Sunday, February 26, 2006

Made it up Sunday after all

So, I decided that I want to start being more concise in my blog updates, because it always takes way too long to write the way I have been writing and it usually keeps me up late. I figure I don’t really need to narrate my whole day every time, I’ll just need to mention the highlights and other important things. Today is Thursday night and I haven’t written anything since Sunday, so this will be a good time to test out how this new system will work. The main even on Monday was that I went to teach English to teenagers like I had mentioned I would be doing before. They put me with a class that only had 5 students. Most of them are around 16 or 17, but there is one 10-year-old girl in there who speaks English quite well, and she says that she’s been learning for 8 years! The teacher of the class put me at the front of the room while she sat in the back, and basically she just wanted me to get more acquainted with the students and then teach them some words and phrases that are pertinent to their current topic. They are learning about crime right now, and what they wanted to know from me were names of different crimes and offenses, as well as crime slang and drug slang even. I explained the difference between murder and manslaughter, and told them a bunch of different words for various drugs. I think of all the things I wrote on the dry-erase board, the funniest to me had to have been “possession with intent to sell.” The teacher kept saying, “this is really good, this is what they want to know.” The oldest girl in the class (17) told me that she really likes hip-hop (she’s “keen on 50 Cent,” she tells me) and “movies about addicts,” like “Blow,” “Requiem for a Dream” and “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” so this really is the kind of stuff they want to know about. The main teacher teaches them all the grammar and syntax and vocabulary and everything, so basically all they want me for is just to talk with them about their subjects and to give them practical things they can use in conversation. I think they really liked me, and after about 10 minutes one of them asked, “are you coming every week?” I am going to start going every week, actually. Every Monday at 6:00. I’m really looking forward to this, it really is a lot of fun. Oh, but earlier that day I found a really cool place that I want to go back to. I had heard about a bar that is supposed to be pretty cool called Fish Fabrique, and after class on Monday I went with Bryce and Peter David to try and find it. It turns out that it is actually inside this place called the “Free Arts Foundation,” which is this whole complex of art galleries and weird alternative culture. There was a bookstore, a Museum of Banned Art (or something like that) and even a door that had a plaque on it that read, “The John Lennon Monument of Peace, Love, and Music.” So, it seems like there is a lot of cool stuff going on their, and I think they have live music a lot their as well, so I really need to come back there and see what the real deal is. The bar itself wasn’t open, so instead we went to this little café around the corner that had the cheapest beer that we’ve seen yet in St. Petersburg: half liters for 45 rubles! Usually, 60 is cheap. So, that little neighborhood that we found seems to have a lot going for it. Tuesday in Gazeta class we had the most ridiculous test ever. Get this. The previous Thursday the teacher told us how the test was going to go down. The test is actually in our text books, and the answers are in the back. She wasn’t going to be there on Tuesday, so we were supposed to come in and take the test (which of course we already had and could have done at home) in the empty classroom, then look at the answers in the back of the book, correct ourselves and give ourselves a score, and then show her the scores we got next class. How ridiculous is that? So, I just did it the night before. Tuesday after school I went with Katie and Tom to the big book store called Dom Knigi (by they way, this name doesn’t make sense to me. It means “House of Book,” which I don’t think is what they want to say. It should be “House of Books,” plural, but tin Russian that would be “Dom Knig,” and that is not what the place is called. Whatever). I wanted to find a guidebook for the Ukraine because I’m fairly certain that’s where I’m going for spring break (I’ll let you know what my final plans are once I know them). I couldn’t find any guidebooks for the longest time, but I did find the English books section. They had lots of Russian literature in English, but they charge insane amounts for English-language books really for no other reason other than because they can and tourists will buy it. For example, am English copy of the book “Moscow to the End of the Line,” which I read for class last year, was selling there for about 1100 rubles, where it would probably cost 150 at the very most in Russian. What gives? I need to get good enough in Russian to be able to read Russian literature in the original Russian and pay a lot less to buy the books. Someday. I did find the literature section in Russian and had fun browsing. I was about to give up on looking for guidebooks when I discovered the little side-room on my way out that is filled with maps, atlases, and travel books. Oh boy was I in heaven there! All the guidebooks were in Russian only and there were none of the whole Ukraine, so I didn’t buy a guidebook, but I did end up staying for a long time looking at all kinds of atlases and books about geography. I ended up buying a road atlas of Russia (it’s so awesome, you don’t even understand) and a wall map that has Russia on one side and the world (all names written in Cyrillic, of course) on the other. I tried paying with a 1000 ruble bill, but they held it under a black light and apparently there was something wrong with it, because they wouldn’t accept it. A lot of places do this with 1000 ruble bills, kind of like in America how they’ll mark $20 bills with a special pen to see if it’s authentic. They showed me that there were lots of green marks all over the bill under the light, but I didn’t know what that meant. I had to pay with my credit card for the first time in Russia (I mean, I’ve used it at the ATMs here, but this was the first direct purchase I’ve made with it here yet), but it was worth it. I managed to pass the bill off on the cafeteria cashier at school the next day. The bus ride home from Dom Knigi was insanely packed and uncomfortable, and I made a vow never to ride the bus or metro between the hours of 5:00 and 6:00 (a vow which I broke the next day). On Wednesday the computer lab at the school was down, so I went with a small group to Café Max to do some interneting. The main reason I needed to go was for more research for Ukraine and Spring Break, but I didn’t find out much. After the café some of us went to find the English-only bookstore that I had heard about. I, of course, was still looking for a guidebook. They had lots of Lonely Planet guidebooks, which is my favorite, but no Ukraine. They had the Eastern Europe guidebook, but