Pictures- red square in daylight, GUM, Lenin day

Moscow State University, where my tutor Masha studies!

Lenin's masoleum

Hi Lenin! I took this picture really sketchily because I wasn't sure if I'd have to pay or not. But then he waved! And I was so excited. Like, butterflies in my stomach. I love Lenin
State History Museum
Christmas Cosmonaut Dog... of course

Babies and Christmas trees!
christmasy ГУМ
ahhh so beautiful
I walked around eating creme brulee ice cream and wanting to live here forever. Except I'm barely good looking enough to shop here, and definitely 3 plastic surgeries away from working here. Such is life
Outside of guuum
Belltower
need I say more? Except why were so many people here? Anyone know? Is it because alexei the second died?
Lenin, me and.... someoneee.... I had to pay for this privilege, because I'm a week and a half away from home and I figured I haven't been touristy enough during my stay here. In fact I've spent most of my time ashamedly taking pictures and hoping no one realizes I'm from America and subsequently beats me to a pulp and steals my money. Also, I look like a bald reanimated zombie in the picture... WTF. I feel like the photographer should have been like  "zombie girl! let's make this a little less dead corpse and liven it up." Oh well, Vladimir Ilyich steals the picture anyway with his little newspaper. Doesn't he look just like Lenin? I've seen what's left of Lenin... and believe me, this guy looks the part. Maybe this is really a double zombie picture. Ok, enough.

Beer Factory

So the other day my host mom brought her neighbor and friend over unexpectedly. I was sitting in the kitchen, drinking a cup of tea and reading a book. As soon as the friend came in Marina began her introductions, "Emma, this is Olga Dimitrievna, Olya this is Emma." She then begins what she always does when introducing me to Swedish, which is describe some of what she considers to be my finer attributes, and it sort of sounds like she's trying to sell me, or rather, the animal version of me. She says things like "Look how beautiful she is, she's Swedish." "The lines on her mother and father's side are both Swedish." "Look how BIG she is." "Emma, show your hands, look at her hands!" I then expect her to have me get up and walk around the room so the friend may examine my stride, or pat my flank with a little "that'll do, that'll do." This friend, however, was completely not interested in me. She was an older lady, maybe 70, and she had cut her finger and so all her attention was concentrated on the finger. She kind of nodded at me and started out with "Marina, do you have iodine?" Marina still tried to recapture the interest, like any good horse breeder, "she's improved soooo much since she's lived here with me..." "you should have heard her when she first came, god help us." They then began to discuss how Marina redid her kitchen a few years back.

Yesterday was our last excursion, to the beer factory! It ended, of course, with a beer sampling that lasted around 40 minutes. As much beer and kvass as you can possibly drink in that amount of time. Needless to say, we all left at least a little buzzed or, in the case of a few select people, completely trashed. The beer, in my opinion, was marginally good at it's very best so I didn't care to drink too much of it. They did have an interesting little creation, that being children's kvass. Kvass is

"sometimes translated into English as bread drink, is a fermented mildly alcoholic beverage made from black or rye bread. It is popular in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and other Eastern and Central European countries as well as in all ex-Soviet states, like Uzbekistan, where one can see many kvass vendors in the streets. Its origins go back 5,000 years to the beginnings of beer production. The alcohol content is so low (0.05-1.44%) that it is considered acceptable for consumption by children. It is often flavored with fruits or herbs such as strawberries or mint." (from Wikipedia)

So we tried children's apple kvass, which was sweeter than regular kvass and tasted a little like cider. There was also horseradish kid's kvass available, but after allison tried it and said "ugh. it tastes like saline. or brine. Or boullion beer" I figured I'd pass.

Later last night we all met up to try to keep the good times going and celebrate our final excursion in a bar, but it was 9 on a friday night and there were 11 of us. No such luck. We ended up at the "coffee bean" drinking coffee, eating pie (well, me and jan ate pie), looking at Matt and Anton's drivers licenses and school id's (matt's school id features him with a beard and a huge 'fro, Anton's looks like his prison application for the Aryan Brotherhood), and listening to Ben do impressions of everyone in the group (his Carlos is fantastic). I then came home and Marina complimented me on how pretty I can look when I put on makeup, which always seems like a backhanded compliment to me. Oh well.

and here's a great video Ryan sent me

Photo Contest

Hey everyone I won 3rd place in the ACTR Fall 08 photo contest! It's here on this page:

http://acrussiaabroad.org/pgDetail.php?id=320

It was the picture I took on the tour bus in Petersburg, with the Church of Spilled Blood through the window. I don't think I win anything special, I'm just happy.

