as requested, the facebook notes of russia, part two (READ THE ENTRY BELOW THIS ONE FIRST)
sorry for the shouting, but chronologically you'll have to start with the entry below this one if the following is to make any sense...
how i spent nearly two days in my former second home)
05 july (saturday): petrozavodsk (PZK) to st petersburg (piter), then st petersburg itself
06:15: wake up from the most recent 30-minute fit of sleep on the train from PZK, groggily arrange self and get some breakfast (read: yogurt, dried black bread, and slightly melted cheese) in me. grumble.
07:07: marvel at how the time of arrival printed on my train ticket is the exact same time we actually pull into the station and stop. disembark and breathe in the delightfully dirty piter air.
07:28: exit the metro onto the main street of the city - nevsky prospekt - and gasp. i barely recognize it, though much of it is under remont (repair). already that feeling of «we're not in kansas anymore, dorothy» is setting in. hmmm.
07:30: arrive at my hostel across the street from a metro stop on nevsky and attempt to check in, only to be told that i can't actually do so until 13:00. oops! thankfully, the nice receptionist lets me leave a bag of un-needed things in their storage closet, so i shoulder my bag and set off in search of coffee.
07:32: find out that the coffee place two doors down is closed. thankfully, the coffee place across the street - named «coffee house», simply transliterated from english into russian - is open and willing to accept three dirty foreigners (holly and our swiss friend emanuel were along for the ride). we drink coffee drinks, but not actual coffee - they sell beans you can roast yourself, but not an actual cup of black coffee. this is disappointing, but the latte is good enough that i don't care. drink more, use bathroom, set off in search of...
09:30 or so: more coffee?! after having wandered up the length of nevsky to palace square, during which i decide that i can't handle (in a way that i'm amused, not really horrified) how european nevsky has become and how the rich/poor divide is even more depressing than it was five years ago, we decide that more coffee is needed. in our wanderings, i am annoyed by all of the remont making things not pretty to look at but delighted to note the near-complete takeover of the city by the bliny restaurant teremok - in 2003, there were only two of these in the city and they were little stands tucked away on side streets. those stands still exist further out of the center, but downtown proper they've become full-blown restaurants that are packed because they're the best damn bliny on the planet. anyway, the back of the winter palace that faces palace square is covered by what emanuel very accurately and succinctly calls «fucking remont!», which sucks, but we ooh and ahh and cross palace bridge and i start to remember why i fell in love with this city in the first place.
10:45: okay, so one thing i forgot was how long it takes to walk anywhere in piter, though this was never a problem when i had something like eight hours a day to kill. emanuel is ready to kill me, i think, because i've promised a coffee shop that makes apparently delightful pastries and we still haven't gotten to it and even i am beginning to get nervous, hoping it still exists, until a babushka comes up to us and asks us where «stolle» is. that being the name of the place we're searching for, i sigh with relief (because that means it still exists) and tell her to walk with us.
11:00: we enter pastry heaven on earth. no joke, if i'd known this place existed in 2002 when i lived in piter i would have eaten here every single day. the coffee drinks are even better than the first ones, and the food - bozhe moi. strongly consider napping here all day, but decide to press on.
14:00: having decided strongly against walking back to nevsky, we catch the metro one stop (during which i curse the fact that the metro stop near the admiralty has been finished for years but somehow the money for the escalators just keeps «disappearing») and hoof it over to the delightfully quiet nabokov museum. somehow we manage to spend an hour there, and it's after this that i call my piter host mom, tanya, to arrange our plans for the evening, which turn into our plans for tomorrow. uh-oh.
15:00: if you're planning on going to the vodka museum in piter, good luck getting in, because the building it lives in is under major remont as of a couple of weeks ago. good luck finding the damn building in the first place. :)
16:30: how many couples can get married in front of the bronze horseman at once? about four, comfortably... i am endlessly amused by the number of champagne bottles in the trash cans surrounding the statue. (if you want me to explain this to you at some point, let me know)
17:00: arrival at teremok just off nevsky. another heaven on earth - the chocolate and banana bliny are every bit as good as i remember.
18:00: what do you mean, i have to leave teremok? okay, fine. set off in search of a theater box office to get tickets to the rimsky-korsakov conservatory's performance of «swan lake» that evening. after some frantic text-swapping with holly's friend olya, we buy tickets and i set off to check into my hostel.
19:10: after having checked in, made my bed, arranged my things, washed my face (aaahhhh), brushed my teeth, and splashed on a smidge of perfume, i leave the metro to meet holly and emanuel for the ballet. we take a mini-taxi to theater square, across from the mariinskiy theater (kind of famous, you may have heard of the kirov ballet that calls it home). some japanese tourists find us and latch onto us as if we know where we're going. we fake it well enough, and at...
19:50: ...we settle into our seats in the balcony behind an army of upper-middle-schoolers. you can imagine how well this went over. the first act was the longest hour of my life - i love the music of «swan lake», but these damn kids were doing their best to make sure i didn't hear it. needless to say we moved after said first act, and all was much, much better thereafter.
22:30: the ballet is over! we have an invitation from olya to join her at her friend's house north of downtown to eat and rest before watching the bridges rise (again, if you want me to explain this let me know, and i will) at 1-2 am. except the thing about theater square is that i ever only went there like three times, so i totally don't know my way around, or back to the metro, and there's seemingly some force-field over the square that renders me completely unable to read either of the maps we had with us, so that at...
23:00: we're still wandering the same eighth-mile radius we were in when the ballet was over. finally we get directions from several sets of people and get ourselves over to haymakers' square (sennaya ploshchad, where much of «crime and punishment» takes place). i go slightly agog at how completely made-over the square is - it used to be pretty seedy, and now it's actually quite nice (there's even a teremok!).
23:36: tanya calls me: «let's do shashlyk (grilling meat on sticks) tomorrow at noon, okay?» okay. i know now that i am toast tomorrow.
23:45: we arrive at olya's friend's yan's apartment and settle in for her famous salad and a meat-potato-onion pie, which is gratefully received and extremely tasty. somehow we manage to spend enough time talking that at...
01:10:... yan jumps up and says «we need to leave right now to watch the bridges rise!» at which point we play the «can we cram five people, one of whom is over six feet tall, into one car?» game, to which the answer is yes, we win (props to the guy who stopped for us for being brave enough to help us in our quest). we arrive at the tip of the island we're on to see that, to our dismay, palace bridge has already risen, but over the course of the next hour we are treated to watching three other bridges rise (including the one we were standing on, though we did move before it went up).
02:10: we begin the trek back to yan's to nap before the metro opens. I get in about 90 minutes of shuteye before it's time to head out, and after a ten-minute walk to the metro...
05:20:... i arrive and find out that it doesn't open until 05:32. bugger. run laps around the metro station to keep warm and glare at the guy who keeps asking me what time it is.
05:32: apparently the folks who open the metro aren't as timely with the unlocking of the doors as the folks who drive the long-distance trains and make them arrive exactly to the second. grrrr.
05:35: okay, come on now...
05:40: seriously? the first train leaves in three minutes...
05:49: okay, well, the first train left in nine minutes. resist the urge to nap lest i miss my stop.
