents on the roof to keep us from all getting sick and too warm, some of the guys rigged an umbrella opened over the vent and tied to a chair to let air in but keep the rain out. A few times we thought we would be Mary-Poppins-ing back to St. Petersburg! It might have been faster.
We made it back to St. Petersburg eventually – though too late for the metro. As always, though, the program took good care of us and those of us on the island zipped across the bridge just in time (we had already missed one of them) and were dropped off at our doors. I felt bad for the directors having to be out so late dropping us all off (and then waiting for the bridges to go back down again) but we were all very grateful for the door-to-door service and they always put our safety first so it worked out just fine. Today we don't have school, but we did have to drop off our documents to be re-registered now that we have left the country and come back. You always have to do this when you leave and return, it is quite an entertaining system. Great news on that front though, my visa has been extended all the way through next May so I'll be able to do much more travelling spring semester if I want to, because I'll be able to get on trains! Yay! This week I am meeting with my conversation partner to chat over coffee after class, then Wednesday we have a tour of the national library and this weekend Jarlath, one of our directors, is playing again with his band! Then the next weekend is halloween and we're going to the university halloween party at one of the dance clubs here – I know it won't have anything on Athens but it will still be a good time – plus a walk about the history of rock music in St. Petersburg. And after that…Moscow and Berlin. It is insane, but time continues to speed up!! I am still loving being here, though was reminded this weekend of the many differences between Russia and its European neighbors. It was a great weekend with lots of new experiences and great friends – and how many people can say they were in the tallest swimming pool in Tallinn? ☺
Much love to you all, and I'm sorry that the internet didn't work out the way I would have liked this weekend. Hopefully all is going well in the US of A and I'll be able to catch up with you soon ☺ All the best and lots of love from Russia – beth
Thursday, October 15, 2009
On the night before Estonia..
Its already here, today is our final day before Estonia! Wednesday evening very late the last passports arrived with their visas inside, largely thanks to Irina Borisovna. We haven’t seen them, though, they are keeping them until tomorrow morning so no one has a chance to lose them. This week has gone really quickly, maybe because we have all been anticipating Estonia and walking extremely quickly outside through the cold and the slush. We have also started to notice the retreating daylight, its become much more difficult to get up in the morning in the dark even at 9 am and last night when we left school at 6:30 it seemed incredibly dark.
Yesterday after classes we had a meeting about the many things coming up – starting with what Jarlath has dubbed ‘enthrallin’ Talinn’ and including a film studio tour and library tour next week and a Halloween Party and a rock walk – and then there was a discussion set up with Russian students in the Political Science faculty about relations between Russia and the West. It was a little disorganized, and my Russian foreign affairs vocabulary is sorely lacking, but it was still incredibly interesting and they are hoping to reorganize it into English and Russian language sessions and smaller groups and make it a weekly or bi-weekly event. We primarily discussed the ‘reset’ in relations between Russia and the US; whether it had taken place in reality, how much the idea has to do with the personalities of the leaders, what challenges remain in the development of the relationship. Many of the students held passionate opinions that were not necessarily what you might expect. I would say that a majority are of the opinion that the because of the higher prominence of the US, we do not always take them seriously in international affairs and that the ‘reset’ claimed by Obama and Medvedev is in reality simply a slight difference in atmosphere rather than a tangible step forward in the relationship between the two nations. Please debate amongst yourselves, and let me know what you think on that point. I know what I think, but I’ll save that for later.
After the very interesting discussion with the Russian students, I got home a little late but my host mom sat down to talk to me while I ate. Russia and Azerbaijan were playing each other in soccer, and one of made the comment that all of the players on both sides would have been teammates 20 years ago. That comment started my host mom off on a speech about how life was better during the Soviet Union. I was torn between being excited that I could understand her and disappointed that I can’t yet ask sophisticated questions in the language. Essentially, she talked about how everyone had an apartment, a job, a great pension, and paid vacations by the government. You might not have had exceptionally beautiful possessions, but then neither did anyone else. She grew up in Kazakhstan, her mother was (and is) an economist, while her father was a professor at a university. She is young enough to have still been studying when the Soviet Union fell, but she remembers her parents talking about how much better everything was before Gorbachev and perestroika, when there was never anything on the shelves in the stores. Their family was given the choice between a 3-room and 4-room apartment, which she said was very nice, and you didn’t have to pay for the apartment or the utilities. Everyone had a job, and went to work in the morning and came home at 5 pm. Today, she says, people have to work 2 or 3 jobs to afford their apartments and utilities, and it is difficult to travel anywhere because it is so expensive. I asked what she wants for Pasha in the future, and she talked for a while about wanting him to do an exchange in America or England to learn English well enough to help him get into a good institute or university and one day work and live abroad, in Europe or the United States, where she of course will follow him. Everything is extremely expensive, so she has been looking at exchange programs where Pasha could go to England, for example, and live with a family who would send one of their children to Russia. It was very interesting to listen to her opinions, it was the first time she has talked for a long time about her views on something and I feel like I got to know her a lot better and can’t wait until I can ask even more questions about it.
