Flickr is a liar and a cheat. I just discovered their monthly upload limit, and there's no way I can upload the ungodly plethora of photos I take within that limit. I'm strongly considering paying for a pro account with no upload limit. The facebook uploading apparatus is horribly slow, and I haven't been anywhere with fast enough internet to make it feasible in under half an hour. But I have pictures! lots of them! Some are good! How can I share them?
It's Monday of the second week of our Russian Language Intensive, and all our regular classes begin on Wednesday. In Russia the 1st of September is "Ден Знание," the Day of Knowledge, when all schools and universities throughout the country begin their semester. However, Smolny is in a state of constant turmoil and disorganization (they're half in one building, half in another, one of which is under restoration and one of which is under repair), so because they've been unable to get their act together, Smolny students start on Wednesday. Until then, it's just three hours of Russian class every morning. You know, nothing much.
When they say "intensive", it's what they mean. It all seems like sound-soup in my head and ears right now, but I'm persevering with the hope and expectation that there's got to be a moment when everything shifts slightly, the sounds turn into meanings and I get it.
For now, it's impossibly frustrating. I feel paralyzed in everyday situations like at the grocery store or on the bus, unable to communicate with anyone around me. I understand a lot bit of what people say, usually enough to get by, but I'm helpless to respond. The language barrier feels like a physical thing, a two-way mirror where I hear what they're saying but no matter how I try I can't make them understand me. Being deprived of my language is terrifying. No matter how I try to gather my nerve, it's discouraging. I want so much to stay positive about everything, but I have trouble negotiating mundane interactions--I don't know how to read a menu, I don't know how to ask what the next stop is on the bus, I can ask for directions but I don't know how to follow them. It's scary. I'm trying, but it's hard.
As far as...life? This weekend was sort of a blast. I went to Klub Arktika, reportedly the best club on Vasilevsky Island (and the hub of Goth culture in St. Petersburg), on Friday night. I walked 25 minutes in heels to get there, incredulous the whole way that some St. Petersburg women (most, in fact) wear stilettos no matter where they are or what the occasion. Women here are extremely well-dressed, overdressed, beautiful dolls promenading up and down Nevsky Prospect ("a young lady, who turns her head to the glittering shop windows as a sunflower turns toward the sun"). But we are very clearly American no matter how many inches we stack under our heels, in little ways like the way we hold our cigarettes or our styles of dancing.
Saturday afternoon I met my friend Jason for a jam session by the canal, in the sun. After a year of playing with Funk Apteryx it felt very strange to play in a different style with a different person. It was shaky but fun, and we agreed to play again soon. That evening I went to visit my friend Joe down the hall and when I came back, my door was locked and my keys were inside--I guess my flatmate had left and locked the door behind her. So I spent some time mulling around, visiting different friends, waiting for Rebecca to get home. Unfortunately, everyone decided to go out to Fish Fabrique, the bar associated with the famous Pushkinskaya 10 gallery and art center, but the girls across the hall let me hang out in their room (instead of the hallway) while I waited for my roommate...and fortunately, Rebecca got there only 10 minutes after they left, so I joined them there. Fish Fabrique is a great little bar, there's live music and dim lights and foozball...A++, would Fish Fabrique again.
Sunday it rained all day, a catastrophe of gigantic proportions because we spent the whole day outside, at Peterhoff, the palace and park built to celebrate Russia's naval victory over Sweden or something like that. It's sickeningly opulent but really quite beautiful, and even though we froze our asses off, the grey sky really brought out the green.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
First weekend
It's sunny again! And my feet hurt. I walk much more here than I did in Ithaca, on the scale of miles every day. Public transportation is great, but it never gets you to get exactly where you're going, and considering that I haven't found a gym or other means of exercise, the walking is good for me. And there's no better way to see the city than roaming its streets making wrong turns.