06:10: arrive at my hostel, wake up the extremely grumpy receptionist, and tiptoe to my room to pass out. i snicker when the doorbell rings again at 06:15 and she curses at the guys who sheepishly enter.
06:15: head hits pillow. oh, glorious sleep.
06 july (sunday): piter, and the leaving thereof
07:30: why is the babushka next to me snoring loudly enough to wake me? arrrrrgh!
09:10: no, seriously, why?
10:00: fine, i'll get out of bed. it wasn't the most lengthy sleep, but it was surprisingly good for the not-softness of the bed.
10:46: gather things and leave, having not showered (the towel was much too small and i didn't really feel like it after all). oh look, it's raining outside!
10:50: duck into the «coffee house» across the street, at which the waitress remembers me from the day before. i order the french breakfast, and she is exceedingly nice. i leave her a large tip, at which she is confused, but i don't care.
11:20: set off for the metro to my old apartment.
11:30: arrive at my old metro stop and mourn the city-wide loss of people selling everything you could ever need in an underground kiosk. flowers, candy, cds, souvenirs, kittens, snacks... i guess it was all part of the great city clean-up for the 300th-birthday celebrations. sigh.
11:33: exit the metro and try to drag my jaw off the ground. my favorite shaverma stand is GONE, and there's a monstrosity of a shopping center all around the station. this is typical of metro stations further from the center, but it's to me a complete atrocity. happily, the 24-hour dvd/cd store and flower shop are still there, and the infamous computer center across the street are untouched. Purchase chocolates and flowers for tanya and hurry my way to building 6, apartment 41.
11:59: note with pleasure that the guy who runs the sketchiest cafe in town, right next to the canal in front of building 2, is still doing healthy business.
11:59:40: while walking up the street to building 6, everything comes flooding back to me and i am nearly completely overcome with every emotion i ever felt when living here so long ago. i have to swallow a pretty big lump in my throat, because i am about to go have a happy reunion over meat and vodka, and this is no place for tears. but it hits me hard how much this place changed me and what it meant to me then, and how it's changed and what it means to me now.
12:05: ring the doorbell and laugh long and hard when tanya opens it. she's shrunk another foot and her hair is platinum blonde and she has not changed one single whit. LOVE.
12:20: after having met her friend igor, who arrived saturday from her hometown, i gather the bag with the vodka and we take off for the gulf of finland (which is ten minutes away on foot) to roast and drink. except it's raining, which makes things a little difficult, but we press on.
13:10: it's raining a little bit less, so that means vodka shot #1. begin the massive consumption of garlic-cheese bread, eggs, and tomatoes.
14:10: the rain has stopped, so that means vodka shot #3. the meat is almost ready...
14:30: the meat (pork in spices) is done, so that means vodka shot #4...
15:45: tanya's current student, stephen, who is not a student per se but rather a former british army guy who's been to moscow several times but never to piter, arrives from his trip to the market, so that means vodka shot #6. i start to wonder how exactly i'm going to make it to the train station on time later...
17:00: i realize that i don't care about anything other than the three people i'm with, the food on our table, and our great conversation. it hits me that this is what i missed about russia - just sitting around talking and being with people and how so much effort goes into showing guests a good time, even if you hardly know them (olya and yan were also incredibly kind to us, which really warmed my heart). this could be the vodka talking, so i say eff it and reach for the bottle to make a toast. this means vodka shot #8...
17:02: ...after which we're out of vodka, and stephen decides to run to the store to get more. igor goes back home to get hot water for tea and coffee, which is miraculously tasty.
18:30: i think we're on shot #12? i have no idea, but i suddenly realize that the buildings i'm facing weren't there five years ago. this area is pretty far out, but it's no stranger to development, which leads into a discussion on how much piter has changed in five years - and twenty years, since that's how long it had been since igor visited.
19:45: the second bottle of vodka, and fourth cup of coffee, finish themselves. i am so full i am about to burst.
20:30: we pack up and head back the apartment. i have one hour before i'm to meet holly and emanuel at the train station, which is at least 30 minutes away by metro. (i bet you can see where this is going!)
20:45: «tanya, if we have tea, it has to be super-super fast, since i have to leave in ten minutes...» «oh, we'll be fine!» this is the beginning of the end for me.
21:05: we exchange kisses and the men walk me to the metro station (this is a charming tradition i refuse to refuse). exuberant, i don't really note what time it is until...
21:18:... my train pulls out of the station and i think, «hmm, i'm going to be late». my train to PZK leaves at 22:02, and we nearly missed it the last time we took it, so i don't really want to be late, but...
21:34: i get a text from holly saying «we're late, meet you on the train!». whew! i'm not the only one not on time...
21:48: exit the metro next to the train station and forget that i still have to run up a tiny mountain to get to the train platform. curse and start jogging.
21:54: holy crap, my head hurts. i have to, have to, HAVE TO stop and get some water. grab some M&Ms for breakfast, throw 100 rubles at the cashier, and dash off to the platform...
21:58: ...where holly and emanuel have also just arrived and are taking pictures with olya and yan before boarding. my mother would die if she knew how close i'd cut it, yet again.
22:00: board train and exhale.
22:02: we pull out of piter and i am sad to watch it go, but not sad to get some sleep. make bed, drink water, pass out...
07 july (monday)
05:50: wake up, eat chocolate, make bed, drink water, and plan my next escape to piter.
06:50: arrive in PZK, get home, shower, make my bed, and plan my next escape to piter.
10:00-13:30: try really hard not to fall asleep in class; keep myself awake with thoughts of my next escape to piter. (do you see a theme developing here?)
i might try for a return trip 19-20 july, though fundage is low. i kind of don't care, though... i can't really express how great it was to be back and feel like i never left. piter will always have a part of my heart and soul, and two days with her wasn't nearly enough...
...but i digress.
this is probably my second-to-last-note, since i anticipate writing one more before i leave PZK in nine days (wait, what? NINE DAYS?!). honestly, i don't know where my summer has gone, though a look at my wallet tells me it went to train tickets, water, beer, and (hopefully) the salary of one of the best russian teachers i've ever had. not kidding, if i could kidnap veronika and take her home with me, i would. but i digress...
1) last weekend i felt slothful, so i stayed in on friday and watched "lethal weapon" and "police academy 2" po-russki. the hilarity level is high, but doubly so with the latter because there's a scene in which steve guttenberg is posing as a gang member and he rips a guy out of a phone booth, upon which are written several graffitied curse words in russian. this can't be completely intentional, and yet it's somehow really, really funny to see the word хуй (slang for wang) on a phone booth in a movie from the early 1980s.
2) russian syntax is majorly messing with my english! the garbled russglish that holly and i speak notwithstanding, i noticed this for the first time on saturday when on the phone with my mom and she told me a story about riding in a truck with no air conditioning. figuring it was fairly hot for that sort of thing to occur, i asked her, "and it was how many degrees outside?" (normal english would ask "how hot was it?", but in russian the phrase is "how many degrees?") yeesh.
3) kat nute mentioned funny movie titles in chinese on her blog (SEE WIFEY, I AM TOO READING IT) and that got me to thinking about funny translations of titles here. "sex and the city" was "sex in the big city", and while perusing DVD selections the other day i ran across a movie called "zombies in the name of shaun" (oh, just guess what that one was). not as good as chinese examples, but still pretty funny. speaking of movies, you can definitely buy DVDs here that have up to 12 films on one disc for about $4-5, and CDs of up to 200 mp3s for the same price. whether or not they'll play at home is a different story, but i am absolutely willing to find this one out myself.
