Better Ballet

Last night we went to see "Swan Lake" ballet, and it was so much better than "the Nutcracker".

Photo: Mike, Nadia, rock star Imane, Mark, Hesook, and Jakob in the nose-bleed balcony at the ballet

I guess from color guard I'm a little bit of a perfectionist when it comes to things that are supposed to be done in complete unison, and the Nutcracker really wasn't. Swan Lake however, was ridiculous - everything was perfect. I was looking for mistakes! And the guys can jump so high, its amazing, they make it look so easy! Makes me wonder what their feet look like at the end of the night after dancing in toe shoes all night.

We had a really great time, aside from having our knees jammed up against the wall in front of us as we were craning to see the whole stage, since we were on the far right side of the balcony. We went out to a really nice Chinese restaurant afterwards, and before you say, "Chinese?! But you're in Russia!" I have an answer for that. (1) I was told that Chinese food is really good here, and it was; (2) We eat Russian food every day here at the Academy for breakfast and lunch; (3) we were pretty much all in the mood for something that was not pizza. So Chinese was nice, and then we went home, the girls came up to my flat for a drink, which is becoming a bit of a nightly ritual

Photo: Nadia, Mike, and Imane up at my flat for a drink one night.

Whirlwind Weekend in St. Petersburg

I'm completely wrecked right now after only getting about 7 hours total of sleep this weekend, my calves are so covered in bug bites that I have to keep applying my Itch Eraser every 5 minutes, I have a bruise the size of Mongolia on my back, and I think I somehow ingested some bacteria-infected st.p's water, but other than that, this weekend was pretty great.

We took the night train up, in sleeper cars, and basically started drinking while we were in the train station waiting to board. I'm not sure if anyone was sober that night, I sure wasn't. That's how I got my bruise, alcohol + trying to stand up in a swaying train cabin + not much foot room = C falling backwards onto the table and sustaining a brilliant purple softball-sized bruise. 

Aside from that we had a great night, played cards and basically kept drinking through til about 3 am, and the people coming through with buckets of beer for sale didn't improve our state much. I think I passed out in my bunk before the sun came up, but I can't be completely sure. And then at 6:15 am, they turned the radio on in the train, and god help the person who decided that Russian pop was a good thing to subject 25 hung over wannabe diplomats at the crack of dawn, because everyone was cursing his existence. Somehow we managed to stumble out of the train and find our guide.

Went to a nearby cafe to sober up before our whirlwind St. Petersburg tour by bus (thank god for the bus, otherwise I think we would have lost half our group).  Got to the Hermitage (right) and followed our obligatory guide while she explained some of the highlights of this massive museum-in-a-former-palace. It was so huge, it would take weeks to get through it, and they have so much art that they only display a fifth of the collection - the rest of it they store off site somewhere.

After the Hermitage we saw a church that is prettier than St. Basil's in Moscow, but not nearly as famous, called the Church on Spilled Blood (left), and I like it a lot better because it has blues and greens and yellows on its domes.

That night we walked so damn far...it seems like its all we do sometimes. I'm pretty sure we walked the distance of a triathlon or something. Finally found our way to an outdoor sushi cafe (the site on which the bugs commenced to gnaw on my legs for fun and leave it looking like I have the chicken pox). Pretty much sat there for 3 hours, drinking and playing games and eating sushi,and then went down to the river to see the drawbridges open.

St. Petersburg is like Amsterdam - its on a river and has 43 islands which the city is built on and therefore a million canals, and the bridges over the main ones open up at 1am ish to allow bigger ships to pass through so they can carry all things shipped into the city, and its a spectacle. It was nice because there were so many people out that late at night, we didn't feel like we were out late at all.

Sunday we went to the Peterhof - a ginormous palace (a la Versailles) built by Peter the Great, the guy who had St. Petersburg built in 50 years to his exact ideas. This place was massive, with some gorgeous fountains, but it was swarming with people, just a sea of humanity, so we didn't go inside, just stayed out and wandered through the gardens. Back in the city we had a nice dinner at Pushkin Restaurant, with really good Russian food. I had borsht and pelmeny, basically meat-filled pasta. It was sooooo good, and the place was air-conditioned, so we spent a good 2 hours there. Plus the service was snail-slow, as per usual in this country, good thing we weren't in a hurry. We eventually made it back to our hotel before we had to get on the night train back to Moscow, and some of us (me included) almost missed it b/c we were waiting for one girl who decided at the last second to go buy some snacks for the train.

Rainy Moscow

Its been raining on and off here in Moscow for the past week, and the puddles here don't drain because they are close to the water table, so they just keep getting bigger. Now the puddles are to the point where you can't jump over them, and so you have to tiptoe through them very delicately. And you have to watch out for cars on the street, not because you'll get hit, which you most definitely will, but because if you're anywhere near the street you'll get drenched. So, lesson number 78: bring an umbrella and carry it always.

Then, as a result of so much standing water, you have these lovely vicious mosquitoes that come out around 7, so that you must find shelter or will most certainly be deprived of your blood within a little while, or at the very least you'll walk around scratching yourself like a crack addict/crazy person for the next few days. I've also rubbed about 10 holes in my feet with my shoes, which I had thought were pretty comfortable. But when you walk quickly for long periods of time, a paper bag would start to rub you the wrong way, and I have managed to accomplish this several times. Thank god for bandaids and sneakers.

