Visions of Joanna

2008-03-23T19:16:00.039+03:00

We'll Always Have Rabat

[This is the third and final post about my Moroccan trip. If you haven't read any and you want to do things right, start at the beginning. I decided to add this map of Morocco to my blog, since I would have had no idea where these cities are had I not visited them. Now you can all follow along.]

Early Thursday morning Eric and I went to Rabat, which is the capital of Morocco, to see Molly, Aaron and Nicole. We met up with them on the beach.

Molly is a member of the local surf club, and she invited us to come surfing with her. I had never gone surfing before, but where is a better place to learn than Morocco? We put on wet suits

and headed out to the beach. We were glad to see that we were passing by this very rocky area and to a calmer spot past a breaker. The waves were still big, though.

For awhile we went out and just rode in on our stomachs on the surfboards, then the instructor got us lined up on the beach and drilled us in how to stand up on the board. He made us do the move about 20 times before letting us go back into the water. Getting up was a pretty hard, but there were a few times when I got up long enough to think, "Sweet, I'm really surfing!" before slipping off into the water. None of us looked like experts, but we came in exhilarated, happy, and hungry.

We went to Molly's apartment, which is very close to the beach. The neighborhood is called Oudaya, and a lot of the streets look like this (this one is Molly's street):

Molly and her roommate live on the second floor of an apartment. The central room has no ceiling

and a big hole in the floor so the sun can shine all the way to the first level.

I asked her what they do when it rains, and she said, "We squeegee."

From the roof you can see the ocean and other parts of the city.

We ate lunch at a crepe place near this central street

and did some shopping in the medina. I couldn't resist buying a jalaba; I hope to bring the fashion to America. I bought a tajine (the pot used to cook the dish of the same name) in this little shop.

In the afternoon Eric and Molly left to teach. Aaron, Nicole, and I went to a place in the city called Chellah. This site has ancient Roman ruins as well as remains of a mosque and tombs built by a Merinid sultan in the 14th century. The combination of overgrown Roman and Islamic ruins, storks and their nests covering the trees, stray cats wandering all around, and the heavy scent of flowers and plants gave the place a mysterious and surreal feel.

Soon after this excursion Nicole and I got on the train back to Meknes. We both tried on my new jalaba. If someone gives me like $25 I'll wear this out to a place of your choice.

In the morning we took a taxi to Azrou, a Berber town about 50 kilometers from Meknes. The city is named after this rock:

From there we took another taxi to an even smaller town in the mountains called Ain Leuh. The taxi drivers everywhere we went seemed to have a complicated system for who drives where. Here they are doing their calculations.

This is the taxi stand in Ain Leuh.

For travel within cities there are Petit Taxis, smallish cars that could easily fit four passengers but only allow three, no exceptions. To go from city to city you take a Grand Taxi, always an old white Mercedes Benz as far as I saw. These require six passengers (double that of the Petit Taxis, and certainly not double the space), which means two squeezed in the front and four in the back. This system didn't seem to make too much sense, but the good thing is that the Petit Taxis are metered and the Grand Taxis have fixed prices, so you never had to haggle or feel like you were getting ripped off.

There was pretty much one main road in Ain Leuh and we walked along it, following a guy on a donkey going about the same pace.

We couldn't decipher the meaning of this abstract mural,

but we liked that the internet cafe was reaching out especially to us.

As we reached the outskirts of town we veered off the road and up into the woods. We found this serene grove of flowering trees

and a place we could look out over the town.

We climbed higher, hoping to spot some Barbary Apes which live in the region. Despite our monkey calls, we didn't attract any of them. We walked for awhile until we were looking out over this landscape.

Then we turned around and followed a road back into town. Good thing we were walking and not in a car.

We went back to Azrou and ate lunch at a cafe. Since Friday is the day Moroccans traditionally eat couscous, we ordered that. Here it is, piled high with chicken and vegetables.

On Saturday Nicole went back to Rabat and Eric and I spent the afternoon at the sports club for students sponsored by his school for students\. We played soccer, basketball, and football. The kids wore me out pretty good.
In the evening the school was holding their first public speaking contest. I was really impressed by how well the students spoke English and by the topics they chose - things like illegal immigration, pollution, and self-esteem.

On Sunday we had to go back to Casablanca to be there for my flight early Monday morning. It was hard to even find an open and non-sketchy place to eat in the evening, much less to hang out, so we ended up at Rick's. Everybody comes to Rick's.

It was actually a pretty charming place, designed like the one in the movie, with live jazz playing. And in the area we were sitting the movie was showing nonstop, with subtitles on so you could listen to the live music. We were lucky enough to arrive just as it was starting over, and stayed for the whole thing. Here's looking at you, kid.

2008-03-23T06:05:00.040+03:00

Having a Moroccan Good Time (gotta give Lanette credit for that one)

[This is post #2 about my Morocco trip, so if you want to start at the beginning, read the next post first.]

On Tuesday morning we all set out for Volubilis, the ruins of a Roman city first inhabited in the first century AD. Volubilis is set among green fields and mountains, near the town of Moulay Idriss. It is well-preserved (for ruins) and you can clearly see the layout of the city.

It's hard to believe this arch has survived for hundreds of years.

I climbed it.

This is an aqueduct.

Here are the baths. Supposedly the lucky people sat in front and got washed by their servants.

The triumphal arch was built in the third century.

This mosaic shows a guy riding a horse backwards. Pretty awesome.

We ate our bread and cheese lunch on the steps of the basilica.

The pillars behind us were topped with nests, inhabited by storks.

Molly had to teach that evening, so she, Aaron and Nicole headed back to Rabat. Eric and I walked up the road to the little town of Moulay Idriss.

We walked around outside a mosque, peeked inside a bakery, and drank orange juice in the main square before going back to Meknes.

That afternoon and the next day I hung out in Meknes. Meknes is a medium-sized city that was once the capital of Morocco. It's a pretty quite and conservative place, and Eric seemed to know most of the shop owners, cafe waiters, and neighborhood kids. Here is one of the main streets at twilight.

Eric's apartment is near this street, and he has a great view from his balcony.

In the afternoons there were always boys outside playing soccer and girls sitting along the ledge.

You can see that some women and girls cover their heads and some don't. I was told that it's a personal choice and people won't be judged for what they choose.

One evening I saw some younger girls out on this ledge playing school; more specifically, "French lesson". One of the older girls was standing in front of them with a stick, making them repeat "bonjour" and the alphabet. Sometimes she would write something on the sign with chalk and point to it with her stick. Her pupils came up one by one to recite things in front of the class, and eagerly raised their hands when she asked questions. A couple of little boys even joined the class later on, after growing tired of fighting over a soccer ball and spitting at each other. They held the class for at least an hour.

There were orange trees lining the streets. Aaron tried one of these but it wasn't ripe yet.

An Arabic stop sign:

Moroccans speak a Moroccan dialect of Arabic, only partially decipherable with standard Arabic. Most of the news and written material is in standard Arabic, and everyone also speaks French.

It was nice to sit in cafes, drinking coffee with milk, eating croissants with chocolate, and playing chess (chess isn't commonly played in Morocco, and girls don't usually sit in cafes, so we got some looks).

This is Eric's favorite rotisserie chicken place. The name says it all.

On Wednesday we walked to Meknes's medina and main square. On the way we stopped inside a mausoleum where someone important (the founder of Meknes? I can't remember for sure) is buried.

We drank orange juice in the main square. Orange juice in Morocco is always fresh squeezed, even when you order it in a cafe.

Eric had to leave to teach class, and I wandered around in the medina. Almost everyone was selling everyday goods rather than souvenirs for tourists. A lot of guys shouted things to me that I couldn't understand beyond "Bonjour, mademoiselle!" On the way back to the apartment I saw these fields. I don't know what they're growing there in the middle of the city.

And this is across the street:

I couldn't resist, and stopped for an ice cream cone. The weather was really hot. I gotta give the Moroccan McDonald's credit because they serve their ice cream cones in sugar cones rather than cake cones, making them at least three times more tasty than American McDonald's ice cream cones.

That's all for now. Look for more posts in the near future.

2008-03-22T21:09:00.045+03:00

Reading Reading Lolita in Tehran in Morocco

I wanted to see my friends and I wanted to see Morocco, so I decided to go there. I flew into Casablanca on March 8th and Eric met me at the airport. My checked bag, on the other hand, did not meet me. Fortunately I had packed all the essentials, like a Greek New Testament and the complete works of Shakespeare, in my carry-on, and only auxiliary items such as clothes and deodorant were somewhere en route. So instead of leaving Casablanca that day as planned, we were left with the other unlucky folks waiting for a visa to a Lisbon, waiting in Casablanca...

We walked around the city that day, which, despite being the largest city in Morocco, didn't seem to have much to see. There were lots of kids playing soccer,

and of course:

Rick's was proudly celebrating its fourth anniversary, making us wonder why no one had capitalized on this obvious idea for 62 years.

The next day we went to the huge Hassan II Mosque, which is on the ocean and supposedly has the world's tallest minaret, at 210 meters high.

We were allowed to tour it with a guide, but didn't get to witness its retractable roof in action; they only open it up on major holidays.

Below the main hall are rooms for washing. They didn't turn the water on for us either.

You can see up to the main room through some windows in the ceiling.

There are also hamams (bathhouses), which looked cool but had never actually been used. I hope to be back when they are opened to the public. Here's Eric and the pool.

That afternoon we went back to airport to retrieve my bag, having arrived after its leisurely journey from Minneapolis, and got on the train to Meknes, where Eric lives. At the Rabat stop Molly, Aaron, and Nicole got on. We hadn't seen them since June (and Nicole since May) but it felt just like yesterday that we were on a train to Moscow or Vladimir together. We had dinner at Eric's favorite pizza place in Meknes and then had a typical crazy party night playing Set.

The next morning we had breakfast at a cafe

and then went to Fes, which is less than an hour from Meknes. Fes is the oldest city in Morocco and has a huge medina (walled old city) that you could easily get lost in.

The streets in the medina were narrow and windy, lined with shops and filled with people leading donkeys around or holding immobilized chickens by the legs.

Here is a guy carving inscriptions on gravestones.

And a tannery.

There's a beautiful mosque inside the medina.

The traditional Moroccan garment is called a jalaba - it's a long robe with a hood - and we saw lots of people wearing them. The sweet thing about them is that they make guys look like Jedi knights.

We ate lunch at a rooftop cafe in the medina. We had bread with really good lentil dipping sauce and other traditional Moroccan food like couscous, tajine (slow-cooked vegetables and meat), grilled meat, and mint tea that's about half sugar.

The view from the cafe:

After lunch we walked around outside the medina and saw a graveyard and some ruins.

And here's one of the ubiquitous pictures of the king. It is against the law for Moroccans to criticize him.

We came back to Meknes in time for Eric to teach that evening and then hung out with some of his Moroccan friends and a couple who teaches at the same school.

Well, this is only a couple days into the trip but I better publish this post or something will crash and I'll lose everything. More to come soon.