So the learning continues, both in the classroom and outside of it, and this weekend we are headed to a part of the European Union that I have never seen! This experience has been wonderful so far, and I am sure it is just going to get better! I hope time isn’t flying as fast for all of you and you have time to enjoy the fall leaves before the snow starts falling! Much love - Beth
PS we are staying in a 5-star hotel this weekend with a pool and…wireless internet! So I’ll be online a little more often, probably not sleeping as much as I should but it will be worth it so that I can see the city and leave myself online at a time that’s better for talking to all of you lovely people! Just thought I’d let you in on the secret, and you might even get a blog from EU soil! ☺
Yesterday after classes we had a meeting about the many things coming up – starting with what Jarlath has dubbed ‘enthrallin’ Talinn’ and including a film studio tour and library tour next week and a Halloween Party and a rock walk – and then there was a discussion set up with Russian students in the Political Science faculty about relations between Russia and the West. It was a little disorganized, and my Russian foreign affairs vocabulary is sorely lacking, but it was still incredibly interesting and they are hoping to reorganize it into English and Russian language sessions and smaller groups and make it a weekly or bi-weekly event. We primarily discussed the ‘reset’ in relations between Russia and the US; whether it had taken place in reality, how much the idea has to do with the personalities of the leaders, what challenges remain in the development of the relationship. Many of the students held passionate opinions that were not necessarily what you might expect. I would say that a majority are of the opinion that the because of the higher prominence of the US, we do not always take them seriously in international affairs and that the ‘reset’ claimed by Obama and Medvedev is in reality simply a slight difference in atmosphere rather than a tangible step forward in the relationship between the two nations. Please debate amongst yourselves, and let me know what you think on that point. I know what I think, but I’ll save that for later.
After the very interesting discussion with the Russian students, I got home a little late but my host mom sat down to talk to me while I ate. Russia and Azerbaijan were playing each other in soccer, and one of made the comment that all of the players on both sides would have been teammates 20 years ago. That comment started my host mom off on a speech about how life was better during the Soviet Union. I was torn between being excited that I could understand her and disappointed that I can’t yet ask sophisticated questions in the language. Essentially, she talked about how everyone had an apartment, a job, a great pension, and paid vacations by the government. You might not have had exceptionally beautiful possessions, but then neither did anyone else. She grew up in Kazakhstan, her mother was (and is) an economist, while her father was a professor at a university. She is young enough to have still been studying when the Soviet Union fell, but she remembers her parents talking about how much better everything was before Gorbachev and perestroika, when there was never anything on the shelves in the stores. Their family was given the choice between a 3-room and 4-room apartment, which she said was very nice, and you didn’t have to pay for the apartment or the utilities. Everyone had a job, and went to work in the morning and came home at 5 pm. Today, she says, people have to work 2 or 3 jobs to afford their apartments and utilities, and it is difficult to travel anywhere because it is so expensive. I asked what she wants for Pasha in the future, and she talked for a while about wanting him to do an exchange in America or England to learn English well enough to help him get into a good institute or university and one day work and live abroad, in Europe or the United States, where she of course will follow him. Everything is extremely expensive, so she has been looking at exchange programs where Pasha could go to England, for example, and live with a family who would send one of their children to Russia. It was very interesting to listen to her opinions, it was the first time she has talked for a long time about her views on something and I feel like I got to know her a lot better and can’t wait until I can ask even more questions about it.
