The Break-Up

So I told you I'd get around to it eventually. Count yourselves lucky that you didn't have to wait longer. I've just been lazy lately. hee hee hee.

Okay, so sunday afternoon we spent the whole afternoon at the dacha. We got back to the city after 7. We found out that the ice in the river had officially broken up and was moving and so we set off for the village of Tabago to see it. Incidentally, Tabago is where we had our May 9th picnic. One nice thing about the polar days is that even though we set off at like 7:30-8ish we had no need to fear the lack of street lights. It was still really light out.

When we got there, we first drove up a mountain. All over this mountain were these yello flowers that are the first of spring. In Russian they're called Podsnezhniki Literally this means "Under snow" I don't know what the english word for the flowers is. There were all these flowers and Natasha and Tolya picked bouquets while Misha took pictures for me.

From the mountain, we could just barely see the river and the ice floes so it wasn't a very good picture spot. After filling our flower and photo desires, we piled back into the car to find a more picturesque spot. actually, one of the best places to see the ice on the river was through the windshield of the car as we were driving down the mountain. It was so cool! We drove down the mountain and found a spot where there were lots of cars parked, so we got out to see what there was to see.

In Yakutsk, there's no good place to really stand on the bank and watch the ice. We were on a hill and there were trees in front of us. Behind us was a moutain that people were climbing part or all the way up to get a better view. Now, before you think I was doing some extremem mountain climbing I need to explain something.

You see, if I had to use one word to describe the landscape in Yakutsk, it would be prairie. Because that's what it really looks like. The nature around here is not mountainous. You want mountians, go to Vladivostock. That place has Mountians. We do have mountains here, but it's not a dominating landscape feature. It's not like hills all over the place. Instead, it looks like somebody walked across the plains and randomly dropped some loaves of bread. That's the shape of our mountains. They aren't rocky either. They're grassy like the appalacian mountains. So when I say that these people were climbing mountains, I don't mean extreme sports.

We kids decided to climb partway up the mountain for an improved view. Oh my gosh it was a lot harder than it looked! I was hurtin by the time I got to a level place. The upshot is that we sat there for a bit watching the ice, I took some pictures and then we headed back down.

When we got back to the car, we drove to a place on the bank, to see what we could see there, but the view wasn't very good. After that, we finally decided to head home. And that's bascially how the break-up went.

But Abigail? Why Have You Written This Post?

I know, I should update you about going to see the ice breaking up, because that's what you really want to hear. But After my last post novel, I couldn't bring myself to write about it. Mostly because it takes more concentration than I'm willing to give right now.

What I did want to tell you is something I've been meaning to for a while. And that's this. I want you all to know that there is a life after exchange. We all have to come back at some point. When I started this blog back in 2005, it was as a record of my language learning, and has evolved and grown with me. For example, right now it's a travelouge. So many students end their blogs with their exchange year. The good news (Or maybe bad for some of you) is that I will not be ending this blog in July? Why? Well mostly because the process of coming back and fitting into my "native" cultural again, is as much, if not more fascinating to me as fitting into a new culture in the first place. That's why I'm asking you readers to keep on reading, because when I get back I'm going to be talking a lot about what life is like after exchange, which is almost as unheard of blog-wise as and Exchange Student in Yakutsk.

That having been said, I've created this post to give you a brief idea of what I will be faced with when I get back to the states in 7 weeks and one day. Okay, I won't be faced with it Immediately, but fairly quickly and namely, this lurking monster is College! Or as we say here in Yakutsk University Either way, it's a little scary.

Starting in August, I will be attending a lovely urban university not too far from home. I affectionately call it Satan's Personal University or SPU for short. No, it's not because I hate the school, I actually think it's a decent school, but the name comes from a joke I have with a good friend about the fact that it's a state-run school.

I will be starting as a Freshman in the fall, but thanks to my lovely Post Secondary Courses, I will be a sophomore by December.

I'm in the honors college which, I will admit the only reason I wanted it was because they have nice dorms. Yes, I will be living on-campus, yes I'll be rooming with someone and yes, I've already tried getting in touch with Roomie. We'll see what happens. I figure if I can handle living in a foreing country, I can handle having a roomate.

I (so far) will be taking 18 credit hours I say so far because i'm not yet schedulded for a Russian class and there's no way I'm not taking a Russian class next semester.

I will be taking such mentally stimulating courses as:
-How We Came From Monkeys I
-Where In the World Are We?
-Learn to Deal With College
-Comparing Politics
-You Must Take This Since You're Honors and Need One More English

and my personal favorite (not)
-Algebra, The Final Math.


So that's where I stand. If you're like "yeah, who cares." Then fine. Don't read this post and stop reading whenever I go home, but you'll be missing out. Because I know that you really want to know what happens when a former exchange student is hit with Reverse Culture Shock.

I will now return you to your regularly scheduled Yakutsk posts...

Russian Last Bell Ceremony

I feel like I'm behind on this blog all the time. It seems like even though I'm done with school (Officially now) I've actually gotten busier in some ways. Oh well.

Before I start the main body of this post, I wanted to share a few pictures with you.



This is the view from my bedroom window. The water you see is in the dam and is actually considerably higher now. This picture was taken on May 16th at about 6:30pm.




And this is a picture of the same view on the same day. Except this was taken at about 10:30pm.

Now you know what the polar days are like. Hee hee.

We had our Last Bell Ceremony (Последний Звонок) on May 17th. It started at about 11am. We got done sometime after two. It's kind of hard to describe everything in the order it happened in because I was having emotional issues at the time. Okay, I'll admit it. I was crying. Which I found ironic because when I graduated from American High School last year, I didn't shed a tear. I was ready to get out of that place man. Get out and get to Russia. Here I cried, I think for a number of reasons. First because it was kind of depressing not having anyone i.e. Family there to support me. My parents have always been into coming to my stuff. Even when I didn't always want them too. I miss that. Secondly, It was hard because I realized that I'm leaving soon (Seven weeks and one day) and who knows if and when I'll ever see some of these people again. Let alone this city. So yeah, but enough of my emotional swamp. Let me tell you how the whole thing went.

When I first got to school, I was given a banner that said the Russian word for "Someone who's graduating." I then spent the rest of the day trying to figure out what the english word for this was, or if we even had one. I was settling on just saying "Graduator" (Though I also thought maybe "Graduee" would work) until last night I was writing in my journal and I was like "Wait, isn't the word for this "Graduate?' " I'm still not so sure about that.

Anyway so I wore my little banner along with the rest of my class and the two parallel classes and we all hung around on the second floor of the school until it was time to go into the auditorium. when entering the auditorium we walked across the stage and then to our seats. No, this was not like in American High School (From now own will be referenced as AHS) we just kind of went quickly and sat down.

The first thing that happened, is some announcer people from the 10th class announced the names of some teachers. These teachers then came up on stage and announced peoples names for various things, and you got to go up on stage and get a certificate. I was enjoying cheering for my classmates, when they called my name. Well that was a surprise, but I was very excited. I got up on stage, shook the lady's hand and recived a certificate for "Active Participation in the Artistic Life of the Gimnasium" or something like that. I call it affectionately my "I'm Foreign Award." I then went and sat back down to listen to the other awards.

The next part was the "Growing up" part. Here, the teachers from the first class got up and shared some memories of the kids in their classes and handed out little folders with some work the kids had done. Then, The Leading Teachers from fifth through ninth class got up, called up the Leading Teachers for 10th and 11th class and the five of them all made speeches. Naturally, I bawled when our Leading Teacher, Alexandra Nicholaevna, gave her little speech. One thing I learned is that we were her last class. After us, she's not going to Lead anymore. It's ironic but I've found out quite a bit about the school I've been attending the last 8 months in the last few days. For example, we are seriously listed as one of the best schools in Russia. How cool is that?

When that was finished, we had a "parents part" this was like the parents saying thanks you to the teachers and school. Flowers were given to basically every teacher, and there were a lot of them. On each Bouquet was a rhyme that included the name of the teacher it was for. Naturally every one of these had to be read. We kids stood up and clapped extra loudly for our favorite teachers.