4) emi had told me a while ago about manhole covers being carelessly tossed back on when workers are done with sewer jobs, and i didn't believe him until i was strolling around last week and nearly tripped into one because the cover was 7/8 of the way off. let's hear it for safety!
5) it's sort of warm here (it may have gotten up to 80 the other day), so i keep seeing women in flip-flops and it makes me insanely jealous because i left mine at home because i figured that no one here would deign to wear them. oh no, they do, and it kills me because i brought sensibly low-heeled non-sandals! what strikes me funny about flip-flops is that an article in the TV guide here tells women not to wear them too often because they change the anatomy of one's feet and stride. to which i say, yeah, and the 6+ inch-heels you people wear every day *doesn't* do that? (i'll take comfort over fashion any day, thank you...)
7) bad joke time: what's a pirate's favorite russian beer? ярпиво! (that's read YARRRRRR-piva)
8) things i am going to miss: black bread, super-tasty local cheese varities, the cereal called 'khrustiye vkrustiye' that are delightful little pillows filled with chocolate or hazelnut, and especially the sound of trolleybus doors slamming open and shut at the bus stop near my apartment (which is across the street from the university, where president medvedev was yesterday, and I SAW (the back of) HIM AS HE WALKED IN and i swooned it was so awesome. word.
9) one thing i will NOT miss is the stupid little yippy dog whose babushka-owner allows to roam outside from 7p-9 or 10p every day who barks at every god-damned thing, living or not, the entire time it's outside. and she does nothing to correct him, probably because she's deaf and can't hear him. i am seriously ready to shoot this thing, only i don't have anything more powerful than a bread knife in my arsenal. goodness gracious.
10) have you ever had the sweet, honey-based beer drink called medovukha? if you're in russia, you need to try it, because it's utterly delightful. and if you ever come to PZK, pass on the karelian balsam (it's basically glorified sambuca - yuck), make sure you go to the mak dak (the local rip-off of mcdonald's, from which i stole a placemat because it's that awesome) and the 70-year-celebration cafe two doors down from the mak dak (cheapest lattes in town plus tasty food and even shaurma on the menu!). if you want me to explain any of these things further, let me know, and i will...
...later. i have GOT to get my butt out of here and to the bank before it closes at 7, and then i've got to pack because i'm going back to st pete tonight, for the weekend. SO EXCITED, part two. until next week, then. poka!
THIS IS THE LAST NOTE I WILL WRITE FROM RUSSIA. that freaks me out pretty hardcore, since i don't exactly know where the last eight weeks went. on an unrelated note, as soon as i'm done writing this i'm going to go sit by the lake in a cafe and have a beer or two and read conrad's "under western eyes", because i started it last night and it's pretty amazing.
but i digress. here we go!
1) so wait, when exactly am i leaving? i leave PZK on sunday night (tomorrow), and i arrive in moscow monday morning. i leave moscow monday night, and i arrive in london monday night. i leave london tuesday morning, and i arrive in DC tuesday afternoon. when i leave DC is still up in the air, but i should be back in cville by sunday afternoon (that's august 3). plan yourselves accordingly. :)
2) hey, hang on, didn't i go back to st petersburg? yes, i did - last weekend, because i knew if i didn't go i'd really regret it, even though i emphatically didn't quite have the funds to do so. but i am SO GLAD that i went back, even if i spent a good deal of time drinking myself into one of the worst hangovers i've had in a long time. it went something like this:
saturday (july 19), 7am: get off train, go to my usual cafe on nevsky prospekt, get some coffee, make friends with the folks from seattle who were sitting at the table next to me, take coffee with me, start walking; 8:40 am: exit the metro at vladimirskaya (which is next to a giant church) and look up at said church which is illuminated by a brilliant sun and a crystal-clear blue sky and suddenly hate st petersburg for being so beautiful and hard to leave, while simultaneously loving it because they can modernize all they want but they will never, ever tear this church down, which means i can come back in ten years and have nearly the exact same experience; 8:45 am: realize through investigation of the neighboring teremok that none of the bliny stands open until 10am and curse gratuitously; 11:30 am: after having wandered around the same city block for nearly 45 minutes (don't ask) finally find the park pobedy metro station and pay to use a toilet whose door won't open, which leads to the attendant yelling at me "what are you, stupid?" and me yelling back (in russian) "yes, i am an idiot" (and then in english) "don't yell at me, you fat fuck" (which was completely not justified, but felt SO GOOD); 12:15 pm: back at the bliny stand, finally, with chocolate bliny in hand, on the phone with tanya (my old host mom), who tells me to arrive in an hour so we can go grill on the beach; 13:30 pm: arrive at tanya's toting one of the four bottles of vodka we'd go through over the next ten hours...
sunday (july 20): 11:30 am: wake up, eat, have a beer, decide that this is not a good course of action, and go back to sleep; 15:30 pm: wake up, drink water, and get myself out of tanya's place, setting off first for the dorms around the corner for a shot of nostalgia - the store near it that once sold my friend 80 beers for a party is gone now, alas - and then back to the center to wander around; 17:10 pm: exit the metro at sennaya ploshchad and find a 24-hour shaverma stand [for some perverse reason i only trust shaverma that comes from 24-hour places], which does not disappoint me with its quality of rotating-column meat; 17:55 pm: sit down on a bench in front of the russian musuem and am hit by a wall of hangover. recall that somehow cognac and beer made their way into the vodka equation the night before. vow never to drink any of the above ever again; 19:00 pm: leave my comfortable bench to start wandering along the moika canal, which will lead me back to sennaya ploshchad where i can have one last bliny dinner before heading to the train station; 19:10 pm: it starts to rain. damn; 19:20: it starts to POUR. this is not okay - i have an umbrella, but there is wind, so it's not doing me much good; 19:50 pm: i'm stubborn and still walking along the moika and pretty wet from the knees down (so my jeans weigh 5 extra pounds) when a jerkface mercedes comes from out of nowhere and drives through a puddle in the road after which i am literally hit by a wall of water and soaked to the bone; 20:05 pm: i decide to take shelter in a metro station in which a trio (two violins and a guitar) is playing to a large crowd that the cops can't break up because people keep calling the cops "uncultured" for wanting to get rid of such lovely music; 20:30: decide that i am dry enough to attempt a venture back to sennaya ploshchad for said bliny; 21:10: finish my delightful bliny dinner and realize, hey, maybe i should get going to the train station...; 21:59: arrive at my train and get yelled at by the conductor for arriving so close to our departure time, which was 22:02 pm. oops; 23:00 pm: lie down in my wet jeans and think about how wonderful it will be to put my wet socks back on in less than eight hours; 23:10 pm: decide that i don't care, because in spite of the rain it was one of the best weekends i've ever had - even better than the first visit at the beginning of the month. dear lord, i love piter...
3) i've decided that i am marrying the guy who hosts the russian version of 'cash cab' - cleverly named 'taxi' - because he is smart and funny and has these eyes that smile at you for hours on end in a given minute. and he has a funny moscow accent, which i didn't realize until i paid very close attention to how he says the word "khorosho' ('good) - his sounds more like 'kherehshaaa'. doesn't matter, since he's awesome.