Especially since yesterday was a really crazy day for me. I went from a really happy place to a really bad place in just a matter of two hours. I had a fine day at school, I actually like the classes I take Monday, and then after school allison and I got coffee and she found a kitten in her stairwell and we went and played with the kitten, which was adorable and kind of pathetically sad, because someone just plopped it in a box in the stairs. We talked for a long time and had a really nice conversation.

Then I was riding the bus home and thinking about how much I like Moscow and I want to come back here and maybe work or live here for awhile. I was thinking about all the progress I've made so far and just feeling really happy and good.

Then I go home and ask Marina to proofread my paper about war communism for history class. It's like our final exam for this class so I wanted it to be with as little errors as possible. And I was actually really proud of this paper because, even though I just read up on the internet to find my "Research," I wrote it pretty quickly on Saturday and it wasn't really a problem. I've never had such ease writing in Russian before. I knew it wasn't perfect but I didn't think it was shitty either.

And then Marina read it.

I don't know, she just got really intense and was like "wow your grammar sucks" which, granted it isn't the best, I don't think it SUCKS. Also, I think if I were proofreading someone's, say a foreigner's, paper, I wouldn't shake my head, sigh dramatically and go "this is soooooo NOTTTT english." Which is basically what she did. "This doesn't sound Russian." Well it's obvious that it doesn't have all the nuances a Russian writer might have granted to it- because I'm not Russian! It took me 4 years of studying French 5 days a week to understand the nuances of French- I'm definitely not at that point yet. And also, I didn't really learn the vocabulary in school to go along with the theme of "implementing collectivization policies in Soviet Russian during 1918 and 1921 and the production and seizure of grain from peasant farms leading to the introduction of the New Economic Policy." I had to look up a lot of words, and I don't know the nuances of said words. It was just... a nightmare. I felt completely awful. I think she saw crestfallen I was because towards the end she was like "it was a hard topic, you had the right ideas." 

Then she tried to make me change my plans with Masha today to go to the conservatory with her a her friend. She always makes me do stuff so last minute, like 3 hours before.

"Emma- come to the conservatory tomorrow with me and Natasha."

" I have plans with Masha we're going to the Darwin Museum."

"The Darwin Museum will always be there- come to the conservatory."

"I'm not going to cancel plans with Masha."

"Bring her along."

"She might not like it." 

"Yes she will- call her right now."

I had absolutely no will or energy to call masha and completely change plans so I didn't. I'll tell her Masha had a meeting to go to at 7:30 and we couldn't go to the conservatory.

Then I went to bed and cried and had a mini panic attack. What if my grammar really does SUCK? What if I haven't improved enough? What if every time I zoned out during lecture or read a book in English instead of reading the dictionary, I slipped a little bit more? What if my testing shows that I'm nothing but a dud?

Well friends, I guess all these questions and more will soon be answered. I just try to keep in mind that I know I improved, I met a lot of goals, and I can give someone directions in Russian on the street, and I'll have to be happy with that.

What do you think of your experience in Russia?

Thanksgiving Dinner, picture stolen from Jen 
Mongolian contortionists, picture taken illegally by me
The group of us on Thanksgiving, taken by Nastia.I have no idea why Carlos and I are making terrible faces
Dessert, also stolen from Jen. Mmm it was good
Circus, another illegal picture. Please don't tell the circus authorities on me

The title today is a question my tutor Masha asked me earlier. We met and took a walk in a park near Moscow State University. When I started asking questions about the university, where Masha studies, she led me up a steep incline to get a better view of it. I've seen it before but I just love the building, it's beautiful. Stalin had it built in 1953. It's ENORMOUS, in a 1930's new york skyscraper style. It's got tons of statues and marble with a giant, red soviet star on top that I've heard weighs a few tons. So we hiked up this little hill to get a better look. The hill was steep but not crazy steep, and much of it had stairs. I was embarrassed by how much I was huffing and puffing, but then I looked over and Masha had the same look on her face, and she said "this is a lot of stairs." We reached the best look out point in Moscow, a panorama of the city in front of you, and Moscow State behind. Masha pointed out all the steeples and domes of the churches, and pointed to the Moscow Radio Tower, on the north side of town to show how far away everything was. 

