let's see... the last week has been kind of bland. i survived my first russian hangover in good order, by sleeping it away for thirteen hours. amazing! on sunday i went to a tennis match, which was really cool since i've never been to one before, not even when the legg-mason classic was in my backyard for who knows how many years. afternoons this week have been spent buying stamps, trying to figure out how to get this box of christmas presents i have home, and walking around looking for landmarks.
i found a rather amusing statue of lenin on the road to the airport - it looks like he's trying to hail a taxi. fun stuff. have i taken pictures of any of this stuff? no, because i'm a dweeb and i constantly forget my camera before i leave in the mornings. oh well.

oh - i'll be out of touch for most of next week since we finally get a break from class. november 7 is a national holiday, so we have both the 7th and the 8th off. this means that i'm going on a trip! another student and i are going to moscow on tuesday night, staying there wednesday, and then taking a train to volgograd (way south of moscow) and staying there for three days. we're coming back to moscow on sunday, spending the day there, and then coming back to petersburg monday morning. to make a long story short, don't expect to hear from me between november 5-10. [grin]

happy halloween!
posted by kat thompson at 10:16 AM

ah, crap.

not only have my archives seemed to have disappeared [this is what i get for correcting the name of my blog in accordance with actual russian grammar, instead of what i just assumed it should be], but the band in the cafe next to the internet-club has decided to slander the good name of the band radiohead by covering 'creep'. this would be fine with me, if a) they weren't playing it in the completely wrong key and b) they knew any of the words besides the chorus. i never thought it would be so painfully easy to mangle "i want a perfect body/i want a perfect soul", but these kids found a way. shudder.

things could get more interesting, or they could get profoundly worse. i don't think i want to stick around to find out, however.
posted by kat thompson at 2:45 PM

IMPORTANT!!

sorry for the shouting, but these two snippets of info are pertinent.

first, if you ever at any time emailed me using my virginia address, well... quit it. uva is finally deleting my account one week from today - that's october 30, so after that date, all email should be sent to my alumni address, which happens to forward to my aol account, so you could always email me there, too. i know, i'm also very sad that they're removing what has been a source of mostly joy for me for the past four years, but i guess they've gotta make room for next year's fresh meat. ah well.

second, if you've recently sent me an instant message and i haven't responded, don't despair - i'm not ignoring you! - chances are high that i'm actually not there. see, the computers in the internet-club that i frequent don't tend to understand when i try to disable the auto-logon feature, and my screen name keeps getting signed on when i'm not around. so, if you send me a message, and i'm there, i will definitely respond - i want to talk to you, whoever you are! if there's no response - it's not me! mmkay? [grin]

so today i overdosed on roman and greek antiquities at the hermitage. i think all the marble gave me a headache, though. it was kind of fun to see how many statues i came across whose noses hadn't obviously been glued back on after having fallen off. and every room i went into was nearly empty - does this mean that russians aren't interested in, or don't as heavily emphasize in school, greek and roman mythology? before anyone says 'the rooms were empty because you went on a wednesday afternoon', let me point out that the rooms of flemish, italian, and french paintings are chock-full no matter what day or time of day it is. it's a shame that no one sees some of the more interesting stuff that's there, but i admit that the quiet is kinda nice.

factoid: did you know that only eight percent of russians have ever used the internet? i would bet that that's the same number of americans who haven't used the internet. the sociologist in me could go on a really long (and probably boring to everyone but me) rant on the ramifications of that, but i'll resist the temptation.

i'm constantly amazed how undeterred people here are by construction. i mean, entire streets have been dug up and demolished, with equipment and dirt and nastiness everywhere, and people just walk (and drive!) around barriers and through the mess like it's nothing. simply amazing. back home it would be a huge deal to close off all the streets they have, for the length of time they're to be closed for, but here - more and more, it's "vsyo ravno" ("all the same").

oh yeah! i almost forgot - if anyone's awake around 5:30 on sunday morning and can find it anywhere on television, i'll be at the final of the st. petersburg open tennis tournament. granted, i'll be way up in the $5 seats, probably with the rest of the city, but i'll wave if i see any cameras pointed my way. i'm so excited!

and, saving the best for last - happy birthday to my wonderful, sainted mother, without whom i wouldn't have a lot of things (like existence, for example). love ya, mom!
posted by kat thompson at 10:54 AM

ok, so i take back two of the things i wrote about in my last post.