4) okay, so why did the folks who dubbed the x-files movie into russian decide that somerset is in the state of virginia? on screen it clearly said "somerset, west virginia", but what we heard was "somerset, state of virginia". holly and i were aghast! the two are not the same! but then, later on, randomly, the dubbers said it correctly. this i do not understand. (the movie was awesome, by the way - when that whistle played at the beginning i totally had shivers up and down my spine)
5) okay, so this may not be the last note i write since i completely lost track of time and am getting kicked out of where i am for a scheduled break and i have lots more to write about still... so you may hear more from me tomorrow before i leave. or not, but in any event, i'm off for now.
poka!
EDITED TO ADD:
okay, so i found another computer on which to finish this note... aren't we all lucky?
6) after the x-files movie holly and i decided that it would be fun to go down to the lake one last time and drink champagne. this was a fabulous idea until i discovered that one particularly crafty mosquito had somehow bitten me on the bottom of my foot... ?! you can imagine how much fun walking is, not to mention every time i brush my foot against my sheets when in bed. it was worth it though, since the lake really is a great place to just hang out and drink and watch people and philosophize. it reminded me a lot of late nights on the embankment near the canal at my old apartment in piter... but i digress.
7 )i am really going to miss watching euro news in the morning with my breakfast. come to think of it, i'm going to miss watching any news here, period, since the only thing that comes out of the u.s. is 'here's the latest way in which the american economy is tanking' or 'look at this stupid american who drove his truck into a restaurant / his RV into a drive-through'. not kidding, that's the news from america. awesome.
8) i am also really going to miss stepping out into a crosswalk and having cars (or trolleybuses) on both sides of the street stop for me even if it means having to stand on their brakes. it's absurd how it works every single time, and not a habit i need to take back with me because it will cause me to end up dead.
9) i know i say this frequently, but i will also miss being able to drink in public and on public transportation. aaaand despite my distaste for gin, i will miss being able to drink gin and tonic out of a can (as jill once said to me, "more beverages should be can-ovated!" so true!
10) not really speaking of things i will not miss, that yippy dog has not keeled over and died from my death stares yet, but happily i only have to put up with him for one more night. actually, it was yippy birds who woke me up this morning, and when i went to draw back my curtains there was a pigeon perched on my windowsill looking straight at me and into my soul. THE BIRDS, THEY KNOW SOMEHOW. (this brings me flashbacks of piter, when tanya's birds tried to topple the kitchen chandelier onto my head while i was eating by flying onto it so that it would shake precariously over my cranium. i think it says a lot that they're no longer alive, but her cat is pleasantly plump...)
11) man, saying good-bye is not one of my favorite things to do, but it's especially hard here because everyone has been so good to me. i'll even miss ira, for all of her wacky irresponsibility (eric giannini, if you're reading this, there's hope for you because apparently she's run away to meet men she talks to on the internet, so i think all you have to do is get on the russian facebook and you're good to go). PZK's been a good home, and i'm quite sad to leave. but, i will be also quite happy to return someday.
12) okay, off with me... that beer calls my name. when next you hear from me, i'll be stateside!
cheers... and poka for real this time. :)
okay, so i'm back safely in the states and i can't believe that:
1) everything here is in english - or, more to the point, not in russian;
2) there are people in the world who don't use their turn signals;
3) there are roads in the world that are actually smooth;
4) i at some point knew how to drive a car and was not terrified to do so;
5) there are parts of the world in which humidity is a valid, living, and awful enemy, in which i've summered most of my life thinking that 'that's just how july is';
6) my mom doesn't understand me when i answer her "ladno" or ask her "vsyo?" ("okay" or "is that all?");
7) i'm allowed to a) flush toilet paper instead of wadding it into the trash can b) drink the tap water c) consume ice cubes from said tap;
8) there is not a single stand on the side of the road selling me beer, nor can i buy beer out of a vending machine in an airport;
9) there is such a thing in this world as pure black coffee;
10) i ever flew an airline other than british airways - the only thing they do wrong is fail to take me everywhere i need to go ever (like to the bank, or to class, or to my mailbox), um, for free;
11) i... am not in russia anymore (well, duh).
so, i'm probably just jet-lagged, but being home feels a little weird and squirmy, kind of like talking to me in person for more than two minutes at a time. speaking of which, as my status indicates, my phone is currently sitting at the bottom of a dumpster somewhere in suburban maryland, so attempts to call me will be met with a noise that i imagine is similar to that squishing-walls-trash-compactor scene from "star wars" (which is one of my favorite scenes of the entire series for some unknown visceral reason). i've ordered a replacement, which should arrive by the end of the week, but beware that i will probably end up needing your number when it does arrive. if that's the case, i'll post a separate note and/or send out one of those delightful mass e-mails and become That Person. except you can't be mad at me, because it's not actually my fault this time. (cf. last time, when phone + toilet = i'm a genius.)
in case you're interested, the way home was delightful in all aspects - domodedovo has just been refurbished and is very clean and modern and expensive (i dropped my last 500 rubles on two hoegaardens in a bar near my gate, which were 280 rubles - or about $12 - apiece. I KNOW.), and it took me about 2.5 minutes to clear passport control and customs. i flew to london with my bottle-opener in my carry-on luggage, which i did not mean to do since the thing looks like a medieval torture device to the untrained eye, so i found it rather amusing that the russian security screeners didn't so much as blink when my bag went through the scanner. come to think of it, that might have been why i was the only person in our little security group (we went through in batches of 4-5 people) that the screeners spoke russian to... or maybe i just smelled unshowered-enough that they assumed i was one of them. [i hate to support stereotypes, but having conducted extensive research in three cities i can only conclude that les russes are actually pretty stinky in the warmer months, at least to my spoiled american sense of smell. you know, with all the deodorant and perfume we put on we probably seem pretty stinky to other noses too...]
[speaking of stinky, i was killing time with some duty-free perfume-perusing in heathrow and was extremely entertained at the young boys drenching themselves in cologne testers while their parents browsed - i ran into some of them later and smelled them well before i spotted them. hilarious!]
heathrow was also delightful - and a huge storm moved through london last night as i was going to bed, so i got to fall asleep to the sound of the rain trying to push its way through the fortochka in my hotel room - especially since i accidentally checked in at the business class entrance for british airways and none of them said a word to me (as in, "your check-in entrance is elsewhere, peon"). so again it took me about 2.5 minutes to get through, which made me giggle deliriously when i found the actual BA check-in area and saw that the line snaked out the door. i sat in the last rows of the aircraft for both flights, which i have decided is forevermore the way to go because you get served your food first (at least if they are smart and start from the back), and you can sneak to the bathroom when no one's looking. [when you consume 4 cups of coffee in as many hours after having not consumed 4 cups of coffee in the entire preceding eight weeks, this becomes crucial. trust me.]
well, anyway, i'm back, and in one piece. sorry if this disappoints you, but, you know, it had to happen at some point, i suppose. i'll be posting photos soon, hopefully, and will keep you updated on the phone situation as it progresses. and stuff.
jet lag sets in... and... i'm out. whew.
so, that was russia this go-round. sorry for whatever time you lost reading those that you won't be able to get back :)
how i spent nearly two days in my former second home)
05 july (saturday): petrozavodsk (PZK) to st petersburg (piter), then st petersburg itself
06:15: wake up from the most recent 30-minute fit of sleep on the train from PZK, groggily arrange self and get some breakfast (read: yogurt, dried black bread, and slightly melted cheese) in me. grumble.