2007-07-20T12:43:00.000+04:00

On the Дону

Greetings from the banks of the quietly flowing Don River, 120 km outside the city of Rostov-on-Don. For the past three weeks I've been teaching English to science students from all around Russia. Sara and Eric, my venerable colleagues from the American Home, are with me and we've been having a great time.

The place we're staying is pretty much a hotel, although they call it a "tourist complex". It's super hot here, but we have air conditioning in our rooms (not in the classrooms, unfortunately), and the Don River close by for swimming. Our teaching schedule was pretty relaxed - four classes a day, 50 minutes each. My class was scintillatingly titled "Storytelling through Poetry and Song". I was surprised at how well my students handled difficult poetry (even writing poems of their own), especially considering that they're studying science. When we weren't teaching we spent most of our time swimming or playing volleyball, cards, chess, and ping pong. Yes, I actually did play volleyball, which some of you who have known me for a long time might be surprised by. And I actually enjoyed it.

On the last two days of the camp the students did presentations on their scientific work. Most things I didn't understand, but they did a good job.

Tomorrow we're leaving for Chisinau, Moldova to do another camp like this, only shorter and with more experienced scientists. I'll try to keep up my diligent blogging there if we have internet access. Until next time...

2007-06-30T19:44:00.000+04:00

We'll Always Have Vladimir

I'm leaving Vladimir in about 2 hours. Yeah, talk about putting blogging off to the last minute. But it's been such a nice summer that I didn't want to sit inside on the computer. I taught one class - it was my favorite level and I had a great group of students. The weather was really hot for a couple weeks and we spent a lot of time outside; on picnics, throwing the football around, swimming, or just grading papers in the sun. I took a day trip to the monastary at Sergeiev Posad, a weekend trip to visit a friend in Nizhni Novgorod, and a weekend trip to Moscow when my family was there (they were also in Petersburg and Vladimir, and it was great to have them here).

Of course, it's hard to believe I'm leaving. I don't really have anything to say about it, other than that I had an amazing time. Maybe when I get home I'll be able to reflect on it more. I'll probably just sit around for a few weeks in a melancholic state drinking tea and listening to Кино.

But I've got some things to do before that. Tonight Eric, Sara, and I are getting on the train and heading 24 hours south to the city of Rostov-on-the-Don. We're going to teach English there for three weeks to Russian scientists. Then Eric and I are heading to Moldova to do the same thing for 10 more days. Next we're flying to Tblisi, Georgia. We should get there on August 2nd, and we have tickets from Istanbul to New York City on the 18th. We're planning on spending a few days in Georgia and then traveling around the eastern part of Turkey before going to Istanbul. From New York I'm planning on heading to Boston for a few days before flying home on August 23rd. I'm not sure how good my internet access will be this summer, but I should be able to check my email sometimes. So please write to me, and maybe I'll even blog if I get ambitious. To those of you in Russia: goodbye and I'll miss you a lot, to those in America: I hope I can see you soon. Here's one last picture of a wonderful lunch we had at the American Home. I hope I'll be back to Vladimir again before too long.

2007-06-05T18:57:00.000+04:00

Spring Break, Part 3: Odessa and Tiraspol

Finally, over three weeks after we came back from vacation, I'm finishing my blog posts about my trip. Better late than never, as they say. Well, we came into Odessa on the train at around 5 in the morning. This is the train station:

In the other two cities we visited we went with the person who was renting apartments, and we stuck with the tradition this time. Here in Odessa it was a very old, stooped over, amiable grandmother. "Come with grandma," she said, "Grandma will show you a good apartment. Grandma has good apartments." "Is it close to the train station?" we asked. "Close," she assured us, "Close." We followed her onto the trolleybus. After riding for about 40 minutes we realized that Grandma's apartments weren't so close after all. We rode to what I think was the end of the line, to a very quiet neighborhood near the sea. We followed Grandma to a yard where we were met by her much less amiable daughter, who showed us a nice two-room apartment. I asked if it had hot water and she said, "Of course" like I was a complete idiot for asking. She was pretty pushy and was asking for more money than we wanted to pay, but we were exhausted and agreed. We only paid her for one night, though, secretly planning to get a new place. We slept for a couple hours and then Sara took a shower, and soon realized that the hot water lasted for approximately 5 seconds before turning cold. We asked the irritated woman about it and she said that you just had to keep turning the water on and off. Even that didn't work.

We left our place and walked down to the beach. It was deserted except for fishermen and workers getting things ready for beach season.

Next we got back on the bus for the long ride back to the center. We spent the day just walking around the city. The center is a maze of cafe and shop-lined streets, decaying art noveau-styled buildings, and funky monuments. This is near the central Cathedral Square.

The Opera House and trees around it are beautiful.

We went to the Potemkin Stairs, well known from a famous scene (people being massacred and a baby carriage bouncing down the stairs) in the groundbreaking movie Battleship Potemkin, directed by Sergei Eisenstein.

This statue, at the top of the staircase, is the Duc de Richelieu, who was the governor of Odessa and is considered a founding father of the city.

And here's an example of one of Odessa's many mystifying statues.

Along one bridge we noticed lots of locks with lover's names written or engraved on them, locked on to the rails on the edge of the bridge. This one is dedicated to Vova and Sveta.

Not only are there a lot of churches in Odessa, but we also saw this new mosque, which is actually, interestingly, called the "Arab Cultural Center for Justice and Democracy".

Here it says, "God is One" written in Arabic-style script, but actually in Russian.

We visited a book store and bought some Russian classics, which we started to read in what became our new favorite restaurant, Top Sandwich (it's amazing how hard it is find a real sandwich in Russia, especially in Vladimir). We also booked a room in a hostel, which was more expensive than we had been paying, but in a very central location.

At night we headed out to our suburban apartment. Before going all the way there we took a detour to the beach, sneaking through a gate. There were a couple guards who saw us and chased us down. We were a little nervous, but when we told the old guard we just wanted to sit on the beach, he said, "Why didn't you just come and tell me? That's fine, just tell me." We stayed out there for a long time, watching the waves and looking at the stars.

In the morning we told our host that we were leaving her and to our surprise, she wasn't upset. We went into the city and checked into our hostel, which was filled with the usual assortment of quirky characters - a very talkative English girl who told us the same two stories over and over, a Canadian day-trader who works one hour a day and used to be a fruititarian, a Japanese guy who didn't speak English but constantly spoke Japanese to himself, an old Polish guy with a very creepy smile, and the typical middle-aged Australian owner who does nothing but sit and talk with his hot Ukrainian employees.

After checking in, we (and the English talker) caught an excursion out to the catacombs. There are hundreds of miles of catacombs under the city, and during WWII partisan fighters lived, cold and hungry, in them for over two years. This is their slogan: "Blood for blood, death for death."
Here is a reproduction of the partisans' kitchen.

And of course, pictures of Lenin and Stalin.

The tour was interesting, and it was amazing to hear about how people (even children) lived in such horrible conditions for so long. We learned that Fidel Castro had also taken this tour and was also impressed.

The next day we decided to take a trip to Transniester (sometimes spelled Transnistria), a territory that is technically part of Moldova but considers itself an independent republic. The English girl had gone there the day before and had gotten in (on her second try) by paying the border guards 10 dollars. We bought a bus ticket to Tiraspol, the capital, and hoped that we could cross the border without any problems. But at the border a large, scary guard took our passports away and told us to start filling out some forms. He asked if we had visa invitations to get in, and we said no. He told us that we couldn't get in without invitations, but told us to keep filling out the forms anyway. We filled them out and then waited for a long time. Finally someone else came and told us again that we couldn't get in without invitations. This began a long process of standing around, talking to different guards, and trying to see if there was any way they would let us through. Our bus waited awhile for us but finally left. We made friends with the guards who were checking passports as cars drove through. They told us that they would gladly let us go across the border, but it wasn't their department - they were passport control and the people who weren't letting us through were migration control. But eventually, when no migration control guards were in view, we ended up just walking across the border (this was over two hours after we arrived). We caught a taxi to Tiraspol, glad to finally be in a breakaway region, but a little nervous about our illegal status there. We changed our money to Transniestrian rubles, which are obviously only good in Transniester. Then we ate lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon strolling around. As we had heard, the city was just like what you'd imagine a Soviet city to be like - clean and quiet, with lots of Soviet monuments. Here are two billboards celebrating Transniester (its full name is the Transniestrian Moldovan Republic, which is what those three letters stand for).

Transniester was part of the Soviet Union longer than the rest of Moldova, and the majority of the people there are Russian and Ukrainian. The main language is Russian, so we got around fine. Of course Lenin still makes his presence known there.

And this is the Russian general Alexander Suvorov, who founded Tiraspol and appears on almost all of the Transniestrian ruble bills.

This tank says, "For the motherland!" on it.

The streets were very quiet...

...but there were some kids out (quietly) playing with goats.

We walked by the Dniester River and also saw the Kvint brandy factory, which is so important to the city that it is on the 5 ruble note. We also took a taxi ride to the outside of town, where a new stadium complex has been built for the Transniestrian soccer team. The huge sparkling complex, with a Mercedes dealership attached to it, looked very out of place in a city of Soviet apartment buildings.

We were planning on taking a bus back to Odessa, but when a taxi driver offered to take us back for a pretty good price, we agreed, not knowing how things would go over when we crossed the border back into Ukraine. We told him our situation and he suggested that we get our passports registered in town or the guards would try to bribe us on our way back. We had no trouble, and only had a pay a couple dollars, to get our passports registered. No one asked any questions at the border and we got through fine. On the way back the driver, who had lived in Tiraspol for over 50 years, told us about life in Transniester (he confirmed things we had heard about it being completely controlled by mafia). When we got back to Odessa we tired and hungry, but happy and relieved not to have gotten into any trouble for our excursion into a lawless republic.

The next day in Odessa was our last, and we wandered around the sunny streets, eating ice cream and buying some souvenirs. We made one last trip to Top Sandwich and got on the train to Moscow. Altogether, it was an amazing trip and I recommend everyone who's at all interested to visit Sochi, Yalta, and Odessa (and even Tiraspol).

2007-05-25T17:15:00.000+04:00

Spring Break Part 2 - Yalta

So, we caught a bus to Port Kavkas. It's not a very long distance from Sochi to Port Kavkas, but it's a long bus ride because of the winding mountain roads. We were on the bus all night, and at one of our stops we saw this winner: the Fart Casino.

Unfortunately we didn't have any time to play slots there. We arrived in Port Kavkas around 5 AM and realized that it's not really a city at all. There were concrete walls with barbed wire all around, and not much else. It was a pretty intimidating sight, especially since it was still dark out, but soon we spotted the "Морской Вокзал" sign and headed that way. We were able to catch a ferry across the water as the sun was rising.

We landed in the city of Kerch and went through Ukrainian customs. One guard started chatting with me after he realized I was a foreigner who could speak Russian. He asked me where in America I was from and when I said Minnesota, he said, "Oh, Minnesota Timberwolves!" It was nice to know that a guy in Kerch knows something about my beloved state.