We walked around the university and then went and got some coffee and dessert. We talk in a mix of  English and Russian, she's a linguistics major and has been speaking English for 12 years or something, so she's really good. She got a scholarship to go to Moscow State, the most prestigious university in Moscow, by winning an English language "contest," which basically sounded like a really grueling series of tests. The girl is really smart, and so nice. She then asked me "So... what do you think of your experience in Russia?" This is a hard question to answer, especially when a Russian is asking you. I mean, all the students gripe to each other about it a lot, some have legit reasons, others (like me) don't really. It's just a form of bonding, I suppose, because life here isn't exactly easy, especially when compared to life in the States. And that's what I said, that things were so hard here, a lot of it for me is language, but other things are also hard, but I like it. I can't exactly say that I had fun here like I had fun when I studied abroad in France, but at the same time I have had fun here. It's such a different place that it's almost impossible to explain how I feel. The history of the people and the people themselves are so compelling, their attitudes towards their country and their past.  There's almost a sheepishness to everything, but I don't mean that to be insulting. I like it. And when bad things happened here, it wasn't that we exactly expected it but it wasn't as shocking as it maybe should have been. Like, they took our passports away, said they would give them back in a few weeks, and then we almost didn't get them back for more than a month. Of course, it's Russia. Like, the heating doesn't work in our school and we wear our coats and scarves and have been doing this for more than a month. Well, it's Russia. Like bread costs less than 2 dollars but jeans cost upwards of a hundred.  I don't know, I forget where I was going with this.

All I could say to Masha was that things have been very, very hard here, but I love it. She smiled and said "That's how Russians feel too."

Happy White Thanksgiving!

Pictures taken on a particularly snowy night in Red Square:
                                         This is a fountain in Alexsandrovsky Garden
                                              State History Museum, entrance to the Kremlin
                                    The tomb of the unknown soldier
                                            Lenin's masoleum
                                                   ГУМ
                                               Another fountain, with a bear and a wolf

                                                         St. Basil's Cathedral

Well I know I'm a day late, but happy thanksgiving! I couldn't write yesterday because I was busy making the cranberry sauce! We all went to our assistant Resident Director's house, Vika, and had a little Thanksgiving celebration. Some of the girls came early to cook the turkey and gravy. The slaved away all day and if Hilary, Allison, Paige,Kat, Jenna, or Jen are reading this, thank you so much guys! It was awesome. The rest of us made other things and brought it to Vika's house. We started to watch "2 Days in the Valley," a really funny and very, very strange movie to watch, especially on Thanksgiving. Some people thought that we should watch a Christmas movie and so those of us who preferred to watch a less traditional movie were overruled and we were forced to watch "A Christmas Story." Some of us prefer to watch "A Christmas Story" on Christmas Eve, and we watch it enough times to get a year's worth of watching in. Oh well. It was a really fun Thanksgiving. And everyone loved my cranberry sauce.
The other day I went to ГУМ, the old State Department Store. It's in red square and now it's a really, really posh shopping mall. They have a grocery store in there with chandeliers and marble floors, and 100$ hello kitty champagne (believe me.... I want it). The have signs in English reading "the sturgeon and beluga caviar can be purchased in the center hall."
Anyways, I'm off to my excursion. Today we're going to the metro museum and tonight the circus!