07:07: marvel at how the time of arrival printed on my train ticket is the exact same time we actually pull into the station and stop. disembark and breathe in the delightfully dirty piter air.
07:28: exit the metro onto the main street of the city - nevsky prospekt - and gasp. i barely recognize it, though much of it is under remont (repair). already that feeling of «we're not in kansas anymore, dorothy» is setting in. hmmm.
07:30: arrive at my hostel across the street from a metro stop on nevsky and attempt to check in, only to be told that i can't actually do so until 13:00. oops! thankfully, the nice receptionist lets me leave a bag of un-needed things in their storage closet, so i shoulder my bag and set off in search of coffee.
07:32: find out that the coffee place two doors down is closed. thankfully, the coffee place across the street - named «coffee house», simply transliterated from english into russian - is open and willing to accept three dirty foreigners (holly and our swiss friend emanuel were along for the ride). we drink coffee drinks, but not actual coffee - they sell beans you can roast yourself, but not an actual cup of black coffee. this is disappointing, but the latte is good enough that i don't care. drink more, use bathroom, set off in search of...
09:30 or so: more coffee?! after having wandered up the length of nevsky to palace square, during which i decide that i can't handle (in a way that i'm amused, not really horrified) how european nevsky has become and how the rich/poor divide is even more depressing than it was five years ago, we decide that more coffee is needed. in our wanderings, i am annoyed by all of the remont making things not pretty to look at but delighted to note the near-complete takeover of the city by the bliny restaurant teremok - in 2003, there were only two of these in the city and they were little stands tucked away on side streets. those stands still exist further out of the center, but downtown proper they've become full-blown restaurants that are packed because they're the best damn bliny on the planet. anyway, the back of the winter palace that faces palace square is covered by what emanuel very accurately and succinctly calls «fucking remont!», which sucks, but we ooh and ahh and cross palace bridge and i start to remember why i fell in love with this city in the first place.
10:45: okay, so one thing i forgot was how long it takes to walk anywhere in piter, though this was never a problem when i had something like eight hours a day to kill. emanuel is ready to kill me, i think, because i've promised a coffee shop that makes apparently delightful pastries and we still haven't gotten to it and even i am beginning to get nervous, hoping it still exists, until a babushka comes up to us and asks us where «stolle» is. that being the name of the place we're searching for, i sigh with relief (because that means it still exists) and tell her to walk with us.
11:00: we enter pastry heaven on earth. no joke, if i'd known this place existed in 2002 when i lived in piter i would have eaten here every single day. the coffee drinks are even better than the first ones, and the food - bozhe moi. strongly consider napping here all day, but decide to press on.
14:00: having decided strongly against walking back to nevsky, we catch the metro one stop (during which i curse the fact that the metro stop near the admiralty has been finished for years but somehow the money for the escalators just keeps «disappearing») and hoof it over to the delightfully quiet nabokov museum. somehow we manage to spend an hour there, and it's after this that i call my piter host mom, tanya, to arrange our plans for the evening, which turn into our plans for tomorrow. uh-oh.
15:00: if you're planning on going to the vodka museum in piter, good luck getting in, because the building it lives in is under major remont as of a couple of weeks ago. good luck finding the damn building in the first place. :)
16:30: how many couples can get married in front of the bronze horseman at once? about four, comfortably... i am endlessly amused by the number of champagne bottles in the trash cans surrounding the statue. (if you want me to explain this to you at some point, let me know)
17:00: arrival at teremok just off nevsky. another heaven on earth - the chocolate and banana bliny are every bit as good as i remember.
18:00: what do you mean, i have to leave teremok? okay, fine. set off in search of a theater box office to get tickets to the rimsky-korsakov conservatory's performance of «swan lake» that evening. after some frantic text-swapping with holly's friend olya, we buy tickets and i set off to check into my hostel.
19:10: after having checked in, made my bed, arranged my things, washed my face (aaahhhh), brushed my teeth, and splashed on a smidge of perfume, i leave the metro to meet holly and emanuel for the ballet. we take a mini-taxi to theater square, across from the mariinskiy theater (kind of famous, you may have heard of the kirov ballet that calls it home). some japanese tourists find us and latch onto us as if we know where we're going. we fake it well enough, and at...
19:50: ...we settle into our seats in the balcony behind an army of upper-middle-schoolers. you can imagine how well this went over. the first act was the longest hour of my life - i love the music of «swan lake», but these damn kids were doing their best to make sure i didn't hear it. needless to say we moved after said first act, and all was much, much better thereafter.
22:30: the ballet is over! we have an invitation from olya to join her at her friend's house north of downtown to eat and rest before watching the bridges rise (again, if you want me to explain this let me know, and i will) at 1-2 am. except the thing about theater square is that i ever only went there like three times, so i totally don't know my way around, or back to the metro, and there's seemingly some force-field over the square that renders me completely unable to read either of the maps we had with us, so that at...
23:00: we're still wandering the same eighth-mile radius we were in when the ballet was over. finally we get directions from several sets of people and get ourselves over to haymakers' square (sennaya ploshchad, where much of «crime and punishment» takes place). i go slightly agog at how completely made-over the square is - it used to be pretty seedy, and now it's actually quite nice (there's even a teremok!).
23:36: tanya calls me: «let's do shashlyk (grilling meat on sticks) tomorrow at noon, okay?» okay. i know now that i am toast tomorrow.
23:45: we arrive at olya's friend's yan's apartment and settle in for her famous salad and a meat-potato-onion pie, which is gratefully received and extremely tasty. somehow we manage to spend enough time talking that at...
01:10:... yan jumps up and says «we need to leave right now to watch the bridges rise!» at which point we play the «can we cram five people, one of whom is over six feet tall, into one car?» game, to which the answer is yes, we win (props to the guy who stopped for us for being brave enough to help us in our quest). we arrive at the tip of the island we're on to see that, to our dismay, palace bridge has already risen, but over the course of the next hour we are treated to watching three other bridges rise (including the one we were standing on, though we did move before it went up).
02:10: we begin the trek back to yan's to nap before the metro opens. I get in about 90 minutes of shuteye before it's time to head out, and after a ten-minute walk to the metro...
05:20:... i arrive and find out that it doesn't open until 05:32. bugger. run laps around the metro station to keep warm and glare at the guy who keeps asking me what time it is.
05:32: apparently the folks who open the metro aren't as timely with the unlocking of the doors as the folks who drive the long-distance trains and make them arrive exactly to the second. grrrr.
05:35: okay, come on now...
05:40: seriously? the first train leaves in three minutes...
05:49: okay, well, the first train left in nine minutes. resist the urge to nap lest i miss my stop.
06:10: arrive at my hostel, wake up the extremely grumpy receptionist, and tiptoe to my room to pass out. i snicker when the doorbell rings again at 06:15 and she curses at the guys who sheepishly enter.