From Kerch we caught a bus to Simferopol, a transportation hub, and then finally made it from there to Yalta. We rented a nice two-room apartment from a girl who studies in Kiev and then headed out to explore the city. Yalta is beautiful, surrounded on three sides by mountains and overlooking the sea. There are shaggy trees and vines crawling all over, giving it kind of a mysterious feel. There are lots of fruit stands and little shops, but no big supermarkets (none that we saw, anyway).

The next day, our only full day in Yalta, was absolutely beautiful. We spent most of it on excursions outside the city. Our first stop was Livadia Palace. It was owned by Nicholas II, the last tsar of Russia, and was the site of the Yalta Conference in 1945, attended by Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin. The palace overlooks the sea and is surrounded by beautiful gardens and woods.

Here are Sara and I solemnly remembering three great leaders.

The inside of the palace is a museum that contains information about the Yalta Conference and the tsar's family. This is one of the rooms where Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill met:

And this is the courtyard where they had the famous picture of them taken:

After eating ice cream and blini, we caught a bus back to town and another bus out farther from the city to Alupka, where the Vorontsov Palace is located. We didn't know anything about the history of this place, but wandering around its beautiful grounds and gazing out at the sea, we didn't care.

On the way back we hit up another famous castle, called the Swallow's Nest. It's in a stunning location, but even though it was built almost 100 years ago, we thought it looked like something out of Disneyland.

On our last day in Yalta we went down to the main square near the sea. Overlooking the square are both Lenin:

and McDonalds:

We took a ride on the cable cars and got a good look at the city.

But this sign made it very clear to us that you can't just stay on the cable cars and ride forever.

That afternoon we caught a bus back to Simferopol and from there an overnight train to Odessa. Next time: Odessa and bonus: the breakaway republic of Transneister.

2007-05-17T19:57:00.000+04:00

Spring Break, Part One: Sochi

For the small handfull of people who actually read and enjoy my blog, I'm sorry I haven't posted for so long. We had a crazy last week of the spring semester, then break, and now we're in the first week of the summer semester. I had a great spring break trip to Sochi, Yalta, and Odessa with Sara and Eric, but it's a lot to write about, so I'll start out with Sochi.

Sochi is the main Russian Black Sea tourist destination, and a canditate for the 2014 Winter Olympics. The train ride from Moscow to Sochi was about 27 hours long. 27 long hours long, because our whole train car (we were in the lowest class, without separate compartments) was filled with a children's folk dancing group. At best, they were playing endless games of Go Fish, at worst, they were running around, yelling, and playing one song over and over on their cell phones. We did meet one couple from Moscow who were not associated with this group, and they invited us to join them for a little party in a tiny compartment at the end of the train car, past the bathroom.

That thing the woman is holding is a whole dried fish. We were originally wary about these fish, which many old grandmothers were selling at every stop, but it turned out to pretty good, just really salty.

When we started out on our trip, we really didn't have any plans, hotel reservations, or bus tickets between cities. But it never turned out to be a problem. When we arrived in Sochi we went with the first guy who said he was renting rooms. We turned down the first place he showed us, but the second one was great -- a nice room with a little outdoor kitchen and patio. This was our view:

Here are Sara and Eric out on the patio, deep in concentration. Chess and the aptly named card game "Oh Hell" were our entertainment staples on the trip.

The first day in Sochi we just walked around near the sea. Sara and I did a little Russian-stlye photo posing:
And here's me with Posiedon:

I also joined a delightful statue band.

The best sites in Sochi are actually outside the city, so we wanted to take some excursions. We looked around for an excursion company and found this winner:

We asked the Excursion "TIT" representative if we could take one of their excursions to the breakaway region of Abkhazia, but unfortunately, they don't take Americans there because it's difficult to get them across the border (Russia supports this region's independence from Georgia, so Russians can go there). So we settled on the standard Krasnaya Polyana excursion that's advertised in this picture (don't worry, our desire to visit a breakaway region was satisfied later on the trip, watch for the story in future posts).

The day of the excursion was rainy and cold, but we had a fun time. We were in a van full of Russians and a tour guide who got very angry if anyone started whispering amongst themselves and wasn't listening to him. We drove past numourous decadant sanatoriums and then outside the city into the foggy mountains.

At one stop I got to demonstrate the power of my famous oxen legs.

After a visit to a bee farm and lots of honey tasting, we came to Krasnaya Polyana. There were a couple pricey options for going up the mountain: the ski lift, which wasn't worth it because the fog would obscure all the nice views; and driving around in a Jeep. All the people in our group chose the Jeeps, but we cheap Americans chose to go as far as we could on foot, in the rain. It was a nice walk, despite the rain, and we felt a sense of accomplishment when we got high enough to see snow.

The next day, our last in Sochi, was May 1st, Russian Labor Day. We caught a gathering of Communists in front of a Lenin statue.

The day was beautiful, and we went outside the city again to a see a series of waterfalls called "Змейка" (snake). We bought a bottle of homemade wine at the bottom and started up.

There were lots of different waterfalls and places to explore. We took our time, enjoyed the weather and the scenery, and it ended up being one of our favorite times from the whole trip.

After the waterfalls, we had an obligatory McDonalds stop (Sochi has a beautiful McDonalds), and then got on the bus to Port Kavkas. We didn't know anything about Port Kavkas, but it looked like the closest place to the Crimea that we could get to. Stay tuned for part two of the spring break posts: Yalta.

2007-04-18T19:25:00.000+04:00

Banya Bliss

Last weekend, Sara, my student Ksenia, and I were invited by Sara's student Lena to Lena's home in Kovrov. Her parents live there in their own house with a big yard and, most importantly, a banya. I love the public banya with all its gossiping grandmothers, but it's great to kick back at a real, private Russian banya. A private banya is mainly a room with a stove and a couple wooden benches. It can get pretty hot, especially when you start throwing water on the rocks in the stove and you sit up on the top level. It gets really good when someone starts beating you with a venik (a bundle of branches with leaves on them). The combination of waves of heat and wet leaves is supposed to be really good for you...

We left on Sunday morning and when we got to Kovrov (it takes about an hour an a half by bus) Lena's mom had prepared a feast for us, including the king of Russian food, blini. Also notice the liver pate in the shape of a pig sitting in front of me.

After we stuffed ourselves thoroughly with blini (I wasn't brave enough to dig into the pig) we slept for over an hour, and then headed out to the banya, which was already nice and hot. We went between sweating in the banya to sitting outside in the cool air, drinking tea with steam rising from our bodies.
And what could be better than banya, tea, and food, than all those things plus guns? Her dad busted out a BB gun and we had some target practice between banya runs. Here's Sara with the gun:

And me with the gun:
And here's me with the dog and Lena's mom:

This is Lena and her dad, and a bottle he found in the banya. Her dad was our banchik, whipping us good with a venik. There was some screaming, but that didn't stop the beating. It's good for you.

After a few hours of banya relaxation and fun, we finished the night off the best way possible: more eating. Lena's mom made one of the best kinds of Russian soup, salyanka, and her dad grilled shashlik, which you can see in the picture:

We stayed overnight and came back to Vladimir early in the morning, still worn out and full from our fun in Kovrov. We got to experience the three best things about Russia: food, banya, and hospitality.

2007-04-05T14:39:00.000+04:00

Spring Training

The weather here has been unseasonably warm and sunny (until a little cold snap today), so we’ve been taking advantage of it by playing in the backyard like typical American kids. There are lots of options to satisfy our sporting desires. Throwing the football around is usually my first choice, of course. In the fall, Eric and I made up a great game that involves running in a circle and synchronized spinning and throwing two footballs. It’s hard to explain, but a beautiful thing to behold. Unfortunately, we haven’t gotten to break out that one yet this spring because the grass is still pretty fragile (we dug up a lot of grass playing it in the fall).

Since the baseball season began recently in America, we’ve started to play some makeshift baseball in the yard. We have a tennis ball and a plastic bat that is already pretty deformed, but it works. Last Saturday we had our first “real” game. Our teams were based around skin tone, the смуглые (swarthy, dark) people against the белые (white) people. (I’m смуглая, in case you had doubts). This is the same way we compete in all games – pool, Trivial Pursuit, and cards. I hit a home run, but the white people eked out a win in the end. We’ll get them next time.

The other big sports news is that my TV now shows the channel NASN (North American Sports Network). I’m sure it wasn’t there before, but it conveniently appeared right before the NCAA tournament. We’ve enjoyed watching quite a few games, but there are a few downsides: 1) times – only daytime games are convenient for us to watch, and we’ve had to stay up most of the night a couple times to see evening games, 2) commercials – NASN shows about 4 different commercials, and if I hear “There are over 385,000 NCAA student athletes, and almost all of us will go pro in something other than sports,” I might break my TV (I’m even starting to loath the Honda commercial that features the calming voice of Garrison Keillor), 3) the Russian announcer – this guy dubs over the usually banal American sports announcing with even worse commentary. Most of his analysis consists of phrases like, “simply fantastic!”, “16 points!”, “good throw!” He had a brilliant moment of insight during a baseball game the other night when he announced that the word “baseball” is made from two words, namely, “base” and “ball”. He probably knows that he can say anything he wants because there are approximately 17 Russians in the whole country watching NASN. The upside is that around midnight his commentary disappears, after he presumably downs some vodka and passes out in the studio.

Go Twins and BoSox!

2007-03-13T20:44:00.000+03:00

Having a Blast in the Baltics

Sometimes you look around you and wonder, "How did I end up in this situation?" Surrounded by 12 Brits with wigs, fake moustaches, and pink shirts singing songs from The Sound of Music, I found myself thinking that exact thing.

In this case, what I did to find myself in that situation was get on a train from Moscow to Riga (the capital of Latvia) and go to the Skyline Bar, overlooking the city from Riga from the top of Hotel Latvia. I went to Riga two times last year and had a great time, so when we found out it was too much trouble to get a visa to our dream destination of Belarus, I wasn't against going back to the Baltics States. We (Sara, Eric, Nicole, and I) arrived in Riga on Thursday and, after dropping off our stuff at Friendly Fun Frank's Backpacker's Hostel (voted number one hostel on hostelworld.com for good reason) we hiked around the city. It was a beautiful, sunny, warm day. In the evening we headed to the Skyline Bar because of the beautiful view overlooking the city. There we met a happy-go-lucky group of middle-aged guys from Nottingham on holiday. Sara was the first to go up to them and ask them about their costumes. We never quite figured out who they were though; someone said The Jackson Five, one of them was possibly James Brown, but I think overall they just wanted to wear goofy wigs. They started talking to an Austrian woman sitting near them and apparently asked her about The Sound of Music. The poor woman hadn't heard of it, but the Brits didn't believe it and thought that if they just kept singing songs from the movie she would recognize something. That never happened, but since Sara and I are in love with that movie, we were glad to join in.

The next morning we hit the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia (not a favorite of Russians, who are considered the occupiers) and then caught a bus to Vilnius. We arrived in the evening, found our cozy hostel, and went out to eat some traditional Lithuanian food. This was a good choice. We had various delicious combinations of meat, potatoes, and sauce, and I had soup with country sausage and quail eggs that was very good. The only mistake was the pig's feet, which we got two orders of since it's the house specialty.

