bloom and grow forever

last days of class

2007-05-12T08:55:00.000-07:00

The end of another awesome semester. As Irina always says, big love to all my students! Good luck, and I'll see you in September!

Real Estate

2007-04-16T10:58:00.000-07:00

I'm sad about leaving my apartment. It has three rooms, which is big for here. One is for the owner's dusty, pre-revolutionary junk, but the other two are clean and large and bright. We don't have the standard, oppressively large wooden shelf/cabinet/display case combo that dominates most homes. The windows are big, and the cream-colored wallpaper is new. My ceiling has nifty glow-in-the-dark stars, and a door leads out to a spacious balcony. The kitchen has nice cabinets and a working stove and fridge. The floor is swept clean and the counters are uncluttered. The dishes mostly match and the curtains have jolly elephants on them. The bathroom has been recently remodeled, and the water pressure is excellent.

I'm a ten-minute walk from a bus stop on the main circle line in Vladimir, so transportation is reliable. But that walk can be very long and dark. And (if you imagine a clock face), if the city center and the American Home are at 12, I live at 6. It takes me 30 minutes to get to work.

I'm going to live alone next year, and see how it goes. We'll see if I can cook and clean and entertain myself and my guests. I had a chance to rent an acquaintance's (continuing a theme: her name is Tanya) one-room place over on Verkhnaya Dubrova street, but it's not on the main but route and has no furniture. As exciting as redecorating might sound, it's not something I can embark upon with my current salary. Local real estate listings are known to be somewhat less than honest, and they don't list prices.

And so I'm going to live in Joanna's current one-roomer. I know it well, from much tea-drinking, tv-watching, game-playing, and post-banya snoozing. I'm not thrilled about the pathetic shower or the 1000-year-old stove. And I know I sound privileged when I say I don't want to have to light a fire in some mysterious box when I want hot water, but there it is. I don't want to have to light fires.

It's the third stop from the center on the circle line, and from the stop to my door it's about 2 minutes. On a speedy marshrutka, I can get to work in about 12 minutes, or walk in 25. And being lead teacher, and being so conveniently located, I intend to have the coolest apartment around. We'll see how the landlord and neighbors feel about that.

politics outside Joanna's apartment

2007-04-16T10:54:00.000-07:00

Busy Work

2007-04-16T10:42:00.000-07:00

I need to give my student Nastya a little more classwork. Somehow during a lesson she managed to procure this yellow balloon and draw a not-half-bad portrait of me.

Easter

2007-04-16T10:25:00.000-07:00

I spent Easter in Bogolyubovo with Lena and Sasha, and ate amazing cabbage pies and drank wine while waiting for the procession around the monastery at 1 am. The place was packed, and we didn't even make it inside the church for the service that followed. But we were able to cry out, joyfully and exhaustedly, and at least ten times before the little tank-babushki trampled us, "Voistine Voskrese!"

Here's their adorable little wooden house, and Sasha in front of the monastery.

Sunset in Bogolyubovo

2007-04-04T10:39:00.000-07:00

I spent an awesome Sunday in Bogolyubovo with my ZI student Tanya. I met her 5-year-old daughter (who peed on me when I was tickling her) and had dinner with her friend Lena. Lena's fabulous and funny, and her little wooden house is full of art by her French artist husband. Her daughter Sasha is an instant-kindred-spirit kind of person with dreams of hitchhiking to Austria.

I've also been to our favorite cafe, Coffee Bean, with my AII students Tanya and Lena to talk about ex-husbands, boyfriends, and cheating.

And life without Irina (who's happily settled in China) is going well. My new roommates Tanya and Lena are fun, even though I only see them after 11 pm and before 9 am.

Tanya and Lena, Tanya and Lena, Tanya and Lena. So it goes.

not the first time it's happened

2007-02-13T10:35:00.000-08:00

I went to the post office today to mail some cards to America. I joined a depressing line of people and assumed I'd be there for hours. But no! One after another, people started leaving. As I made my hastened way to the counter, I overheard the reason: the post office was out of stamps. Yes, the post office. Oh, but they had other things for sale! Laundry detergent, for example. Bedsheets.

