I Am Living In Parallel Universe

I think the universe decided to test me today. I was in the grocery store and chanced upon the liquor aisle. Booze is so cheap here. Really really cheap. I found a beautiful little bottle of Smirnoff for 130 rubles. That's like, four dollars. And if I split it with my good friend Natalie, it would have been a half bottle of Smirnoff for only two dollars. Somehow I didn't buy it. I actually haven't had any alcohol what-so-ever since coming to Russia, despite the fact that it's totally cheap, abundant, and legal. Maybe it's the last clause that takes away the fun of it. I think I prefer going to the seedy basement liquor store near Thurston, handing them my Borders discount card, and then stuffing my purchase into my coat in the most conspicuous way possible before sneaking it into my dorm room freezer. Either that or I'm growing up. Are my bacchant, deviant ways really behind me? Gods of Russia preserve me.

As I Lay in Bed Dying...

It is day four of my quarantine. I've read all of my English language books, my simcard is out of money, my internet connection sucks, and I've used up all of my megavideo minutes for the next hour. It is a dark time indeed...Gods of Russia preserve me.
 Ok, for serious, I'm actually feeling way better. I've been stuck inside of the apartment since Sunday with a really bad cold and or the flu and am now about 85-90% recovered thanks to mass amounts of cold medicine, intense napping, and all sorts of natural "babushka" remedies. All of this time in bed has given me lots of time to think about the past couple weeks here in the good old former Soviet Union. It is a cold and strange place devoid of sunlight and chocolate croissants at a reasonable price. I think it's time for a list of grievances. Before some people (ты знаешь кто) accuse me of having poor adaptive skills, let me remind you that it was your country that tried to strike me dead in the first place. The next time you come to the US and get sick, you have my leave to spit on the Washington Monument and call us fat capitalist pigs for stealing your health. So now to the list.

1) The Sun: Seriously. Where the hell is the sun here? You know that there's a serious lack of sunlight when everytime the smallest, weakest ray of light wheezes its way out from behind the cloud cover, people get more excited than a Greek philosopher at a NAMBLA meeting.

                                        A picture taken the last time the sun was seen in Russia.

2) Smiling: Or rather, the determined lack there of. One of my professors told me that people here keep a smile in their hearts, instead of on their faces. This might have been touching, save for the fact that Russia is not a Disney movie. What does smiling get you in Russia? Raped (and or killed or mugged). According to ACTR. Then again, a lot of things will get you raped/killed/mugged here, according to them. Sometimes I feel like breaking out into song and prancing down the street, just to see what would happen. Someone would probably scowl disapprovingly and then a metro worker/fast food worker would apparate to yell at me. They are the worst offenders. Buckingham palace should replace the Beefeaters with a couple frumpy Nevskii Prospekt metro ticket booth wenches. No one would dare make silly faces at them.

            Your average metro worker when you give her anything other than exact change for your ticket.

3) Change: Why is making change the end of the world here? Refer to the above picture. That's anyone, anytime you try to give them something that isn't exact change. Oh, I see you have a crisp, new 500 ruble note. You might as well use it to wipe yourself (because guess what, there's no such thing as toilet paper here either) because no one's touching that sucker. Spending it somewhere other than McDonalds or Dom Knigi? You out of luck, friend. Oh, you insist on using it? Here. I'll make "change" with some gum and cheap trinkets I pulled out of my...purse. Really Russia?

4) Public Toilets: God. Damn. It. Toilets here are the nastiest thing ever. They are truly the work of Satan himself. My advice is never have to pee in Russia. Ever. Just don't. You're better off just shaming yourself in public than venturing into a public restroom (if you can even find one). Think of the dirtiest, most vom inducing gas station toilet you've ever been forced to use. Don't ever complain about it. You could live like a king there, compared to the average restroom over here. Oh, and you'll probably have to pay to use it. So about that 500 note...yeah...you're better off going in the woods and using that.

  The dorm room toilet that leads to the abyss. Maybe this isn't the best example of the horrors I described.

So there you have it. These are my complaints for the time being. I could think of more but four seems like a good number. And I'm lazy. Since my the horror of my moaning and complaining probably ruined your day, I present you with a picture of my host dog, Cheburashka in a pink rain coat. Sho keewweeetttt.

Confusing Item of the Moment: Melon Cage

                    I think I briefly mentioned the so called "melon cage" in my first entry.

Here you have it.

                 It's just as I said...a cage...filled with melons. That is all.

It is truly a mystery for the ages.

Ode to the Terrifying Poodle Face

Davai poznakomimsya with the terrifying poodle face that hangs beside my bed. What is there to say that this picture already doesn't? Should we start with the dead eyes that stare into the abyss? Or that fine, silken mustachio? I wonder who decided that the mustache was a necessary component. Like, this stuffed poodle face isn't already disconcerting enough--let's add some facial hair to really creep everyone the fuck out. Also note the protruding tongue. Whoever crafted this creature was a sick individual.
    I can best liken the TPF (terrifying poodle face) to a pagan idol of old. In Soviet times, small children and/or delicious blinchiks were probably sacrificed to him so as to ensure a successful mushroom hunt (Russians are like hobbits. That should be a blog post all of its own.). I'm not sure of its intentions regarding me. I live in terror, wondering what lurks behind those shark-like, plastic eyes. If it wasn't for the fact that I recently had holy water thrown on me (people seem to like blessing me), I would fear for my life.