On the whole, though, the food was cheap and delicious. We spent the rest of the evening wandering around the city, exploring the winding cobblestone streets. Even though we didn't go to bed until after 2, we made the best decision of the trip getting up at 6 to watch the sunset. Despite our sleepiness, we hurried over to a place called Three Crosses Hill and hiked up with not a little huffing and puffing. We made it to the top as the sun was beginning to peek over the trees and shine over the city.

We spent our last couple hours walking around the city breathing the peaceful morning air and eating freshly-baked pastries.

Eric and I caught a bus back to Riga at 10 (because of train schedules and class schedules we had to come back a whole day earlier than Sara and Nicole) and had time to buy a chess set before catching the train back to Moscow. Our wagon on the train was filled with a bobsled and skeleton team--pretty hardcore--from Krasnoyarsk who had been training in Riga for the past month. It was fun to talk to them. We got back to Moscow and immediately caught a bus back to Vladimir. Despite spending more time on busses and trains on the trip than actually hanging out in the cities, it was an amazing trip. Life is good in the Baltic States.

2007-03-05T15:18:00.000+03:00

An Ode to BI Grammar

The best way to drive a teacher crazy is to make (or by making) her grade a huge stack of midterm exams. A disadvantage of teaching is that you have to grade exams. In my opinion, students should not take exams. On the other hand, maybe exams should be taken by students. Midterm exams, which are taken by students in the middle of the semester, are a pain to grade. I can't stand grading (or to grade) exams. However, it is necessary. Students take exams so that their progress can be evaluated. The best thing about being a BI student is that you get to learn extremely useful grammar that can be used in so many everyday situations.

2007-02-21T20:34:00.000+03:00

Forgiveness and Fun

Sunday was the last day of Maclenitsa, and the last day before Russian Orthodox Lent. Every day of Maclenitsa has a special theme, and Sunday is Forgiveness Sunday. You're supposed to ask all the people you know for forgiveness for anything you might have done to them. When someone asks your forgiveness, you say, "God forgives." It's a good tradition. The girl I sat next to on the trolleybus called almost everyone she knew and I think text-messaged a few more, asking for forgiveness.

A bunch of us went to Suzdal to celebrate there, because they have a huge Maclenitsa celebration. It was much like when we were there on the Day of the City in August -- a big street festival with vendors, performances, and tons of people -- except this time it was freakishly cold. We stayed warm though, by dancing and playing games. One of our Russian friends suggested that we play a children's game, and as she was explaining, we realized that she was talking about Red Rover. This gem of a game hadn't been played by any of us for a long time, but we were eager to play. So we started it up right in the central square, and pretty soon we had strangers joining in, including an old man with a cigarette hanging from his lips. Here I am running from one group to another.

Another Maclenitsa tradition is contests to show how tough you are. My favorite is one where two people sit on a slippery log and hit each other with pillows until one of them falls off. Here Sara and I ditched the pillows and engaged in hand-to-hand log fighting.

And, the fall. I have some bruises.
Unfortunately we left Suzdal before the traditional burning of the scarecrow which represents winter, but I saw it last year so it's ok. Funny, winter didn't go away even after they burned it. It's still winter, but I'm full of blini and forgiven, so things aren't so bad.

2007-02-15T12:49:00.000+03:00

Happy Holidays

Sorry about the long time with no posts. Things have been really busy around here. This week is packed with holidays, which makes it hectic, but fun. On Monday the week-long Russian holiday Maclenitsa began. In English it is sometimes called "Pancake Week", so that should tell you right there that it's my favorite Russian holiday. It's a pagan/Christian end-of-winter/pre-Lent celebration and you're supposed to eat lots of blini (Russian pancakes) every day. Last night I was invited to my former host family's apartment for blini, and as I write the Russian staff are making piles of blini for everyone. The holiday lasts until Sunday, which is the main day of the celebration. We're planning on going to Suzdal, a nearby and very quaint town with a big Maclenitsa festival.

Besides stuffing ourselves with blini, we're trying to prepare for the American Home Mardi Gras party on Saturday. Since none of us really know anything about Mardi Gras, it's a little difficult to plan the party. We'd like to have a big parade with floats, but with only a couple basement rooms and limited craft supplies, we decided to go with small paper mache creations instead, which teams of students will paint at the party.

Yesterday was Valentine's Day, of course, a holiday which is growing in popularity in Russia. Many people don't do anything to celebrate it, but kids and young people give each other Valentines and gifts, like in America. We decided to have an "American lunch" at the American Home yesterday to celebrate. All of us teachers cooked lunch for the whole staff -- spaghetti and meatballs, salad, garlic bread, bruschetta, zucchini bread, brownies and cupcakes. Yes, it was delicious and nutritious. The Russian staff made a few comments about the lack of mayonaisse in the salad, but most of the feedback was postive. We taught them the traditional "roses are red" poem and made them come up with their own endings to it (they torture us with similar activities at Russian lunches).

And it's time for me to sign off, because it's almost time for a little celebration of another important holiday this week, which some of you might know about. Happy Valentine's Day/Mardi Gras/Maclenitsa, everyone!

2007-01-29T15:15:00.000+03:00

Becoming a local

I’ve lived in Vladimir for about a year and a half now, and there are signs that I might be starting to fit in. Not in the way I dress or the way I look, of course. That will never happen. But in some categories I’m doing alright.

Giving directions – People here aren’t shy about asking for directions on the street. If you are a foreigner and you are asked for directions by a Russian person, there are three steps to successfully answering them:

1. Understanding the question

2. Knowing the answer

3. Being able to express the answer in Russian

I can’t always do this, but there have been several occasions in which I’ve directed people to the bus stop, or a certain street, or a supermarket. Whether they understand me well enough to make it to their destination or not, I don’t know, but I always just imagine that they do.

Showing someone around the city – Last week my friend Ilya came to visit me on his way from Moscow to Nizhni Novgorod, where he’s from. Even though Nizhni isn’t far from here (2-3 hours by train), Ilya had never been to our beautiful and historic city. We spent a cold but sunny day wandering around the city and seeing my favorite sites (ok, they’re the only sites, but I do like them) – Cathedral Square, the Golden Gates, the history museum housed in an old water tower, and the best Azerbaijani restaurant around, Shesh-Besh. It felt good to know more about a Russian city than my Russian friend did, although he had to buy entrance tickets to everything so we wouldn’t get charged the extravagant foreigner price. I still can’t pass for Russian in my appearance and accent, unfortunately.

Touring with Russians – Yesterday six of us teachers joined an excursion to Moscow to see a ballet at a theater inside the Kremlin. Our tour bus was full of Russians, and we had a guide who filled us on the history of Russian ballet on the road. Man, did he fill us in. He started out in the 14^th century and took us up to the present time. In the 19^th century, when things really started to get “interesting” in the world of Russian ballet, he provided us with a year-by-year run down of ballet happenings. I tried to listen and enrich my knowledge at first, but the fuzzy microphone voice and the sheer longevity of the presentation got the better of me. I think that even our Russian comrades, who could understand a little better, lost interest by the time he had talked for two hours. When we got to Moscow, we rushed to the underground mall near the Kremlin for a quick lunch (McDonalds, yes, but it’s not my fault, it’s all we had time for). Then we got into a huge line and eventually made it inside the Kremlin and inside a huge, communist-era theater for the ballet. It was called “Esmeralda”, and was the story of the Hunchback of Notre Dame. The dancing was beautiful and we could follow the story to some extent. For a hunchback, Quasimodo was a very skilled dancer, and once even danced with Esmeralda when she was dead (which makes her a talented dancer too, even post-mortem). All in all it was a great show, and we headed back to the bus satisfied. I imagine that when Muscovites see all the people going to their tour busses they probably think, “Look at those hicks going back to their provincial villages outside of Moscow.” But if that is indeed what they are thinking, I don’t mind. At least I’m not on a bus with foreign tourists, I’m a Russian provincial hick.

2007-01-19T16:23:00.000+03:00

Nicene Creed Karaoke

In addition to handball on Eurosport 2 and Belorussian news, I've discovered more quality programming, on Православный Телеканал Благовест (Orthodox Channel "Good News"). Earlier, when I saw a priest on the screen, I just flipped past, but a few days ago I decided to give the priest a chance. And I discovered that Благовест is great going-to-bed TV.

Usually around midnight they have a kind of televised church service. A priest stands in front of some icons and chants passages from the Bible. Then the choir sings a song, and usually the priest chants again. At the end, they have the congregation chanting the Nicene Creed. I've experienced a similar procedure at actual services in church, but the difference is that on TV, all the words are on the screen. In church, the Nicene Creed is extremely hard to follow along with. I want to sing it with everyone, and I'm pretty familiar with it in English, but there's no way I can sing it in Russian, or maybe it's Old Church Slavonic. That's why the TV version is so awesome.

But the sing-along Nicene Creed isn't the only great thing about Orthodox TV. They have other interesting shows, like "Вечные Вопросы" (Eternal Questions). You can text message your spiritual questions and a priest will answer them. They answer questions like, "Is it ok to work on Sundays?", the answer to which, ironically, I missed because I was grading homework assignments (on a Sunday). Maybe I would send in my own questions, if I had a cell phone. Sometimes they show orchestra and choir music, and sometimes even a rock band, rocking out in front of a big banner with an icon-like face of Jesus on it.

While we don't get stars like Jack Van Impe or Benny Hinn on Russian religious television, I'll take chanted prayers while I'm going to sleep any day.

2007-01-12T19:49:00.000+03:00

We're just finishing up the first week of a new semester here at the American Home. I came back to Vladimir last Saturday, a tiring but less trying trip than the one to America (although on my Delta flight from New York to Moscow they didn't show any movies or give us a mid-flight snack, as was promised).

I've got a pretty good schedule this semester, with three BI classes (a level I taught last semester too). But then there's my one group of AII, a level I taught six times last year and was doing my best to avoid this year. The students aren't the problem, the problem is that AII is the level from the depths of hell. Maybe you think that's an overstatement, but if you had to teach past and future perfect tenses, the passive with present perfect and present continuous, and modal verbs for unreal situations in the past, among other things, to low-intermediate students who say things like, "Yesterday I working", you might understand. Then there's the movie. Most levels have a standard movie that is shown in small segments for the duration of the semester. The AII movie is Father of the Bride. Not such a bad movie, maybe, if you haven't already seen it over six times. I don't know how many more of Steve Martin's extremely annoyed and angry facial expressions I can take before I pull a George Banks move myself and start tearing hot dog buns out of the package at the store. Let's hope I can restrain myself.

Well, I think I'll be able to survive the semester despite AII. I have mostly new students I haven't taught before, but they seem like good groups. And now we have three new desk calenders in the teacher's office, which means triple the joyous anticipation of coming to the American Home every day and reading a new Far Side comic (today -- "Mr. Osborne, may I be excused? My brain is full."), English word of the day (today -- "kudzu"), and French word of the day (today -- "les epinards", or "spinach"). Don't you wish you worked here?

2006-12-28T16:54:00.000+03:00

Say yah to da UP, eh!