It's hard for me to believe that I just lived this past weekend. It turns out that I know the same people as a few kids on this trip. A boy from my Russian class (Jake/Fedya) went to high school with Sarah, with whom I hit it off pretty quickly. We decided almost on a whim to room together in a triple (with Rebecca--just throwing names out because it feels wrong not to), a situation that's working out really well so far. No sooner had I dropped my bags in my room than I found myself trotting along the canal with Sarah on our way to a documentary film festival at Klub Arktika to see a film that her friend Karina made for class. I met her "Russian friend" (wink wink) André, another film student who speaks only a little bit of English. The way the two of them communicate is beautiful to watch and listen to, a playful compromise between her broken Russian and his broken English. If language is a barrier, then they're Pyramus and Thisbe learning to kiss through a hole in the wall. She's been here for two summers already, so she understands most of what she hears and speaks very good, practical, rudimentary Russian. Between my jagged conversational skills, André's English, and Sarah sweetly acting as interpreter, we managed to pleasantly pass several hours together. On our way back towards the dorm (past one particularly menacing residential building that took close to 10 minutes to walk by--it spanned the length of the canal), she turned from André, with whom she'd been conversing in incomprehensible Russian, and said, "I know you're jet-lagged and must be very tired, so you may not want to, but we're going out to visit his family in Kamenka for the night, and if you'd like to come, you're welcome to." I briefly considered the pro's and con's--going back to the dorm for a much-needed 13 hours of sleep or so, or braving the depths of sleep deprivation in Soviet Kamenka.
Well. In about an hour we were on the train out to Kamenka, about 200 km (I'm practicing!) of St. Petersburg, a 1 hr 40 min ride. When I asked Sarah how much train tickets cost she laughed a little and explained that it's no more expensive to pay the "fine" (bribe) if they catch you without a ticket than it is to just buy one, and it's far cheaper if they don't come through and check (which is most of the time).
That's another thing: bribing is natural here. It's expected. The police often stop people who've done nothing and either hassle them until they hand over a wad of cash or just downright rob them. If you refuse to give them money they can conjure up on the spot some crime you're not guilty of. Most people don't fight it, and most people in official positions expect bribes. So, when the train conductor did come through the compartments, André wordlessly handed over 100 rubles (like, $3?) and she moved on without a comment.
Night had fallen when we got to the Kamenka station, and as the train pulled to a stop and we walked forward through the cars (like running down the down escalator), Sarah casually threw over her shoulder--to my deliriously fatigued delight--"Oh, so...we might have to hitchhike a little." We followed the crowd onto the platform and André secured us a ride the 20 minutes into town with two young men who blasted factory-direct hi-tempo industrial techno and sipped Baltika 7 (think Keystone Light, in large glass bottles), which the driver held between his knees as he steered. Uhhhh....sometimes I forget I'm in Russia.
As I'd been warned, André's mother was cooking when we got there, even though it was 11:00. Everything they've taught you about Russian mothers is true. Every time I'd put down my fork, Natalya would say "Kushe, kushe!" ("Eat, eat!"). If I refused something her face fell into an awful expression of affront and genuine concern and she'd quietly say "No Pochemu?" ("But why?"). The next morning she cooked us a gigantic breakfast and, even though I was still full from the night before, I swallowed my refusals along with her delicious fried squash pancakes and rice porridge. After breakfast we took a walk down to the lake with Alyosha, André's 6-year-old brother (So as not to eat anymore, I whispered to Sarah, and she laughed).
The language barrier was difficult, but fun. Natalya made jokes or argued with her son, and after everyone finished laughing Sarah would translate. "What she said, was..." I understood bits of it, and talked a little, and when we ran out of things to talk about I just pointed to things and they taught me the names.
We returned to Petersburg exhausted, sleeping on the train with our backpacks as pillows, and André bid us goodbye on the metro. The two of us walked around Nevsky Prospekt until 5:30 when we met the group for a boat tour of the city. But I was still so tired, the guide's commentary melted into the buzz of the motor in a vaguely Slavic drone that hit the ear slightly like language. I slipped in and out of sleep, happily drinking in the sun and feeling grounded, present, and unhurried.
And that night we bought Baltika and walked along the beach on the Gulf of Finland, me, Joe, Lila, Rebecca, Alisa, and Joe's roommate Matio--celebrating our Last Day of Summer with our feet dangling off the pier, our mouths full of laughter and cheap beer.