06:15: head hits pillow. oh, glorious sleep.
06 july (sunday): piter, and the leaving thereof
07:30: why is the babushka next to me snoring loudly enough to wake me? arrrrrgh!
09:10: no, seriously, why?
10:00: fine, i'll get out of bed. it wasn't the most lengthy sleep, but it was surprisingly good for the not-softness of the bed.
10:46: gather things and leave, having not showered (the towel was much too small and i didn't really feel like it after all). oh look, it's raining outside!
10:50: duck into the «coffee house» across the street, at which the waitress remembers me from the day before. i order the french breakfast, and she is exceedingly nice. i leave her a large tip, at which she is confused, but i don't care.
11:20: set off for the metro to my old apartment.
11:30: arrive at my old metro stop and mourn the city-wide loss of people selling everything you could ever need in an underground kiosk. flowers, candy, cds, souvenirs, kittens, snacks... i guess it was all part of the great city clean-up for the 300th-birthday celebrations. sigh.
11:33: exit the metro and try to drag my jaw off the ground. my favorite shaverma stand is GONE, and there's a monstrosity of a shopping center all around the station. this is typical of metro stations further from the center, but it's to me a complete atrocity. happily, the 24-hour dvd/cd store and flower shop are still there, and the infamous computer center across the street are untouched. Purchase chocolates and flowers for tanya and hurry my way to building 6, apartment 41.
11:59: note with pleasure that the guy who runs the sketchiest cafe in town, right next to the canal in front of building 2, is still doing healthy business.
11:59:40: while walking up the street to building 6, everything comes flooding back to me and i am nearly completely overcome with every emotion i ever felt when living here so long ago. i have to swallow a pretty big lump in my throat, because i am about to go have a happy reunion over meat and vodka, and this is no place for tears. but it hits me hard how much this place changed me and what it meant to me then, and how it's changed and what it means to me now.
12:05: ring the doorbell and laugh long and hard when tanya opens it. she's shrunk another foot and her hair is platinum blonde and she has not changed one single whit. LOVE.
12:20: after having met her friend igor, who arrived saturday from her hometown, i gather the bag with the vodka and we take off for the gulf of finland (which is ten minutes away on foot) to roast and drink. except it's raining, which makes things a little difficult, but we press on.
13:10: it's raining a little bit less, so that means vodka shot #1. begin the massive consumption of garlic-cheese bread, eggs, and tomatoes.
14:10: the rain has stopped, so that means vodka shot #3. the meat is almost ready...
14:30: the meat (pork in spices) is done, so that means vodka shot #4...
15:45: tanya's current student, stephen, who is not a student per se but rather a former british army guy who's been to moscow several times but never to piter, arrives from his trip to the market, so that means vodka shot #6. i start to wonder how exactly i'm going to make it to the train station on time later...
17:00: i realize that i don't care about anything other than the three people i'm with, the food on our table, and our great conversation. it hits me that this is what i missed about russia - just sitting around talking and being with people and how so much effort goes into showing guests a good time, even if you hardly know them (olya and yan were also incredibly kind to us, which really warmed my heart). this could be the vodka talking, so i say eff it and reach for the bottle to make a toast. this means vodka shot #8...
17:02: ...after which we're out of vodka, and stephen decides to run to the store to get more. igor goes back home to get hot water for tea and coffee, which is miraculously tasty.
18:30: i think we're on shot #12? i have no idea, but i suddenly realize that the buildings i'm facing weren't there five years ago. this area is pretty far out, but it's no stranger to development, which leads into a discussion on how much piter has changed in five years - and twenty years, since that's how long it had been since igor visited.
19:45: the second bottle of vodka, and fourth cup of coffee, finish themselves. i am so full i am about to burst.
20:30: we pack up and head back the apartment. i have one hour before i'm to meet holly and emanuel at the train station, which is at least 30 minutes away by metro. (i bet you can see where this is going!)
20:45: «tanya, if we have tea, it has to be super-super fast, since i have to leave in ten minutes...» «oh, we'll be fine!» this is the beginning of the end for me.
21:05: we exchange kisses and the men walk me to the metro station (this is a charming tradition i refuse to refuse). exuberant, i don't really note what time it is until...
21:18:... my train pulls out of the station and i think, «hmm, i'm going to be late». my train to PZK leaves at 22:02, and we nearly missed it the last time we took it, so i don't really want to be late, but...
21:34: i get a text from holly saying «we're late, meet you on the train!». whew! i'm not the only one not on time...
21:48: exit the metro next to the train station and forget that i still have to run up a tiny mountain to get to the train platform. curse and start jogging.
21:54: holy crap, my head hurts. i have to, have to, HAVE TO stop and get some water. grab some M&Ms for breakfast, throw 100 rubles at the cashier, and dash off to the platform...
21:58: ...where holly and emanuel have also just arrived and are taking pictures with olya and yan before boarding. my mother would die if she knew how close i'd cut it, yet again.
22:00: board train and exhale.
22:02: we pull out of piter and i am sad to watch it go, but not sad to get some sleep. make bed, drink water, pass out...
07 july (monday)
05:50: wake up, eat chocolate, make bed, drink water, and plan my next escape to piter.
06:50: arrive in PZK, get home, shower, make my bed, and plan my next escape to piter.
10:00-13:30: try really hard not to fall asleep in class; keep myself awake with thoughts of my next escape to piter. (do you see a theme developing here?)
i might try for a return trip 19-20 july, though fundage is low. i kind of don't care, though... i can't really express how great it was to be back and feel like i never left. piter will always have a part of my heart and soul, and two days with her wasn't nearly enough...
...but i digress.
this is probably my second-to-last-note, since i anticipate writing one more before i leave PZK in nine days (wait, what? NINE DAYS?!). honestly, i don't know where my summer has gone, though a look at my wallet tells me it went to train tickets, water, beer, and (hopefully) the salary of one of the best russian teachers i've ever had. not kidding, if i could kidnap veronika and take her home with me, i would. but i digress...
1) last weekend i felt slothful, so i stayed in on friday and watched "lethal weapon" and "police academy 2" po-russki. the hilarity level is high, but doubly so with the latter because there's a scene in which steve guttenberg is posing as a gang member and he rips a guy out of a phone booth, upon which are written several graffitied curse words in russian. this can't be completely intentional, and yet it's somehow really, really funny to see the word хуй (slang for wang) on a phone booth in a movie from the early 1980s.
2) russian syntax is majorly messing with my english! the garbled russglish that holly and i speak notwithstanding, i noticed this for the first time on saturday when on the phone with my mom and she told me a story about riding in a truck with no air conditioning. figuring it was fairly hot for that sort of thing to occur, i asked her, "and it was how many degrees outside?" (normal english would ask "how hot was it?", but in russian the phrase is "how many degrees?") yeesh.
3) kat nute mentioned funny movie titles in chinese on her blog (SEE WIFEY, I AM TOO READING IT) and that got me to thinking about funny translations of titles here. "sex and the city" was "sex in the big city", and while perusing DVD selections the other day i ran across a movie called "zombies in the name of shaun" (oh, just guess what that one was). not as good as chinese examples, but still pretty funny. speaking of movies, you can definitely buy DVDs here that have up to 12 films on one disc for about $4-5, and CDs of up to 200 mp3s for the same price. whether or not they'll play at home is a different story, but i am absolutely willing to find this one out myself.