After many trials and tribulations I've finally reached the paradise that is the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. My journey began around midnight Friday night in Vladimir, when Vanya picked Sara, Eric and I up to go to Moscow. The drive to Moscow is always scary, especially at night in the winter, and this ride was no exception. But thanks to Vanya's mad skills we made it safely. Unfortunately, Eric's flight was much earlier than Sara's and mine, so we spent the early morning hours drinking tea and fending off drunk men in business suits having a birthday party at an airport cafe.

The flight from Moscow to New York City was long but uneventful, but when we got to JFK it was a huge mess. We were already late and I had to get my luggage and go through customs and check my luggage in again and then try to catch my flight. I went to the gate and there were hundreds of people there, no lines, and no flights displayed on the boards. They just called out a flight number and told everybody on that flight to go board the plane. I overheard that there were 36 flights leaving from those two gates. They called my flight number and I went outside to the runway and went to the plane they said was going to Cincinatti. (Yes, I had a connection in Cincinatti). We started getting on a plane but then someone ran over and told us to get off and get on a different plane. That gave us a lot of confidence that things were running smoothly. So we got on the other plane and then waited on the runway for a very long time before taking off.

That delay made us late to Cincinatti. We arrived at a very quiet airport, and I think everyone on that flight and on many others had missed their connections. They told me that I was on a flight at 1:45 the next day (Sunday) and gave me a hotel voucher, free meal vouchers, and an "overnight kit". I called my mom bawling and told her I wasn't coming home that night, and then got on the shuttle to the Drawbridge Inn in Fort Something, Kentucky. It sounded kind of sketchy, but actually it was a nice place. I was exhausted, but I decided that since I had a free meal voucher I needed to use it. So I went to the hotel restaurant around midnight and ate some French toast with two funny brothers from Indiana and I didn't feel so bad. I even got a free T-shirt in the overnight kit.

In the morning I got up and made it to the airport over three hours early just to make sure I wasn't late. Everything went smoothly and before 1:45 the plane had been boarded. They even started the engine. But then the pilot got on the intercom and told us that, unfortunately, no one had told the co-pilot that he had a flight and he had gone home. So now they were looking for another one and in the meantime, we should deboard and wait at the gate.

After another couple of hours waiting at the gate with no news, I decided to ask about another flight that was going to Minneapolis at 4:30. The woman at the gate told me to go to another desk to ask if I could get on it. The woman at that desk told me I couldn't get on that one, but I could get on another flight, on a different airline, leaving at 4:20. She said that was the best option, as the search for a co-pilot on Christmas Eve wasn't going so well. I had to run to the other end of the airport, but I made it in time and boarded the correct plane with a full crew.

My dad picked me up at the airport and we made it to my grandparents' house in time for Christmas Eve dinner. I was so happy to be home. I spent a nice Christmas at home with my family. I was planning to go up to Michigan to see my other grandma the next day.

But on Tuesday at 6 AM I woke up and threw up. That was followed by more throwing up and other unpleasant stomach complications. Actually, I don't think my stomach has ever felt that bad in my entire life. My grandma was calling every half hour or so to see if we were coming and she couldn't quite understand why I didn't want to get in the car for an 8 hour drive. My dad and brothers decided to go and my mom stayed and watched me writhing and moaning on the couch all day.

The next morning (yesterday) I felt good enough to make the trip, so my mom and I drove up and here I am, at the Super 8 in Houghton, Michigan. I better get my brothers and head over to my grandma's place. It's only 9:30, but my grandma and my parents have probably already been up for hours. I hope you all had a nice Christmas and I wish you a Happy New Year!

2006-12-21T20:32:00.000+03:00

I was so busy before classes today, and having so much fun during classes, that I forgot how sad the last day is. But now, sitting alone in the teacher's office with only Gosha (the cat) keeping me company, I remember. Today was the last day for two of my groups; one intermediate level and one beginning level.

The intermediate class is a group of kids I've mostly had before, so I know them pretty well. They gave me a great present -- a pair of valenki, wool Russian boot things that will keep your feet warm through the coldest of winters. I put them on in the beginning of class and I've still got them on now. Now if only the weather would really get cold enough for me to need them...
During our class we looked at my photo albums, played some poker, and watched a little Ali G. They're a great group of kids and I'm sorry I can't fail them all and have them as my students again.

We had a great time in my next class, the beginners. Even though I've never had them as students and they've never been together as a group before this semester, I felt like we got to be a pretty close-knit class. I started hanging out with a couple of them outside of class a few times a week (besides being fun people to hang out with, it's good for me to spend time with them because we speak mostly Russian when we're together). We started out singing some Christmas songs and some Russian songs that I can play on my guitar. But soon it turned into a full-blown dance party. We have class in the biggest room at the American Home, which is still decorated with Christmas lights and a tree from our Christmas party on Saturday. I think we may have disturbed the other classes a little bit, as we were blasting dance party favorites like Toxic, Чёрные Глаза, and the Numa Numa song (last year's teachers know what I'm talking about). I got pretty sweaty dancing in my valenki, but we had a good time.

I think it's really hard to say goodbye to a group of students, even if I've only taught them for one semester. My favorite thing about teaching is meeting new people and getting to know them, but sometimes it's hard to meet so many new people because it means saying goodbye to so many. I know I'll see lots of them around next semester, but they won't be in my classes. And it makes me think of next summer, when I'll probably be saying goodbye to the American Home for good. Well, I better stop writing. I can't get too sad right now, I have to go through this another two times tomorrow.

The good thing about the semester ending is that I'm going home. So if you're in America, don't forget to call me!

2006-12-12T19:03:00.000+03:00

Keep the change, you filthy animal!

Last weekend at the American Home we started getting ready for Christmas. On Saturday we’ll have our Christmas party, but last weekend we decorated our tree, put up lights, made posters and cookies, and sang some Christmas songs. Since Soviet times Christmas hasn’t been a very big holiday here. It’s celebrated on December 7^th, but the main winter holiday is New Years. Russians decorate trees and give gifts to celebrate New Years, not Christmas. But here at the American Home we have Christmas, with possibly a little Hanukkah mixed in (we sang Adam Sandler’s Hanukkah song along with the Christmas carols on Saturday, although we didn’t attempt to teach the students that one).

After decorating, singing, and baking, we showed the movie Home Alone. I don’t usually watch the movies we show here on Saturdays, but for some reason I stuck around for this one. I remember seeing it a million times when it came out in the theaters, but that was a long time ago. We laughed at the cheesiness of the robbers falling down the icy stairs over and over again, but I have to admit, the whole “appreciate your family” message kinda got to me. I think I would have cried at the end when Kevin and his mom were reunited if it weren’t for the fact that I’m going home for Christmas.

That’s right, this year I decided to go home instead of skipping around the world like I did last Christmas break. I’m leaving on December 23^rd and I’ll be home until January 5^th. So if you’re in Minnesota, let’s get together, and if you’re somewhere in America, call me. And somebody make sure there’s some snow on the ground, because we’ve got none here (the first time in 100 years there’s been a winter like this in Russia) and it’s starting to bug me.

2006-12-01T17:39:00.000+03:00

Home Sweet American Home

Even when I'm worn out and don't really feel like teaching, I usually feel better when I go to class and see my students. And even when there's some hooliganery, usually we get something productive done. I've even found that sometimes it's better to let the class get a little anarchistic on me.

That happened yesterday in my 15ish-years-old BI (intermediate level) class. We played a game where a student had to come to the front and I would write the name of a person on the board behind them. Then the class had to give them hints about who they were using conditional sentences ("If you were this person, you would...") until the student guessed who they were. I had a list of people prepared, but the students said that they wanted to write the names for their classmates, so I let them. Then they wanted me to have to have a turn guessing, so we did a couple rounds of that (I was Jay Z and, departing from the "people" theme, a whale).
I changed their homework assignment according to their wishes too. At the beginning of class I usually ask them if they've done anything interesting since our last class and they usually say no. So I joked that their homework for next time is to do something crazy so they have a good story to tell. Well, at the end of class they remembered that and said that instead of writing a letter to me as they often do, they wanted to tell a funny story next class. So I gave in. We'll see if I get any good stories on Monday. I hope they don't do anything too crazy...

It's gratifying when students are even more involved than you expect them to be, even if it's at the expense of complete order in the classroom. Most of us agree that it's better to have a class of rowdy kids that say things than a room full of mature, quiet adults who stare at the table (some kind of middle ground would be nice, but hey, you can't win them all).

Not only do I get innovative ideas from my students here at the American Home, I also get them from the Russian staff. Last night Vanya, our night guard and easily the coolest person who works here, was looking for something to eat and not finding much. So he grabbed a loaf of white bread and a carton of milk and told me he was going to show me how to make a great meal. Narrating every step, he tore up the bread into pieces and put them in a bowl. Then he poured milk all over it and smooshed the bread into the milk to soak it. And that was it. He went on for quite some time about the wonders of this dish while I looked on dubiously. He asked me if I wanted to try it and I declined. He said that Americans were weak. He went to the living room, sat down in his chair, and finished off his concoction in a couple minutes. Then he came back in the kitchen and repeated the process with the other half of the loaf. "Russians eat bread by the loaf," he told me. I couldn't let his comment about weak Americans go, so I tried it this time. It tasted like bread soaked in milk. Ingenious.

2006-11-20T19:49:00.000+03:00

A Good Weekend in Vladimir

Those of you who have lived in Vladimir might read the title and think "Как это может быть?" but it's true. Despite the amount of time we spend complaining about there being nothing to do in Vladimir, it is possible to have fun.

After Thursday, when our favorite mini-series (Тихий Дон or Quiet Flows the Don, and actually we hated it but were addicted to watching it anyway) ended, things looked grim. But we found that life does go on after Тихий Дон. On Friday after class Aaron, Eric, Sara and I headed to this tiny cafe we had seen near my apartment. We were surprised and delighted to see a "No Smoking" sign on the wall. But the biggest plus was karaoke. We asked the waitress if we could sing and she said of course. We didn't have a big audience; everyone there (from zero to five or six other people during the time we were there) was friends with the waitress. Our first song, which we all sang, was our favorite Кино (Kino) song, "Камчатка (Kamchatka)". Sara and I followed that with "I Can Show You the World" (I was Aladdin and she was Jasmine) and I sang another Кино classic, "Когда твоя девушка больна (when your girlfriend is sick)", to commemorate my recent illness.

After the cafe Aaron, Eric and I grabbed plastic bags and went sledding. The conditions weren't optimal, but we had a couple good runs and ended up with a few good bruises, always a sign of successful sledding.

On Saturday Nicole and I tried to go the gym, but found to our dismay that the gyms we went to didn't open until 10 and 11. I guess no one here works out on Saturday mornings. But the morning wasn't totally disappointing, because at 10:30 we met more of our friends at the banya. Most of you probably have heard me elaborating on the wonders of the banya, but if you haven't, you'll have to wait until another time. It deserves a whole post to itself. In short, we had a great time scrubbing, sweating in the sauna-like room, and relaxing. After a good two hours of banya, we met up with the boys and left. But we had only gotten about three steps out the door when we smelled a wonderful, meaty smell. We followed it around the corner and found a very small cafe that serves шашлык (shashlik, like barbecue or shishka-bobs). We crowed around a tiny table and ordered our meat. It turned out to be really good and not too expensive.