It's hard for me to believe that I just lived this past weekend. It turns out that I know the same people as a few kids on this trip. A boy from my Russian class (Jake/Fedya) went to high school with Sarah, with whom I hit it off pretty quickly. We decided almost on a whim to room together in a triple (with Rebecca--just throwing names out because it feels wrong not to), a situation that's working out really well so far. No sooner had I dropped my bags in my room than I found myself trotting along the canal with Sarah on our way to a documentary film festival at Klub Arktika to see a film that her friend Karina made for class. I met her "Russian friend" (wink wink) André, another film student who speaks only a little bit of English. The way the two of them communicate is beautiful to watch and listen to, a playful compromise between her broken Russian and his broken English. If language is a barrier, then they're Pyramus and Thisbe learning to kiss through a hole in the wall. She's been here for two summers already, so she understands most of what she hears and speaks very good, practical, rudimentary Russian. Between my jagged conversational skills, André's English, and Sarah sweetly acting as interpreter, we managed to pleasantly pass several hours together. On our way back towards the dorm (past one particularly menacing residential building that took close to 10 minutes to walk by--it spanned the length of the canal), she turned from André, with whom she'd been conversing in incomprehensible Russian, and said, "I know you're jet-lagged and must be very tired, so you may not want to, but we're going out to visit his family in Kamenka for the night, and if you'd like to come, you're welcome to." I briefly considered the pro's and con's--going back to the dorm for a much-needed 13 hours of sleep or so, or braving the depths of sleep deprivation in Soviet Kamenka.
Well. In about an hour we were on the train out to Kamenka, about 200 km (I'm practicing!) of St. Petersburg, a 1 hr 40 min ride. When I asked Sarah how much train tickets cost she laughed a little and explained that it's no more expensive to pay the "fine" (bribe) if they catch you without a ticket than it is to just buy one, and it's far cheaper if they don't come through and check (which is most of the time).
That's another thing: bribing is natural here. It's expected. The police often stop people who've done nothing and either hassle them until they hand over a wad of cash or just downright rob them. If you refuse to give them money they can conjure up on the spot some crime you're not guilty of. Most people don't fight it, and most people in official positions expect bribes. So, when the train conductor did come through the compartments, André wordlessly handed over 100 rubles (like, $3?) and she moved on without a comment.
Night had fallen when we got to the Kamenka station, and as the train pulled to a stop and we walked forward through the cars (like running down the down escalator), Sarah casually threw over her shoulder--to my deliriously fatigued delight--"Oh, so...we might have to hitchhike a little." We followed the crowd onto the platform and André secured us a ride the 20 minutes into town with two young men who blasted factory-direct hi-tempo industrial techno and sipped Baltika 7 (think Keystone Light, in large glass bottles), which the driver held between his knees as he steered. Uhhhh....sometimes I forget I'm in Russia.
As I'd been warned, André's mother was cooking when we got there, even though it was 11:00. Everything they've taught you about Russian mothers is true. Every time I'd put down my fork, Natalya would say "Kushe, kushe!" ("Eat, eat!"). If I refused something her face fell into an awful expression of affront and genuine concern and she'd quietly say "No Pochemu?" ("But why?"). The next morning she cooked us a gigantic breakfast and, even though I was still full from the night before, I swallowed my refusals along with her delicious fried squash pancakes and rice porridge. After breakfast we took a walk down to the lake with Alyosha, André's 6-year-old brother (So as not to eat anymore, I whispered to Sarah, and she laughed).
The language barrier was difficult, but fun. Natalya made jokes or argued with her son, and after everyone finished laughing Sarah would translate. "What she said, was..." I understood bits of it, and talked a little, and when we ran out of things to talk about I just pointed to things and they taught me the names.
We returned to Petersburg exhausted, sleeping on the train with our backpacks as pillows, and André bid us goodbye on the metro. The two of us walked around Nevsky Prospekt until 5:30 when we met the group for a boat tour of the city. But I was still so tired, the guide's commentary melted into the buzz of the motor in a vaguely Slavic drone that hit the ear slightly like language. I slipped in and out of sleep, happily drinking in the sun and feeling grounded, present, and unhurried.
And that night we bought Baltika and walked along the beach on the Gulf of Finland, me, Joe, Lila, Rebecca, Alisa, and Joe's roommate Matio--celebrating our Last Day of Summer with our feet dangling off the pier, our mouths full of laughter and cheap beer.
Monday, August 24, 2009
That's Russia for you!
Feeling groggy, puffy, and a little bit seasick, I'm sitting in an open area on the fourth floor of the Smolny building, watching my computer battery tick down from 9% and rain splatter against the window. My view is a rust-red sheet metal roof and mildewing whitewashed walls, antiqued antennae and powerlines, and a granite sky. It's the First Day of School and it's raining, how typical. It's as though the past few days of beautiful clear skies were St. Petersburg's begrudging welcome to us, but followed with a stern reminder not to get too used to it.