So the learning continues, both in the classroom and outside of it, and this weekend we are headed to a part of the European Union that I have never seen! This experience has been wonderful so far, and I am sure it is just going to get better! I hope time isn’t flying as fast for all of you and you have time to enjoy the fall leaves before the snow starts falling! Much love - Beth
PS we are staying in a 5-star hotel this weekend with a pool and…wireless internet! So I’ll be online a little more often, probably not sleeping as much as I should but it will be worth it so that I can see the city and leave myself online at a time that’s better for talking to all of you lovely people! Just thought I’d let you in on the secret, and you might even get a blog from EU soil! ☺
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
snowflakes!
Stop the presses and alert the paparazzi. The moccasins have been retired (and are currently enjoying their retirement basking in the heat of the radiator they are sitting under in the hopes that they will dry out in the next few hundred years) and the trench has been relegated to only more formal occasions – which means it is boot, scarf, hat, and winter coat time in St. Petersburg! (A time which is made even more splendid by the fact that my host mom took my red leather boots in to be re-tipped and they came back the same day, with metal grooved heel tips!!! Have I mentioned lately that I love shoes on this side of the Atlantic and everything associated with them?) But what was the impetus for this sudden change of attire, you ask? Sneg. (SNOW!) And even more than the snow that fell today, it was the slush on the sidewalk that made me realize it was about time to go boots-in and put the moccasins in the suitcase next to the flip-flops and Italian leather. So the Dublin-ankle-boots, black-suede boots, Burberry-wellington-boots, Timberline-combat-boots, and awesomely-metal-heeled-red-leather-boots are lined up in the hallway and ready for action. (Yes, all of the afore-mentioned did fit in my suitcase.) And – don’t freak out mom I haven’t bought any yet – my host mom and I discovered a common desire for over-the-knee-black-leather boots this weekend but just couldn’t find the perfect pair in the 4-floor shoe mall right next to our metro (yes, 4 floors of shoes), so we’re going to a different mall of shoes next week after I get back from Estonia. ☺
Well, if you didn’t already know about my shoe fetish/obsession/problem (depending on who you ask), you have now been informed, so we’ll save the discussion on purses for another day. Actually, my first big purchase will in all likelihood be leather gloves, an equally important piece of outerwear here on the eastern end of the Gulf of Finland. It started snowing during our first class, and I realized that the weather report I had seen scrolled across the bottom of the TV screen last night must have been for yesterday, NOT for today. So my moccasins got more than a little wet on the way home, but the first-snow-excitement kept me nice and warm until I could get home and change into my boots and winter coat for a walk. This weekend it managed to be beautiful almost the whole time, with a brief interlude of hail on Saturday when Kelly and I were thankfully walking next to a well-placed awning. I love my Russian umbrella, but I’m not sure how it would hold up to dime-sized hail.
We were walking back from the Museum of Political History, which is right by the Peter and Paul Fortress. It houses an absolutely incredible collection of documents, propaganda, photographs (some with ‘enemy of the state’ relatives cut out of them), uniforms and clothing, models, and video and audio presentations. It almost makes you wonder if either they knew that someday information on the Soviet Union would belong in a museum or whether they have just made some of the things up, that’s how many passports, train tickets, ration cards, and other documents from important people are displayed in the museum. The posters of Soviet propaganda were particularly interesting to me, everything from satires of ‘the west’ to a depiction of a how the ‘Soviet Family’ was to look and act in their home. It was also striking how many letters of protest were on display, whether written to Stalin or any number of ministry heads particularly during the height of the Gulag system. There were also exhibits of some of the more incredible things to come out of the Gulag, paintings and sketches done on canvas snuck into the camps in the lids of boxes, and even a chess set supposedly made out of bread by one of the prisoners. There were models of communal apartments and barracks in the work camps, as well as reports on the later visits of Soviet leaders with those in the west. Having largely learned about the Soviet era from the perspective of the Eastern European countries rather than from within the Russian territories, it was a very interesting and enlightening museum. At the end, there is also a room dedicated to First Lady Gorbachev, which was very interesting.
We left the museum in the late afternoon – and discovered it had become noticeably colder on the street. Our plan was to find a bar to watch the Germany-Russia soccer game in, but we ended up running into a festival for children instead and later discovered that pretty much all the bars were going to be booked up. So we ended up watching the game at my apartment, after my host mom graciously agreed and fussed over whether we had enough tea and things even though it was incredibly last minute and I tried to tell her a million times not to worry about it. (It’s a silly worry anyways, we have an entire cabinet that is always full of tea bags and loose tea!) The game ended well, and I didn’t get beat up for being a Germany fan watching the game in a Russian sports-bar, so the evening probably worked out for the best anyway. Sunday I was up early for church, met Tom, and said hi to the Americans and the choir for a little bit afterwards before meeting up with our group for our excursion to a palace close to Peterhof.