After filling up with delicious meat we went to my apartment to drink tea and eat more. We folded down my couch (it's like a futon) and laid down to watch TV. But the after-banya exhaustion hit us fast and most of us fell asleep. Even after a couple hours of doing nothing it was hard to get up.

We did get up though, and good thing we did. If we hadn't, we never would've seen the quality film that we watched--Snakes on a Plane. Everyone knew it was going to be ridiculous, but we weren't prepared for just how ridiculous it was going to be. It had the added benefit of being a film that doesn't lose anything in translation.

On Sunday I broke out my skis for the first time this winter. I went to a big park that has fields, woods, and plenty of trails. Even though it was dusk, there were lots of people out. There was snow sticking to every branch of every tree and it was beautiful. My skiing skills weren't so beautiful, but it was the first time of the season.

In the evening we went to a blues concert at a new club. The first band was a local group that I'm pretty sure I saw last year at a different club. The second band was from Germany. Both groups played dance-able music and most of us made it out to the floor and broke it down. My finest moment was when I was swing dancing with Nicole and didn't notice a little ledge behind me. I stepped into it and fell backwards into a poor woman's lap who was sitting there. Well, everyone makes mistakes.

I had my lessons planned before the weekend started and made up my mind not to do any work. And I managed to fill up my weekend with very minimal time spent at the American Home. It is possible! With so many things to do, who knows, maybe Vladimir is the next Prague...

2006-11-14T19:19:00.000+03:00

The doctor made a house call on Saturday and declared me almost healthy and ready to teach this week. So yesterday I returned to the classroom for the first time in almost two weeks, greeted by heartening joyous exclamations from my students.

In my still slightly weak condition, it's good that I work in place where everyone is attentive to my health. This includes Tatyana Constantinovna, probably the oldest member of the American Home staff, who doesn't speak a word of English as far as I can tell. Her position here is a little ambiguous to me, but I do know that her responsibilities include giving us our salary, cleaning out the refrigerator, and hiding tea snacks so no one eats them between tea times. Today I was drinking tea in the kitchen while she was engaged in the second of these tasks. She found an almost empty bottle of cognac in the refrigerator and told me to pour it in my tea because it would help treat my throat problem. I told her I was already done drinking tea. She said that was ok, just pour some more. She was very insistent about the health benefits of cognac, so I poured myself another cup of tea.

I'm still getting yelled at for running outside in flips flops and making myself sick (most often by Tatyana Constantinovna), but at least there's a crazy cure to combat the crazy cause of my illness.

2006-11-08T17:23:00.000+03:00

After four nights and three-and-a-half days, I've finally been discharged from Galina Petrovna's Sanatorium for Sick Teachers. But unfortunately I'm still not authorized to teach. I had to go to the doctor again yesterday and she said my angina is still going strong. There is definitely something going on in my throat (strep maybe? -- there are white spots back there) but at least I haven't been running a temperature lately. Anyway, the doctor said I still can't teach this week and I should still take it easy. I made it back to the American Home today for the first time in a week, but I'm not supposed to work for too long. So I guess I better head home. GP called me here to tell me to go home, take my temperature, and give her a call (and of course gargle!). I'm really starting to miss my students, so I hope this throat ailment runs its course and I can function normally in society again.

2006-11-05T23:25:00.000+03:00

I’m sorry for the long delay in writing. It’s due to an imposed confinement that began on Tuesday evening and was broken only by a trip to the doctor on Wednesday, a trip to the post office (across the street) on Friday, and a taxi ride to my boss’s apartment last night, which is where I am now.

I’ll begin with last weekend, which is when I started feeling sick. I didn’t feel quite right on Friday, and on Saturday I felt a little worse, although the excitement of the Halloween parties kept it out of my mind for most of the day. My fatal mistake on Saturday, according to the Russians, is that on several occasions I briefly ran outside to the snowy yard to fix our fallen “tombstones”, in my “banya girl” costume which consisted of a towel (with clothes under it in case of a wardrobe malfunction), a banya hat, and flip flops (you can see a picture of it in Amanda’s blog). I happen to think that a bit of fresh air away from a hot, stuffy, basement packed with people can only be a good thing, but I will get no agreement on this point from any Russian.

Later in the evening I started feeling really feverish, shaking with chills and then hot. I won’t go into how much I sweated in the night, but it was gross. On Sunday and Monday I felt pretty sick but I hadn’t bought a thermometer so I couldn’t be sure I had a fever. I just took Tylenol and kept working until Tuesday when I did buy a thermometer and found out I did have fever. I taught one class that day, left my second for Aaron, and went home.

During this time my boss, the venerable Galina Petrovna, had been closely monitoring my condition, giving me different medicines that I don’t want to take, and making sure that I took them. She called on Wednesday morning and I made the mistake of telling her that my temperature was 37.5 degrees C (101.3 F, I think) and she told me she was calling the doctor. In less than an hour, I was in a taxi on the way to the clinic.

Apparently we have connections there, because without filling out any papers or waiting in any lines, we marched up to the doctor’s office and she saw me immediately. She took a look into my mouth, my nose and my ears (altogether it took about a minute) and announced that I have “angina” (which is pronounced with a hard “g” and is not a heart attack, but some kind of throat ailment). She prescribed an antibiotic and some other things and told me that there was no way I was going to St. Petersburg on Saturday as I had planned. This mysterious disease can apparently have dreadful consequences including heart and back problems, and who knows what else, so I need to stay home and absolutely not go out in the cold.

Since then my life has consisted mostly of laying on my couch/bed, watching TV, reading, and receiving phone calls from my boss that typically go like this (translated from Russian):
GP: How are you?
Me: Fine. I feel pretty good.
GP: Did you take your temperature?
Me: No, I’ll take it.
GP: Did you take the antibiotics?
Me: Yes.
GP: Did you take the throat medicine?
Me: Yes.
GP: Did you take [some other medicines that she wants me to take]?
Me: Not yet…
GP: You need to take it! What am I going to do with you? Did you gargle?
Me: Awhile ago…
GP: You should do it again. What’s your temperature?
Me: [some temperature that is only slightly above normal]
GP: That’s bad. Maybe I should call the doctor…
Me: I think everything’s fine for now.
GP: Are you drinking lots of liquids?
Me: Yes.
GP: Good. Drink tea with honey, water, juice. Just make sure not to drink anything cold!
Me: OK.
GP: And don’t go anywhere.
Me: OK.
GP: I’ll call in an hour to see how you’re doing.
Me: OK.

I’ve familiarized myself with the wonders of Russian television – lots of news, Russian cooking shows which take place in kitchens the likes of which I’ve never seen in Russia using ingredients I’ve never seen here either, dart competitions on Eurosport 2, old Soviet cartoons, a sitcom called Happy Together where all the characters look and act conspicuously like the characters from Married with Children, poorly dubbed episodes of Friends with the English hearable behind the Russian but usually not understandable, music channels that actually show lots of music videos, and scores of movies starring either Jakie Chan or Vin Diesel, which I always flip past.

On Friday I had to make the decision whether or not to go to Petersburg for our first break, as I had planned. Despite an intense desire to go and make use of one of our few breaks, I decided against it. I still felt a little sick, and knew that they would probably send me to the electric chair or worse if I came home still sick, especially after not teaching on Thursday and Friday (thanks for covering for me Amanda, Eric, and Aaron!). So yesterday I was sitting at home feeling rather sad about not going, when I got a visit from a couple of my BI students. They were loaded down with food – milk, fresh fruit, dried fruit, nuts, sour cream, bread, tvorog, and other things – and the proceeded to prepare me all kinds of treatments while I tried to be a good hostess but in the end did nothing. They stayed for over four hours and kept me company, continuing to feed me and give me massages. Maybe staying home wasn’t such a bad idea. Thanks Sveta and Tatyana!

Despite the royal treatment in the afternoon, I started feeling worse in the evening and got a terrible case of the chills. GP called and told me to take my temperature, which turned out to be higher than it had been the whole week (maybe around 102 F). So she called a taxi to bring me to her apartment, which is where I’m writing from. I slept well and my temperature was back to being only a little high in the morning, and I feel pretty good. I got a delicious breakfast of blini and am looking forward to a delicious home-cooked lunch. Life here is a lot better than alone at home, even if I have to endure constant questions about my health, lots of medicine, and getting my temperature and blood pressure taken all the time. I might complain a little about being bugged about my health all the time, or coerced into taking mystery medicine, but on the whole it’s good to know that I’m cared about and that people are looking out for me. While one of GP’s consultants who she calls often to ask about my health thought that I might have gotten sick again because of taking a shower, I think GP’s husband nailed down the real reason this morning at breakfast. He said that I got sick because it would have been a shame to stay home from Petersburg and end up being completely healthy the whole time. So I’m almost thankful to be a little sick, and definitely thankful for the care shown by the people around me.

2006-10-22T21:33:00.000+04:00

We're about halfway through the semester, and some of you might be wondering if I actually teach. From reading my blog, it might appear that I spend all of my time raking leaves and drinking tea. While I would enjoy living that kind of lifestyle, someone has to put food on the table. So yes, I do have a job, and I do spend most of my waking hours here at the American Home (although to be fair, not all of those hours can be classified as "work").

This week we have a little something we like to call mid-term exams, and we get to see if these past seven weeks of teaching have brought about any concrete results. I'm giving my oral exams tomorrow and Tuesday, and the written exams are on Thursday and Friday. It's been a busy week preparing exams and preparing my students for the exams, but overall, I like exam time. It gives me a chance to see if my students have made some progress, and in past semesters most of my students have done pretty well on exams. Exam time also means I don't have to teach for two days, although proctoring exams probably takes even more alertness and vigilence than teaching -- Russian students are notorious cheaters (although I think it's due to a totally different cultural mindset which sees giving your fellow student the answer as simply "helping").

We've even managed to have some fun these past few days of reviewing before the exam. I actually had a good response to Bob Dylan, who is traditionally hated by our students, when we sang "Blowing in the Wind" to help learn about articles. Maybe that's because I played it on my guitar rather than playing the CD. Even Molly's students made her open the door to their room so they could see and hear us singing better. I think our students are some of the only people in the world who prefer my voice to Bob Dylan's.

One of my classes also had some fun with defining and non-defining relative clauses. I gave each person a sentence and they had to find a person with a sentence related to theirs and combine the sentence using a relative clauses. One pair ended up with the sentence, "The banya, where there are lots of naked people, is my favorite place." Another group had, "Did you see the bear that ate my dog?" I asked one student (this guy is an adult) from that pair to read his sentence and he said, "Did you see the naked people who ate my dog?" and then proceeded to crack up at his joke. I couldn't break through his laughter to get him to read the real sentence, so I moved on to the next group. But he said, "OK, OK. 'Did you see the bear...that ate my naked people!'" And cracked up again. At least he seems to understand relative clauses.