first of all, today can be marked as a semi-tragic day, as while i was washing clothes, dimitry and his friend sasha came in to take the television out of my room. in its place now stands my mirror, which is great, because now i can, erm, stare at myself while i'm studying in bed. ok...

second, i think masha (the blue bird) must be on some reconaissance mission after flying into the wall last week, because when i went to eat breakfast on saturday morning, he divebombed my head as soon as i entered the room and missed me by mere inches. it could just be that this bird has no bloody sense of direction, but i don't really know *what* to think anymore.

anyways, i find it ironic that not 48 hours after i write my mother an email saying that i feel safer here than i do in washington [in response to the post's recent 'article' about st petersburg being russia's "crime capital"], some gypsies try to rob me at a metro station in broad daylight. fortunately, i keep nothing in my pockets and bury everything of value far away from the prying fingers of children, and i also realized what they were doing in time to start yelling at them to get the f*ck away from me in russian, otherwise things could have been a bit worse. it pissed me off, and you can bet i won't be using the entrance to that particular metro station again. bastards.

megan and i were accosted by an old, drunk guy and his equally old, drunk, and unattractive friends on friday night at a bar - they really wanted to buy us drinks and sing karaoke with us, but i think they got the point when i shotgunned my beer, pushed one of them away, muttered 'da svidanya!' ['goodbye] and led the way out the door. i've decided that russia's not a place for the shy, as it can take a good deal of convincing to let people know that no, you're really not interested. i love it!

oh, and happy belated birthday to keith, wherever he is...
posted by kat thompson at 8:49 AM

last weekend's lessons learned are threefold:

one, when a russian newspaper tells you that a band plays "goth rock", don't believe them, because chances are very good that nothing could be further from the truth. unless, of course, by "goth rock" they mean "moaning, wailing postpunk four-chord guitar noise to which no one is dancing and whose sound not even four beers can improve". well, at least i only spent seventy rubles on admission.

two, when you're at a club in russia and you're offered the choice of three bathrooms [i think the male/female labels on the doors are a mere western formality] - men's, women's, and the mysterious 'number three' - under no, i repeat, no circumstances should you choose number three. even if it's the only one free, no matter how bad you need to go, no matter whether or not the men's room is just a hole in the ground - in the words of ace ventura, do not go in there! if anyone's seen the film "trainspotting", think of the worst toilet in scotland - add a little more graffiti, remove the dead flies, and there you have it. good lord.

three, if you're returning to a hotel with someone at two in the morning and you're female and obviously under the age of 40, you just might be mistaken for a prostitute. not that this happened to me and brian on saturday night, and definitely not that we got busted for trying to pay the single-person rate for two people. whoops! the goons at the door must have been seriously bored, though, since we'd been going in and out all day and i know that at least one of them had to notice that. maroons. grrr!

the big big news from the last several days is that dimitry is fully out of the apartment - seems that wednesday was the big day, so on tuesday when i came home from galavanting, i was greeted by the sound of duct tape [wrapping things up, you perverts] and hammering. tatiana then rattled off a whole string of words at me, and the only ones i really caught were 'television' and 'taking out of your room later'. i shrugged, said, 'ok', and went about my business, figuring that at last, the hallowed day had come when my life would not be poisoned by the magic box in the corner of my room. so you can imagine my complete and utter surprise after dinner when i was starting my homework, and tatiana and dimitry came into my room and took out the television stand and the refrigerator, and brought in another small nightstand and began to rearrange the bookshelves and armchair. this didn't bother me one bit, as my homework didn't require too much concentration and it was actually amusing to watch them try to squeeze the refrigerator out of the room [i offered to help, but was told that it wasn't needed!]. after all was said and done, i suddenly had a lot more floor space, and the television was still sitting in its corner. i'm still holding out and waiting for dimitry to come back and get it one day, but as megan joked yesterday, perhaps i've made a clean break with this one. it's a mixed blessing, though, as it's ok for watching news but not a whole lot else. i don't know. also, it was weird this morning not to wake up at six am when dimitry's alarm would usually go off, and i have to admit it's kind of nice not to have to wait for him to get out of the shower at night. but i almost feel like it's a "and then there were two" situation - just me and tatiana. although, maybe hanging my unmentionables in the shower won't be quite so embarrassing anymore.

about the birds, i've decided that kyesha must be the mastermind of the whole operation, because while i was eating breakfast on saturday morning, masha saw fit to leave the cage and then fly smack into the wall next to me. i, of course, was looking the other way, didn't see it coming, and jumped about a foot out of my seat when i heard the noise - it was loud! - and the bird just sort of hopped around on the floor for a little while and then returned to the cage. sometimes, i wonder.

that's it for now, really - we've been having wet snow for the past two days, and i went to a concert for two pianos at the jazz philharmonic last night, which was thoroughly entertaining. the music was great, but the group i was with was even better - myself, megan, a brit, three swedish girls, two french girls, and of course, a russian girl. interesting, indeed.