Friday, August 21, 2009
First night
Finn Air is awesome! The JFK-Helsinki flight was without a doubt the best flight I've ever flown. They provided me with a vegetarian dinner, and wine & beer were complimentary so I had a wonderful little single-serving bottle of South African shiraz and toasted with my friends behind me over the back of my seat. Breakfast wasn't nearly as exciting, as the vegan option was a half-pita with cucumber, tomato, and lettuce, but they did give us tolerable coffee. I did have to declare my violin at customs in St. Petersburg, but the agent who inspected it didn't give me any trouble and actually seemed interested in it. I was feeling so tired and laissez-faire by the time I got to customs that I leaned up against the table (which supported my enormously heavy hiking backpack) and plucked my violin lazily like a mandolin while he conversed with his superiors.
This city is beautiful and strange, although I haven't seen much other than the hotel, the river, and the view from the bus. The bus ride here was silent most of the way. I think everyone was overwhelmed. All of a sudden this thing we've been looking forward to is real, we're here and it's so much bigger and scarier than I thought it'd be. Looking out the window I felt like I could see the pulse of history underneath the city, each building another subsequent pump of the St. Petersburg's heart, from Neo-classical to baroque to boxy concrete Soviet-era apartment buildings, the skyline torn by spires and the smokestacks that jut from the staggeringly vast factories that have lined the Neva's banks since the mid-1800's. I feel history and it's a history I'm not a part of, and that's very...beautiful and strange!
After lunch and the second round of HIV testing (they're serious about it here; you can't get a visa unless you get a negative result), I returned to the hotel to nap. The flight was fun, but crossing 8 time zones means a loss of a full night's sleep, and by this time I was feeling it pretty strongly. I set an alarm for 6:20 so I'd make it to dinner at 6:30, but I guess I didn't set it well enough because I woke up groggy and disoriented at 8:30, having missed dinner completely. With the dual mission of finding dinner and finding alcohol, I set out from the hotel as part of a mob of students who were invested in at least half of those objectives. We stopped at a grocery store, a tiny, half-underground 10x10 room that was half cheese, milk, & meat, and half alcohol, but the only things I really knew how to identify & pronounce were "яблоко" (apple) and "кефир" (kefir), so my dinner turned out to be...an apple and a pint of kefir!
The group decided to buy a bottle of vodka and sit on the bank of the Neva, but I started feeling really uncomfortable with the dynamic, like I was a duckling invisible within a flock, just following out of helplessness, and it's illegal to drink vodka on the streets in St. Petersburg anyway (but not beer or wine), so I and three boys, Ben, Joe, and Jason, decided to drink in a real bar. We had a hell of a time not only finding a bar that sold cocktails and more than two kinds of beer, and also trying to order without seeming really dumb. We failed: the bartender laughed at us. We toasted to our first night in Russia, and then to Finn Air, and then to our terrible Russian. After a couple of drinks (absinthe isn't illegal here! it's delicious!) we strolled along the bank of the Neva in the dusky dark, taking our time in returning to our hotel. It was so beautiful, nearly 11:00 and still bright in the western corner of the sky, streetlights reflecting like strobes against the fluttering waters of the same river that's swallowed thousands throughout history.
And now...I'm on about 3 hours of sleep and breakfast is served in about 8 hours, so it's about time to crash. Tomorrow: several more hours of lectures, and a bus tour of the city!
This city is beautiful and strange, although I haven't seen much other than the hotel, the river, and the view from the bus. The bus ride here was silent most of the way. I think everyone was overwhelmed. All of a sudden this thing we've been looking forward to is real, we're here and it's so much bigger and scarier than I thought it'd be. Looking out the window I felt like I could see the pulse of history underneath the city, each building another subsequent pump of the St. Petersburg's heart, from Neo-classical to baroque to boxy concrete Soviet-era apartment buildings, the skyline torn by spires and the smokestacks that jut from the staggeringly vast factories that have lined the Neva's banks since the mid-1800's. I feel history and it's a history I'm not a part of, and that's very...beautiful and strange!