After that, it was finally time for the part I'd been waiting for. Each of the three 11th grade classes, got up and did a little something. I'm a little prejudice, but I think ours was the best.

First up was 11А, the Mathmatics group. They had two people sing a song, while the rest did a dance thing. It was kind of boring. Sorry, but it was. Next, was us, the Humanitarian 11Б. We did a little sketch. Basically it was "The Adventures of A Foreigner" Bet you can't guess who was the Foreigner? I basically said some stuff in English which my classmate Dima, "translated". I got to say some stuff in Russian too. The rest of the class would do little things in the background. For example one thing I talked about was how the puddles around our school were so beautiful, deep, and majestic that they almost resembled Lake Baikal, my classmates all made swimming motions. It was a funny sketch and the audience laughed a lot. The only glitch we had was when it came time to sing our song at the end. We had this sentimental song about how the sun shines and the grass grows but a new door is opening and how they say we're adults now so everything's different. (Yup, that's basically the translated version of the chorus.) One girl, Anya was supposed to play the guitar for us but something happened and the guitar didn't get to her so we sang part of the song acapella. Bad Idea. It was horrible. But we made it through and got off the stage.

Then the last class, Universal 11В was up. They had two girls singing while the others came and put toys all lined up across the front of the stage. It wasn't bad, but ours was better. lol.

After all of this, it was time for the official ringing of the last bell. All the 11th graders were called up on stage. This little first classer took this bell and was carried of the stage, across the front of it and back up by two guys in my class. She rang the bell the whole way. Then, the bell was passed along the line of 11th graders who all took turns ringing it. (Unfortunately I didn't get too since I was in the back, it kind of missed me) When the last person rang it it was like "Yay!" but at the same time not.

And that's the ceremony itself.

When that got out, we were all congratulated by different teachers and parents and friends and all. Then, our class met in Alexandra Nicholaevna's room where we ate Chocolate and she presented everyone with little silly awards. I got a nomination for speaking "Rusofranglish" and was given three or four mini fairy-tale books in both Russian and English. So that was exciting. When that meeting broke up, we all headed for the park which is apparently the traditional place to go when you graduate. Our park here, isn't just a green park. There are like rides and stuff. So I Figured that's what we'd be doing. Nope. Basically a good chunk of the 11th class all showed up to stand around, drink and smoke. Now, drinking is a part of the youth culture here, and while I don't participate in it, I can often tolerate it to some extent. That day, I was really not in the mood to deal with it. So I was thinking about just going home, and relaxing when I ran into a group of girls who also didn't want to participate and were going to go get sushi. One of them was Anya from church. So I was like "hey, can I go with you guys?" And they were like "Of course! You need to!" so I went and we ate sushi and had a good time and I felt like I fulfilled my social obligation. Seriously though. I enjoyed it.

After that, I went home and crashed. And thus is the story of The Last Bell. SO I'm officially done with school here now. Basically have time until Graduation in June which I don't know anything about. I was going to write about our trip to see the ice in this post as well, but this has turned out to be really long so will have to save it.



Городская Классическая Гимназия -2008-

General Update

I feel like I haven't given you a real update on what I've been doing lately, so buckle up 'cause here it goes.

May 9th was a big holiday here. Vicotry day. It is a rememberance of those who perished in WWII (Like one of every two people. And I'm only slightly exaggerating) as well as a celebration of the millitary might of the motherland which successfully overcame the evil Fascists. Never mind that they originally started out on the same side.

It was an interesting celebration. In the morning the family and I went out to Ploshad Pobedy i.e. Victory square. There, the street in front of the square had been closed off and turned into a pedestrian walk. There were all sorts of tents set up selling everything from toys, balloons, cakes, drinks, and the russian version of hot dogs (Can you say Kapusta(Cabbage) and lots of mayo?) We stood around for a while, and we were introduced to some Business partners of Misha's from Taiwan. The one guy spoke english really well and had an interesting chat with him.

The main reason we were standing around in the middle of the street is we were waiting for the parade to start. Now, when I say parade I don't mean like The parade we have in our city every august with the floats and the bands and the candy and all that. This is a military parade, where the ranks of Yakutsk's finest march through the street. There was no orderly queing up on the sides of the streets for this parade. Instead we all stood milling around, waiting for the parade to start and hoping to be towards the front. How did the parade get through you ask? Well...It was preceeded by a few police cars and the police themselves basically shoving us back and going "GET BACK! GET BACK!" It was a really interesting experience. Thankfully, I was in the front row which was interesting because I literally had people packed tight around me on three sides. The fourth side being where the parade was so I couldn't go forward. The parade itself lasted all of five minutes. Actually, it was probably less. There were like for or five groups of military people, including my boys. They marched past, yay, and then we went home.

The afternoon was spent having a barbecue on a mountain overlooking the still mostly frozen Lena River. It was a party thing going on with the taiwanese people, some Yakutian people and our family. I ate too much, but couldn't resist as Shashlik is just so tasty. I've seen enough made by now, and know enough about it that I may try and make it for people back home when I get there. The views were beautiful, I hung out with Natasha and did some translating between Russian and English. Learning something in the process. It was a fun afternoon.

Let's see, what else have I been doing...Well...The other day I went with Raisa to a violin concert. It turned out to be a really fun evening and we even got tasty ice cream from Buon Appetito.

The 12th was Nina's birthday. In the evening she had some friends to a restaurant called "Chicago" which is labeled (in English) as a "bar&grill" So the cheese sticks weren't exactly like America but when you haven't had cheese sticks in a while you take what you can get. Oh and we had salads. Like real salad with lettuce. Not russian salad. I was pretty excited about that. The evening was rather entertaining. There was the awkward moment when I got orderded a Martini and didn't realize it was for me until it came and I was like "uh...I don't drink..." but other than that. it was a good time.

Our last official day of school is today. We have last bell, which we've been preparing for, on Saturday morning. Then we're officially done. Oh and I have to come in tomorrow and return all my textbooks. I brought them today but forgot that the school library is closed on Wednesdays. There's no way I'm hauling them all home, so I'm leaving them in the garderobe and going to come in sometime tomorrow morning.

The weather here's been gorgeous. The puddles have basically evaporated and it's been basically hot (at least in my opinion.) The morning temperature is +11 (yeah, we're positive now) in the afternoon it ranges between 15-20 and the evening it cools down again. I've basically stopped wearing a jacket and hoodie. The other day I was leaving school and wearing just my t-shirt and Nina's like "aren't you cold?" and I'm like "are you nuts?" because if I'd worn a hoodie or jacket I would've been dying of heat stroke. The other thing is that since we've got the polar days going on, it doesn't get fully dark until almost midnight. Yeah. I mean the sun goes down, but the sky is this blue color, not black, and if you look in the west, you can see it's still light. Pretty cool, except when you try to sleep in and the sun's blaring. It comes up really early. One morning a few weeks ago, I woke up and it was already really light out. For posterity I looked at my watch. 4:30am. I've taken to closing my curtains before bed so the light doesn't blare quite so much. But honestly, I love it. Better than it being dark all the time.

Well, I feel better now that I've given you all a better update of my life. I'll shut up now and let you get back to your lives. heh heh.

Why I Love Being An Exchange Student: Part 53

The door to the Obshest room was locked. So we went to the computer room. There were practice State Exams on the desks. I was like "great, I'm going to have to sit through this." So I decided to ask if I could use the computer while my classmates suffer. (heh heh) I go up to the teacher and say "Are we taking a practice test?" And the teacher goes "No, just instruction. You don't need it so you can use the computer if you want." Ha ha ha ha! I love my life.

Okay. So today is the second to last day of school. We come tomorrow and then for me that's it. Exams start Friday I think but I don't take them. Saturday, we have the "Last Bell" ceremony. Each 11th year class is doing something and I'm not sure what all we do, but it's basically the end. I can't believe it. Wasn't I just sitting in class thinking that may was such a long way off? Apparently not as far off as I thought.