But I was prepared. I'd bought a ton of stamps early in the year and had been carrying them around with me for just such an occasion. When I got up to the counter, they started to turn me away, but as soon as I explained that I'd brought my own stamps, the clerks smiled and congratulated me on my cleverness. I thought briefly of standing outside and stamp-scalping at exorbitant rates, but decided my one small victory was enough.

fun within a hundred meter radius

2007-02-07T10:02:00.000-08:00

Way back in the time of Mongol invasions, Vladimirians built big hills for defense. Along with the Golden Gates, Assumption Cathedral and St. Demetrius Cathedral, these hills have survived the centuries. But they're way more fun than the churches, and we've got one right on our street. We went sledding the other day - not on tubes, toboggans, or the neon, molded-plastic sleds of childhood - no, we discovered that on a hill of such dramatic, Mongol-defeating (well, not really) incline, all we'd need is a plastic grocery bag. Flying down a hill, shrieking and tumbling in the snow is just the way to get psyched for another round of three AII classes.

Across from this magnificent hill is the drama theater, where I recently saw Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard for a mere 60 rubles. Comprehension was up above 50%, so that was awesome.

And venturing slightly further afield (three bus stops), off a tip from one of my ZI students, I went to a club called Yo last Saturday to hear an Irish band fiddle and dance and sing about whiskey.

Kremlin in Winter

2007-01-30T00:30:00.000-08:00

Sunday was one of those mornings. I woke up late, found a hole in my long underwear, saw we were out of juice, and waited forever at the bus stop. But when I finally got on the bus, I received a lucky ticket (the sum of the first 3 numbers equals the sum of the last 3 numbers) and knew my luck was about to change. I made it to Ploschad' Pobedy and onto the bus to Moscow with a minute to spare. I conked out for the duration of the 3-hour trip and awoke just as the Kremlin was coming into view. It's absolutely majestic in winter.

With my lucky ticket in hand, I joined the line for Lenin's Mausoleum, which was forming on the outskirts of Red Square. After about 15 minutes, I was allowed to pass into the square towards security (metal detectors, bag checks.) From Red Square, you walk through a very austere, guarded doorway. You turn left, pass another silent guard, and head down a flight of very dark stairs. Just as it's gotten almost pitch black, you turn right and there is Vladimir Ilyich himself (or whatever small percentage of his actual biological matter remains in his embalmed corpse.) The crowd files past on three sides; the room glows red; Lenin himself is under glass and well-lit. Although his torso seems to have collapsed somewhat, his waxy hands and face have been well maintained. I was glad to have seen him, and to have paid my recently-acquired respects.

The real business of the afternoon was a ballet - Esmeralda - at the Kremlin theater (another round of security and serious queueing.) The place is absolutely massive. Although I think the story is better suited to enormous, dusty tomes of French literature than to ballet, I enjoyed it thoroughly, especially the creepy priest, the unnamed man in navy blue, and the scene design with innumerable flying buttresses. After the ballet, Kremlin guards shooed us homeward, and we were all content with our day in the big city.

winter wonderland

2007-01-24T10:25:00.000-08:00

Winter finally arrived this week, with fresh snow and frosty air. Now our life in Russia feels a little more legit. In honor of this, my former students Yuri and Sasha took me skiing in Park Druzhby (Friendship) on Monday morning. Now, I can hold my own in downhill skiing, but cross-country is another matter. It was my third time ever, the first being an experimental trek around the Williams soccer fields three years ago, and the second being last winter with Dan at Turtle Pond in Vermont (where I spent most of the time tangled in branches, my limbs splayed at odd angles.) I can say this: I am a consistent skiier. Every time I pick up any speed at all, I fall over. I doubt this is just because I'm uncoordinated. It's a mental thing. These skis seem so thin and insubstantial - especially with my heels unattached and sliding off left and right - that rather than risk slamming helplessly into a tree, I bail out. Nevertheless, my interest is piqued, and I will try again. Plus, the park is postcard-lovely, and I haven't exactly been doing anything but sitting around inside lately. In the course of our loop we were passed by many serious skiiers, and we ourselves passed several ambling babushkas and a few moms with strollers. Sasha's a really good skiier and helped me get the hang of it; Yuri made me feel a little better by stumbling magnificently in the final stretch. Thick snow started falling just about the time when we reckonned we could make it to Moscow if we kept on for a few days, but instead we returned to our thermos of hot, sugary tea. I examined my new bruises and decided they were quite worth it.

merry christmas!