After lunch and the second round of HIV testing (they're serious about it here; you can't get a visa unless you get a negative result), I returned to the hotel to nap. The flight was fun, but crossing 8 time zones means a loss of a full night's sleep, and by this time I was feeling it pretty strongly. I set an alarm for 6:20 so I'd make it to dinner at 6:30, but I guess I didn't set it well enough because I woke up groggy and disoriented at 8:30, having missed dinner completely. With the dual mission of finding dinner and finding alcohol, I set out from the hotel as part of a mob of students who were invested in at least half of those objectives. We stopped at a grocery store, a tiny, half-underground 10x10 room that was half cheese, milk, & meat, and half alcohol, but the only things I really knew how to identify & pronounce were "яблоко" (apple) and "кефир" (kefir), so my dinner turned out to be...an apple and a pint of kefir!
The group decided to buy a bottle of vodka and sit on the bank of the Neva, but I started feeling really uncomfortable with the dynamic, like I was a duckling invisible within a flock, just following out of helplessness, and it's illegal to drink vodka on the streets in St. Petersburg anyway (but not beer or wine), so I and three boys, Ben, Joe, and Jason, decided to drink in a real bar. We had a hell of a time not only finding a bar that sold cocktails and more than two kinds of beer, and also trying to order without seeming really dumb. We failed: the bartender laughed at us. We toasted to our first night in Russia, and then to Finn Air, and then to our terrible Russian. After a couple of drinks (absinthe isn't illegal here! it's delicious!) we strolled along the bank of the Neva in the dusky dark, taking our time in returning to our hotel. It was so beautiful, nearly 11:00 and still bright in the western corner of the sky, streetlights reflecting like strobes against the fluttering waters of the same river that's swallowed thousands throughout history.
And now...I'm on about 3 hours of sleep and breakfast is served in about 8 hours, so it's about time to crash. Tomorrow: several more hours of lectures, and a bus tour of the city!
Monday, August 17, 2009
And we're off!
It's hard to believe that I'm actually here with the train rumbling beneath me, embarking on the first leg of my journey. I don't know what I'm expecting or what I'll find at the other end of the line, but I'm growing to love this feeling of uncertainty and potential.
Russia! The Motherland! The hulking giant stretching across two continents and eleven time zones! My home for the next four months!
I woke up this morning freezing, having already packed all my blankets, along with just about everything else I own that isn't in my suitcase, hiking pack, or violin case, into boxes in the sweltering attic of my house. I felt springy and a little sick to my stomach, and after a brief shower (I didn't realize my towels were packed away until afterward) I frantically finished packing and Devin & I set off for the train station in Syracuse.
I've developed patience for in-between periods after riding the rails cross-country three times, so the hour's ride to the station flew by, and three hours on a train isn't too bad either--but I don't know how much more waiting I can stand. The whole length of summer has been leading up to this point, from feeling like it was a daydream at two months away, to grasping its reality at the one-month point, to the actual unbelievable preparation at a week and a half to go, and this past weekend's frenzied rush to finish. By now it feels like the next two days will stretch into eternity, like somehow they made Russia up and I'll be stuck in limbo forever. I wish I could skip the two-day Orientation at Bard College and just hop right onto the plane, get up and go, without this wretched purgatory first.
I don't have a choice, though, and the scenery's pretty nice in the meantime. I love traveling by train if only for the easy-going atmosphere of the train station and the lax (nonexistent) security. Unfortunately, I had to spend the first half-hour of the ride picking clean the inside of my backpack, as my lunch (a salad with such odorific ingredients as goat cheese --wince!-- and tuna --cringe!) opened and spilled all over the inside of my bag. I think I'm already the token crazy person in this car, after the trial I had getting my 50 lb suitcase into the overhead storage, my multiple trips back and forth to the bathroom for paper towels to clean up the mess, and the resulting pungent smell of tuna emanating from my luggage (and, I'm sure, from me...what a great first impression I'll make on my classmates!). But it's okay! I'm about to spend a semester immersed in a notoriously xenophobic culture, so I'm getting some good practice in being stared at.
Speaking of which, that's the biggest wild card on my mind. I don't know how much hostility I'm going to encounter, especially from people my own age. I fear that it'll be more than I can imagine, or in ways that I hadn't thought of, but I expect and hope that at this time, in a big city--and St. Petersburg especially, Russia's historical "Window to the West"--the people I meet will be less hostile towards foreigners than in rural areas or even in Moscow. Still, from what I've read, culturally they're much less inclined to embrace individuality and things that go against the norm, which are things I generally do embrace...It's an assumption I don't want to make, so I won't, but it's an observation others have made that I can't ignore.