Cranberry madness

For everyone who's reading this, feeling homesick, and wanting it to be christmas immediately, try this:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipes/Holidays-and-Events/Christmas/Main.aspx
Maybe it makes you feel worse, but it makes me feel better to read cookie recipes. I don't know why, maybe because I love cookies and Christmas. Or, if you don't like cookies because you're freak:
http://www.allthingschristmas.com/
Or how about the California Raisins being their creepy selves, brightening your holiday:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXzriJ2LDpI

I'm making the cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving so I had to go to the market today and buy cranberries. I was kind of scared to do it, because sometimes vendors aren't always nice to you here. You would think that, because they're selling things to you, and that they would in theory want your return business, that they would be nice to you. This is false. Anyways... I was kind of scared, because you have to put cranberries in kilograms, not pounds or ounces. But they were so nice to me! I got cranberries, and oranges and apples, and the lady was really patient and made sure I was getting the right type of apples. Then, when I was paying, she asked if I was Swedish or English. !!!! Isn't that great? Those were the two things that passed through her head first. Since she was so nice to me, I leaned close and mumbled "I'm American." I waited for her to cringe or get that "Oh... American..." look on her face, but she didn't do it. Or she hid it well. I was so excited... and that basically made my whole day. Also I wore my fur hat and got weird looks on the bus. Loooove it.
I forgot to mention that yesterday I INTENDED on going to the Pushkin Fine Arts museum with some girls from school. They forgot I was coming so I got to the metro and they had already left. In this one area of town, there are three museums in very, very close proximity. The Pushkin main art museum, the 19th Century Pushkin art museum, and the Ilya Glazunov Artist of the USSR Gallery. Both Ilya Glazunov Gallery AND Pushkin 19th century are green buildings. So when Jenna told me to meet her "At the green building across from the big Pushkin museum" I went to, of course, the wrong one. So I got to spend an hour in the Ilya Glazunov museum which, not gonna lie, is kind of a weird gallery. He painted a lot of naked women. I found his paintings to be tacky, but I loved his crazy, gothic sketches:

This was one of my favorites, his site in English is
http://www.glazunov.ru/EN/
so check it out if you want.
Anywayssss, stay warm everyone.

Great Bounty

Friday we had an excursion to a Russian school, a mandatory excursion. Most of us were NOT looking forward to this; we had to meet at 8:50 in the morning, it took an hour on the metro (for me) to get there. Plus, all of us imagined our worst possible high school moments and feared being brought back to that. But, I am pleased to say, I'm fairly certain all of us were pleasantly surprised. It was more like being taken back to elementary school, since all of the classes I shadowed were either with 8 year olds or 10 year olds. We shadowed three classes, I went to English 5, Russian 5, and Conversation 3. They "5" means the 10 and 11 year olds, the "3" was the 7 and 8 year olds. The English class was really interesting, the way they described everything in Russian to the kids. They were learning to ask "tail" questions, like "It's a nice day, isn't it?" or "Dima has a cold, doesn't he?" They all had trouble between "do" and "does." The teacher also made them turn around and introduce themselves to us in English, which was precious. And they were all SO EXCITED. They practically fell out of their chairs raising their hands, and some were so anxious to answer the question that they made little noises to demonstrate that they knew the answer. I don't EVER remember being that excited to answer questions... but who knows. That was a long time ago for me.

The Russian 5 class was depressing, since I could barely understand what was going on. That's right, 11 year old Russian was too ADVANCED for me. Eventually I understood that they were breaking down sentences into their parts and analyzing them. They did it SO fast... I was impressed. The Convo 3 class was interesting too. They had to read a little story on the board and then write it down from memory. At one point one of the kids, who had been turning around occasionally to give us a look, raised his hand and asked "Are the Americans going to be reading our stories?" The teacher said "No, of course not, I'm sure they don't want to." After that we got free rolls and tea and coffee. So, all in all, a fun excursion... though this coming friday we're going to the circus, so that might take the 1st place for "best excursion."

Then yesterday we went shopping at Izmaylova market, the HUGE souvenir market on the outskirts of town. Seeing as the day was pretty cold and people don't want to go shopping outside when their hands are likely to freeze into blocks of ice, and also as the dollar has been ROCKING the exchange rate lately, we got tons of really great deals. I generally was able to bargain around 100-500 rubles off the price, which is pretty exciting. The last time I went, the vendors were unwilling to bargain much at all and everything was at least a couple hundred rubles more expensive. I don't want to say everything I bought, since most of it I'm going to give away as a present, possibly to someone reading this. I will share one of my proudest purchases, which is mine:

Oh yes, that is a real fur hat. I bargained him down 500 rubles and got it for 1,100 rubles. That's 40 bucks. Usually they're 1500-2000 rubles. It's really warm. And please, if you will, notice the random balls of fur that hang for no reason from the ear flaps. I love this hat.