  (Maybe I should just throw a scarf over the abomination and be done with it?)

The Saga of My Toe...or Why The Russians Dyed My Toe Green

Unfortunately, this isn't some newly discovered Gogol story. No, this is just a sad story of cultural misunderstanding and an infected toe. I'll proceed. This happened last week, when, unfortunately, I didn't have any internet to immediately record it. What you're getting might be filled with some of my usual hyperbole (yet surprisingly, less than you might think).

So, remember those wonderful dorm room bathrooms I told you about? The old soviet throw-backs? Yeah, well, they're as dangerous as they sound. Somehow, while in the process of taking a shower, (read: being sprayed with scalding water from a rusty pipe) I cut my toe. This normally wouldn't be the start of any good story, but I did this while barefoot (obviously) in a filthy bathroom next to an overflowing toilet. You can see where this is going. I didn't think much of it until I took off my shoes later in the day and saw what I assumed to be my toe. Ok, so some black-plague like germ had taken up residence there. This is what hydrogen peroxide is for...does anyone know how to say hydrogen peroxide in Russian? Nyet. Does anyone have an internet connection so I can look it up? Also nyet. No worry, I'll just go to a drug store and find some! Well, if you didn't already know, Russian drug store does not equal the K Street CVS. You have to go up to a window and actually ask for what you want--so no pointing and grunting. 

 And so I was completely shit out of luck. My toe was slowly dying and I lacked the linguistic ability to save it. It was a sad day in Russia. Luckily for me, I was going to live with my host family soon. My thought process was that I could (try to) explain what the problem was and that they'd give me something to heal my toe. After sitting diligently for about twenty minutes and paging through my "500 Russian Verbs" and dictionary, I had a game plan. It went something like this, "Um, so, I see that I have cut my toe. Do you have something that I could put on it so it doesn't get infected?". My hosts looked at me very seriously for a moment before asking to see said toe. Only now do I know exactly what I said. Instead of cut, I said "mortally wounded". I only just found this out today when I used the same verb in class and got a similarly strange look from my professor. The reaction I got from my hosts upon seeing the toe was about as severe as if it really were mortally wounded.   Luckily for me, it was late and going to the doctor was out of the question. Instead, they rummaged through the cabinet and handed me a small, glass bottle of green liquid. "What is this?", I asked. "Green." "...green?". They nodded and commanded me to douse my toe in it. Well, I can tell you that the green lived up to its name.  It did successfully dye my toe a lovely shade of gangrene that took nearly a week to wash out of my skin. That was all it successfully accomplished.

  Of course, as I soon discovered, my hosts had other Russian remedies up their sleeves. The next evening, Babushka slipped into my room with a strange, corn husk-like herb and a ball of twine in her hands. “Give me your foot.”, she commanded. As those of you who have lived in Russia already know, the word of Babushka is law, especially when they’re about to perform a strange ritual on you. A bit apprehensively, I slipped out of my tapochki (slipper) and held out my aggrieved toe. With a look of calm concentration, she began wrapping the herb around it while muttering to herself. “There. Now I’ve blessed your toe. It should definitely heal now.”, she said as she tied it off with twine. Never having before experienced a toe blessing, all I could really do was nod in agreement. Of course, I also made it a point to go to an internet café to look up “hydrogen peroxide”.

So in the end, I got my hydrogen peroxide and avoided amputation at a Russian hospital. When my hosts later asked how the toe was fairing, I explained that I had gone to the pharmacy and picked up some hydrogen peroxide for it. They then fixed me with a strange, “of you silly American!” look and told me that they had a bottle of it in the medicine cabinet and wondered why I hadn’t just asked them for it in the first place.

I had absolutely nothing to say.

Russia, what a strange place!