Lastly, I have a quote from a homework assignment in which the students wrote about their dreams and goals. This was written by a boy who is about 15 or 16.

"I want that we haven’t a war in all world, because it’s bad for people. And I want that peoples don’t’ die, and they can fly."

I know English better than he does, but I couldn't have said it better.

2006-10-15T19:51:00.000+04:00

Church in Russia, Part One (Catholic)

This morning I went to a church I had never been to before, probably the only Catholic church in Vladimir. I was interested to get a glimpse of Catholic culture in a country that is overwhelmingly Orthodox. The church is near the American Home, in the center of the city. It's a nice red brick building, which looks nothing like the Orthodox churches. It's different on the inside too, with no icons or frescoes on the walls, only small pictures of the stations of the cross. There were the traditional stark, sleep-preventing wooden pews, candles and a cross up front, and a chior loft up in the back.

The service was easier for me to follow than Orthodox services. As far as I could tell, it was a regular Catholic service, like the ones you'd find in America, only in Russian. There was a guest priest though, and I'm not sure who he was or where he was from, but he was kind of a big deal. Everyone was taking pictures of him, the kids from the Sunday school class gave him flowers, and he wasn't too good at speaking Russian. I have to admit that I smiled to myself when he stumbled over some Russian words he was reading, because he sounded just like me when I read Russian. I wanted to know where he was from and what he was doing, but I felt too sheepish to ask anyone, worried that it would come off as irreverent if I asked, "Who's he?"

I was pleased to hear more than one person talk about unity among Christians during the service. They mentioned "our Orthodox brothers", which I thought was interesting. I'd like to talk to more people about what the relationship is like between the Catholic church and the Orthodox church in Russia. I noticed quite a bit of diversity in the church too. The congregation was made up of people of many different ages and a few different races as well.

One of my favorite parts of church is the passing of the peace, where people shake each other's hands or hug and wish them the peace of Christ. It was even more meaningful in church here, because in Russia women hardly ever shake hands with each other or with men. I appreciated people all around me eagerly reaching out to squeeze my hand.

I guess it's a little weird that I wrote about Catholic church in Russia before writing about Orthodox church, but don't worry, I'll write about it later on. And I might write about the Protestant church in Russia too, if you're lucky. Until next time, peace.

2006-10-09T19:55:00.000+04:00

21 Glorious Hours in Yaroslavl

We got on a bus headed for Yaroslavl at 7:15 in the morning on Saturday, and after 5.5 uninterrupted hours of listening to a loud-voiced old woman talk to her husband in the row behind us, we reached our destination. Yaroslavl, like Vladimir, is part of Russia's historic Golden Ring. It's on the Volga River, and has a nice Kremlin and lots of beautiful churches and monasteries. We started out at the Kremlin, which contains old churches, exhibitions and exhibits about various Russian and Yaroslavl-related things, and a fenced off area with this sign:
Another sign informed us that Shebear Masha is waiting to make new friends, and when we jumped up to peek over the fence we saw that there really was a bear sitting in a cage. Poor Shebear Masha.

After the Kremlin we took a walk around town and found a little island on the Volga with some amusement park rides. We decided to ride the bumper cars, an excellent choice (check out Aaron's blog for pictures). Then we ate lunch on an outdoor patio overlooking the Volga. Our happy expressions and laughter seen here are typical of the whole trip, although later in the night the laughter was more crazed and desperate.
We continued our city tour after lunch, visiting a couple churches, a CD store, a park with the usual monuments, and a cafe. Here is one of the main churches, the Church of Elijah the Prophet.
We discussed Georgian-Russian relations over a delicious dinner at a Georgian restaurant, and then walked along the Volga before heading to another cafe and then walking by the river once again. Around 2 AM we found ourselves outside a club that charged too high of a cover, trying to decide what to do. A girl and two guys heard us speaking English and started talking to us, overjoyed to meet Americans. Not being able to turn down their eager suggestion to walk in the park, we ventured out into the rain with them. When it started raining harder, we huddled under a small awning of a fruit and vegetable stand. I spent most of the time listening to Daniil, who spent most of his time with a frustrated expression on his face, trying to think of an English word to describe what he wanted to say. The funny thing is, he didn't speak English, except for "Manchester United" and "I love you". He was a gentleman though, and took off his coat and sweater for the girls to wear, which left him getting soaked. You might be able to guess which one he is:
If you didn't guess, he's the one in the back wearing Eric's hat, which he asked Eric to give him. Eric couldn't turn him down. After a very drawn-out goodbye, we managed to tear ourselves away from our new friends. At this point it was around 4:30 and we were wet and tired. We tried unsuccessfully to get into a cafe that we had tried to get into unsuccessfully the evening before. Unfortunately the people at the swanky cafe don't share Daniil's enthusiasm for scrubby Americans; the first time they told us that there wasn't any room for us (there was room) and the second time they told us that it was closed (there were lots of people sitting in there and enjoying tea). Barely managing to quench the urge to egg that establishment, we moved on and found another cafe. This one let us sit and watch the fashion channel on TV until 6, when we decided that McDonalds must be open. At this point on our cold, wet, sleepless journey, McDonalds was a Jerusalem or Mecca-like destination, and our hearts filled with joy when we saw the warm glow of the Golden Arches. But we soon learned that the restaurant didn't open until 8; only the drive-through was open. That didn't stop us, and neither did the fact that McDonalds in Russia apparently doesn't serve breakfast foods. We walked through, got our cheeseburgers and chicken nuggets, and sat down at the nearby train station. The time between finishing our food and going to McDonalds again when it fully opened was the worst of our trip, but we survived.

When we caught our bus at 9:30 (which turned out to be a van this time--much more dangerous and uncomfortable) we were completely slap-happy and our senses of humor had turned sadistic. But we made it back to Vladimir without killing anyone, and now we have 21 hours worth of beautiful memories about Yaroslavl.

2006-10-03T18:34:00.000+04:00

Midnight Soup-Making

With a schedule that includes working 10-12 hours a day at the American Home, it's good that I get urges to cook at random times, like when I wake up in the morning and late at night. On Sunday night I came home around 11 (yes, I was working late even on Sunday) and I felt like making soup. I didn't have a recipe or much of an idea, but I wanted to make soup. I remembered some kind of pea soup-esque soup that my host mom made last year and decided that I would try to make something like that. I started boiling some dried peas. Then I cut up some potatoes and added those. I decided to try shredded carrots in my soup, so I peeled some carrots. It looked like a normal amount, but when I started shredding them they turned into a gargantuan heap of carrots. Eric has made fun of me before for starting to chop ingredients and not being able to stop when I had enough, and this happened again. I wanted to shred all the carrots that I peeled. I finally had to stop with half a carrot left, because my mountain of carrot shreds was spreading past the limits of the cutting board. I cooked the carrots with onion and then dumped them into the pot, nearly causing it to overflow. I added some salt and pepper and bay leaves, and was done. It was 1:00, so at this point I didn't really want dinner, but I ate a small cup of it just to see how I did. The verdict--it's the best soup I've made yet, despite the excess of carrots. It also got votes of approval from Bob, Lena, and Vova, who all tried it. I'd like to make lots more midnight soup in the future, so if anyone has any good recipes, feel free to pass them along. I'm aiming to become a soup master, and I think after my brilliant Sunday night creation, I'm well on my way.

2006-09-27T11:39:00.000+04:00

Raking Anxiety Disorder

Real fall hit yesterday--a bright blue sky over fiery trees and crisp air that begs to have a football thrown through it. Fall is football season, as I mentioned in my last post, but it's also leaf-raking season. These are two of life's greatest joys. I've been enjoying playing football lately; besides our Saturday game I've been able to recruit people nearly every day to take football breaks in the backyard. But finding the opportunity to rake leaves is sometimes more difficult.

I remember last year seeing old women sweeping leaves in the park (yes, sweeping leaves with brooms seems to be protocol) and wanting so bad to join them. First, because they're old and they shouldn't be the ones doing physical labor, and second, because I love raking so much. I started getting a little crazy thinking about raking leaves. Fortunately the Russian staff went out one day to rake the American Home yard and I got to join them.

When leaves started appearing on the yard this year I immediately began to think about raking again. But there weren't many, so figured it would be awhile before we started raking. Shortly after I had that thought, the few leaves that had been there disappeared into two trash bags. Someone had raked the leaves already. I thought, "Someone has raked leaves already. I can't let this happen again without me."

When I stepped out of my apartment building yesterday and was greeted by the strong sun and strong air, I knew I had to rake. I surveyed the situation when I arrived at the American Home--there weren't a lot of leaves, but definitely enough for raking. I thought maybe I should do some preparation for classes and then take a raking break, but I realized that my Russian lesson was at noon, and if I didn't rake before that, I would be worrying throughout my whole lesson that someone was out there raking the leaves. So I didn't waste any time, I grabbed a rake and got to work. It was everything I was hoping it would be. The only downside was that my piles of leaves were too small for jumping into. But there are still plenty of leaves on the trees, which means there will be lots more on the ground for me to rake and jump into. Unless someone gets to them first.

2006-09-23T18:15:00.000+04:00

This is football season but most Russians don't know anything about football. That's what the American Home is for. Today our Saturday activity for the students was "Learn to Play American Football". It was a beautiful fall day and we had a good turnout, about 20-30 students. We did our best to explain the rules and then divided into teams and played. The students caught on quickly and seemed to like it. Since we were playing right in the center of town, near a road where tour busses often park, we got lots of stares and pictures taken of us. Some passer-bys stopped for quite awhile to watch us play.

American traditions and Russian history: playing football near Vladimir's famous Golden Gates and the embankment built to keep the Mongol hordes out of the city.

Me facing off against Aaron's team.

A handoff to Yuri, one of my ZII students.

Stopping for a picture before heading back to the American Home to watch Remember the Titans.

2006-09-18T19:33:00.000+04:00

Dacha Life

On Saturday the whole American Home staff took a trip out to my Russian teacher, Tanya's, dacha. A dacha is like a little cottage outside the city. Usually they are very simple and small with no indoor plumbing (but they usually have something better than indoor plumbing--a banya). It was a pretty cool day and they warned us over and over again to bundle up so we wouldn't get sick. But we weren't worried, as most of us are already sick.

Out at the dacha some people started grilling meat and the rest of us took a walk. We passed some elderly people happily plowing a huge garden and Tanya's husband called out to them that we were going on an excursion. They asked if he had been mushroom hunting and he said he had gone the other day. They exchanged some more dacha village news and then we passed on.

We climbed a hill and looked out over the tiny dacha settlement and farther to a bigger village with a working convent. Then Eric and I decided to have a rolling down the hill contest, on a hill with waist-high weeds and brush. Here is the photo documentation:

Sara said that Eric had more speed (he did have more of a running start--I started rolling sooner) but that my form was impeccible.

On the walk back to the dacha we were again heartily greeted by the gardeners, who asked us where we had been and recommended some more places to go before continuing their hoeing.