2007-01-20T11:08:00.000-08:00

day 30 (we made it)

2007-01-20T10:32:00.000-08:00

The last week of fall semster was pretty hectic, what with grading exams, writing re-takes, and trying to get out of here by midnight on the 23rd of December. (Yeah, I'm a little behind.) The last class at the A.H. is always a something of a party, with food and drinks, sharing photos, giving gifts, and even indulging the students by speaking Russian for a little bit. In honor of the most amazing students ever, I wanted to post pictures of my classes. Thanks, guys, it's been awesome. Also, check out the presents they got me. Notice the bow and arrow set. THE BOW AND ARROW SET.

i have a disease with a definite article

2006-12-14T10:38:00.000-08:00

I haven't had the energy to write lately; I got a nasty cold-sinus-thing which has left me groggy, grumpy, and desperate for someone or something else to teach my classes. It's the last day before the final written exam and also the day of the oral exam. All my beginners did wonderfully, but the hooligan intermediates are another story. While they kept me entertained with skits about Russian customs (mainly of the drinking variety: when they pulled out a vodka bottle I tasted it to make sure it was water), they didn't manage to squeeze in much of the required grammar, and their behavior in general was abominable. I was standing in front of the class holding the exam reading questions straight off the paper, and still they could not be bothered to stop hitting each other long enough to write down the formula for the word 'until' (when situation A happens, situation B ends.) And yes, I do feel bad for the one or two good students. Ah, well. I wonder if they'll pull it together over the weekend.

It was also course evaluation day. I snuck a peak. It's mostly good. Whew.

And two notable excursions away from the A.H. (thank goodness):

We visited an orphanage here in Vladimir and played with the kids. I spent an hour and a half swamped with adorable toddlers all calling me "Mommy." That part was really hard, but playing was great fun. We played Airplane (I pick you up and ask 'куда?'; you point and say 'туда!'); Visiting (walking from playground house to playground house); and Так (jumping up and down, laughing at each other.) We also policed them (lots of pushing, fighting for our attention) and and comforted them when they got trampled by the bigger, bossier kids. I got really dirty. I loved it.

On Sunday, I went to the early service (!) at a Wesleyan church near Lenin Square. It was also quite awesome: emotionally calming and a great listening exercise; a small place with good music and really friendly people. I knew most of the songs and understood a large majority of the sermon. Чудесно!

woolly mammoth in the crosswalk

2006-11-22T11:27:00.000-08:00

For a while, I was afraid that my life was becoming nothing but routine - that I was being lulled into a existence too ordinary - when, really, a year abroad should be anything but dull. Wake up late, run to the bus, teach, eat, read the news, use too much bandwidth, idly plan a lesson, photocopy, scan song lyrics for grammar points, photocopy, idly pick up a grammar reference book, photocopy, teach, teach again, clean up, go to Joanna's, get a bus or taxi home, drink tea, go to bed, wake up late, run to the bus...

For a while we had the TV serial "Tikhii Don" (Quiet Flows the Don) to look forward to every night. For two weeks, an hour a day, we had a glimpse of southern Russia circa WWI. The novel traces the life of a Cossack family and their fate in the civil wars; this recent film adaptation was a loosely-strung together collection of love affairs and deaths, interspersed with wide-angle EPIC cinematography. We couldn' t tell who was married to whom, who was fighting whom, and who had died. The only character we could ever positively identify was Rupert Everett in the main role. (He should really stick to the gay Englishman, and not attempt the brooding warrior.) Every other Russian man had the same pink face and blond mustache; all the women were wrapped up in shawls and always in the process of having children or dying. It was truly awful, but we couldn't look away. Yet even the Don has ceased its quiet flowing, thus leaving a void in our evenings.

