Wednesday, February 21, 2007
A quick post
A couple of quick things because I should update but dont have much time.
Friday: Went to a concert and, afterwards saw the most beautiful thing I have seen here so far-fog on the river Volga. I was going to write a long entry just about this but unfortunately I am pressed for time and will just say now how wonderful it was. There was fog everywhere and me and some friends walked along the banks of the Volga and if you looked closely in clear areas you could see whisps of fog being pulled like cotton from off the surface of the water. And it took only a few steps for one to dissapear completely into the mist and only see a few feet ahead or behind you.
Saturday- Went into the woods with people from the Russian YMCA where we played games and celebrated Масленица with traditions that involved making a giant person sized doll, then tying to her a strand of fabric we recieved (into which we thought all of the bad things that happened in the previous year) and then burning her and then jumping over the fire. My friend took pictures so they will be forthcoming
Sunday: walked around the город. Actually, EVERYONE waled around the город. As this was the official day of Масленица everyone goes otu to гулать (walk around- but with a connotation of having no direction in mind, "stroll" is perhaps the more accurate definition)
Sunday: I also washed my clothes. By hand. A long entry is forthcoming about this b ecause I want to detail it properly.
On Monday I came down with something and have been sick but am feeling better. I didnt go to classes on Tuesday and thus was able to sample many various home remedies from my babooshka. These included:
-Garlic. Garlic all the time. Everywhere. With every meal she gave me two slices to put in my soup and two other slices to sniff.
Yes.
To sniff. Or rather, inhale as deeply as possible.
Apparently it helps stop infection and as I have no complaint against garlic I obliged. I think it works to some degree but I'm weary that some time in my future photos will show up somewhere of me with garlic up my nose and will cost me an important election.
-Honey. This is key. Honey with chai, on bread. And its quite good.
-Чай (tea): I thought Russians had a lot of chai to drink when they were healthy..but apparently the amount grows exponentially when one is болень (sick)
I'm not that sick anymore (and it was only a sore throat, a headache, and a nose which ran enough to rival Gogol's) so no one need worry. The only thing one has to be careful of here is the cold whether. Tomorrow it will likely be -30 degrees Celsius and in Arhangelsk it could be minus 40 or more.
We leave for Arhangelsk on Sunday and I am very excited.
Ok, I must go now, sorry for the staccatic rythym of this post I have about 1000 things to do today.
I think some new pictures should be uploaded soon.
До встреча,
-Гриша
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Update
-There is a week long celebration going on currently in Ярославль called Маслоница so every night there are festivities like music concerts, film marathons, etc. Anyways I just found out that Saturday and Sunday morning a bunch of hot air balloons are going up in the air (obviously…) above the Волга River. I’m crossing my fingers that anyone can ride in them if they pay money, but either way I will go to see them.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Каждый раз когда я начинаюсь чувствовать себя плохо эдесь, что-то случилось что-бы я чуствовал себя лучше...
This was to be posted Saturday.
Despite the fact I had made plans to go to a museum today with a girl from the Roman History course I woke up feeling completely unmotivated and having very little energy to go знакомится (get to know, make friends with) people. So I sat in bed for awhile debating what to do and finally convinced myself that even if I didn’t think I would have that good of a time I may meet someone (she was inviting other people) who I end up becoming good friends with.
And that’s exactly what happened. The two guys joining us were named Alex and Olyeg, two of the nicest people I’ve met here (that’s actually tough to say, I’ve met a lot of wonderful people here already). Anyways, we all went to the museum, had a great time, and it turns out that both Alex and Olyeg are going to be in America this summer in order to improve their English. In order to receive their Visa they are required to give short, concise, well worded, descriptions in English of what they hope to achieve in the US, what they will be doing there, their philosophy of life, etc. to the consulate, I believe. Its insane compared with what I had to do to get my Visa, in fact, I didn’t even have to write or speak a word of Russian, everything was done through professors’ recommendations and forms filled out in my native language.
Anyways I promised to help them with their English (they are already quite good) and if all goes well I should be able to meet up with them some time this summer. After seeing the museum we all went to МакМастер (MacMaster – a rip off of McDonald’s) where we talked about various things and, after discussing differences in holidays between our countries, Аля (the girl from the Roman history class) decided she wanted to celebrate Valentine’s day as they don’t have it in Russia. Therefore all of us are going to get together this Wednesday and celebrate an Amercian Holiday in Russian. I am incredibly psyched.