I've been stressed lately. Called another inbounder and was just like "What's wrong with me?" Sometimes I feel like I just can't deal with being here anymore. With these people, with life in General. Lately I've just felt like I want to go home home. Sometimes I think I say that I don't want to go home, because that's what you're supposed to be saying at the end of your exchange right? "Oh I loved it and I just don't want to go home." The thing is, I think I'm ready to go home. Sure, I've still got some things to finish up, some things to see, but I think I'll be ready to get on that plane. That's not to say I'm not going to miss things about life here. For example, I think I'm really going to miss speaking Russian and some of the food. But I don't know, I'm really looking forward to seeing my family.

There goes the bell and I didn't get to finish telling you about the last couple of days. Oops. have to get to it later...

Another Picnic

We had a picnic with Grandpa Kostenko today. It was on a mountain, overlooking the entire city of Yakutsk. Did I mention that Grandpa's dead? Okay, all joking aside. Today is some kind of memorial day. The Russian equivalent anyway. I think it goes hand in hand with victory day (which is on the 9th) but that's just my opinion. Anyway, Misha told me that they were going to be gone all day today because they were going to the cemetary. I asked if I could go along.

I felt bad once we actually got there, because I felt like I was intruding, but it really turned out to be an interestind cultural experience. First, we drove to the cemetary. The drive itself was uneventful but you could tell when we were getting close because all of a sudden there were these roadside stands with all these people selling insanely bright colored fake flowers. And I mean bright. I'm talking like flourescent flowers. Flowers that could very easily light up a darkened room. And I'm only slightly exaggerating.

City Cemetary Number Two (The Russians are very creative at naming things when they have more then one. Take Schools for example. The 8th school, the Thirty-Third school and so on...) Is located outside the city. It's actually not too far out there. It's located on a mountain. Actually it's a really good view because you can see the whole city as well as the Lena River far off in the distance. I would've taken pictures but it would've made me feel a little awkward.

So Misha dropped off me, the other kids, Oksana, and his mom and we started on the hike while Misha parked the car. The grave was really back in there. We slogged through the mud and passed many other graves on the way. Russian cemetaries are different than American cemetaries. For example, each grave is surrounded by a fence and I'm pretty sure it's the family's responsiblity to keep the grave site pretty since some of the graves were pretty overgrown with weeds. (No eternal care here lol)

Eventually, we got to the grave and that's when I started feeling awkward. I kind of stood off to the side and watched. We'd brought some food with us, and they made up a little plate of some trail bologna, blini, and a shot of vodka which they placed on the grave. Then, they poured drinks, and we poured a bit around the grave before drinking the rest and eating a blin, or some cheese and meat. It was less of a meal than a ceremony of sorts.

Other people in the cemetary were also doing the same thing, with slight variations. Some people were cleaning up gravesites, some people were toasting vodka, some people were having whole meals with their dead relatives. Some people were a little tipsy from having too many drinks with said relatives.

We didn't stay at the grave too long. Long enough for Misha's mom to wipe off the grave stone, long enough to plant the fake flowers, long enough to have two toasts. Then we cleaned up, left the rest of the food for the bums (No, I'm not making this up. Oksana was like "Misha, should we take this stuff with us?" and Misha said "no, leave it for the bums") And then we headed out. While we were at the grave, it started to snow, big huge wet flakes. I think it's something I'm never going to forget. Standing there with the snow coming down, The city spread below us, and a grieving family.

Afterwards, they brought me back home, and went to another place. I have no idea where, but I imagine it's going to be the same kind of thing and am kind of glad they brought me home. They'll be returning this evening sometime, so in the mean time. I've got the apartment to myself, which is nice for a change.

Philosophy Part 2.

I don't understand it, so when it comes, I just kind of ride with it. It's just one of those things. It seems to me that every once in a while here, I have to sit down and have myself a good cry. But it's strange because a good part of the time, I don't have any reason for being sad. It's just like I have this thing inside me and occasionally, it needs to come out. And when I cry, it's like I cry for everything. I cry because I want to see my parents, I cry because I can't believe I'm living this dream come true. I cry for my friends and their decisions, I cry for the decisions I have made and will have to make, I cry for the future and what it holds, I cry because I love it here, I cry because sometimes I feel so alone, I cry for the things back home I've missed, I cry because the beauty of just being here is absolutely overwhelming. I cry for the people here who I've met and befriended, but who I may never see again. I cry because I've grown up, and I cry because I've seen things that others would never even imagine. I cry because God is so good to me and I don't even deserve it. It's hard to describe, it's just one of those things I do here. I hardly ever cried back home. Wonder if this is a permanent thing or not.

The other thing is the restlessness. It was really bad right after I got back from my trip, and only recently has settled down a bit, but when it starts up, I can hardly stand it. And it tends to hit me at random moments. In the bookstore for example. I was just hanging around, looking at books, when all of a sudden I got really restless. I didn't want to be in the store, but I didn't want to go walk around the city. I didn't know what to do with myself. Sometimes it's so hard because I want to be free, and I am, but I'm not. I want to see everything, feel it, be it. But I can't. At the same time I don't. Sometimes I feel like I'm larger than life, like nothing can touch me. Other times, I feel so insignificant and that I'm just one of a billion people. Sometimes I feel like this apartment is going to suffocate me, so I go outside, but when I do, the city feels like it's going to suffocate me. I want to be here, but I don't. I want to see my friends, and my family, but at the same time, I'm afraid. Afraid of what I'll find when I get home. Afraid that I won't be able to settle down because it'll feel too small after being here with the huge sky and the river and the town that is just a tiny dot in the middle of a wilderness. And I don't know what to do with these feelings...

Freaking Out and a Picnic

So I'm completely freaking out. I don't know what to do. I realized that last weekend was a holiday. This coming up weekend is a holidy. Victory day. Next weekend we have Poslednii Zvonok which is "Last Bell" which is where we have this little thing for the 11th graders. Then I'm done with School seriously. I am completely freaking. It wasn't that long ago that I thought May couldn't come fast enough, it seemed like I'd be stuck in this school forever. It seemed like...I don't know, but it's scary. Soon it'll be time for distrct conference, then Ysakh and then I go home. My exchange is winding down. How scary is that?

In other news, we had a three day weekend. Celebrated "Day of Spring and Work" Don't ask, it's just Russia. Yesterday was the last day of this three day weekend. Actually, can you really call it a weekend because it started on Thursday, went through Saturday and Sunday (Today) is a regular working day. I had school. Anyway, Yesterday I decided that I was tired of being lazy and chilling out at home. Which is basically what I did all weekend and really enjoyed it. So I got up, got ready and told the family I was going for a walk. I had some errands I wanted to run and figured I'd probably spend the rest of the afternoon bumming around the city as usual.

Bless his heart, my little brother Tolya said "Abigail, where are you going?" and I said "I have to go to the ATM so I'm going to the post office." I think he wanted to come with me if I were going somewhere fun. Anyway, I grabbed my stuff and headed out. I stopped at the bank and grabbed some money, put some of said money on my phone. On my way, there was a street vendor selling some cool stuff that I bought to bring to my peeps back home. lol. Having accomplished that, I was wandering up Prospekt Lenina eating an ice cream cone (Man it's gonna be hard when I can't buy 6r ice cream cones anymore!) I decided to go to a book store at the other end of town. On my way, I decided to explore a Shopping center that I'd passed many times but hadn't throughly explored. I was wandering through the toy store when Misha called.

"We're going for a drive."
"where?"
"Just a drive"
"oooh, I wanna come. Can you meet me at Ploshad Lenina?"
"Okay"

I took off at a run, met the family, hopped in the car and off we went. We went to Buon Appetito a restaurant near the university to pick up a couple of pizzas and a couple of salads. I figured we were going to take them home and eat them, but we didn't. Instead, we drove outside the city (Not hard since this is Yaktusk after all) then, we drove off the road and across this little field thing. We found a dry spot, parked the car and unloaded. So I'm sitting there eating pizza and drinking juice and thinking "How cool is this? I'm sitting on permafrost having a picnic in the middle of Russia. Awesome!" I mean seriously, how many people can say they've done that?