But somehow plenty of odd things manage to happen in tiny Vladimir. People have been shooting off fireworks in the middle of the night in front of my apartment. An artist has been painting at our humble bus stop on Bolshaya Moskovskaya. And today, a woolly mammoth was sighted crossing the street.

Bogolyubovo

2006-11-13T08:13:00.000-08:00

Bogolyubovo is a small town of brightly-colored wooden homes and a blue-domed monastery just outside Vladimir. It's famous for its small, delicate, perfectly-proportioned church (the black-domed one, above.) Getting to this 900-year-old wonder feels like a pilgrimmage, as you walk across a barren field, dealing with the prevailing environmental conditions of the season. For us, that was two feet of snow. In spring, the field floods and the church sits on an island. It reminded me a lot of Mont St. Michel; however, on this particular morning, there were no hordes of tourists, only the church caretakers and one lone ice fisherman.

ne prislonyat'sya (don't bring your elephant)

2006-11-13T00:37:00.000-08:00

It was a necessary vacation; as any one of the teachers could tell you, I was beginning to go crazy. Eric, Aaron, and I spent a day in Moscow (shwarma; the Peter the Great / Columbus monstrosity; New Tretyakov Gallery - note to self: Eric Bulatov is astonishingly good; Novodevichi Cemetery, where anyone who's anyone is buried) before taking the night train to Petersburg. We arrived at 6 a.m. and, knowing sunrise was still hours away, set off to see our city in the faint northern glow.

We stayed in a great hostel on Liteinii Prospect, conveniently located above the shwarma place I'd frequented when I was studying abroad (secret ingredient: french fries.) We met a contingent of British students and an Aussie at the hostel, and enjoyed toasting to "people who speak a proper language" and voicing the universal difficulties of living with a khozyaika / babushka. In our three days there, I managed to: visit the Kuntzkamera museum of "curiosities" (deformed fetuses in jars); see the worst play ever (no exaggeration) based on the best novel ever (Master and Margarita); tour the impressive Yusupovskii Palace; climb aboard the Cruiser Aurora, where the first shot of the Revolution was fired (89 years ago to the day); see the city's regal beauty only enhanced by bitter winds and swirling, evening snows; crawl up onto my top bunk and under my blankets, and sleep deeply and soundly as the train carried me gently back across the snowy land and back to Vladimir.

civic pride

2006-10-19T10:36:00.000-07:00

First, sunny, idyllic Yaroslavl. We spent an excellent 21 hours there, each of which you can read about on Joanna's blog. It looked awfully like home, and there were bumper cars.

Second, a feast of epic proportions. Nestled there between Nicole's and my potato soup, rice, and cabbage salad - if you squint - you can catch a glimpse of our meat and cheese ration.

And last: graffiti that warms you heart and soul. Photographed the week of a) finding a place to play pool; b) finding a cozy karaoke bar; c) meeting Vlad the Vin Diesel-like bouncer of Cafe Pesnya (our new best friend); d) worrying that all my students will fail the midterm since it's the first assignment they'll ever have to do without cheating.

the concept of need with passive infinitives and gerunds

2006-10-06T11:10:00.000-07:00

I realize that I haven't written much about teaching, probably because I finish, exhausted, at nine at night. But since I'm starting to feel like there's nothing I can't handle (if I can use both Russian and English), I've been able to think more clearly about what I'm doing in the classroom and to slow down and enjoy my students' company. They really are extremely cool, and I've been finishing class very satisfied. Time management is working well, and all but a very few students passed my most recent quiz. Grading is getting more efficient, probably because it is my least favorite activity. (Aside from, perhaps, using the painfully-squeaky guillotine-style paper cutter.) Yesterday was Teachers' Day, so I got this awesome bouquet and some chocolate. What a great holiday.

Recently I've given three presentations to various local audiences about college in America, and the nostalgia has hit me hard. I was thinking about our trip to New Orleans (and all our experiences at the post-apocalyptic commune for social justice) when we met a guy named Vassili who'd come to Vladimir to perform his fire show in Pushkin Park. I felt like I was back there with all y'all again, except this time I was the one beating out a rhythm on the water jug.