4) emi had told me a while ago about manhole covers being carelessly tossed back on when workers are done with sewer jobs, and i didn't believe him until i was strolling around last week and nearly tripped into one because the cover was 7/8 of the way off. let's hear it for safety!
5) it's sort of warm here (it may have gotten up to 80 the other day), so i keep seeing women in flip-flops and it makes me insanely jealous because i left mine at home because i figured that no one here would deign to wear them. oh no, they do, and it kills me because i brought sensibly low-heeled non-sandals! what strikes me funny about flip-flops is that an article in the TV guide here tells women not to wear them too often because they change the anatomy of one's feet and stride. to which i say, yeah, and the 6+ inch-heels you people wear every day *doesn't* do that? (i'll take comfort over fashion any day, thank you...)
7) bad joke time: what's a pirate's favorite russian beer? ярпиво! (that's read YARRRRRR-piva)
8) things i am going to miss: black bread, super-tasty local cheese varities, the cereal called 'khrustiye vkrustiye' that are delightful little pillows filled with chocolate or hazelnut, and especially the sound of trolleybus doors slamming open and shut at the bus stop near my apartment (which is across the street from the university, where president medvedev was yesterday, and I SAW (the back of) HIM AS HE WALKED IN and i swooned it was so awesome. word.
9) one thing i will NOT miss is the stupid little yippy dog whose babushka-owner allows to roam outside from 7p-9 or 10p every day who barks at every god-damned thing, living or not, the entire time it's outside. and she does nothing to correct him, probably because she's deaf and can't hear him. i am seriously ready to shoot this thing, only i don't have anything more powerful than a bread knife in my arsenal. goodness gracious.
10) have you ever had the sweet, honey-based beer drink called medovukha? if you're in russia, you need to try it, because it's utterly delightful. and if you ever come to PZK, pass on the karelian balsam (it's basically glorified sambuca - yuck), make sure you go to the mak dak (the local rip-off of mcdonald's, from which i stole a placemat because it's that awesome) and the 70-year-celebration cafe two doors down from the mak dak (cheapest lattes in town plus tasty food and even shaurma on the menu!). if you want me to explain any of these things further, let me know, and i will...
...later. i have GOT to get my butt out of here and to the bank before it closes at 7, and then i've got to pack because i'm going back to st pete tonight, for the weekend. SO EXCITED, part two. until next week, then. poka!
THIS IS THE LAST NOTE I WILL WRITE FROM RUSSIA. that freaks me out pretty hardcore, since i don't exactly know where the last eight weeks went. on an unrelated note, as soon as i'm done writing this i'm going to go sit by the lake in a cafe and have a beer or two and read conrad's "under western eyes", because i started it last night and it's pretty amazing.
but i digress. here we go!
1) so wait, when exactly am i leaving? i leave PZK on sunday night (tomorrow), and i arrive in moscow monday morning. i leave moscow monday night, and i arrive in london monday night. i leave london tuesday morning, and i arrive in DC tuesday afternoon. when i leave DC is still up in the air, but i should be back in cville by sunday afternoon (that's august 3). plan yourselves accordingly. :)
2) hey, hang on, didn't i go back to st petersburg? yes, i did - last weekend, because i knew if i didn't go i'd really regret it, even though i emphatically didn't quite have the funds to do so. but i am SO GLAD that i went back, even if i spent a good deal of time drinking myself into one of the worst hangovers i've had in a long time. it went something like this:
saturday (july 19), 7am: get off train, go to my usual cafe on nevsky prospekt, get some coffee, make friends with the folks from seattle who were sitting at the table next to me, take coffee with me, start walking; 8:40 am: exit the metro at vladimirskaya (which is next to a giant church) and look up at said church which is illuminated by a brilliant sun and a crystal-clear blue sky and suddenly hate st petersburg for being so beautiful and hard to leave, while simultaneously loving it because they can modernize all they want but they will never, ever tear this church down, which means i can come back in ten years and have nearly the exact same experience; 8:45 am: realize through investigation of the neighboring teremok that none of the bliny stands open until 10am and curse gratuitously; 11:30 am: after having wandered around the same city block for nearly 45 minutes (don't ask) finally find the park pobedy metro station and pay to use a toilet whose door won't open, which leads to the attendant yelling at me "what are you, stupid?" and me yelling back (in russian) "yes, i am an idiot" (and then in english) "don't yell at me, you fat fuck" (which was completely not justified, but felt SO GOOD); 12:15 pm: back at the bliny stand, finally, with chocolate bliny in hand, on the phone with tanya (my old host mom), who tells me to arrive in an hour so we can go grill on the beach; 13:30 pm: arrive at tanya's toting one of the four bottles of vodka we'd go through over the next ten hours...
sunday (july 20): 11:30 am: wake up, eat, have a beer, decide that this is not a good course of action, and go back to sleep; 15:30 pm: wake up, drink water, and get myself out of tanya's place, setting off first for the dorms around the corner for a shot of nostalgia - the store near it that once sold my friend 80 beers for a party is gone now, alas - and then back to the center to wander around; 17:10 pm: exit the metro at sennaya ploshchad and find a 24-hour shaverma stand [for some perverse reason i only trust shaverma that comes from 24-hour places], which does not disappoint me with its quality of rotating-column meat; 17:55 pm: sit down on a bench in front of the russian musuem and am hit by a wall of hangover. recall that somehow cognac and beer made their way into the vodka equation the night before. vow never to drink any of the above ever again; 19:00 pm: leave my comfortable bench to start wandering along the moika canal, which will lead me back to sennaya ploshchad where i can have one last bliny dinner before heading to the train station; 19:10 pm: it starts to rain. damn; 19:20: it starts to POUR. this is not okay - i have an umbrella, but there is wind, so it's not doing me much good; 19:50 pm: i'm stubborn and still walking along the moika and pretty wet from the knees down (so my jeans weigh 5 extra pounds) when a jerkface mercedes comes from out of nowhere and drives through a puddle in the road after which i am literally hit by a wall of water and soaked to the bone; 20:05 pm: i decide to take shelter in a metro station in which a trio (two violins and a guitar) is playing to a large crowd that the cops can't break up because people keep calling the cops "uncultured" for wanting to get rid of such lovely music; 20:30: decide that i am dry enough to attempt a venture back to sennaya ploshchad for said bliny; 21:10: finish my delightful bliny dinner and realize, hey, maybe i should get going to the train station...; 21:59: arrive at my train and get yelled at by the conductor for arriving so close to our departure time, which was 22:02 pm. oops; 23:00 pm: lie down in my wet jeans and think about how wonderful it will be to put my wet socks back on in less than eight hours; 23:10 pm: decide that i don't care, because in spite of the rain it was one of the best weekends i've ever had - even better than the first visit at the beginning of the month. dear lord, i love piter...
3) i've decided that i am marrying the guy who hosts the russian version of 'cash cab' - cleverly named 'taxi' - because he is smart and funny and has these eyes that smile at you for hours on end in a given minute. and he has a funny moscow accent, which i didn't realize until i paid very close attention to how he says the word "khorosho' ('good) - his sounds more like 'kherehshaaa'. doesn't matter, since he's awesome.