Apparently the ice on the Lena has started to crack up. (Literally) Misha said in a couple weeks, we'll drive down and see it. I'm looking forward to it.

We messed around and hung out and enjoyed the really warm weather (we're positive now) and basically just had a good time. We left after a while since the baby was getting fussy. I loved it. Not just because it was so cool, but because I felt kind of like part of the family which I haven't felt for eight months. So that was awesome too.

In The Navy

I had a bad day today. First, I thought that I was supposed to do my Rotary presentation because Maria told me last week that I would be doing my presentation about myself. So last night I double checked my power point, and I got my stuff all together and I even wore my Rotary jacket. And then we had different speakers and so I didn't get to give my presentation. And so by the time I got home, I was in a bad mood. I was in a bad mood because I didn't give my presentation, and I had to haul my stuff around, and the waitresses at the restaurant sniggered at my jacket, which looks much better than it did when I left by the way. And I was tired. Tired of slush and mud and wet puddles that are basically little lakes. And I was tired of having a bad accent when I speak, and my friend telling me not to say "Чё" Because it's not really a word. Even though basically everyone says it but her, and I was just irritated and tired in general. And restless again (But more about that in my second philosophy post)

So I got home, unloaded my stuff, changed and immediately decided that if I stayed in the house, I would die a slow and painful death of suffocation. Okay, not really, but that's how I felt. So I threw some stuff in my bag, called to Oksana that I was going to take a walk and headed outside.

The first thing I did was buy some ice cream. I love Russia. I can get a decent sized ice cream cone for like 6 roubles. What a great country! Anyway, so as soon as I started eating my ice cream cone, I started feeling better. Russian ice cream is amazing! I then made my way to Ploshad Pobedy which is Victory Square. I've decided it's a good place to be. I enjoy sitting there and just watching the people. Now that the weather's warmed up, it's pretty busy and so fun to be there. In some ways, it's more exciting than the other squares though I can't really explain why. So I'm walking along, eating my ice cream, and at the far end, there's these millitary guys all marching around, and I'm thinking that's cool, they're probably practicing for May 9th. May 9th for those of you who don't know is a big deal. It's "Den Pobedy" or "Victory Day" big millitary demonstrations and whatnot. Anyway so these young guys are marching around and I decide to watch them while I'm eating my ice cream.

Okay, I'm going to be perfectly honest. I was hoping to see some eye-candy. Mostly it was the fact that they were mostly ethnic Russians. When you see so many Yakutian people, you get a little desperate. So I'm standing there, eating my ice cream and watching the boys march past and I was rather depressed because they were all like 12. Fine, maybe a little older, but still too young. That was depressing, but it was fun to watch them march. I finished up my ice cream and wandered around a bit. By this time, the marchers had a break and they're all standing around having a smoke and chatting. There's space on this bench where an old guy's having a smoke, so I move toward it but and cut off by some twelve-year olds in unifom. This irritates me and so I wander around a bit more, feeling rather awkward when the old guy vacates his spot. I plot down own the bench next to the boys, pull out my paper journal, dig for my trusty pen and begin to vent my frustrations. I was writing away, only paying slight attention to the boys next to me, when all of a sudden I hear "Americans, English" The Russian word for "americans" is like a buzzword. Everytime I hear it, it catches my attention. So I look over at the boys, one of whom begins to act like and idiot and talk about all kinds of random stuff about america. I chuckle at their silliness, and give an ironic smile. After a few minutes, they went back to line up. On the way, the silly boy was like "I am Russian! I am Russian!" I thought about answering with "And I'm American!" But that would've involved screaming across the square and that would've been neither attractive nor appropriate. Probably would've offended people.

So I go back to my writing, feeling better about my day, when all of a sudden a column of boys marches over and stops right in front of me. It took me about ten seconds to realize that this column of boys contained the boys who'd just been sitting by me. Ah, the irony. I happened to make eye contact with the silly one from before, and that got them started. The silly one goes "America!" really loud and I look up, and go "yeah? and what?" in Russian. A moment later I hear in german "Do you speak german?" I don't know German, but this is one phrase I do no. So I look at them and in Russian I go "No, I speak English." Then, realizing that I'm speaking to them in Russian I add hastily "And russian." Well that got them started. It's like a rule in Russia that as soon as someone knows you speak English Natively, they start practicing all their english phrases with you. It's especially fun when you get a group of boys. Today, I got everything from "What's your name" to "Kiss me" I just laughed.

Then, I hear one kid talking to another and I didn't hear the whole conversation, but I think the one asked how they knew I spoke English. The second kid was saying something about me writing in English. Ah, that explained it. So them starting to talk about America wasn't a coincidence. The kid who wanted to know how they knew then gets out of line, comes over and glances at my journal quickly before returning to his place. I go "Hey, look, it's in English" and hold up a page. The silly guy asked me what I was writing about and I'm like "you guys." They then started asking me real questions. They wanted to know if I was British and I said that I was American. Then someone asked what I was doing in Yakutsk (Always a fun question) but before I could answer they got yelled at by a superior and went off marching again. I continued my journaling.

The next time they had a break, I was surrounded by basically the whole company since those who hadn't participated in the last conversation had at least heard it. They asked me a bunch of usual questions. What I thought of Bush, Why was I there, What was my name, Why did I come to Russia, How long would I be in the city. I asked why they were marching around (though I thought I already knew) and they told me because of May 9th. They also told me that they go to this Navy Training School thing and when they get done, they go on boats. I didn't quite understand it, but it sounds like a millitary school and then they just go right into it. One unusual question they asked was if in America our navy wore the same kind of uniform and how many stripes were on it. I said I was sorry, but I didn't know. One guy handed me this little pin that says "Yakutsk River Flot." I thought it was really cool and it found a special spot on my Rotary Jacket when I got home. After a little bit, they had to go back to marching. I finished up my journaling and by the time I did, they'd gone.

I guess the point of this story and all the details is that I felt really happy after this encounter. It's one of those stories that I'll keep close to my heart and is hard to tell when you get back because to be sitting there with your friends and go "One time in Russia I talked to these kids from the military school" Doesn't make much of a story. And really it's not that exciting of a story, but the reason I'm telling it here, and telling it with such detail is so that you all back home can understand. This is what it's like being an exchange student. It's having a completely crummy day, and then having something as small and insignificant as a 10 minute interaction with some boys, make your day 100% better.

Philosophy Part 1

I have to go to my Russian lesson in a bit, but I wanted to take a moment to reflect. My mother says we all have these feelings and as a writer, maybe I can take them and put them in some sort of order to make people stop and go "Yes, I understand, that's me too." Or something like that. I'm paraphrasing.

I think I'm an adult. I guess technically I became an adult when I turned 18. But I never felt like an adult. Not really. I think the fact that I've become an adult is something I've been aware of for a while. I just didn't want to admit it to myself. I was chatting online with my brother today and I said "I'm an adult" and just like that I knew it was true. I'm not sure when it happened, exactly, but I know it's happened sometime in the last eight months. Maybe it was the day I got off the airport in Yakutsk? Maybe it happened when I spent a month running around various russian cities with friends? Or maybe it's just happened in the day to day stuff. I don't know, but what I do know is that part of what I've been feeling are the feelings of adulthood.

Sometimes it scares me. I'm going to be perfectly honest. Sometimes I sit on my bed and just want to cry. I want to cry for my childhood and the fact that it's gone. When I was little, they'd always tell me to enjoy my childhood because it's gone so fast. And I did enjoy my childhood. It was a happy one. But only now am I realizing how right they were.