it was an older version that is not very up-to-date a didn’t even include the Ukraine. I am currently borrowing Nathan’s copy of the latest edition of the Lonely Planet Eastern Europe guide which does include the Ukraine, but I need to buy my own copy of it because his is falling apart, plus it does not belong to me and I can’t really take it with me. That book will come in very handy this summer also. There was actually another English bookstore in the same building as the other one and it too had lots of guidebooks, including a Ukraine one, but it was too expensive and was a brand that I don’t really like anyways. Bryce and Stacey left to go teach more English, so Matt and I decided to walk around for a bit to kill some time. We walked through the underground passage way that is also a 505 Store and decided to look around a little bit. They have a bunch of bootleg copies of American movies that all have these generic covers, and as I was looking through those I stumbled upon copies of Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart! Two of my favorite David Lynch movies! I almost bought both, but then decided to get only Wild at Heart because I thought that they were only in Russian and I might as well not spend too much on movies that I won’t really be able to watch like a normal movie or with other people. The cashier confirmed that it was only in Russian. After parting ways with Matt and riding another crammed bus during rush hour, I got home and put the DVD into the player to find that you can in fact watch it in English, as well as Russian, French, and German, and with lots of different subtitle options too. So, that was pretty exciting. I might have to go back and get Blue Velvet sometime after all. After hanging around at home for a while, I got in touch with some people and found out that they were hanging out at Kofe Khaus and they wanted me to come, so I went down there and met up with Tom, Katie, Vickie and Nick. We had a fun time hanging out and most of them were already pretty drunk. Tom told me this amazing story about the time he talked to Woody Allen for about 20 minutes. Apparently Tom used to work at J-Crew (is that how it’s spelled? I have no idea) in New York and lots of celebrities have come in there, but one time he was helping out Woody Allen with a jacket purchase and they got in a big conversation about topics as varied as the Vietnam War, the Bush administration, women and Mott the Hoople. The best part is that Tom didn’t know who he was until he realized it the next day! Incredible! I want to have a conversation with Woody Allen really bad now. After Kofe Khaus some of the others wanted McDonalds, so while they sat inside and ate I stood outside with a very drunk Katie. These two little boys came up to us and started asking for money, and even knew how to ask in English, and we of course said no. They started mocking us rubbing against Katie like they were trying to grab her purse. They kept giving us the finger and doing that other thing where you put one arm behind your other arm’s elbow and raising your other fist. You know what I mean. They even did both at the same time. They called us names in Russian that we didn’t understand and kept laughing like they thought we were getting really offended and pissed of by them. I kept shaking my head and telling them that I wasn’t offended, that they could say whatever they want or do whatever they want and it didn’t bother me. Eventually these two young girls came up and kind of yelled at them to go away and then started talking to us in English. They were both pretty drunk to, but were very friendly and eager to try out their English skills. The rest of our gang came out of McDonalds and we all stood in a group talking with the Russian girls. It turns out that one was 16 and the other 15, but we thought they looked a lot older. After a little while we left the girls behind and headed over to Petra for a little while. It was nice to be there in a relatively small group, because usually it’s about ten of us there and I think we really annoy the people who work there when we all go in like that. We just had a couple beers and chilled out until about 11:15 when we all went home. Today, of course, was a holiday, and so we didn’t have any school! My host mom made blini for breakfast as if it was a normal weekend, and I was so happy. Our big plan for today was to go back to that little town called Pavlovsk and go sledding in the park for the day. Vickie and I met Nick and Katie on the metro, and we rode south to the Moscovskaya metro station where we met up with Natalie. We caught a marshrutka to Pavlovsk, which is about a 15 or 20-minute ride. You have to pay a fee to get into the park, but luckily our Russian student IDs are as good as a Russian passport when it comes to admission price, and we paid as much as normal Russian adults do. We walked over to the sledding area and rented a couple of sleds for the five of us. They charged 120 rubles an hour, which isn’t too bad. They also make you leave a deposit of some sort, so Nick left his cell phone with them. We walked all over the sledding area trying out different slopes and had a total blast. Katie and Vickie left on their own pretty early on, which I thought was pretty lame, but what are you going to do? So Nick, Natalie and I stayed for our full two hours and had a wonderful time. All our close of course got soaked from rolling around in the snow and everything, and by the end of the day with all my warm clothes on I felt like I do after a day of skiing or snowboarding. There were lots and lots of other people there sledding and skiing and snowboarding and having a great time, and it really is a great atmosphere. We all agreed that it was the best way we could have spent our holiday, short of taking a bigger trip out of town or something, which we couldn’t have down without our passports. We rode another marshrutka back and had lunch at a little café near the metro station. My lunch was pretty small, so I also got a meat and rice pierogie for only 9 rubles! It was truly delicious. They aren’t anything like they kind my dad used to make, but still very good in their own right. We rode the metro back into town and I basically went straight home. I actually had started to feel pretty sick after the day of sledding, and I was really looking forward to getting home, getting warm and dry and watching Wild at Heart on my computer. Right now I’m still feeling pretty sick and I may or may not go to school tomorrow. If I don’t I bet all my teachers will think that I just ditched to have a 4-day weekend. Too bad. I probably won’t be able to post this until at least Monday, or Tuesday even. Kara asked to borrow my thumb-drive for the night on Tuesday, but now I probably won’t get it back until Monday because of the way everything worked out what with holidays and sickness and closed computer labs. I think this was a much more manageable post than usual, and I just trimmed out the minor, unimportant details of my days. I think I’ll start doing it like this more often. See you later.

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