February 8-12 2010: A Week in Review

Well,

I am week behind on blogs, and a lot of S happened, but obviously I cannot spend all my time recounting things I have just lived through for everyone to read and then comment on.

Monday:

I got home from Ольхон. I went shopping with Anna and got stuff to make noodles and tomato sauce, some bread, a big thing of shampoo and some laundry detergent. Done.

Tuesday:

I went to classes, learned some stuff, I think I ran into Sasha and we made plans to do stuff on Friday. I went to my History of Siberia class in the huge lecture hall, which was an experience, no one was paying attention, and it was just a giant projection with the teacher reading from the back of the room over a loudspeaker. What else happened? I don’t remember.

Wednesday:

I can’t think of anything interesting that happened on Wednesday, so I guess now is a good time to mention that over the weekend I found out that my suitcase would never get to me, but that it would be sent back to STL and my parents would have to get it from the airport. So, thanks everyone for helping me get my luggage back to Missouri. It was kinda like Apollo 13, another movie I wish I could watch, along with Jurassic Park. And I have some choice words for Aeroflot and that bitch at the POA office who took my 1000 Руб probably knowing that it would not do any good at all. I would say go to hell, but they already live here. Haha, I joke, I like it here, but only for a visit.

Wait a second, I remember what happened Wednesday! Raya and I went to a Chinese restaurant with our Chinese classmates and our professor.

During our wild and zany linguistics class one of our more talkative classmates somehow got onto the topic of going out to eat after class together with our professor. So after class I thought we were going to leave, but we did not, turns out the rest of the students had another class that we did not have, so me and Raya went to the cafeteria to wait an hour for their class to be done. There were ran into Alison, I think, anyway, a few minutes later I get a call from Jun Song, I know that is not his name, but I think it is close, he gave me his email, so if I look it up, I bet I would then have his name, and spelled properly too.

So, he calls me and is like, “hey class was canceled, we are leaving now.” Only thing is, I could not understand him at all, so Raya took the phone and figured that out. So, off we went. We took a bus to a stop that I had never been to before, got out and walk into a giant outdoor market that was also connected to indoor shops. After weaving in and out, we find ourselves outside a totally non-descript red building that you would never in a million years suspect to be the home of appetizing Chinese cuisine.

We sat down at a table with a giant lazy suzan and the students ask us what we like, and we told them to order whatever.

First to come is tea, in these crazy little green tea cups with a face on them. Then the food starts to roll out, and just looking at it you knew that it would be very good.

I learned from Raya that when the Chinese take people out to eat, they always order one more dish than there all people out of a sign of respect. Also, when the toasting begins, the person who is the most important would go first, and then the next person, and the next and so on. And for some reason sometimes you are only supposed to drink half you glass, but I did not know that was what they were saying until it was all gone.  Oh, they bought us all beers, that is what we were toasting with.

So the food kept spinning round and round, and I would to grab some with my chopsticks, which by the end of the meal I had relatively good chopstick abilities. Almost everything was unbelievably tasty, except for this one dish of greens, I did not care for that. I wanted to eat until I burst, but I was making quite a mess as I chopsticked food from the center of the table back to my plate, plus I was really stuffed and I did not want to push it.

There was this weird almost BBQ’d eggplant dish, lots of meat, potato stuff, peppers, spicy cabbage, and tons more that I could not begin to describe. I was incredibly nice of the students to invite us all out to eat. According to Raya it must have been really expensive because after they paid with a prearranged wad of money, they ended up needing 3000 Руб more, or about $60 USD.

After the meal we thanked them, and we went our separate ways back out through the market.

Thursday:

I woke up really early on Thursday to the sound of a key in my door. I was very startled and a little bit freaked out. I was wondering if maybe the cleaning lady was coming in, but then I remember that just a few days earlier that I had seen two 404 keys up on the wall, and I thought then that maybe, just maybe I was about to get a roommate. And so it was, Dominik from Poland came into my room with some woman, I guess from IGLU, and were speaking in Russian while I just sat upright in my bed looking blankly around the room.

When they went to go register him, he said, “what is your name, I will be back in two hours, my name is Dominik, I am from Poland.”

So, I went to class a few hours later, and then afterwards we were meeting with our professor from the Chinese restaurant experience and he would take us to a масленица party, whose location was hidden in the bowls of Irkutsk and only he knew the way.

We found him in the main entrance hall and off we went. It was not far from the school, and soon we were watching some crazy people in crazy costumes dancing around and singing. It got old really fast, even though they were calling up volunteers to participate in sack races and blini flipping contests. I got some pics, I am sure you have seen them, maybe.

There were food vendors, and Raya and Alison had bought themselves a Блин с творогом and it looked hot and очень вкуснее (ending might be wrong on that one).

Anyway, I wanted one too, but the whole time I thought I was waiting to be served, about a million old ladies jumped in and ordered their блины или кексы и чаи. Finally one of my friendly acquaintances came over and got the vendors attention for me, but then we had the hardest time telling her that I wanted Блин с творогом. It might have been because I was asking for two, and there was only left, but I eventually got my Блин с творогом and it was really really hot.