Yet, at the same time I don't know what to do with myself. Feeling this way has got me all confused. It's like buying some new clothes that aren't my typical style but they make me look good. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with this yet. Although, there's not much I can do about it. I don't think I'd be happy being a kid forever anyway. Because I can know use my powers of being an adult to influence people, and my life and that's a cool power. But how can I handle this? I'm 19 years old? I don't know anything about being an adult. I don't know much about tax forms and 401ks and work, and responsiblity. When I was a kid, I always thought that one day you just wake up and know all about these adult things and that's when you become an adult. I thought it was a magic process.

I do love the fact that because I'm 19 years old, my host families generally let me do as I please. I love the fact that I'm hanging out in a foreign country. I love the fact that I can go do things on my own, like see museums. But I'm scared. Terrified. When I go back next summer, I have to get ready for college. That in itself isn't scary. If I can handle a foreign country, I can handle a college dorm easy. I'm scared because as an adult, I now have to figure out how to pay for college, I have to get a job, I have to find a place to live, I have to feed myself, and determine what I do with my time. Which I do to some extent now, but college is different.

I guess there's no real point to this entry, really. Just thought I'd share my feelings on this with you all, not that you care. I'm also afraid because I feel like I've learned so much here. I don't mean just stuff about Russia. That's a given. But I feel like I've learned so much about life, and the nature of people, and how things work, and it's all in my head trying to get out, but I don't even know even how to begin to describe it. Which is really bad considering words are my specialty. I guess that I'll just have to keep working it out in my head, and when it straightens out, I'll write it down. For now though I need to go, or I'll be late....

Easter

So, Yesterday we celebrated Easter here in good old mother Russia. As you may already be aware, the orthodox church still runs on the old calender. Hence the reason we're only now celebrating easter while all of you celebrated it weeks ago. Anyway, thought you all might like to know how it went down. I didn't go to my Baptist church because my host dad told me that we could go to the Orthodox church. My day started around nine with this random banging sound. I came out of my room to find the family all gathered around the door to one of the bathrooms. Misha was trying to fix the doorknob, and Dennis was banging a screwdriver on the floor. heh heh heh. It struck me as hilarious. I prepared for the day. i.e. Put in my contacts, got dressed and we sat down to breakfast. We had Pirozhki with potatos and some with egg in them which were interesting to try and not too bad. We had put these little plastic decoration cover thingies on hard boiled eggs the night before (no one had egg coloring). Apparently there's a tradition where you whack the end of your egg against someone else's. The one who's egg cracks, looses. Naturally, my little host brother Tolya had great fun with this.

After breakfast Misha said he'd take me to the Orthodox church. Tolya and Natasha came too. I was rather disappointed that we missed the service, but found out when service times are and so will hopefully be making a trip to actually see an orthodox service in the near future. We did look around the church a bit, light a few candles, and Misha was explaining some stuff about Orthodoxy too me, even though they aren't Orthodox. They aren't church people. While we were there though, Misha saw an aquaintance. He asked said aquaintance to explain to me the orthodox church. What followed was a twenty minute lecture on the history of sin (Could've done without that) a history of church in general (Also basic stuff I knew) and then when he finally got to the good stuff, I was having trouble concentrating. Even after almost eight months sometimes it takes a lot of concentration to listen and understand. I did learn that Orthodox Church here is based as much if not more on legend as it is the Bible. For example, the aquaintance told me this story of why the Orthodox Church uses Icons. Apparently, the first icon came about when Christ wiped his face on a towel (Possibly after his baptism? I don't remember.) and it left an image. Personally, I was reminded of "Forrest Gump" But I digress.

When we finished our expedition to the church, we returned home and prepared to go to the dacha where we were going to have shashlik. For those of you who don't know what Shahlik is, it's basically barbecue, but without the BBQ sauce. You could I suppose also translate it as shishkebob since the meat is cooked on skewers. I was in such a good mood while we were there. First, I helped carry stuff to the dacha (We've started opening it up so we can stay there in the summer), then I helped dust a bit, then Tolya, Natasha and I made snowpeople which was really fun. The only dowside is that by the time we were done, they'd already started to melt. I was very proud of mine because I carved out face, arms and her dress. I'll have to get some pictures up.

After a bit of a wait, we ate. By the end of it, I was absolutely stuffed, but it was so good. I love shashlik. With it we had little roasted potatos, pepper, tomatos, and this stuff that's like a tortilla but has a different name. So so good. For desert, we had cookies and traditional easter cake which I thought was rather dry.

After a couple hours and a nap, we headed back home. I hung out with my host siblings. Watched a movie, that sort of thing. All in all, I really enjoyed the day and was feeling good at the end of it.

New Family

Just a quick update. Can do more later as I know have better internet access at home. Anyway, for those of you who don't know, I have officially moved to my third family. I'm now living with Misha, Oksana and there three children. Natasha-14, Tolya-6 and Baby Dennis who I'm not sure how old he is. He's walking, not talking, has one tooth and is afraid of me. You can figure it out from there. heh heh. Anyway, they live in a large apartmen (Two bathrooms!) in the neighborhood where I lived at the beginning of exchange, but a different apartment block. I arrived here yesterday (sunday) and so far it's been interesting. I love my little brother Tolya even though he drives me crazy. He talks to me and I was wrestling around with him last night. Not that the rest of the family doesn't talk, just haven't ever gotten to have a little brother before. Or any little siblings for that matter. Oh by the way, this family is ethnic Russian so it's going to be interesting. Actually, I think it's going to be fun.

In other news, I was told expressly not to go to school today since the 11th graders were all taking a practice test for the state exam in Math. I was like "forget that" so instead, I spent the day walking (literally) all over the city and mostly buying souvenirs for some of you lovely people back home. Although I will admit I did buy a few things for myself, such as a new notebook for my paper journaling, a pin for my blazer, and a new khomus. Nothing huge. The gifts I bought for people back home, I think I'd better wait and just show you. Heh heh heh. Why did I buy a new khomus? Well, because I wanted one that sounded different from the one I have now. The one I bought is tiny. And honestly, that's about all I've got from the land of Sakha-Yakutia. Look for more updates soon as, like I said I can now access the internet from home. Now I've got to go write an essay for my tutor that I've put off too long.

"Russian Idol" Reaction

Sorry guys, but this having a Russian theme, I just had to repost and comment. First of all, I want you to know that this wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. There were some things I found funny. I was worried about it because having lived for over seven months in Russian culture, I thought I would hate it and think it entirely sterotypical. So here's Abigail's analysis.

Have you watched the video? Good then what I'm saying will make sense. The first thing I'd like to say is that Robin Williams has a bad Russian accent. A really bad Russian accent. It got slightly better by the end of the sketch, but it was still pretty bad. Secondly, for those of you who want to know. Most of the song he's singing isn't in real Russian. He says something like "I only...you..I love you" and then the rest of the song is nonsense. I was sitting here listening to it and my ears were trying to make sense of it before I realized that it wasn't anything. What did I find funny? Well, the whole "so you think you can drink" Thing was pretty funny. Oh and I loved the fact that he pronounced "Hollywood" as "Gollywood." That's actually how the Russians say it. The song title "Babushka, use my woman now" was mildly amusing just because babushka means grandma. I found it interesting that the Beetles were mentioned, not because of the whole Lenin/Lennon thing but because the Beetles are actually pretty popular here. The Lennon song "Yesterday" in particular. I can see what would be amusing about the whole Lenin/Stalin thing to an American audience but I didn't find it funny. Nor did I really care for the whole women looking like men thing. Anyone who knows Russians knows that Russian women are known for dressing up. All the time. Even in Siberia. Oh and the gay thing. Didn't find it funny at all. Maybe because Russians are weird about gay people. Maybe because it added absolutely nothing to the point of the sketch. I'm not sure. Oh and for reference, if anyone cares. "Russian Idol" in Russian is Fabrika Zvyozd Which is like "The Making of a Star" or something to that effect.