4) okay, so why did the folks who dubbed the x-files movie into russian decide that somerset is in the state of virginia? on screen it clearly said "somerset, west virginia", but what we heard was "somerset, state of virginia". holly and i were aghast! the two are not the same! but then, later on, randomly, the dubbers said it correctly. this i do not understand. (the movie was awesome, by the way - when that whistle played at the beginning i totally had shivers up and down my spine)
5) okay, so this may not be the last note i write since i completely lost track of time and am getting kicked out of where i am for a scheduled break and i have lots more to write about still... so you may hear more from me tomorrow before i leave. or not, but in any event, i'm off for now.
poka!
EDITED TO ADD:
okay, so i found another computer on which to finish this note... aren't we all lucky?
6) after the x-files movie holly and i decided that it would be fun to go down to the lake one last time and drink champagne. this was a fabulous idea until i discovered that one particularly crafty mosquito had somehow bitten me on the bottom of my foot... ?! you can imagine how much fun walking is, not to mention every time i brush my foot against my sheets when in bed. it was worth it though, since the lake really is a great place to just hang out and drink and watch people and philosophize. it reminded me a lot of late nights on the embankment near the canal at my old apartment in piter... but i digress.
7 )i am really going to miss watching euro news in the morning with my breakfast. come to think of it, i'm going to miss watching any news here, period, since the only thing that comes out of the u.s. is 'here's the latest way in which the american economy is tanking' or 'look at this stupid american who drove his truck into a restaurant / his RV into a drive-through'. not kidding, that's the news from america. awesome.
8) i am also really going to miss stepping out into a crosswalk and having cars (or trolleybuses) on both sides of the street stop for me even if it means having to stand on their brakes. it's absurd how it works every single time, and not a habit i need to take back with me because it will cause me to end up dead.
9) i know i say this frequently, but i will also miss being able to drink in public and on public transportation. aaaand despite my distaste for gin, i will miss being able to drink gin and tonic out of a can (as jill once said to me, "more beverages should be can-ovated!" so true!
10) not really speaking of things i will not miss, that yippy dog has not keeled over and died from my death stares yet, but happily i only have to put up with him for one more night. actually, it was yippy birds who woke me up this morning, and when i went to draw back my curtains there was a pigeon perched on my windowsill looking straight at me and into my soul. THE BIRDS, THEY KNOW SOMEHOW. (this brings me flashbacks of piter, when tanya's birds tried to topple the kitchen chandelier onto my head while i was eating by flying onto it so that it would shake precariously over my cranium. i think it says a lot that they're no longer alive, but her cat is pleasantly plump...)
11) man, saying good-bye is not one of my favorite things to do, but it's especially hard here because everyone has been so good to me. i'll even miss ira, for all of her wacky irresponsibility (eric giannini, if you're reading this, there's hope for you because apparently she's run away to meet men she talks to on the internet, so i think all you have to do is get on the russian facebook and you're good to go). PZK's been a good home, and i'm quite sad to leave. but, i will be also quite happy to return someday.
12) okay, off with me... that beer calls my name. when next you hear from me, i'll be stateside!
cheers... and poka for real this time. :)
okay, so i'm back safely in the states and i can't believe that:
1) everything here is in english - or, more to the point, not in russian;
2) there are people in the world who don't use their turn signals;
3) there are roads in the world that are actually smooth;
4) i at some point knew how to drive a car and was not terrified to do so;
5) there are parts of the world in which humidity is a valid, living, and awful enemy, in which i've summered most of my life thinking that 'that's just how july is';
6) my mom doesn't understand me when i answer her "ladno" or ask her "vsyo?" ("okay" or "is that all?");
7) i'm allowed to a) flush toilet paper instead of wadding it into the trash can b) drink the tap water c) consume ice cubes from said tap;
8) there is not a single stand on the side of the road selling me beer, nor can i buy beer out of a vending machine in an airport;
9) there is such a thing in this world as pure black coffee;
10) i ever flew an airline other than british airways - the only thing they do wrong is fail to take me everywhere i need to go ever (like to the bank, or to class, or to my mailbox), um, for free;
11) i... am not in russia anymore (well, duh).
so, i'm probably just jet-lagged, but being home feels a little weird and squirmy, kind of like talking to me in person for more than two minutes at a time. speaking of which, as my status indicates, my phone is currently sitting at the bottom of a dumpster somewhere in suburban maryland, so attempts to call me will be met with a noise that i imagine is similar to that squishing-walls-trash-compactor scene from "star wars" (which is one of my favorite scenes of the entire series for some unknown visceral reason). i've ordered a replacement, which should arrive by the end of the week, but beware that i will probably end up needing your number when it does arrive. if that's the case, i'll post a separate note and/or send out one of those delightful mass e-mails and become That Person. except you can't be mad at me, because it's not actually my fault this time. (cf. last time, when phone + toilet = i'm a genius.)
in case you're interested, the way home was delightful in all aspects - domodedovo has just been refurbished and is very clean and modern and expensive (i dropped my last 500 rubles on two hoegaardens in a bar near my gate, which were 280 rubles - or about $12 - apiece. I KNOW.), and it took me about 2.5 minutes to clear passport control and customs. i flew to london with my bottle-opener in my carry-on luggage, which i did not mean to do since the thing looks like a medieval torture device to the untrained eye, so i found it rather amusing that the russian security screeners didn't so much as blink when my bag went through the scanner. come to think of it, that might have been why i was the only person in our little security group (we went through in batches of 4-5 people) that the screeners spoke russian to... or maybe i just smelled unshowered-enough that they assumed i was one of them. [i hate to support stereotypes, but having conducted extensive research in three cities i can only conclude that les russes are actually pretty stinky in the warmer months, at least to my spoiled american sense of smell. you know, with all the deodorant and perfume we put on we probably seem pretty stinky to other noses too...]
[speaking of stinky, i was killing time with some duty-free perfume-perusing in heathrow and was extremely entertained at the young boys drenching themselves in cologne testers while their parents browsed - i ran into some of them later and smelled them well before i spotted them. hilarious!]
heathrow was also delightful - and a huge storm moved through london last night as i was going to bed, so i got to fall asleep to the sound of the rain trying to push its way through the fortochka in my hotel room - especially since i accidentally checked in at the business class entrance for british airways and none of them said a word to me (as in, "your check-in entrance is elsewhere, peon"). so again it took me about 2.5 minutes to get through, which made me giggle deliriously when i found the actual BA check-in area and saw that the line snaked out the door. i sat in the last rows of the aircraft for both flights, which i have decided is forevermore the way to go because you get served your food first (at least if they are smart and start from the back), and you can sneak to the bathroom when no one's looking. [when you consume 4 cups of coffee in as many hours after having not consumed 4 cups of coffee in the entire preceding eight weeks, this becomes crucial. trust me.]
well, anyway, i'm back, and in one piece. sorry if this disappoints you, but, you know, it had to happen at some point, i suppose. i'll be posting photos soon, hopefully, and will keep you updated on the phone situation as it progresses. and stuff.
jet lag sets in... and... i'm out. whew.
so, that was russia this go-round. sorry for whatever time you lost reading those that you won't be able to get back :)