This is where it pays to read all that miscellaneous info in the guidebooks, because I knew this stuff before I came and am well equipped, now that I have my suitcase. So, be warned of these things in summer if you ever venture over here.

Photo: Nadia, Mike and Jakob on the dreaded Moscow Metro

Getting around by myself has been fine here, even though I was told not to go anywhere by myself, I've kind of had to, and haven't had any problems. Just put on my "metro face" and walked fast! And I still have all my money.

Photo: Nadia, C, and Marijana at the ballet

Since we're students, we can get the cheap seats for only about $6! And I've learned enough Russian at this point that I think I can manage saying "four student tickets please".  Last night I went with 3 of my girlfriends, the ones that rescued me from being stinky and unshowered when my suitcase was MIA, to see The Nutcracker ballet. Verrry interesting. The first act was very kidsy, with a lot of hokey dancing around with presents and simple dances. Not the best stuff, and everyone seemed to agree about this. However the second act was a lot better, I guess they saved their better dancers because they were really good, doing all kinds of crazy jumps consecutively and turns. So there was a definite improvement between the two acts.

But overall it was nice, and we went out for drinks and small plates afterward at this nice Italian restaurant. Now, don't get on me for not going to a Russian restaurant, its hard to find places here just based on addresses, so you kind of have to know where you're going! And there aren't necessarily real Russian restaurants everywhere either. 

First Weekend Living in Moscow

This weekend was great, did some sightseeing in and around Red Square on Saturday. Randomly ran into one of the American guys (1 of only 2) in the Diplomatic Academy program. He was meeting a friend of his to do some sightseeing, so we invited them to come along with us. His friend turned out to be a girl who was a former student of my Aunt Val (a Russian professor at Georgetown University), and Val was her thesis adviser, so they had a closer relationship than just that of student-professor.  Apparently its a small world here if you've ever studied or worked in Russia, since not that many Americans do, so you usually know someone here, which is great because then you have someone to meet up with once you get here.

After sightseeing, we met up with 3 guys from the program and all went to an outdoor cafe and watched the outrageous Russians go by. It seems like there is no color off limits that can be applied to hair, and I mean none - I've seen bright orange hair, purple hair, fire engine red hair...and its everywhere! These women love to dye their hair crazy colors, never mind looking natural!

We saw a guy in this suit that had neon yellow and navy blue vertical stripes, but the pants cut off around the shins like capris - it was verrry interesting. And the Russians are a lot freer with their bodies than Americans. In the metro underground tunnels there are these really small shops with glass walls so you can see what they're selling, and one day we walked by one that happened to be selling bras, and lo and behold there were women in the shop TRYING THEM ON!! No shame whatsoever! Not that its a bad thing, just realllly different and a little shocking to my American sensibilities! 

Sunday we (me and some lovely girls from the program) went on a boat cruise on the Moskva River, it was the perfect beautiful day for it. Saw a bunch of churches from the river, the Kremlin walls, a music hall that looked like a space ship, lots of park land that I'm surprised hasn't been developed into apartments yet. Then we found some lunch at...T.G.I. Fridays. Not a typo, don't laugh, we were desperate. Too much walking + restaurants that the guidebook recommends that end up being closed for summer holiday + no one wanted to eat McDonalds = first decent place we came to we ate at, and it happened to be Fridays. Service was typical Russian, i.e. slow and not customer-oriented.

Then we went our separate ways - I had a "date" with the Bozek's, friends of my aunt and uncle who work and live at the American Embassy. After some confusion and a little adventure on the metro, I found them waiting for me, and they took me back to their house at the compound for dinner. You never know how great simple lasagna and salad and garlic bread is until you've eaten a week's worth of Russian food covered in cream, dill, oil, and cheese (though not necessarily all those at once). Which is what we get for breakfast and lunch at the academy, and we're usually worn out by dinner time that we just eat frozen pizzas (and cut them with my scissors!) or bread and jam or this fantastic sweet bread for dinner.

Anyway, dinner at the Bozek's was great, nice people...they're the ones that really got my suitcase back. Lesson #1 in traveling to a very foreign country: know people at your embassy, they can get you stuff. Like a cell phone! I'm renting one from the embassy! Its ridiculous to try and use the public phones here, the guidebooks make it sound easy, maybe if you actually speak and understand the language and the need for 3 different cards in order to place one call to the US! So being at the Bozeks' was a nice break from the Moscow craziness.

Then back to reality to study. Classes are getting harder, but its still basically stuff I just have to relearn from my semester of Russian two years ago. I'm hoping we actually advance past that point, otherwise this will just turn out to be a refresher. I feel bad for the people in the beginner classes that are completely new to Russian, since it is a completely different script from English. It's not exactly the easiest language to learn, it's not like you can learn it just by hearing it for 3 hours a day and automatically pick it up.

Tomorrow we have tickets to see "The Nutcracker" ballet. Not something I would normally do, but when you're in a place that is famous for ballet, its almost a requirement! Tomorrow we're also going on an excursion to Kuskovo, an estate outside of the city that was built by one of the noble ruling families back in the day, kind of like a Russian Versailles, so it should be cool to see how the high-and-mighties lived Russian-style. Then this weekend we head up to St. Petersburg, night train up, hotel one night, night train back, so I'm sure when we get back we'll be absolutely smashed. Not to mention the fact that vodka is available for like $2 a bottle, and the plan is to take full advantage of this fact on the night train up. :) Give us an excuse and we'll drink the store dry... I kid. We're all very responsible adults. Studying to be diplomats.