Wednesday: without you, we'd hate this job

2006-10-04T02:05:00.000-07:00

I can't beat Tomio and Leah for quaintly-mangled-English t-shirts, but in terms of inappropriate English, I went to the market this morning and found a real winner embroidered on a sweater:

Three cardinal markers of the pathogenesis of a migraine.

Also, Amanada and Bob, thanks for the most delicious cheeseburgers ever made in Russia.

Sergeitsevo

2006-10-01T11:05:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, Irina and I took the train to her village, Sergeitsevo. It's a place with two streets and maybe a hundred homes. It was meant to be a weekend of relaxation, but sometimes a weekend in a place as foreign to me as this ends up being more stressful. Her family was very friendly and Vera Fyodorovna cooked me some amazing cyrniki with fresh smetana (from the cow next door.) The eggs and potatoes were delicious and the weather was perfect.
But still I did not really understand the pace or priorities of this place. Life there seemed both poor and abundant. We had TV, and an outhouse. In the garage, there was a motorcycle, and also sacks and sacks of potatoes and onions, jars of pickles, and bottles of homemade berry wine. Once the neighbors heard there was an American around, they came over to bring cabbage pies and to grill me about Arabs and Palestinians. One older man said he hoped that my Russian would soon become "Pavlovian," such that I could respond instantly to any question, without having to pause and think of the words I needed. He came back later to have me read the labels on various American medicines he'd been given, but they turned out to be just dietary supplements. He persisted: "Which sickness? Which sickness?" and I could only say, "Not for sickness. Nothing is written here about sickness. Just take it, but not for sickness."
The train back home to Vladimir was packed. Everyone was coming back to the city, looking a little grubby, with arms full of fresh vegetables, ready to face the week ahead.

My Birthday and Everything After

2006-09-18T10:32:00.000-07:00

Thursday was my birthday, and it was weird. The staff had a sweet party for me, and they gave me flowers and a scarf and an early-afternoon toast to my health and happiness. That was the best part of the day. Then I had two really bad classes. I'm not sure why. Maybe I wasn't fully prepared - though I thought I had some fun activities - but my teenagers were totally out of control and obnoxious. We didn't even make it to the day's grammar point, so I left class angry with them. I was too exhausted to do a good job with my beginners in the evening, not to mention the fact that I was introducing articles - something that is already completely illogical and bizarre to the non-native English speaker, and extremely difficult to explain in Russian. (That's actually something I should work on - I think I speak too much Russian with them. It's just hard to stop once I get going. And yet I am proud of myself for being able to do it...) Anyway, I was sort of miserable by the time I got home. But Irina gave me a copy of Master and Margarita, in Russian, since we'd had a good little debate over its greatness versus Anna Karenina's. And I got a great package from home, so all in all, I guess it could have been worse. Well, actually, it did get worse. I woke up in the middle of the night in a sweat after reliving my terrible classes in my dreams, and I realized I'd (in real life) assigned homework that was totally irrelevant and un-doable.

I decided that I would do my birthday over again on Friday. After classes, the teachers took me out to our favorite restaurant, Shesh Besh, for an amazing meal: red wine, harcho soup, shashlik, khachapuri, and tea. And we snuck in the brownies they'd made, which resembled shrapnel more than desserts. And yet they were fantastic.

Saturday was our long-delayed trip to the dacha. We ate a ton, played football in waste-high grass, learned the game of Kartoshka (Potato), and slept deeply.

Which is what I'm going to do right now.

We Played Monopoly in Spanish and Met the Mustachioed Lady

2006-09-12T02:28:00.000-07:00

Ok. I'm in trouble for not posting. As if you teachers don't know every intimate detail of my life already. Well, since Mushroom Extravaganza 2k6, I've had a fun weekend in Nizhni Novgorod, or Gorkii as it's often still called, staying with Joanna's friend Joanna (yeah), who has the sweet job of being an R.A.-and-crisis-management-person for a study abroad program. Embarrassingly, we went to McDonald's twice in 36 hours there. But it was so, so good. The city was gorgeous; the Kremlin overlooks the confluence (strelka?) of the Volga and Oka rivers (kak Oka? shiroko! nasha reka!) and it's a beautiful place to walk around. It brought back memories of Gorkii's miserable childhood, or at least the reading of it, although I didn't make it to his house. On the rainy Sunday we stopped into the so-trendy-it-hurts cafe Bezukhov for a solid cup of coffee. Nizhni: Ten Points!