We spent the afternoon with CIEE and our host families (which was great fun!) at Konstantin Palace in the suburbs of St. Petersburg. It was a private palace before the revolution, was of course nationalized by the Soviets and then destroyed during the siege. It had fallen into decay when, in 2000, a letter was written to then-President Putin declaring it a shame on Russia that such a palace (it is quite a landmark, right on the Baltic and the road to Peterhof. It had been intended to be the site of the fountains but they were moved to Peterhof because the geography was better for a gravity-fed system.) had been allowed to fall into disrepair. Putin must have agreed, because he had the palace and the surrounding park renovated and restored in just under a year and a half. In addition, a five-star hotel and more than a dozen cottages were built on the property right on the Gulf of Finland for important guests. The palace was the main site for the G-8 meetings held in St. Petersburg in 2006, and has played host to many other official events. When it is not hosting Medvedev or Putin, it operates as one of the most secure museums in Russia. Metal-detectors and grimace-wearing-militia remind you every few minutes that you’re not visiting just any palace. CIEE invites our host families to come with us because you can only get in by pre-arranging group trips on certain dates so many Russians have never had the opportunity to go inside.
The rooms have mostly been restored to look as they would have in imperial Russia, some of the chandeliers have been restored exactly from 19th century photographs, for example. One exception is the 'Belvedere' room on the top floor in the center of the palace. It was renovated to look like a ship's cabin, and there is a spiral staircase, model staircases, cherry paneling, and curved glass windows in the shape of a sail to add to the effect. It is used for more private meetings – maybe it is where Bush saw Putin's soul – and is absolutely beautiful. It was a great excursion, made even more interesting because it wasn't just another palace but has a more interesting history. It was also very fun to spend the day with my host mom (and her mom), and they liked the palace and the grounds just as much as I did. It was a great end to the weekend, and this week we will only have 4 days of classes because we are headed to Talinn early Friday morning.
This morning I had a skype date with the twin, but I woke up with a strange feeling of chills and a serious migraine. I got almost all ready but was pretty miserable so I texted her but she didn't get it and now I have a reputation for standing people up ☹. I'm feeling better now, though I still have a headache, and the director of the program has given me the name of a supplement that apparently attacks the virus that is currently going around so hopefully that will knock it out. Matthew also called me from his fancy iPhone and its skype application and it was awesome for like 20 minutes but then it made him sound like a robot and I couldn't really tell what he was saying at all so I hope I can catch both him and twin online today or Thursday. Then its off to Talinn for the weekend, we'll get back real late Sunday night. I'll have my computer on Thursday, so if you've been to Talinn or know of something that I absolutely have to make sure I see/buy while I'm there, let me know between now and then and I'll be sure to do/buy it ☺.
Thanks for reading and putting up with my tangents, I'm going to try and watch an episode of House online! ☺ All my love and many snowflakes - beth
Well, if you didn’t already know about my shoe fetish/obsession/problem (depending on who you ask), you have now been informed, so we’ll save the discussion on purses for another day. Actually, my first big purchase will in all likelihood be leather gloves, an equally important piece of outerwear here on the eastern end of the Gulf of Finland. It started snowing during our first class, and I realized that the weather report I had seen scrolled across the bottom of the TV screen last night must have been for yesterday, NOT for today. So my moccasins got more than a little wet on the way home, but the first-snow-excitement kept me nice and warm until I could get home and change into my boots and winter coat for a walk. This weekend it managed to be beautiful almost the whole time, with a brief interlude of hail on Saturday when Kelly and I were thankfully walking next to a well-placed awning. I love my Russian umbrella, but I’m not sure how it would hold up to dime-sized hail.
