07.09.2006

Hello all,

I must apologize again for the scattered post earlier. As soon as I left the internet cafe, I thought of 10 things I wanted to say. Now I am far more organized. And I want to start by saying that you are all excellent at responding! That made me very happy. Thank you, it is wonderful to receive news from home/Tufts/the US--anything that is in English, actually.

Okay, now for my favorite funny story. I'm sorry that I don't have funnier things to say; I think of tons of hysterical things throughout my days, but then I forget them or realize that they aren't as funny when I try to write about them. But this is good. So everyday, I take Bus #33 to school. These buses (as you can imagine) are pretty old and STICK SHIFT and traffic is insane. Well, yesterday, on my way to school, the bus stalled or something. I don't know anything about cars or driving stick shift (unless it is a stick shift tractor, of course), but at any rate, it wouldn't go. So the bus driver got out of his little locked cage and told all the men to get off and help him. At first I didn't understand what was going on, but then I heard them all say, "Adin, dva, tri, chiteri!" and saw them PUSH the BUS. It started moving and then eventually picked up again and they all jumped back on and we were on our way! It. Was. Awesome. I was trying so hard not to laugh.

Well, now on to duller things. As I said, I live alone with Emilia Filipovna, but her brother has been visiting for the last three days. He lives in Minsk, but works on a ship and just returned from 5 months in India, Sri Lanka, and Dubai. His name is Alexey Filipovich and very nice. He speaks a little bit of English and sometimes tries to translate for me, but the only stuff he can translate is the stuff that I can understand in Russian, so really, it is of no help and only confuses me. We had a little exchange yesterday that reminded me of "Who Is On First?" With him around, our apartment has become party central. My first introduction to Russian toasts! I think he is leaving soon, but I really have no clue. I had what we call a Da/Duh moment the other day. As you may know, Russians have 3 names: the middle is the patronymic, which is their fathers name plus either a masculine or feminine ending. All siblings have the same patronymic (adjusted for gender). Well, I forgot Alexey's and though his sister calls him Aloysha, it would be polite for me to call him by his first name and patronymic. I forgot and thought for 20 minutes or so, "Gee, what is it? How can I figure it out? I only know his sisters..." Then it dawned on me. Emilia is quite nice and helps me a lot, but also gives me a lot of alone time, which is nice. Unlike what we did hosting Arnold from Chile, this program allows much more freedom. I think because we are older and such. We don't really do things with our hosts. But I very much like Emilia. She is a pensioner (and was shocked when I told her my parents still worked!) and has two grown kids. I'm not sure if she is divorced or if her husband passed on. Around the house she wears black stretch capris and a leopard print shirt. That is normal for Russia, but in the US that would be one sassy granny!

The food she makes me isn't bad, but it is SO much. Every day at school during lunch, that is what all the students talk about: how much our hostesses give us. If we don't finish, we get a lecture on the Seige of Leningrad and how many people died without bread and so we MUST "esh, esh!" I take about an hour to eat dinner because if I physically couldn't consume that large amount of food any faster. There are always at least 3 courses (whereas in the US, we'd have soup for dinner, and that would be the whole meal, unless we were out), plus tea afterwards.

St. Petersburg is quite interesting to walk around. I get lost a lot, but the program directors have made us quite paranoid about getting mugged, so I just keep walking and try to look like I know where I'm going. I just hope that eventually I hit something that I know. The other day a girl stopped me on the street and asked me for directions, so I figured that maybe I was doing a good job at "blending." And today on the bus I take to school, someone had my EXACT same purse. I must now look Euro-trash.

Riding the metro is insane. It is amazingly crowded--even more so than New York. I don't know how people who don't read Cyrillic do it. I can barely handle it. The other day we were looking at what we THOUGHT was a metro map, but it was actually just list of locations for a particular store. We had to look so silly--pointing at it, saying "I think this is near where I live..."

Speaking of looking stupid, I have totally accepted the fact that I look like an idiot, and am now reveling in it. Especially when I open my mouth. I try to imagine how I must sound. I just link words together. "Me...here...dish" and make some gestures. On top of that, I don't conjugate verbs half the time, add the wrong endings, and somehow manage to imply that my uncle is feminine (sorry, Bill Moore). Plus, I feel like a six-year-old. You know when you are talking with a little kid, who is still learning to speak properly and use correct grammar? Say you are at dinner and they are talking and say, "I go'ed to the movies with my friend," and without even thinking you correct them and say "You went"? Well, it is like that with me! My Russian mother and her brother are constantly saying "ckazaLA" or something like that.

Walking around and going in stores is so interesting! It is amazing, too, how long it takes me (and other American students) to do anything normal, like buy something in a store or go someplace. Everything is so new that we look forever, then we have to really focus on buying or figuring out where we want to go...it is so frustrating! The other day we went in a stationary store to get school supplies, and we found Communist notebooks! This one had a picture of Lenin on the cover and it said, "Lenin lived, Lenin lives, Lenin will live!" I wanted to buy it, but I felt like that might be weird, and then what would I do with it? I'm not going to bust it out in class. And most things are kept in cases and if you want something, you tell the salesperson in that section (different sections, even in a small store) and she picks it out of the back and you pay at that station, and then move on to a different section. They are literal too: if you are looking at a pack of batteries that includes two batteries and say that you need one, they will tear open the package and give you just one. That's all you asked for, right? Every other store seems to be a flower shop, and for those of you who know how much I harass Phil to buy me flowers every time we go to the Harvard T station, you can imagine my joy when I saw all these flower shops. I have learned how to command "Phil, buy me flowers!" in Russian and tell him to do so at every available opportunity. Oh, and for one of my classes I had to buy a newspaper and we discussed them in class. Well, I knew "Izvestia" was a good one, but the kiosk I went to didn't have it. So I bought "Argumenti" instead, because I didn't want to end up with a tabloid. Turns out I bought a Socialist paper! And I carried it around with such pride, hoping people would think that if I was carrying around a Russian paper, that I must be a native.

Speaking of classes, I have 4 main classes and 2 lectures. I take a Media class with Larisa Ivanovna, grammar with Marina Grigoreevna, conversation with Mikhail Arkadyevich, and Phonetics with Elena Grigoreevna. Then I have a Russian literature lecture with Irina Gennadevna and a Russian Civilization lecture with Nina Mikhailevna. The classes are hard (my head hurts after so much Russian!) but I know I will learn a lot. We study from 9:30-3:00 two days a week, and from 9:30-1 three days a week. All classes are an hour and a half, which is hard to sit through (especially all in Russian). Tomorrow we are going to see the Petropavlovsk Fortress (Fortress of Peter and Paul) and on Saturday I am going with some other students to explore the city, before it gets freezing. It is already cool here, and I don't know what I'm going to do when it is REALLY cold. I'm already wearing sweaters!