This past week I've been coming home to the U.S. Open (I'm lucky to get the Eurosport channel.) It's been somehow wonderfully conforting to get home - often before Irina does - make a cup of tea with lemon and sugar, maybe heat up some cabbage soup, and lie there on the couch just watching tennis. I passively absorb the Russian commentary, my heart starts to pound during the tiebreakers just as it once did back when I was a sportsmenka, and for once I feel no culture shock at all.

Fungus, and Seeing Ourselves with Glory in Every Passing Car

2006-08-27T05:29:00.000-07:00

This morning, for the first time, I took part in the great Russian pastime: mushroom hunting. Alyosha took Irina, Joanna, and me about 20 kilometers out of town and we traipsed around the woods for an hour or two. Mushooms themselves are plentiful, but the good ones are not. I had a very low-yield day, but now I know to beware the red and orange ones; shun the white and brown ones; ignore the old, scruffy ones; and seek the yellow and gray ones. Here's a picture of the champion of the day.

In other exciting news, I now know that I'll be teaching the very first semester (ZI) of the English language and also the fourth semester (AII), which is known to be grammar intensive. I am really happy about this placement. It definitely plays to my strengths, which, I suppose, are: speaking Russian, gesturing wildly and speaking slowly to get my point across, nearly-inexhaustible energy, and a dorky infatuation with grammar.

Also, I got my first gig. The world may soon hear my lovely voice-over narration of a short film about the Avtopribor auto parts manufacturer.

In the Parlance of Our Times

2006-08-25T02:28:00.000-07:00

So, this is where I live. Actually, this is the view from my balcony to the building next door - but they're all the same, so it doesn't really matter. Our apartment is cozy; I haven't met any of my neighbors yet, but the babushkas sit out in the courtyard in the evening while kids bike and play soccer and run around the playground. All in all, it seems like a nice place, but I would rate walking home at night through the overgrown bushes as moderately scary.

And this is the AH. So, yes, it hard not to refer to school as home. The first floor is just like an normal American house, with offices occupying the bedrooms. In the basement are four classrooms and a larger main room. Upstairs we have a big classroom and the teachers' office, where I can be found about ten hours a day.

Needless to say, this is the only building of its kind here, and gets many a second glance from passersby.

Hope you enjoyed the tour!

Tapochki and other comforts

2006-08-22T01:55:00.000-07:00

Life has settled into a nice routine here; teaching workshops continue and practice slowly accrues. I arrive at 10 and leave between 8 and 9. Our office is air-conditioned and our collective music taste is solid. We crowd into the kitchen to make our own lunches (pelmeni or pasta or sandwiches or just Chudo) and have tea several times every afternoon. It will be strange to break this routine once students actually arrive.

It's nice to stare out the window while the leaves are still green. Boy, I'm going to miss that. But also in my view is the log-house restaurant next door, which I'd been meaning to try. Except we came in today and found its roof destroyed, a fire having ripped through in the middle of the night. I don't know why and I don't even know if there are fire trucks here. Yesterday there seemed to be a lot of smoke and ashes floating by, but we figured they were just grilling up some mighty fine shashlik.

Grammar and other joys

2006-08-21T02:23:00.000-07:00

Good times were had in Moscow yesterday; I met up with Veronika and we went to the Tretyakov Gallery. Being in Russia, we thought it only right to try to cheat the system and get in with the much cheaper tickets for Russian citizens. We almost pulled it off until one of the grouchy old ladies asked Aaron point-blank what he had come to see. I guess his answer wasn't in good-enough Russian, because she sent us back downstairs to get new tickets. We still refused to pay the price for foreigners and finally made it in with student tickets. It was a great afternoon with all the old Repin, Vereschagin, and Surikov friends, and a new favorite, Roerich. As the train pulled away from the platform on the way home, it looked as if Eric and Nicole had missed it. But an instant later the train stopped for just a moment, and then resumed. A minute later, our friends came through the door. Yes, they'd stopped the train by pounding on the window.

