I've settled in pretty well now; life goes as usual. But still I can't possibly describe everything--so here are some vignettes from along the way... I wish I had the time and energy to have written more, but such is life--never enough time.

Feb 11
Jessica and I walked to the apartment tonight after dinner to finish our papers. We left the Proflactorium, walked across campus--trekking, as always, through a footpath in the perpetual snow--crossed the street, walked past the prison, and turned into the apartment parking lots. We were talking when we passed a little old lady walking her dog, and she abruptly turned around and said, "vi anngliski?"--obviously very excited. We smiled and said "da, da," and she proceeded to speak with us for at least 10 minutes in that parking lot. It was interesting because she knew about as much english as we know russian; i'm not sure how much actual information was exchanged, but it was kind of great. She's a retired engineer, and I'm pretty sure she said she used to teach radio physcics at the university. (All the women here are brilliant. They don't really understand when I tell them I study literature--the closest thing they have is philology, but I'm pretty sure saying I study philology is giving me too much credit.) I understood so little of what she was saying, but I could catch words here and there and she was so excited it didn't matter much. Eventually Jessica and I figured out that she was trying to get us to come back to her apartment--she wanted to be our "podruga"--friend--so that she could practice her english and we our russian. As lovely as she seemed, not only did we figure we should probably not go over to her apartment, we also had papers to write. But as we walked away, we were smiling and could only say, "Oh, Russia." It's such an intimidating place in so many ways, but then you meet someone who is so genuinely excited and so demonstrative, and in some ways even child-like--it's refreshing.


Feb 14
Maclinitsya... Best holiday ever. It's the Russian pre-lent holiday, involving much dancing, eating mountains of bilini--their version of pancakes, which they take with jam, sweetened condensed milk, or sour cream, which is actually amazing.
Thursday: The Russian students from the International Office surprised us by coming in wearing traditional russian clothes, playing the accordian and singing, and of course, they served us bilini.
Friday: We left for a weekend trip to Vladimir and Suzdal, smaller historic Russian cities. (We went there to see churches-- and they were great-- but the best part was probably the unplanned, amazing Maclinitsya festivities.) We stop along the way to go to the bathroom... it is frigid outside, our driver pulls off the road near a funky looking restaurant, and points to a quaint little outhouse. We are in the middle of the Russian countryside, so naturally there are piles of logs everywhere, general rag and bone paraphernalia, and my favorite, a true witch's broom: a atick with smaller sticks tied to the end of it. The cute little outhouse turned out to be a literal hole in the ground surrounded by walls. Not at all surprising, but it was one my my first encounters with hardcore non-western Russia.
Saturday: We drive out to Suzdal, a half hour drive from our hotel. A bit about the Russian landscape--stark; whitest snow against darkest forests. Most of the trees are pock-marked birches, looking like someone's been taking bites out of the bark. And on this particular day, the sky is brightest blue and the sun is shining.
We visited beautiful churches and monasteries in tiny Suzdal, but the best part was the festival we found ourselves in... shashlik stands, bilinis for cheap, massive snow-penguins, a goose-fight, ridiculous russian garb, limbo and jump rope contests (prizes: bottles of vodka), drunken russian babushkas dancing... and when we got back to the hotel, the lobby was full of more maclinitsya celebrators--the hotel was giving away free bilini and vodka.
Sunday: We went to yet another festival to see the scarecrow burned. This scarecrow symbolizes winter, and is always burned the sunday before lent. More dancing, eating borsch deliciousness, drinking chai.
We leave Vladimir extremely satisfied. And with very cold toes.




It's been a while since then, but the feel still stands. Russian dorm life is, all in all, like american--ridiculous, fun, muscial, tea-filled, unpredictable and unproductive, etc etc. I started to learn the accordion!

On a side note, a truck just drove by the window. Its cargo: a huge mound of snow. Spring is on its way! (some of) the snow is turning to slush, and the ice-hackers have sufficiently hacked away at the ice so that (some of) the sidewalks are visible. I got hot the other day and almost felt like taking off my coat. Then I saw the temp: -1 celsius.

Wish I could write more, like always.
But time bears me away to sleep.