The Trip Part 2

so before I continue on with my story, I thought I'd say a few things. First of all, they raised the price of our bus fare which made me rather irritated. I went to the center this morning to catch my bus, and realized it was two roubles more. Don't worry, I had enough money, but it was still irritating. 12 roubles. come on. Also, it snowed yesterday. A lot. and now we have calf-deep drifts all over the city. Which is funny considering everything previous to the snow had basically melted away.

Having said that, on with my story. It's kind of hard to sort everything out in my head. A lot happened, and I'm still working on sorting it out, but it was an amazing trip. I tried to relax and just enjoy myself. And I did. A lot. From getting right off a train at 5am and seeing Red Square in the early morning hours, to body mod in Vladivostok, the trip was interesting, awesome, scary, and sometimes depressing. I'm going to share some pictures with you all on here, as the stupid school computer won't let me get on Flickr. Hopefully I won't be having this problem much longer as I'm supposed to be changing families at the end of the week and I'm hoping the new one has internet access at home.

Here's how the trip worked. We flew from Vladivostok to Moscow, then from Moscow we took a night train to St. Petersburg. We stayed in Peter for five days then took a night train back to Moscow where we spent four days. From Moscow, most of us flew back to Vladivostok and dispersed from there, with the exception of three or four. I think my favorite time was in Peter. Just because of the hanging out, and some of the stuff we saw.

I loved the way our program worked because we had excursions in the morning (But thankfully not to to early) which finished around three or four. We then had the rest of the day to explore and do stuff on our own. This meant shopping, exploring, and hanging out.

I should really give you the highlights since I keep talking about how awesome it was but haven't given you any details.

In St. Petersburg, we went to Tsarskoya Celo which is where this palace for Catherine the Great was. I saw was because it was pretty much destroyed in WWII. (Leningrad Blockade anyone?) Fortunately, a good portion of it has been replicated and you can see the how the palace would've looked Back in the Day. In all it's overdone splendor. Yeah, that's right. I personally thought that the palace was completely overdone. Too lavish for my tastes. Though the reconstruction of the Amber room was cool.

One of the best places I went in St. Petersburg was not on an official "excursion" a couple of the other kids and I decided that since we were in the west, we might as well take the opportunity to see some things that our guidebook (Yes, we all have the same one, go Lonely Planet for making a guidebook that includes Eastern Russia.) said were interesting, but that weren't on our official itinerary. So one day a group of us decided to go see the Memorial to the Heroic Defenders of Leningrad. If you ever get to Petersburg, this memorial is a must see. Not only is the outside moving. There's a statue and music playing and a huge oblesk, but the inside is moving as well, featuring Murals, little displays, lights that look like bombshells accompanied by the eerie sound of a metornome which is apparently all that the Leningraders heard on their radios during the war.


We were there for like an hour, just looking around and taking in the atmosphere. I haven't been that moved since the first time I went to the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial. It was amazing. When we were done looking at the displays, one of which included a tiny piece of sawdust filled bread that was a ration for the Leningraders, the Babushkas played a short video for us. It was film clips from the war years, starting with young men going off to fight, covering the years of hardship and famine and ending with Liberation accompanied by music.

It was just amazing.

Peter itself was an interesting city. People here have told me it's like the Paris of Russia since Peter the Great wanted it to be a very Western city. Having been to Paris, going to St. Petersburg was an interesting experience. Because, yeah, I could see how some of the architechture resembled Frances, but at the same time it's its own city with a distinctly Russian flair.

One thing you should definitely know about Moscow and St. Petersburg. They are different cities. Not from each other. I mean that's obvious. What I mean is that they're really different from where I'm living. Different from Eastern Russia. As soon as we got to Moscow and Peter, I looked around me and said to myself. "This is a different world." because it is. McDonald's abound, (I ate Micky D's six or seven times during the course of the trip) the buildings are different, the people are different. It's really hard to describe unless you've been to both Western and Eastern Russia, but it's like there's a different atmosphere surrounding Moscow and St. Petersburg. I wasn't sure I liked it.

One of the best parts was finding people who speak English. Not many people in Eastern Russia speak English. They're everywhere in Moscow and Peter because that's where all the tourists are. I'll never forget our first day in Peter. We were walking along, and we go past some people speaking english. One guy is like "Hey, Foreigners" and I was like "yeah." then it was like "wait, we're foreingers too." Funny how technically i'm a "foreigner" but i don't feel like one anymore. Yeah, I was being a tourist in Moscow and St. Petersburg, but I felt more like a Russian tourist than a real foreigner. Just like I felt more Russian than American when flying to Korea. I love those times.

I have so many stories, of my trip. Stories I don't have time to post here, some stories that probably aren't appropriate to post here, but I wanted to give you some hightlights, show you some pictures, and let you know that I had an awesome time.

When I got back to Yakutsk, I had a shock though. I got back and saw that the ice on the river has started to melt. I saw that the land itself is not nearly as frozen as it was. I found out that I have one month of school left, and realized I'm almost done with my exchange. Do you realize I now have less than three months? It's a scary thought. I've only now realized how comfortable I've become here, how much I'm enjoying myself, and how much I'm going to miss it when I have to get on a plane and don't know if I'll ever be back.

I'm Not Dead Yet

okay, so it might take a couple of entries to tell you all everything, but basically I left you guys in korea. The good news is that the rest of my time in Korea, which wasn't long went really well.

When I got back to Vladivostok, I hung out for three days before I finally finally got to meet some other inbounds. And it was a really interesting first impression too. I will never forget walking into a cafe and there's three inbounders and my host sister. I walk up to them and greet them in Russian "Hi Everyone!" As soon as the words leave my mouth, this blonde girl goes "Don't speak Russian, we don't speak it. If you speak it, we won't talk to you" How's that for a first impression. It completely blew my mind.

Thankfully though we were on an island, neutral territory for orientation and we all got past our first impressions. There were fourteen inbounders. Well fifteen originally. One girl we never met because she was getting sent home, and the kid from france didn't meet with us until Moscow. So there were thirteen of us on the island.

It was interesting. We spent the first few days just comparing our various experiences. It was amazing how similar our experiences are, even though we all are so far apart. Maybe it sounds weird to say that, but it's just that Russia's such a diverse country. Our shared experiences pulled us together, and started our friendships. It was a jumping off point.

And Now I must leave you all in suspense as I've been online a while, and am paying for it since I'm at the internet cafe. I will update more in the next couple of days.

South Korea

I am now sitting in my hotel in Seoul, using the free internet access in my hotel room. I'm not gonna lie, I was scared. First, I was worried that leaving Vladivostock, they would freak out about my registration (or lack thereof) and pack me straight back to the states. I need not have worried. When I went through passport control on the way out of Vladivostok the lady asked to see my passport, and my immigration card. She stamped both, and it was all good. No problems, no questions asked, and I didn't even have to pay anything like the lady at the travel agency told me. I got on and ready to fly, and breathed a sigh of relief for a bit. Getting out of the country was the first hurdle. I wanted a break before the next one which was landing and figuring out how to call my hotel to send a car to pick me up.

I would just like to say that God must have heard all of those prayers I was desperately praying on the way to the airport this morning because so far, he's done an awesome job of making this trip go smoothly. (slava tebye Gospod!) The flight itself was nice. I love Russian airlines because even when the flight is fairly short, they serve you "tea" which if you've read my other posts, you know that it's not just gonna be tea. It was great.

It's funny the way things work out. I didn't really talk to the russian girl sitting next to me, but as the plane landed she made a call on her cell and started jabbering away in Korean. Well, that's interesting. Once inside the airport, I had no idea where to go for customs and immigration and all. So I did the smart thing. I followed the girl. ha ha ha. I'm so proud of myself. Anyway, I made it through immigration without any hitch. Then I had to figure out where to go next. There was a big board in front of me, mostly in korean and I had no idea what it said. The girl showed me this number on her ticket stub and in Russian I'm like "I have no idea, I don't have baggage." She seemed rather taken aback. "You study Russian?" she asked. "yeah" I was very proud of myself. She probably thought I didn't know Russian because I had some slight understanding problems with the woman on the plane and the immigration cards. Anyway, the girl said she'd help me, and as we headed to the baggage claim, I explained that I was living in Russia in order to study russian. I found out that she is a student here in Korea and is studying korean. I explained that I had a room reserved at a hotel but that I had to find a way to call so they'd send a car. She very kindly let me use her cell phone.