Afterwards I went to the Имка (Russian YMCA equivalent) again. I’m so glad I decided to do this. I love the people there, I love the kids, and its incredibly fun. I could say a whole lot more about it and I probably should but I really want to wrap this up.
After that I went to an Organ Concert which was incredible and, after looking out on the
Its difficult to write about everything that happens because I am not a fan of constant cataloguing of events, but its occurred to me that I still have yet to describe the city in any detail as well as various other things I’m sure people are interested in. Therefore, if there is anything you would like to hear more (or less) about, or just have any questions in general be sure to comment and I will be happy to try and answer them.
I hope everyone is doing incredible and enjoying whatever occupies them currently,
До встреча
-Гриша
Edit: Sunday I visited a monastery in an incredibly beautiful part of Yaroslavl and I recently posted new pictures of our trip there.
The first is the room where I am currently living
The next few until Lenin's statue are from the region of Yaroslavl where I live
and eveyrthing else is from the region where the monastery was.
Today’s Objective: The Mainstream Course
Friday I began the difficult task of trying to find a mainstream university course to take, that is, one with real Russian students. Its difficult for a number of reasons:
1). Расписение or the schedules….are, in the first place difficult to find and usually not posted until the day before classes start.
2.) The schedules….even after you find the schedule you still need to attempt to read it- this is almost impossible. Each schedule is arranged in various columns by time of day listed in roman numerals (you have to find out what time corresponds to what roman numeral in another part of the building and they are different for each schedule), class group and level, and most are filled in by hand in pencil. They are subject to change at a moment’s notice and there are no copies of the schedule, just one giant one on a bulletin board that each student needs to make a copy of in their own notebooks. Luckily a very kind девушка assisted us in reading the schedule for the history department.
3). The schedules….lets say you’ve managed to find the schedule, understand it to some degree, and are all ready and gung-ho to go to the class. Well, there’s a decent chance the class will have changed times without you knowing, or just have been canceled. They warn us about this before hand though it has yet to happen to me. However, as I will be trying out classes all next week I am eagerly expecting it at least once.
Its not really that bad but the first time you stand in front of a bulletin board for 20 minutes trying to figure out how to read the schedule it’s a bit disconcerting.
Anyways, Friday I tried out my first class. I had no idea what it was since the name wasn’t posted on the schedule. It turned out to be roman history and the professor was really nice and after class she asked me how I liked the city and I told her I loved being here though I was just starting to understand what “cold weather” really meant.
I really like the class and the people in it are very nice (I got the phone numbers of a few of them) the only thing is I’ve already taken Roman History and as nice as it would be to already know what is going on in the class I feel like that would kind of be cheating, not to mention it would be interesting to attempt to learn something new in Russian. Well, I have all of next week to see- I’ll be trying out at least one different class each day.
Счастливы!
-Гриша
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Week 1!
I was with my group (4 people total) and, after a morning of touring the city, we stop by a local diner for lunch where, not to my surprise at all, I could barely understand the menu. But I stand there for a while, looking at it and finally I see something I recognize "фасол с мясом" (fasole s myasom) and i think "well, I have no idea wat the first word is but I'm pretty sure the second word means meat". Not only is meat good but I know what it is so I go ahead and order that, the entire time wondering pleasantly what "fasole" (the first word) might be. So I wait. And I wait. And finally the waitress arrives.
With the most gigantic mound of red kidney beans I have ever seen in my life.
And I think "ok, well, I like beans, at least there will be meat"
"с мясом" I hear her ask, and I nod my head at least 4 times and say "Да!" (yes)
And so she takes out a giant vat of butter and begins to pour it over the aforementioned mound of beans.
And then I realize that not only have I forgotten the correct way to decline the word 'meat" in the instrumental case but, of more immediate importance, there will be no meat served with this meal.
For those of you that don't speak russian the word с маслом means "with butter" and is somewhat close to my incorrect idea of what "with meat" was.
And so my first lunch in Yaroslavl consisted of water, butter, and about a pound of kidney beans.