Why hello! My grandiose plans of writing an entry every day or so were quickly shot (gulag style) by the fact that internet is hard to come by in Russia. You either have the option of paying out the nose to go to an internet cafe (think going and ordering any drink at Starbucks every time you want to check your email) or by an aircard...unfortunately, to do that, you need to have a passport and for the past week, mine has been in the clutches of the Russian government as they extended my visa. But now all is resolved as I am writing this from my cozy little Russian bedroom, sipping some chai and eating a tasty Russian sandwich.
   So what has happened last since I wrote about packing? First, I ended up having to pay $250 in overweight baggage fees. I expected to be shaken down at some point during the trip, but not so much on American soil. Rage. After that, it was only a short (ahaha) 15 hour plane ride through Frankfort and into Petersburg where we boarded an old, Soviet style bus and rode over to the university dorm. Let me just preface this by saying that Russian dorm does not equal American dorm. The best word I can think of to describe it is...utilitarian. If I feel like being more dramatic, I might say prison like. You check in at the front desk with a surly woman who gives you your key or receipt for your key, if your roommate already has it. There is only one key per room. You walk up the stairs to your floor where you are then accosted by another surly Russian woman who demands to know what you are doing here, looking like a student and holding a room key. If your Russian is anything like mine was after being awake for 24+ hrs, you stare at her with a glazed expression for a moment before muttering something incoherent and darting down the hall. She definitely isn't paid enough to pursue you. My favorite part of the Russian dorm--well, actually, there are two. The first is the bathroom. You walk in to a closet sized room filled with bare, leaking pipes that may or may not douse you with freezing/scalding water at any given point. My advice is not to make eye contact with them. You then proceed to the toilet, which, thankfully, resembles an American toilet, save for when you actually look down at it and realize that the toilet is really just an elaborate covering for a terrifyingly expansive hole into the ground. You tend to find a lot of terrifying holes around Russian dorms. My favorite one is on the third floor near the smoking lounge. There's just this random, gaping hole in the floor, large enough for a person to fall through, that no one has made any effort to point out. Perhaps this is Russian humor. The other great thing about Russian dorms is that you can buy booze in them for about 10-20 rubles. Not that I have, I just like the idea of not having to beat around the bush and sneak stuff in. Of course, that takes all of the fun out of it. Just don't go drinking next to the gaping hole on the third floor.
  Luckily, I only stayed two days in the school dorm. Most of us got picked up last Sunday, like a basket of puppies on the side of the road. It was hilariously awkward to see everyone meet their hosts, present them with flowers, and then just stare at them with a forced smile before being carted off to wherever they were going. I, of course, was in no way awkward at all and totally impressed everyone with my grace, amazing linguistic abilities, and (some may say) regal poise. My home stay situation is really great. I live with two ladies, Tatiana, or Babushka, as she likes me to call her, and her daughter, Irina, as well as their boxer pup, Cheburashka (Chobi). The apartment is small but cozy and I have my own little room filled with books (that are too above my level to read) and all sorts of strange Russian paraphernalia (like the terrifying poodle face hanging on the wall...it is the stuff of nightmares...). I live about 40 minutes out of Nevskii Prospect, the main stretch of the city, in the suburbs. It's definitely more authentically Russian here than living in the center of Petersburg. Seriously, you could film a movie about Soviet Russia here, just by looking at things. The streets are filled with melon cages (I have no other way of explaining this. Seriously. Just cages full of melons), sketchy men selling slippers, and assortments of little fruit stands and such. The fruit stand part would be cool if eating unwashed fruits and vegetables didn't make me horribly ill. Life is beautiful. Because I live so far out, I'm forced to take the metro to get to school. On one hand, it's totally convenient--cheap, fast, and gets you where you're going. On the other hand, it's packed so full that it would be the bane of any claustrophobe . Getting a seat is like playing musical chairs, even at the very end of the line where I am. To even hope for one, you have to be one of the first people in the cart and then make a mad dash for one of the few, prized bench seats along the wall. There is no time for any courtesy if you want one. Very Darwinian.
  The city itself is pretty awesome. I could describe it to you or I could just suffice for telling you to type "St. Petersburg, Russia" into google...which I will, for the time being. This is a long post as it is. There's all sorts of cool stuff to do, none of which I have really taken advantage of because of school. Yes, I do in fact have to go to school here. The university is this absolutely stunningly beautiful piece of architecture...of course, the foreign students don't get to go there. We're a metro stop away in an alley. Seriously. You go through this huge, black steel door, get assaulted by pigeons/and or other street animals, and then, there you are. What to say about classes? We got put into small classes (2-5 people) earlier in the week after taking a test. Of course, as some of you may already know, I'm a terrible test taker so I got put in the group above the lowest group. After having a chat with my group director and on the advice of the teachers, I got placed in one of the advanced groups... after a couple of (painful) days of really, really, basic stuff. The plus was that I seemed like some Russian prodigy. Now that I'm in the group I should be in, the magic has worn off and I'm getting taken down, peg by peg, by terrifying Russian women. As it should be. Grammar class can only be described as a bloodbath and Russian literature is the bane of my existence. The little old woman who teaches it is extremely nice and has this expansive vocabulary. Only two people in the class understand her. The rest of us exchange lots of "oh shit, did you get any of that?!" glances and desperately write down whatever we can pick out. The class usually goes like this. She'll talk for a while than stop and ask us if we understood a certain word she used. One of us will say no. So she'll use a synonym and ask if we understand it. No one does. So she'll use another one...no one understands it, but at that point, everyone just nods their heads with a look of divine revelation and begins a wild search through the nearest dictionary. It's really funny, in a sad sort of way.
 So that's pretty much the general run through of what's been going on here. Now that I have internet, hopefully I'll be able to update every couple days with more detailed accounts of things. For now, I have the apartment to myself as my hosts are somewhere far away in the woods, picking mushrooms for the day, so I'll probably turn on "Pride and Prejudice", the BBC one, in Russian and catch up on the vast amount of homework I missed since changing groups. Poka!