In other news, I do want to talk about teaching. I taught a practice grammar lesson this morning: the difference between the simple past and the present perfect. It was aimed at level ZII, or second-semester beginner. I was slightly nervous, but I really got into the whole language-grading-speaking-really-slowly-in-small-words thing. I like getting into the role - as if pretending to be a good teacher will actually make me one. I was reliant on facial expressions and gestures, and it was fun to really put so much into every utterance to make it meaningful. Of course, I went way over my time limit, and proabably could have left the whiteboard a little cleaner, but overall, I am stoked. This is going to be fun.

Beginnings, and Cucumber Millionaires

2006-08-13T04:28:00.000-07:00

I flew into Moscow really early and slept relatively comfortably in the terminal for six hours until everyone arrived. And by that I mean Galya and Alexei (the school directors) and a few of the other teachers. It was a long, slow drive to Vladimir during which we half-slept and half-got acquainted. I was dropped at my new apartment and I met Irina, my host. She pretty much rocks. We hung out around the apartment and I got settled in.

Friday, we all met at school (the American Home, hereafter AH) to have a look around and meet the staff. Then we went out for lunch and had a tour of the city. Vladimir was the second capital of Russia, after Kiev and before Russia, and was founded somwhere around 900 years ago. Its most famous symbol is the Golden Gate into the city, which is actually white. The AH is just a block away from it. Two churches here are very famous - one, Assumption Cathedral, stayed open during the Soviet period and is home to Alexander Nevsky's thumb and frescoes by Rublev and Chyorny.

In the evening, I met Irina and friends for a seven-hour (oh how I wanted to go home and sleep) dinner in all its glory. Yeah, I'm definitely back in Russia.

Saturday, we took a short trip to Suzdal, a town that exemplifies that idyllic Russian countryside. It was City Day, so after buying pickles on the street (here they're kind of halfway between cucumbers and pickles) we strolled around through the booths and the sketchy carnival rides and the food and the stages. Good, clean fun.

Aaron, Nicole and I hung out at Joanna's apartment for a while; I furthered my knowledge of the city bus system and made it home pretty easily.

Irina and I stayed up late over tea talking about life, the universe, and everything, including The da Vinci Code and Australia. I need to keep in mind that I'm making as much - right out of college, just teaching my native language - as a surgeon does here.

And the AH cat is sitting on my keyboard, so I'm done.

London

2006-08-13T04:19:00.000-07:00

London was crazy. I saw Westminster Abbey and Parliament (extended versions) and the Tower of London (oops, already closed) and St.Paul's (just a drive-by) on my mad dash through the city on my 10-hour layover. It was fun and I'll be back. And for the second time in my life I left London immediately before a terrorist incident shut everything down. I am bad luck; maybe I shouldn't come back.

I totally can't get over Westminster Abbey. Did they always plan to just cram as much stuff in there as possible? It's so overwhelming, such an odd mix of earthly and spiritual fame.