"i'm waiting for the night to fall/i know that it will save us all" - depeche mode
posted by kat thompson at 5:27 AM

first of all: brilliant, sherlock!

second: hopefully it'll still be light out by the time most of you are able to access this but i want to show everyone proof of why today is one of the happiest days of my recent life. in case the webcam shows naught but dark, suffice to say that it was snowing buckets when i woke up today, and it's continued to do so since. unbelievable! i'm in seventh heaven - this is way better than cranberry-heaven, because you can't make snowballs out of cranberries. there, that's my profound statement for the day.

oh, it's come to my attention that some of you may not know who this 'megan' person is that i keep referring to - she's probably the best friend i have here; she's from fargo, north dakota (the accent is slight, don't worry) and she lives on the 21st floor of my building. and her family situation is even more whacked-out than mine! briefly, she lives with a 47-year-old woman, lyuda, and her 27-year-old husband, igor, whose mother lives on the 19th floor and talks to igor all the time, but apparently is a bit chilly towards lyuda. they have a cat, stisha, who is losing her hair on her rear half for some unknown reason. i'm jealous because there's only one door to get through to their apartment - not three, as in mine. the inner door has been sticking lately - i really do think this apartment knows that i'm not a native, and just doesn't want me to get in, especially when i really have to use the toilet. i also truly think that kyesha (the yellow parakeet) is dad's old bird, a.j., reincarnated with a mission against me. let me explain: while i was eating dinner the other night, alone, i heard this tapping above my head. i figured it was just kyesha tapping her beak on the counter above the cabinets, but i looked up and she wasn't there. oh no, she was merrily hopping all over the glass chandelier above my head, which has these little glass bells hanging off the bottom that swing rather wildly at the slightest breeze. i had visions of them toppling off and piercing me right through the brain, all the while that damned bird is happily cackling and carrying on, like she's claimed some victory over mankind. or at least hapless foreign women. if i have to start wearing a helmet to dinner... well, i guess i draw the line there.

brian's coming to visit this weekend, so don't expect any updates for a little while [grin]. now, however, i'm off to take pictures of the snow! hooray!
posted by kat thompson at 5:29 AM

so, i'm not sure if i should laugh at the wave of paranoia that this has set off, or thank the lord i'm not anywhere near home right now. that's a little more than creepy.

four things on today's plate: snow, cranberries, a new teacher, and the hermitage.

first, snow: i wish i was kidding, but yesterday (that's october 3 for the calendar-impaired), i saw snow for the first time. it only lasted two minutes, but the fact is that there was snow on my jacket. in october. unreal! i love it!

second: cranberries. tatiana bought at least five pounds of cranberries, and they're everywhere - but this is way better than pickles, because she makes juice and jam out of them, and pastries filled with them. i'm in heaven. i don't think i'll ever get tired of them - famous last words, i know...

third: new teacher. so we now have a 'reading' class on fridays, which is fine with me because it means i'm finally reading 'classics' untranslated, in russian, which is an area in which i know i lack severely. the problem is that we now have a third teacher who doesn't believe in the goodness of the pereriv, or break. usually about an hour and a half into class we take a ten-minute break to get food, use the bathroom, etc. etc., but not today - oh no, she wants to go for three hours without break and end early! i'm not sure how i like this - it's hard for me to concentrate on one thing for three straight hours (certain things excepted, like basketball, football, and the first season of 'oz').. but, we'll see.

lastly, i spent a boatload of time in the hermitage on tuesday, and the highlight was definitely this great exhibition. unfortunately, the best pieces (in my opinion) aren't represented on the webpage, but it's a fascinating exhibit with an even more fascinating background story.

that's it for now - oh yeah, happy ten-four!

posted by kat thompson at 4:55 AM