Interestingly enough, I wrote a poetic parody about it that strikes me, and probably only me, as humorous. For those of you unfamiliar with the Russian poet Blok, you should be. He's great. Anyways, he has this one poem which is one of my favorites and which I shall post here. Included afterwards is a direct word for word translation just so people hwo don't speak russian will have an idea of what it is about - granted it completerly lacks the beauty, flow and rythym of the original:
Ночь, улица, фонарь аптека,
Бессмысленный и тусклый свет
Живи еще хоть четверть века
Все будет так. Исхода нет.
Умреш- начнеш опять сначала,
И повторится все, как встар;
Ночь ледяная, рябь канала,
Аптека, улица, фонарь.
-А Блок
Night, street, streetlamp, store
Meaningless and dim light
Living still after a fourth of a century
All will be so. No escape.
And repeat everything, as before.
Night, icy ripples of the canal,
Store, street, streetlamp.
Нож, кухня, фасоль, тарелка.
Красная гора - это обедь.
Смотрел на ней хоть три минута-
Я уж купил. Исхода нет.
Судба- единственный король.
Нож, мой голод- души, живота,
Тарелка, кухня, фасоль
and a word for word translation:
Knife, cafe, beans, plate
A red mountain- this is lunch
[I've] stared at it already three minutes-
Already bought. No escape.
And so - I eat. What can I do?
Fate - the only king.
Knife, my hunger - of soul, of stomach,
Plate, cafe, beans.
I can almost hear Блок turning in his grave.
Ok I dont want to make this too long so I will wrap up listing a few things I have done this week.
-Had classes
-Walked around the city for hours on end
-Asked for (and recieved) help finding various places
-Went to a music and time museum, got a tour of which I understood about 50 percent
-Saw a play at the theater in town.
-Saw an Ingmar Bergman film in russian at a local film club (scenes from something it was called), understood almost all of it, and made two russian friends there with whom I have hung out with.
-Volunteered at the russian equivalent of a YMCA, spoke english to young russians, was promptly told by said young russians that Russia was better than the USA, and, above all, spent about 5 hours at the YMCA with other volunteers about my age and made friends (russians would say "aquaintances) with about 6 or 7 real russians, all of whom are very friendly, very funny, and just wonderful people in general.
-Had my first birthday in Russia which was amazing. Recieved chocolate, and ice cream from my class, chocolate and a special dinner from my babooshka, various birthday greetings from aforementioned russians and ate 3 dinners.
Really things have been great so far but I should wrap up this post. Today I tried to find a course to take at the Russian university and it was an ужасный experience because the schedules are so hard to read. I will talk about this later.
До скорого,
Гриша
This was meant to be posted some time ago
Hello all. Though this will probably won’t be posted online for a few days I am currently writing from my new home in
After my last post I stayed at the hotel two more days while we finished up orientation. Probably the best story that came out of those two days occurred one night when, trying and failing miserably to sleep, I turned on the TV and was incredibly happy and surprised to find a Russian cartoon on. In fact I think I actually said outloud “Oh Да!” All Russian cartoons tend to lean towards the incredible (in all senses of the word) and this one actually explained the story behind why cats and dogs don’t like eachother. Apparently one day there was this dog who had ruined his hat and went to get it fixed by the seamstresses..who were, of course, cats. They fixed it for him, BUT while waiting for him to return a very rich goat arrived at their shop one day. A very rich goat who, incidentally, had also just ruined his hat and had been laughed at by a female goat all in the same day. I’d just like to pause here and point out the seven plus layers of tension underlying this cartoon already. Anyways the goat can’t find a hat he likes so, in a last ditch effort the main cat gives him the dog’s hat because he knows he will make more money off of the rich goat than the dog who was a sheperd. There was also another odd show on that basically enacted out Russian jokes and, at the punch line of each, became host to an array of raining smiley faces with big lips that laughed at the aforementioned Russian анекдоты. Said floating mouths helped to make it clear when the punchline was but did absolutely nothing to assist with the humor of any of the jokes.
The last day in
But probably my favorite thing so far has been our 4 hour train ride from
Then we arrived in
We were shown around the city of
That’s another thing, I’m not sure how much I’m going to write in this. I want to of course but at the same time I don’t want to detract from my Russian and I know from summer school how much one can improve without speaking or writing any English. The other thing of course is I’d like to write to some degree just so I’m not completely rusty when I get back. Regardless I’ll try to find a balance. Alright, I am off to talk with моя бабушка.
Also, we saw the
And tomorrow we are going to a monastery and seeing a play.
And I start classes on Monday.
До скорово
-Гриша