Iceland

2006-08-13T02:51:00.000-07:00

A quick summary of my four days in Iceland: I arrived in Reykjavik early Saturday morning, checked out the youth hostel, and started exploring downtown. It's very walkable, modest and pretty, easy to navigate, and was oddly empty. I later found out that it was a three-day weekend holiday and most Icelanders were at their summer houses, so I shouldn't have been surprised to hear all English, French, and German and see only backpackers. (I fit in well.) I made it to the top of Hallgrimskirja Cathedral (possibly the most stunning of all the quadrillions of churches I've vistited) to get a panoramic view of the city on the harbor. I stopped and listened to an organ concert as I dried off (overall, a very wet and chilly few days, but spirits remained undampened.) By noon I had caffeinated myself and found a public bus to take me about two hours northeast to a town called Reykholt. It's pretty important Icelandically, being the home of medieval historian Snorri Sturlusson. But I soon set off walking toward the town of Skalholt. I was going uphill on a horse trail in the pouring rain and getting a lot of thinking done. By all accounts it should have been miserable, but I was pretty glad to be out there alone in the green fields and random volcanic outcroppings. After innumerable kilometers a car stopped. It was an American, here working for the Naval Reserve (the NATO base here is closing.) We chatted for a while about rootlessness and I got a free ride up to Skalholt. Once there in the cluster of few buildings and a notable church (this was once the cultural center of Iceland), I popped into the church to dry off (again.) Amazingly, I walked right into a Baroque music concert - terribly beautiful and it helped the chill. More amazingly, by the second or third song I realized that I recognized a thick head of hair about five rows in front of me. It was hard to wait until the end of the concert, but I tried to sit still and take in the long northern light shining through the stained glass. When it was over, we all stood up and I walked up to Magnus Bernhardsson, my professor of Middle Eastern history! His sister was performing and nearly half the audience must have been his friends and family. He was obviously stunned but luckily he remembered me from two years ago. I was invited next door for coffee and delicious mini-pancakes while I met everyone and explained over and over again the more-than-odd coincidence. Next up at the church center was a children's concert, during which Magnus's and his friends' kids led us in songs and dances. Icelandic children are all gorgeous, by the way. After that, we all (ten adults, ten kids or so) went back to Magnus's father's house (he was until recently the director of the center) and had dinner, during which I had my first Icelandic hot dog (deservedly famous) and just enjoyed the company enormously. I didn't catch everyone's name, nor how they were all related, but it was a most pleasant evening. I got a ride home to Reykjavik with one of the families during which I finally fell asleep and happily rolled into my hostel bunkbed.

Day two: In true tourist fashion, I took the Golden Circle tour of Kerid crater, Geysir, Gullfoss (a massive waterfall), and Thingvellir (site at the juncture of the North Atlantic plate and European plate where parliament began in 930.) It was striking. exhilarating, beautiful. In the evening I soaked myself in the geothermal swimming pool next to the hostel (there are quite a few in the city.) I had salmon at a nice restaurant, but regretted it when I saw the bill.

Day three: I went north and west to the Snaefellsnes peninsula where the rock formations are improbable (trolls urned to stone), the beaches are black-pebbled, and the glacier, fog-shrouded, looms over everything. It was windy on the coast and truly unspoiled. Well, the only thing that spoiled anything was that I was on the bus with, actually, the dumbest but friendliest tourist alive. After explaining to her not only what was a meter was, but also a kilometer, and NATO, and how to read a map... well, then I had to listen to hours of her stories about being attacked by the arctic tern (a highly-territorial bird 'round these parts.) So I didn't throw myself off the glacier as I wanted to, but rather threw myself with renewed vigor into hiking quickly and away from her. In the evening I bought two hot dogs for dinner (the only afforadable option) and strolled around until the light began to fade (late; 11-ish?)

On my last day, I had a wonderful morning at the National Gallery, which was just about the size museum I can handle. I've got to look up the artists; I really loved just about everything I saw. In the afternoon I moved my stuff over to another hostel nearer the airport and got on a bus to the Blue Lagoon, the famous geothermal spa. The second bizarre coincidence of this post: there were two other guys on the bus, Mike and Kevin, who had just graduated from BC. And Kevin is going to be working at Bain with Colin, and thinks he may have met him. Good stuff. Well, the Blue Lagoon was as good as promised: bright light-blue water amidst volcanic rock, silica mud for making masks, warm water and massaging waterfalls, a sauna, and boiling-hot water spouting out of the earth with steam billowing up, visible for miles. The three of us stayed from about five to nine in the evening, and even then it was hard to leave.

I met lot of awesome people throughout, and next time I'm in Iceland, I'm going to try to make it all the way around the island. I'm also going to come with friends and with more money, so I can try out the nightlife. And I'm going to try to meet up again with Magnus, because that was awesome.

What is American?

2006-08-01T14:07:00.000-07:00

To be a good cultural ambassador, I purchased the following magazines:
Rolling Stone (featuring Johnny Depp)
National Geographic (featuring Hurricane Katrina)
In Style (featuring some movie star)
And I downloaded "Lose Yourself."

Mischief Managed

2006-07-22T21:07:00.000-07:00

This blog is not about The Sound of Music, though it already seems that way. It's just to let you know what I'm up to. And I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.