Dracula

I only have 4 days left in Moscow… can you believe this?! I absolutely cannot. How does time work? Where does it go, and why so fast? Anyone know?
This last week has been really hectic- we’ve had school exams basically everyday and then today we had to come in to school to fill out teacher evaluations and take 2 hours of testing to determine if we’ve progressed in Russia. It. Sucked. But I definitely did better on the tests than I did in August so at least I have that.
I took my conversation class exam on Thursday which I was really fearing, because I hate that teacher and we had to talk to her for 10 minutes about a topic we pick at the beginning of class. I got lucky with the topic “Travel”- there were lots of verbs I knew relating to that and you can just go on and on with examples, “When you travel you need to avoid certain things. Like, in Mexico avoid the water. In India avoid the tigers. In Russia avoid dark streets, drunk people, men, dogs, the police, bad vodka, cars… well, just avoid everything.” I think I gave examples of things to avoid in Moscow for about 4 minutes. Then she asked where I wanted to travel in the world. I immediately responded “Romania.” She was surprised and said she thought I would say Japan or China or something like that, and asked why I chose Romania, because it’s a poor country and there’s nothing to do there. So I started “Well, um, you know, I heard it’s pretty there, and there’s mountains and… rivers and…. Ok, the truth is I want to see Dracula’s castle and do the Dracula tour.”
I don’t know if any of you know this because it’s one of those things I’m borderline ashamed of, but I LOVE DRACULA. I love Dracula and all vampires. I have been obsessed with vampires since I was 8 years old and read a book of Russian folklore. I have seen tons of vampire/Dracula movies, and I’ve read Dracula several times, as well as “The Historian”. I know the Wikipedia article about Vlad the Impaler and the Blood Countess Elizaveta like the back of my hand. I have seen “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” by Coppola at least 5 times. I’ve taken the New Orleans vampire tour, I’ve been to vampire bars in New Orleans, and when I was a kid I thought vampires lived in my guest room and this was the least of my worries. I draw the line at that Twilight crap and even Anne Rice, though I have also seen “Interview with a Vampire” at least 5 times (mostly because of Brad Pitt and if you don’t mind me saying so he makes a fiiiiiiiiine vampire). I’m more of a traditionalist vampire connosieur, I’m not looking to fall in love with a vampire and live a crazy passionate nocturnal life, I just LOVE VAMPIRES.

Anyways… so I touched on this subject and she thought it was the funniest thing she had ever heard. She was like “What?!?! Dracula?!? Is he real??” I schooled her on vampire lore and we talked for like 20 minutes. At the end of it she said, “We’ve been talking for 20 minutes! I actually had a good time!” and she was completely surprised by this…. I mean, I was too. She then said she thought I had improved a lot and that she could see that when I speak I try to always be grammatically correct and that she really appreciated that.
Today after testing I got lunch with Julia and Erika and we had a super intense conversation about life and discovering ourselves, then I went to Red Square (I can’t get enough of that place) and bought 5 pounds worth of honey cake, then popped into GUM to get my holiday happiness fix, then walked along tverskaya and bought some soviet propaganda post cards. Then I went to Yelsilev Grocery, the most beautiful grocery store in the world (more beautiful than gastronom odin in GUM). It’s baroque style with big, beautiful chandeliers, marble floors, ornate gold details; it’s breathtaking. And I bought my first/last/only bottle of vodka. I read in my guidebook that “Yuri soandso” vodka is good to buy, that it’s smooth and has a cool bottle. I’m glad I had a suggestion, because I would have had NO idea what to buy besides that. I probably in the end would’ve picked the prettiest bottle, or one with the words “FROM SIBERIA” on it. Siberia is just one of those words, like Yukon, that gives you this crazy image of a vast, lonely, beautiful, snowy place. I would probably buy anything with SIBERIA on it. The vodka wasn’t too expensive, around 30 bucks for a liter. You can get vodka here for 5 dollars but you just might be dead the next day, so I’ll take my chances.
Anyways, tomorrow I’m going to Izmaylova again to get myself a Cheburashka matryoshka and some other odds and ends, then going to MGU with Marina! I’m excited to see the inside. Monday is my last day of school! Very soon I will be saying “da svedanya” to Russia and “privet!” to America.
And my computer is making a terrible, terrible noise ☹