For better or worse, I requested to share a suite with several Russian students in the dorms that the Smolny Institute shares with St. Petersburg State University. I'm looking forward to the opportunity to live with my peers, but it will be...interesting, to say the least, to find out how similar we are in some aspects of our lifestyle and how radically different we are in others. All I hope for is that I don't let shyness, fear, or ignorance (or fear of ignorance) keep me from trying to interact with others around me and especially from speaking Russian.
And I'll probably meet some incredible American students as well, and I'm hoping to connect with them too, but I feel like this is the only opportunity I'll ever have to coexist and assimilate with Russian college students, people who have lived through the same span of history that I have, but have viewed it through the lens of an unimaginably different culture, within the context of a vast, conflicted, and stormy history, as a piece of that giant crouched between Europe and Asia, as Russian. Someone told me it's going to be like dropping out of the sky onto another planet, but I think it'll be more like an alternate dimension, where everything looks vaguely familiar but skewed in the details, almost recognizable and just enough like home to make me miss it.
Well, here goes something!
Russia! The Motherland! The hulking giant stretching across two continents and eleven time zones! My home for the next four months!
I woke up this morning freezing, having already packed all my blankets, along with just about everything else I own that isn't in my suitcase, hiking pack, or violin case, into boxes in the sweltering attic of my house. I felt springy and a little sick to my stomach, and after a brief shower (I didn't realize my towels were packed away until afterward) I frantically finished packing and Devin & I set off for the train station in Syracuse.
I've developed patience for in-between periods after riding the rails cross-country three times, so the hour's ride to the station flew by, and three hours on a train isn't too bad either--but I don't know how much more waiting I can stand. The whole length of summer has been leading up to this point, from feeling like it was a daydream at two months away, to grasping its reality at the one-month point, to the actual unbelievable preparation at a week and a half to go, and this past weekend's frenzied rush to finish. By now it feels like the next two days will stretch into eternity, like somehow they made Russia up and I'll be stuck in limbo forever. I wish I could skip the two-day Orientation at Bard College and just hop right onto the plane, get up and go, without this wretched purgatory first.
I don't have a choice, though, and the scenery's pretty nice in the meantime. I love traveling by train if only for the easy-going atmosphere of the train station and the lax (nonexistent) security. Unfortunately, I had to spend the first half-hour of the ride picking clean the inside of my backpack, as my lunch (a salad with such odorific ingredients as goat cheese --wince!-- and tuna --cringe!) opened and spilled all over the inside of my bag. I think I'm already the token crazy person in this car, after the trial I had getting my 50 lb suitcase into the overhead storage, my multiple trips back and forth to the bathroom for paper towels to clean up the mess, and the resulting pungent smell of tuna emanating from my luggage (and, I'm sure, from me...what a great first impression I'll make on my classmates!). But it's okay! I'm about to spend a semester immersed in a notoriously xenophobic culture, so I'm getting some good practice in being stared at.
Speaking of which, that's the biggest wild card on my mind. I don't know how much hostility I'm going to encounter, especially from people my own age. I fear that it'll be more than I can imagine, or in ways that I hadn't thought of, but I expect and hope that at this time, in a big city--and St. Petersburg especially, Russia's historical "Window to the West"--the people I meet will be less hostile towards foreigners than in rural areas or even in Moscow. Still, from what I've read, culturally they're much less inclined to embrace individuality and things that go against the norm, which are things I generally do embrace...It's an assumption I don't want to make, so I won't, but it's an observation others have made that I can't ignore.
For better or worse, I requested to share a suite with several Russian students in the dorms that the Smolny Institute shares with St. Petersburg State University. I'm looking forward to the opportunity to live with my peers, but it will be...interesting, to say the least, to find out how similar we are in some aspects of our lifestyle and how radically different we are in others. All I hope for is that I don't let shyness, fear, or ignorance (or fear of ignorance) keep me from trying to interact with others around me and especially from speaking Russian.
And I'll probably meet some incredible American students as well, and I'm hoping to connect with them too, but I feel like this is the only opportunity I'll ever have to coexist and assimilate with Russian college students, people who have lived through the same span of history that I have, but have viewed it through the lens of an unimaginably different culture, within the context of a vast, conflicted, and stormy history, as a piece of that giant crouched between Europe and Asia, as Russian. Someone told me it's going to be like dropping out of the sky onto another planet, but I think it'll be more like an alternate dimension, where everything looks vaguely familiar but skewed in the details, almost recognizable and just enough like home to make me miss it.
Well, here goes something!
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