After trying to talk to the girl at the hotel in English with limited success, I handed the phone to my "new friend" and she jabbered away in Korean for a few minutes. When she got off the phone she told me exactly where I needed to go. In russian. Which was very impressive to me. No english needed. Yeah, it's the international language, but it still helps to know one or two others. :)

After thanking the girl, I headed out on my own to try to find the taxi. (Third floor, exit number 10.) The first thing I saw as I came to the top of the escalator on the third floor was a clearly labeled English sign "BURGER KING" I loved this country already. If I hadn't had a taxi to meet, and had changed some money, I would've stopped. As it was, I didn't. I found the exit with no problem and then waited nervously for the taxi.

I never had any previous interest in learning Korean, or any other aisiatic language for that matter. Being here has changed that completely. Not because I particularly like Korean, but because if I new any korean at all, it would make things ten times easier. language, even basic is communication. Completely being unable to communicate with the people around you is a scary feeling.

Thankfully, I didn't have to wait long or look to hard for the taxi. It showed up with the words Hotel June across the side. The little Korean guy opened the door for me, I hopped in and off we went. When we got to the hotel, I hopped out and checked in. Thankfully, they accept plastic here so I just paid for my room with that. (Mom and dad, that's where part of the money's going)They gave me a key and I made my way to my room.

I'm not gonna lie. For $100 this is a nice room. I started freaking out as soon as I came in. There's a little entrace way with a couple of pairs of sandles. Everything I'd ever read about the exchange students in asian countries came back into my head. Being the culturally aware person that I am (ha) I took off my shoes and put on the sandles. I then explored my room.

It's pretty big. To turn on the main lights you have to put your key in this little slot. Your room speaks korean to you and then lights up. Gotta love these high-tech asian countries. There's a panel with buttons next to the bathroom which turn on various lights. There's a good sized TV. The best part is the bathroom. There's a really big tub with like jet sprays. On top of that you have the toilet. If you haven't heard about asian super toilets, now's the time. On a panel next to the toilet are a variety of buttons labeled in English. The lables include such things as "Massage" "Front cleansing" "Back cleansing" "Water temperature" "Seat Temperature" "Stop" and "water pressure." I fully intened to play with both the shower and the super toilet (Why not? I'm only here for one night and who knows if/when I'll be back) as soon as I finish eating my undeclared apple and writing this blog entry. Oh, incidentally, there's a separate pair of slippers for the bathroom.

I didn't go anywhere, which I feel slightly bad about, but I don't have any korean won (?) and I don't know where to change it and it felt kind of pointless to change money when I was going to be here less than 24-hrs. And now it's dark, and I don't dare go out alone in a strange foreign country at night. So maybe I wasted my time here, writing this blog entry and playing with the techno hotel room, but when you don't have a ton of time to begin with, what are you gonna do?

I'm so glad that these hurdles are overwith. Next step, getting back into Russia.

Oh and one more thing. It felt weird to be using english with the lady at the desk. Being here I feel more Russian than American, but maybe that has to do with the fact that I flew from Russia and am going back there. As well as the fact that I've been living there for a good seven months.

The Lord of the East

So, I'm chilling in Vladivostok. Actually, "chilling" isn't really the word. The temperature was 7 degrees celsius (And yes, that's positive) when I got off the plane yesterday. There was also wind. A lot of wind compared to what we have in Yaktusk. I stepped off the plane onto the tarmac and was like "Wow, it's so warm here!' ha ha ha. There's no snow.

I kind of like it here actually. The landscape is like San Francisco meets southern Ohio. Though I've never been to S.F. So I don't know how accurate that description is. There are lots of hills here, and the city is basically built on them. The hills slope down to the sea of Japan so that's pretty cool. The other landscape feature that's worth noting is that since it's not nearly as cold here as Yaktusk, there are full-sized trees. I didn't know how much I missed full sized trees until I saw them (all over the place) on the drive from the airport and I'm like "oh wow! trees! How cool is that!"

I got picked up from the airport by some random guy. We went to different places around the city so he could get groceries, then took me to an empty apartment, was like "you'll be living here" told me that Yulia, the apartment's inhabitant would be home later, after work, and then left. oooh, fun. ha ha ha. Naturally it was entertaining for me to stand there when this woman comes home from work and be like "uh...hi. I'm Abigail and I'll be living in your apartment for a while. " it was all good though. Basically, I ate dinner and went to bed because I was pretty wiped out. Even short plane rides have that effect on me. Plane rides= Abigail conking out during and after.

This morning I woke up about ten, looked out the window and was throughly depressed. There was a thick blanket of fog over the city and there was rain and a major wind going on (I opened the window.) I spent the day doing absolutely nothing and enjoyed myself immensely. I did not get dressed, and I did not even put in my contacts (gasp!) instead, I spent the day alternately drinking chai and flipping through the tv channels, some of which we don't have in Yaktusk. Not that you care, but I watched such mind stimulating programs as "Mythbusters", "Rugrats," "Woody Woodpecker" and "Scooby-doo". All dubbed into Russian of course. I was half-way through watching "smallville" which is one of those programs that I never watched in america, but I watch here, when Yulia came home. Slightly awkward feeling for me as the TV is located in her room, but she was like "It's okay, watch." So I did. It wasn't long after that when Raisa called from Yaktusk. The conversation went as follows:

"I called earlier why didn't you answer?"
"Did you call the sottovii (cell)?" while thinking Yeah, I'm gonna answer the phone in a near-stranger's house when I've been living here for 24 hours
"What about Korea?"
"Well, I'm not there yet, I'm still in Vladivostok" obviously, since you called me here.
"Did you meet with Eleonora yet?"
"Uh...no?"
"Why not? "
"Uh...."
"Call her. Right now, you need to call her and talk to her"
"Uh..okay..."
"I'll call you back tomorrow"
"Okay, bye."

I talked to Yulia about talking to Eleonora, and Yulia made a call. We then found out that Eleonora is sick in the bolnitsa (Hospital) and won't be out until next week at which time I'll meet with her. In the meantime I have no idea when I'm heading for the golden shores (?) of Korea. And so I'm relaxing here.

Yulia is a doctor. She does cardiograms and stuff. She has a daughter who's on exchange this year in Taiwan and who, like me, really missed home at first and is doing a lot better now. Yulia said that on the weekend, since she doesn't have to work, we'll go to the sea. NOt that it's warm enough to swim in or anything, but just seeing the sea (and maybe taking some pictures) would be cool.

As I mentioned, I like Vladivostok so far, but it was the weirdest thing yesterday, I was sitting at dinner and thinking about how it's like starting exchange over again, with a random family, but at least this time I know the language and more culture, and then all of a sudden I realized that I missed Yakutsk Yes, you read that correctly. I actually miss that Frozen, tiny, town stuck in the middle of nowhere. Maybe because it's familier, maybe because it's been home for seven months, or maybe because I really do like that city more than I realized. Whatever it is, last night for the first time I was homesick, not for home in Ohio, but for Yakutsk. Funny how that works.

Growing up, Weekend with the Baptists, and Travel

I hate growing up. Yet I wouldn't want to be Peter Pan either. It's just growing up can be such a pain sometimes. Especially lately, I've felt I had to be more of a grown up than a kid and it was really depressing. I don't always want to be a grown up. I like being able to act silly and have a good time, it's just who I am. But I understand that sometimes stuff happens, and when you're 19 years old and ten-thousand miles away from your parents, you have to deal with that stuff on your own. Mommy and Daddy can't just make it all go away, and make it all better. Sometimes I wish I was seven again so they could.