So, in my pocket it went, and then I noticed that everyone had left. It was only me, Alison, and our friendly acquaintance whose name I will learn, and then let you know. We were walking back when Alison decided she wanted to take some pictures, so I decided to wait up with her and take some pictures myself.

This is when we decided to slide down the ice slide and take pictures of each other. It turns out that I am just bad at slides, even slides made of pure ice. I did not go very fast, and my ass was freezing. Now, if I remember correctly, McKinnon is the best at going down slides, so I think he would like it here, because this entire city is like a big game of shoots at ladders.

After taking pictures my hands were freezing, lucky for me, I had a flaming hot Блин in my coat pocket, the perfect hand warmer.

When I got back to the общежитие I ate my hand warmer and it was fantastic.  Once I was in my room I began to wonder what my new roommates name was again, I did not remember. But, I was looking at his luggage, when I saw his name again, all was well.

Friday:

Today was the day that Sasha had invited me to come over to his house for pizza, and he also wanted me to come to his English classes. I thought this would be interesting, so I came.

Sasha took me to meet his friends, or at least his classmates, I finally remembered that his friend that looks like Dean Winchester is actually named Слава, or pronounced like that. When I look it up in the dictionary it means like glory and fame, I don’t know much about Russian names; maybe he gave it to himself to feel more important.

In the students first class they had to read this page about cross cultural stuff, it was a lot like my cross cultural journalism class, except condensed into one semi-useless bit of information.

The teacher said that she loved my pronunciation, and would like it if I were to read the pages for the students to listen to a native speaker.

So, there I was reading an English textbook to a small classroom of rowdy college aged Russian students who were not really paying attention but talking amongst themselves or playing with their phones. Sure, the teacher did get them to be quiet for a little bit.

After each section, the teacher would ask me to describe that aspect of culture in America. Such as attitudes about time, about gestures, about clothing, business encounters, and so on. I tried to answer as best as I could, but imagine me trying to explain American culture to anyone, especially people who ask me is everything that occurs in American movies actually happened in real life.

Слава seemed especially happy to learn that fraternities actually exist. “And they do a lot of drinking?” he asked.

When class was over we went back outside to entrance of the Б building when Sasha continued to introduce me to people. I met his first year teacher who wanted my email to see if I could come to some of her classes as well. The only problem is, I think she wrote my email wrong, and every time I tried to point it out, she did not understand me.

I was like, “it’s @ g mail . com, you wrote over the G with your @ symbol.” And then she would be like, “yes, thanks for your email.”

Our next class was in the computer lab. The students had to look up stuff about world cultures on Wikipedia, or other online resources and then give a presentation in English. I got online and email some things to Justin that I needed to email, and then I Google Buzzed a little bit just for shits and giggles.

So, class was over, and it was time to go. Me and Sasha got on the bus and went back to his house. On the way back he told me that he used to live in a nice flat really close to where I am living now. He told of their long time family friend, who asked for money to buy a car, took the money, and was never seen again. I really did not know what to say, so I let him keep on talking.

Back at his house I met his brother, and his brother’s fiancé, and his grandma. She making pizza, but not the kind of pizza any of us would recognize. It was really good, but tasted nothing like pizza. I also had some chocolate milk, which tasted more like melted chocolate bars and milk, so it was great, but weird to drink at the same time.

On the TV was some Russian game show called “Marry You” or something like that. It was a really weird show and I did not watch it much, but at one point one of the contestants starting dancing and singing with the guy. As Sasha told me, there are either three girls and one guy, or vice versa, and if they choose each other, they get married, or at least walk off the camera together.

We then went to Sasha’s room where we listened to music, Russian music, dance club music, Lady Gaga and we had a good time. We read news articles and I got his world perspective, which was very interesting.

We also watched an episode of this show call “school” and apparently it is really controversial because it “shows things how they really are.” I guess there is a lot of random violence, sexual harassment, and blatant racism and vomiting in Russian high schools. Of course, it could not be much worse than one show about Canadian high school, and I am pleasantly surprised that I cannot remember what it was called. Melody High? Oh wait, Degrassi, never mind, it was hidden somewhere deep inside.

Sasha also wanted me to try Coke and tell him if it was different here than in the US. So, he came back with a snickers and a large bottle of Coke. It tasted really good, but I thought that was because of the tea and boiled water that I had been drinking for the last three weeks. I told him I thought it was the same and he was disappointed, when I talked to my friends at the dorm they told me that is sweeter because they use real sugar here.

Anyway, it was getting late so I said thanks to his mom, who had come home from work, and he walked me to the bus stop and I went back home.

Everyone was drinking in the kitchen when I got back, I joined them for a little chat, and then I went to bed.

Oh, and earlier that morning, we had gone to the travel agency by our dorm and bought train tickets to Ulan-Ude. We will be spending one night there and then coming back early Monday morning.

This blog ended up being a lot longer than I thought it would, I am going to go ahead and throw it up there like it is, because I have class in 40 minutes and I need to hustle.

AWAY!