One Month

So, I've been here for a month, now. I can't believe it. I feel like I should be fluent in the language by now, but maybe that was just wishful thinking. ;) I know I've learned a lot since I came here . . . grammar . . . grammar . . . some words . . . grammar. But it's all good. My listening skills have improved, certainly-- and every day is a humbling experience.

We played a secret friend game with the Russians in our dorm . . . wrote our names on paper, drew names and had to sneakily leave them presents over the next five days. I got an awesome display on the outside of my door, a pen made of wood, and some pretty excellent-smelling incense. It was fun, and we had our "reveal party" last night, where we all brought our gifts to show, and found out who our "Secret Friend" was. These parties always include music, food and tea . . .Who's complaining?

In honor of my one-month anniverary in Russia (and Joseph, this is for you especially (pictures to follow)) I have decided to end my intercultural social experiment of not shaving my legs since I've been here. The hair's coming off. Over the course of this social experiment, I've observed that this practice is more acceptable and popular among the older generation; although I have seen my share of furry-legged 20-somethings, too. But all good things must come to an end, and I can't stand seeing my legs anymore. What did I learn from this? Not much. I'm just left with general speculations. Such as "Now I know why tights are popular here," and "No, I don't think that leaving the hair on your legs provides any extra insulation."

Service projects start soon . . . I can't wait and I'll keep you up to date!! For now, a 4-pager and then the weekend in Vladimir and Souzdal!

Баня

The banya: an experience, to be sure. So, imagine a big changing room full of wooden chests, and naked old ladies, talking to each other in fast Russian while squatting and sitting on the wooden seats, brushing out wet hair, cooling down and yelling at me (again) to drink my water so that they can have my bottle. I drank it. Now imagine that this room has a door on one side that opens into a big, steamy, slippery, wet, humid mess of showers, pipes, red people, buckets of water with birch branches soaking, water running, and heat permeating from the watery tile floors to the high ceilings. Take the stairway at the far end of this room, walking carefully as not to slip. As you climb the stairs you get the feeling that you know how the gingerbread man, or Shadrach, Mishach and Abednego felt (okay, not quite). It smells like wood sap, and the heat gets more intense the closer you get to the wooden door on the landing. You open the door and inside is a small room, maybe 15' by 15', there's a landing taking up half the space, (kind of like a deck) with three broad steps leading up, it's semi dark, people are sitting on the steps, others (the brave ones), are over by the oven (super huge and hot: a fire with hot rocks in it- water is thrown over the rocks so that the heat in the room is not completely a dry heat), some are beating themselves, or being beaten by other people with the wet branches. We walk in, find a place on the bench, sit down, hunch over and try to breathe. This was the hardest part. The intense heat around you makes you feel like you are getting a high-speed sunburn. After about a minute, maybe from your body trying to keep up with cooling you down, or maybe because it was so hard to breath that you end up rationing your breaths-- Whatever the case, after about a minute your heart rate speeds up and you feel like you might faint. There were claims among the group that two of them made it eleven minutes. I don't want to say that it's not true, but I'm skeptical; I don't think I made it past three. After you leave the oven you go back into the anteroom and pour cold water over yourself, we didn't do snow, cause there isn't any, but maybe sometime. Some dude came in with his ladder and changed a lightbulb. From there you can take a break, or go back in a many times as you want. Some people stay for a few hours. I was exhausted after three times. I guess you get acclimated-ish to it if you've done it all your life, but it just made me feel like a frail American :) Although it wasn't my favorite, I'll probably still go back at least one more time (we have “banya night” once every two weeks), and I think, if you have the chance, you should try it, too!

В Нижнем Новгороде

Wow. Where to start? We took the overnight train from Saint Petersburg to Nizhni Novgorod, a smooth 16 hours. Our train was very nice, and we slept well. We crossed parts of Russia where all you saw after 100 miles was a small village of huts, out in the middle of nowhere. Apparently these people will commute to the next largest town in their vicinity and work at factories and the like. I can't imagine.

Nizhni Novgorod is very different from St. Pete, much dirtier, smaller and less magnificent than St. Petersburg. Although Nizhni does have it's own set of wow factors: It is situated on the banks of the Volga and Oka rivers, so there's a good view over the banks to the rivers and the other half of the city below. Nizhni was named Gorky during the soviet times, and incidently was the hometown of Russian writer Maxim Gorky.

We are all getting used to Russian dormitory life, with the seatless toilets (I still don't understand?!) that can't flush toilet paper (oops) the meals in the столовая, the babushkas that yell at you (waaaaah) when you try to use the wrong doors, and the incessantly difficult-to-lock doors. But life here is good. We started classes today, Russian in the morning and cultural insight (I don't know what else to call it) classes in the afternoons. Our teacher gives us a lot of material, but that's why it's called an "intensive Russian" course, I guess. Although we have class for three hours in the morning, we get a Чай (tea) break, and it goes by fast. Fun fact: Russian students have only one test at the end of the year, unlike how we do it in the states with tests throughout the year.

The Russian students who are part of the "International Club" threw us a party when we got here on Friday. Russians expect entertainment at their parties, and the students had a bunch of songs and dances ready to show us. We gave them a skit. Ate a bunch of food, and then, my friends, we disco-ed :)

Well, hopefully I will have internet on the campus soon, and I can write more, but right now I have to share the computer with everybody else. So, for now, пока!