Having said that, the good news is that I did get to feel like a kid again this weekend. That made me feel better. We had a holiday on saturday, march 8th. It's called "international woman's day" which I can't figure out because they only celebrate it in Russia. They probably also celebrate it in other eastern european countries too, and that's where they get the "international" when stuff is "international" here that usually means that it's happening in the former soviet states as well as in Russia.

Anyway, I basically spent the weekend doing various church-related activities. Saturday night was the weekly youth meeting, which I went to and that was fun. One of the guys, Egor had a nice lesson on how God sees women, and what the bible said it. In honor of March 8th. It was also easier for me to follow since he had a nice power point with all the verses written out so I could read along as he read. Made understanding easier. hurrah! At the meeting, one of the girls, Sveta invited me to go to a girls youth meeting in Namtsy, a nearby (two-hour drive) town. Sunday after church. I was like "Okay, why not?" So directly after church, I ate lunch at Anya's (One of the preacher's daughters remember?) and then Her sister, Maria and I headed to meet the group going to Namtsy.

It was a long day, but fun. We got to Namtsy maybe about three and sat in on a women's meeting that was run by men. Which I couldn't quite figure out. The best part was that we sang songs not only in russian, but in Yakutian as well, which was fun for my tongue, but was interesting to practice reading Yaktuian, which is related to russian in alphabet with enough different/extra letters and different sounds to make it interesting. We were accompanied by accordian and guitar. After the meeting ended, Maria, Sveta and I went out side to strech our tired bottoms.yeah, try sitting jammed in a van for two hours and then sitting in a hard chair another hour and a half. Not fun. So we frolicked for a bit. Then, about six we had a meal. I love the way we eat communal meals in Russia. It's just so...communal. We had the ever present plov which is like the ultimate quickie, feed a lot of people dish here. Good thing I like it. It's usually rice, meat of some kind and carrots all fried up together. Awesome!

After the meal, we girls cleaned up i.e. Did the dishes. I find it odd that back home at church I always tried to avoid helping clean up,while here I don't mind. I find it odd because there's actually a lot more work to clean up here since we wash all the dishes (even the throw away type) while back home, we just throw it all away.

After the meal, we had our girls meeting. There were three girls from Namtsy and then our six or seven girls. we watched a video of a woman talking about purity which I found rather interesting. Afterwards we headed home.

Going was really good for me. Not just for the church thing but because I spent time with Maria and Sveta. Got to know them better and deepen some friendships. I also got to feel like less of an adult, which was a good feeling.

In other news, i'm leaving the day after tomorrow for Vladivostok. Since I've got issues with registration, The rotary club decided to send me to Eleonora, the woman who's the district coordinator for the exchange students in the Russian part of 5010. she is going to help me get out of the country, and back in so that I can renew my registration. Then, we have orientation and our trip to Moscow and Peter. I'm actually really looking forward to spending some time away from yaktusk. Not that i don't like it here, it's just going to be nice to have a sort of vacation and see some other places. i'm really looking forward to meeting and hanging out with the other inbounds. Yay!

I should be coming back to Yakutsk sometime around April third or fourth. i don't know what the internet situation is going to be like while I'm traveling and frankly, I'm not going to worry about it, so it's very possible that you won't hear anything from this end until I get back.

Wish me luck!

What is Russia? Part 2

It's your friend telling you he's given up drinking every time he sees you/talks to you, it's the weather warming up and getting to start removing layers, it's spending a good part of the day walking, it's really tasty yogurt, and awesome juice. It's your dictionary falling apart, and not having english class because your teacher is in moscow again. It's having another american occasionally show up and you not feeling american. It's telling the woman at the kiosk you want a small sprite. It's drinks without ice, and fighting a loosing battle with the governmental beauraucracy. IT's listening to the Rotarians talk about everything from health fairs, to what they're going to do with you, and understanding. It's chewing gum that quickly loses its flavor and feeling good everytime you have personal contact with someone. It's forgetting that in russian nouns and adjectives have genders and making your tutor laugh. It's finding time to use the internet. It's laughing while your non-yakutian school mates speak yakutian even though you don't understand a word of it. It's your computer teacher randomly showing you pictures of her family and trip to paris and you actually enjoying the look into her personal life. It's the little kids staring at you as you type quickly in english and waiting for you to move so they can have the computer. It's feeling happy and at home in a country that didn't start out as your own.

Russia Update #5

Yeah, I know, I'm really behind. What can I say. Life here just kind of gets me involved and it's hard to find time to do these updates which take longer, and I have to think about more than my weekly blog entries.so I encourage all of you who want to know about my adventures in more detail to check out said blog at http://learnspeak.blogspot.com

That having been said, On to the rest of my letter.

A lot's been going on in the last couple of months. For those of you who are behind on the times, I changed host families right after new years. In Mid-January. It started out as a temporary family while my first host mom, Raisa, was on a business trip. I really liked the family, got along well with them, so I got to stay with Elena Ivanovna and her daughter, Sasha. I'll probably be staying with them until mid-april. I'm not sure if I'll have a third host family or not. I'd like to, but the last I heard, Raisa was talking about having me move in with her again. I don't know what's going to happen and at this point I'm not going to worry about. I've got other problems.

Some of said problems are little things that are no big deal, and just part of the every day stuff. Some of the problems are a little bigger. like the fact that my registration ran out on the 29th and so I'm living here illegally right now.

You may or may not remember that at the beginning of the year i had some slight problems with my visa. Actually, from what I found out, my visa is fine and is good until august of 2008. My problem is that the law here was changed in October. basically what happened is that you are only allowed to be registered in the city/country for 6 months. then you can't renew it anymore. in order to be able to remain in the country until July, I have to leave the country for at least 24 hours and then come back in. yet another adventure in Russian bureaucracy.

I don't sweat it though. I was really anti-wanting to go. I was completely freaking out about it. (you can ask my parents lol) and I finally figured out why. It's because I trust the Russians. Perhaps, those of you who don't know any better are laughing, but it's the truth. I've been living here so long (over seven months now) that i feel comfortable with the culture. Yeah, it's a crazy culture and I'll probably never understand completely or be able to figure some things out, but I've got a good hold on it. Enough so that I kind of know what to expect from Russians. They were talking about sending me to Korea. by myself. which scared me. and maybe you're thinking 'but abigail, you went to russia all by yourself," And maybe that's what scared me, because it would be like starting the exchange all over again. i'd be in the middle of a random country where I don't speak the language and don't know the culture. not that I'm a wuss, and wouldn't enjoy such an experience again under the right circumstances, it's just the fact that I'm kind of being forced into having to go. which isn't so cool. I sucked up my issues, and so I'll go, and it'll be alright. It's just another adventure that's part of the exchange.

Actually, the good news is that i'm really enjoying myself. The other day I was walking down the street thinking. Yeah, I could see myself living and working in Russia. Maybe not Yakutsk, but Russia in general. I'm comfortable enough with the language and with the culture that I could do it, and I would enjoy it.

As I'm writing this I have four months, and six days left. Four months and six days from now, I'll be crawling into my bed in Ohio. That kind of scares me too. just the fact that I'm going to have to leave. i have a friend here who spent some time working in america, and It's like each time I see him, his english is worse. nothing hugely major, like he hasn't completely forgotten it, but he is forgetting, and that scares me because I think "This is probably going to be me". I think that's my biggest fear. I'm terrified of forgetting. Forgetting not just how to speak, but forgetting this place and I'll I've seen and done here. Sometimes it's really hard for me to make an effort and get close to people because I think "You know the closer I get to people here, the more it's gonna hurt when I go home." Not that I never want to see home again, but it's just confusing. It's like i'm both looking forward to and dreading the day I go home.

And so I try not to think about it.

That's about all the philosophy I've got for right now. once again, if you're looking for something other than emotions, if you want the everyday stuff. check out my blog. The updates, have become more of an emotional journey, I think.

Anyway,
Until next time
Abigail