We were walking back from the Museum of Political History, which is right by the Peter and Paul Fortress. It houses an absolutely incredible collection of documents, propaganda, photographs (some with ‘enemy of the state’ relatives cut out of them), uniforms and clothing, models, and video and audio presentations. It almost makes you wonder if either they knew that someday information on the Soviet Union would belong in a museum or whether they have just made some of the things up, that’s how many passports, train tickets, ration cards, and other documents from important people are displayed in the museum. The posters of Soviet propaganda were particularly interesting to me, everything from satires of ‘the west’ to a depiction of a how the ‘Soviet Family’ was to look and act in their home. It was also striking how many letters of protest were on display, whether written to Stalin or any number of ministry heads particularly during the height of the Gulag system. There were also exhibits of some of the more incredible things to come out of the Gulag, paintings and sketches done on canvas snuck into the camps in the lids of boxes, and even a chess set supposedly made out of bread by one of the prisoners. There were models of communal apartments and barracks in the work camps, as well as reports on the later visits of Soviet leaders with those in the west. Having largely learned about the Soviet era from the perspective of the Eastern European countries rather than from within the Russian territories, it was a very interesting and enlightening museum. At the end, there is also a room dedicated to First Lady Gorbachev, which was very interesting.
We left the museum in the late afternoon – and discovered it had become noticeably colder on the street. Our plan was to find a bar to watch the Germany-Russia soccer game in, but we ended up running into a festival for children instead and later discovered that pretty much all the bars were going to be booked up. So we ended up watching the game at my apartment, after my host mom graciously agreed and fussed over whether we had enough tea and things even though it was incredibly last minute and I tried to tell her a million times not to worry about it. (It’s a silly worry anyways, we have an entire cabinet that is always full of tea bags and loose tea!) The game ended well, and I didn’t get beat up for being a Germany fan watching the game in a Russian sports-bar, so the evening probably worked out for the best anyway. Sunday I was up early for church, met Tom, and said hi to the Americans and the choir for a little bit afterwards before meeting up with our group for our excursion to a palace close to Peterhof.
We spent the afternoon with CIEE and our host families (which was great fun!) at Konstantin Palace in the suburbs of St. Petersburg. It was a private palace before the revolution, was of course nationalized by the Soviets and then destroyed during the siege. It had fallen into decay when, in 2000, a letter was written to then-President Putin declaring it a shame on Russia that such a palace (it is quite a landmark, right on the Baltic and the road to Peterhof. It had been intended to be the site of the fountains but they were moved to Peterhof because the geography was better for a gravity-fed system.) had been allowed to fall into disrepair. Putin must have agreed, because he had the palace and the surrounding park renovated and restored in just under a year and a half. In addition, a five-star hotel and more than a dozen cottages were built on the property right on the Gulf of Finland for important guests. The palace was the main site for the G-8 meetings held in St. Petersburg in 2006, and has played host to many other official events. When it is not hosting Medvedev or Putin, it operates as one of the most secure museums in Russia. Metal-detectors and grimace-wearing-militia remind you every few minutes that you’re not visiting just any palace. CIEE invites our host families to come with us because you can only get in by pre-arranging group trips on certain dates so many Russians have never had the opportunity to go inside.
The rooms have mostly been restored to look as they would have in imperial Russia, some of the chandeliers have been restored exactly from 19th century photographs, for example. One exception is the 'Belvedere' room on the top floor in the center of the palace. It was renovated to look like a ship's cabin, and there is a spiral staircase, model staircases, cherry paneling, and curved glass windows in the shape of a sail to add to the effect. It is used for more private meetings – maybe it is where Bush saw Putin's soul – and is absolutely beautiful. It was a great excursion, made even more interesting because it wasn't just another palace but has a more interesting history. It was also very fun to spend the day with my host mom (and her mom), and they liked the palace and the grounds just as much as I did. It was a great end to the weekend, and this week we will only have 4 days of classes because we are headed to Talinn early Friday morning.
This morning I had a skype date with the twin, but I woke up with a strange feeling of chills and a serious migraine. I got almost all ready but was pretty miserable so I texted her but she didn't get it and now I have a reputation for standing people up ☹. I'm feeling better now, though I still have a headache, and the director of the program has given me the name of a supplement that apparently attacks the virus that is currently going around so hopefully that will knock it out. Matthew also called me from his fancy iPhone and its skype application and it was awesome for like 20 minutes but then it made him sound like a robot and I couldn't really tell what he was saying at all so I hope I can catch both him and twin online today or Thursday. Then its off to Talinn for the weekend, we'll get back real late Sunday night. I'll have my computer on Thursday, so if you've been to Talinn or know of something that I absolutely have to make sure I see/buy while I'm there, let me know between now and then and I'll be sure to do/buy it ☺.
Thanks for reading and putting up with my tangents, I'm going to try and watch an episode of House online! ☺ All my love and many snowflakes - beth
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