Я хачю Daphne

Greetings! It has been a busy but exciting week and a half since my last post. Our weekend trip to Vladimir and Suzdal was awesome and I think Suzdal is my favorite city so far. It is very small because of a UN restriction (no more building permitted) but it’s so quaint and there are cute little houses. (Everyone lives in big ugly apartment buildings in Nizhni and Moscow). Anyway, we were there for a holiday called “matslinitsa” or something to that affect so there were tons and tons of Russians out and about doing holiday activities. The atmosphere was akin to a renaissance fair or market in the states. This holiday is a week-long celebration of the end of winter (yeah right, I wish) during which Russians eat pancakes and have outdoor dances and activities and of course, vodka—don’t worry, Mom and Dad, I didn’t partake in the free shots of dubious origins. I did eat free blini though, and lots of it. There were the funniest, friendliest Russian families and people milling about and doing folk dances and there was even a goose fight and a hot tea chugging contest. At the end of the day on Sunday they burned down a giant scarecrow-woman, who is symbolic of winter, and then we feasted.
Throughout the week I stayed busy with homework, a presentation on Pushkin’s Bronze Horseman, and a few excursions. At about 10pm one night I joined a bunch of Russians from the dorm and some Americans to go sledding. We hiked out behind the dorm, on the banks of the Oka and grabbed some pieces of cardboard and linoleum and slid down the icy, forested hills. It was freezing, hilarious, and very fun.
I had my first day of teaching and it was a little overwhelming but I hope it will be a good experience. I thought I was going to be teaching English but instead I was placed in the history department of the university and will be co-teaching an American history course with a fellow American student. We have to prepare lesson plans and lecture for about an hour and a half every Friday. I am not sure just yet what the teacher or the students think of us or how well they understand our English (first time hearing native speakers I think). I hope we can sort of learn from each other, but I am a little worried about the co-teaching thing since the girl I am to teach with is…sometimes very hard to get along with…
It’s hard to believe that in two weeks I’ll be with a family. I filled out a form last week and right now they are working on finding a match for me. I have enjoyed staying here in the dorm but I think I’m ready for a change. It’s getting to be a huge distraction too, living with everyone. Almost every night there are little tea and chocolate parties and some Russian guy playing the guitar or accordion or just hosting a dance party. And they all give us presents and little notes and things, it’s so cute!
This is around the time people predict a little homesickness. I don’t think I have detected any homesickness per se but I was showing some people pictures the other day and thought that I kind of missed talking to my family and friends I happened upon a picture of my bike, Daphne, and realized how much I miss her!
Hope all is well. Feel free to send me an update. I have been checking my email less frequently but hopefully sometime in the next couple of weeks I’ll post some pictures.

Я не понимаю!

I’ve now been in Russia nearly a month. I have learned three of the six cases in the Russian language (barely) and probably a hundred or so vocab words. I often confuse English tenses both in writing and in speaking. And seriously, why do we have so many articles in English? In Russian there are NO articles. There are, however, an absurd amount of endings for EVERYTHING, including proper nouns. Yes, names change in some cases, which makes things interesting, although the name Crystal does not change and neither does Idaho, for which I am grateful. Oh, and double negatives are a must. Weird. не может бытъ! (It is impossible!) Я не понимаю Русскии зяык! (I don’t understand Russian!) Yes, I have been changing settings on my laptop. Now I can use the Cyrillic alphabet whenever I want.

Classes are going well though. I have a paper to write this week but I’ve been neglecting it in favor of hours of drinking чай (tea), eating  шоколадъ (chocolate), and slowly getting to know Nizhni. This last weekend I went ice skating one night with a large group of American and Russian students and then experienced a classic Russian snowboarding adventure. Sasha, who lives across the hall from us and does not speak much English, wanted to take some of us snowboarding. To make a long, crazy story short, I have now snowboarded in Russia in nothing but a peacoat and jeans. Hardcore. Also, there are not chairlifts in Russia…these are not exactly developed mountains and there are little kids on sleds, skiers, snowboarders, garbage, home-made rails, everything. At the base was the frozen Oka river (which I stood on). It took about 5 minutes to get down the mountain and 30 to climb back up. Sasha insisted on carrying every girls’ snowboard and strutted up the mountain in his jeans and windbreaker. As we Americans have become fond of saying, TIR (This Is Russia)!

Oh, and last weekend we went to a баня (banya) and hit each other’s naked, sweating bodies with birch branches before diving in to the pool of ice cold water. This, of course, was repeated half a dozen times until my skin was blotchy and red and my body was tingling and probably the cleanest it has ever been. Glorious.

This Friday we will be going to tour the cities of Vladimir and Suzdal, where there are important historical sites and touristy things. Should be back Sunday night. Then next Friday I will start teaching English culture and language one day a week at either the university here or a nearby high school. This is exciting but sort of terrifying at the same time. 

Now I have a few random observations for you:

Russians do NOT speak on buses or metros. It is rude. They also do not smile when meeting or looking at people and find it odd when Americans smile for no reason. And they love staring, it's not rude for them. They never sit on the floor. Some of us have gotten yelled at for doing this, particularly by babushkas, who insist that our ovaries will freeze. Oh, and public restrooms usually do not have toilet paper. If you want it, bring it, but never flush it. Russians do not shower as much, neither do they change their clothes as much, but they generally wear much more formal clothes: boots, heels, dress shoes, lots and lots of fur. They don't drink with their meals, they drink when they are done eating. They eat meat with bones in it and drink this boiled fruit and nut drink that can either be really good or taste like liquid smoke. Two words: pickle soup. Two more words: yes, please! 

Welp, hope everything in the states is going okay. I heard about the freak snow storm and those Idaho Baptists in Haiti...