Back at the dacha we ate lots and lots of food and drank mulled wine and tea to keep warm. We taught some Russians how to play football (like the rolling race, it was played in waist-high weeds). I held my own in a game of Horse, and we played a game called Kartoshka (potato) that I first learned to play in Mongolia. It involves spiking a volleyball at people crouched in the middle of the circle, just for the pure fun of it.

Despite the cool weather, it was an idyllic day out at the dacha. I hope we can go out there again. And my dream is that when I'm old, I can have a dacha and cheerfully cultivate potatoes and holler out greetings to my neighbors passing by.

2006-09-14T20:43:00.000+04:00

My apologies for the lack of posts this week. It's the first week of classes and things have been pretty hectic. But life is good. My usual schedule includes getting up around 8 or 9, going running or doing yoga, eating breakfast and reading poetry, walking to work (about a 20 minute walk) and arriving around 11, preparing for classes, drinking tea, grading homework assignments while drinking more tea, preparing for classes some more (while drinking tea), teaching starting at 4, going home around 9 or 10 (classes end at 9), having people over for tea and/or card playing and/or standing on my balcony and watching the street, possibly watching the news on my black-and-white TV, reading, and going to bed around 12 or 1. Like I said, I'm living the good life.

Here are some random pictures that I've stolen from other people's files since I don't have a digital camara:

This is from back in August when we went to Suzdal, a historic little town near Vladimir. We were lucky enough to be there on City Day, which meant that there were fun attractions like this ride made from van seats, chains, and duct tape (I'm not lying). That's Amanda and me being plunged face-first toward the ground.

A great picture of Eric, me, and Nicole relaxing on the couch in my friend Joanna's apartment in Nizhni. We played some great games of speed Scrabble and Spanish Monopoly this room.

I know Jane posted one like this last year when we saw it on the Kremlin in Nizhni, but we saw it again and I think it deserves to be posted again, in the name of racial unity. Black-white power.

Well, I need to go home and eat some delicious mushroom soup and apple crisp before I pass out. I'll try to post again soon and keep everyone up to date on my exciting life...

2006-09-07T20:23:00.000+04:00

One day of teaching down, lots and lots and lots more to go. Today was the first day of classes, and I just got finished teaching. I decided to blog while I still have the adrenaline rush, before I come down from the teaching high.

Classes are an hour and a half long and we have three class periods every day, at 4:00, 5:45, and 7:30. On Mondays and Thursdays I teach the first two, and on Tuesdays and Fridays I teach the first and the third. On the first day of class we start out as a whole group before we divide into separate classes. Our director gives a little talk in Russian, and then the teachers do a cheesy skit to introduce ourselves. This year we decorated the rooms as different decades (we have "The Speakeasy"--the 1920s, "Mel's Diner"--the 50s, "Woodstock"--the 60s, "Super Mario World"--the 80s, and "Ellis Island"--general American history) and our skit was based on this idea too. The announcer told the students that the American Home now has a time machine (I said it's a cheesy skit), and the teachers are coming from different decades. We all dressed up as people from whatever era matched the room we decorated. The 20s teachers came out and did a little swing dance, the 50s teachers did a wholesome husband-wife dialogue ("Hi honey, I'm home!" " Oh, hi honey, I made meatloaf for dinner!"), the 60s was Sara and me--we came as hippies singing "Blowing in the Wind" with me on guitar, and the 80s kids did the Electric Slide. We did it three times today, and we've got three more to do tomorrow. Eric and Molly couldn't do the Electric Slide at the beginning but they're getting better with every performance.

My Hooligan Hour (4:00) class was BI, the fifth level. I got a lucky break, because I've had all but three of the students before, some in ZII and some in AII. It was fun to see my old students. I just hope they're not tired of me by now. I don't know if it was the coffee I drank today or what, but I was able to keep the class pretty high-energy and the students were all participating.

The second class, ZII, was a little harder. I haven't taught ZII since last fall, and I think I talked a little too fast. It's hard to judge, because ZII students tend to be at a lot of different levels. Many of them haven't taken ZI, and this is their first class at the American Home. Some of them can have a whole conversation in English, some say, "I am from in Vladimir" and "I am work." For parts of the class I felt like I was disorganized and going way to fast, but sometimes I thought they were bored. Overall, though, I think it was ok. There was this very earnest-looking, happy kid sitting front and center and I wanted to smile every time I looked at him.

This morning on the trolleybus I got a lucky ticket (when you pay you get a little ticket with a number, and when the sum of the first three numbers equals the sum of the second three, it's lucky). You're supposed to make a wish and then eat the ticket when it's lucky, but usually I
forgo this tradition (I actually don't know any Russians who eat them, but everyone knows that's what you're supposed to do). On this auspicious day, however, I couldn't pass up the opportunity, so I ate the ticket. I'm not superstitious, but I think it's going to be a good semester.

2006-09-04T18:58:00.000+04:00

I'm ashamed to admit that I went to McDonalds twice this weekend. There's no McDonalds here in Vladimir (we've got the creatively-named MacKing and Mr. Gamburger, both pretty sketchy), but there is one (actually, three) in Nizhni Novgorod. Nizhni deserves a few McDonalds, being the third largest (although some say the fourth largest) city in Russia. I studied abroad there in the spring of 2004, and going back feels like going home.

Since my dear friend Joanna is leaving Nizhni in a couple weeks, some of us (Sara, Molly, Aaron, Eric, Nicole, and I) decided to take the three-hour train ride there this weekend. We left on Saturday morning and arrived in Nizhni with most of the day still in front of us, certainly enough time to hit up the McDonalds near the train station. Then we walked around the city for awhile with Joanna and my friend Tanya. Nizhni has a beautiful Kremlin, overlooking the place where the Oka and Volga rivers meet. (I'll try to post some pictures when I get my hands on them.) We got tired pretty quick due to our early morning train ride, so we spent the evening at Joanna's apartment, playing Monopoly and speed Scrabble and eating potatoes. We mustered enough energy to go out to a cafe later that night. I was happy to see okroshka on the menu, which is a summer soup made with kvass, a very distinctive-tasting beverage made from fermented bread. I enjoyed my okroshka, despite the disgusted looks cast on it by my friends.

Sunday was rainy, but we enjoyed a lazy morning at Jo's apartment, an eclectic cafe with good blini, and of course, one more stop at McDonalds before getting back on the train.

2006-08-31T17:21:00.000+04:00

I don't have anything exciting to tell about--no more helicopter rides, and I still haven't tried skydiving. But there are some items of good news to report:

-Lena (our teachers consultant) is back from the hospital. She's doing well and helping us out a lot, as usual.

-Molly, the other teacher who didn't arrive when we all did, came this week. Now we have our whole team together.

-I found out what levels I'll be teaching. I'm teaching two sections of ZII, which is the second level out of ten at the American Home. I taught this level last fall and liked it a lot. The students are very much beginners, which means that you can see a lot of progress as the semester goes on. I'm also teaching two sections of BI, the fifth level. I haven't taught this level but I'm looking forward to it. I taught six classes of AII last year, so I know where the BI students are coming from and I might have some of my old students. BI is the level in which, finally, the amount of grammar you need to teach is reduced. There is more time for review and conversation. I'm happy to have one level I've had before, and one that's new. And the best thing of all is that I don't need to watch Father of the Bride (the AII movie) one more time!

-Football is winning out over frisbee this year (unlike last year) as our backyard activity of choice. We've even played a couple games of two-on-two.

-In a few minutes I'm going to visit my old host family. I like living on my own, but it's great to see them, especially my host brother Pasha. Well, I've gotta go!

2006-08-28T15:11:00.000+04:00

I'm becoming domesticated. This is largely thanks to my like-named friend Joanna who came to visit me this weekend. She has been living in Nizhni Novgorod for the past three years and is quite adept at the art of homemaking in Russia. On Saturday we went to two markets and bought lots of food, a new knife, and a little French press (now I can make coffee!). We spent the next few hours in the kitchen, making shi (Russian cabbage soup), baked chicken with garlic, and a salad with the leftover cabbage. I called my friend Vova and invited him over for dinner. Eric was coming by to pick up his keys, watch, and socks (long story), and on the way over he happened to see Aaron, so they both joined us for dinner. It was nice to sit down for a family-style meal, and Vova told us that the shi tasted like what his mom makes. After a couple hours of hanging out in the living room playing guitar and harmonica and watching the rain, round two of guests came over and finished off the leftover food. I'd say my first complete home-cooked meal in my new apartment was a success. Thanks, Jo.

And now, for the helicopter pictures I promised:
Andre and his girlfriend, me and Konstantin

Before we went up in the helicopter, we watched the skydivers jumping.

I loved looking out the window.

Thinking deep thoughts. Or wondering how I'm going to get that huge knot out of my hair...

Inside the helicopter after all the parachuters jumped out.

That little white speck on the smaller river is the famous old church, Pokrov na Nerle. The bigger river is the Klyazma.

Now I want to be skydiver too.

Thanks for the pictures and the invitation to ride in the helicopter, Kostya!

2006-08-25T14:51:00.000+04:00

I love tea. I drink it constantly throughout the day when I'm here in Russia. For some reason, my dear co-teachers of last year thought my tea habit (yes, it's a tea habit, not a caffiene habit) was reason for mockery and ridicule. Well, guys, take this:

1. The new teachers drink tea ALL THE TIME.
2. Tea is healthier than water.

How do you like them apples?
Miss you guys.

2006-08-24T17:57:00.000+04:00

Yesterday I was doing the usual chilling at the American Home (I mean, working) when my friend and former student Konstantin called. "Joanna," he said, "Do you want to fly in the helicopter?" I sure did. He came to pick me up, and after a talk with my boss (who apparently told him she'd have his head if anything happened to me), we drove out to an "airport" outside the little town of Bogolubova. I've ridden in a car several times with Konstantin behind the wheel, and I figured that nothing could be much scarier than that, so I wasn't too nervous about the helicopter.

Konstantin's friend Andre, who used to be a student at the AH too, met us at the airport. I'm not sure what his job is, but it involves flying helicopters. For awhile we waited and walked around trying to figure out what was going on. Apparently there was a problem with helicopter availability or something. We ended up near a group of people that were preparing to go skydiving and it was decided that we would go up with them. But then it started pouring so we all went inside and we thought that was it for our helicopter-riding plans. Fortunatly the storm rolled through quickly and the sun came back out. We rejoined the group of skydivers, and watched from the ground as they went up in the helicopter and took their first jump. It was cool to see them jump out, open their parachute, and float all around before landing skillfully and safely on the ground. I decided I really want to try it someday.

The second time the parachuters went up, we joined them. The helicopter is called an MI-8, it's pretty big (not that I know a lot about helicopters, I don't have much to compare it to), and you can learn more about it on Wikipedia. There were a couple open windows near the back of the helicopter, and I spent most of my time with my head hanging out of one of them. We went up pretty high, and then the skydivers jumped. I liked sticking my head out the window and seeing them jump out the door, fall right below me, and open their chutes. A few times they fell so far (at least it seemed really far from my perspective) before opening their chutes that I was sure there was a malfunction and they were going to die. But nothing of the sort happened, and I became more convinced that I have to try it sometime.

Up in the helicopter we could see the Klazma River, which flows by Vladimir, and the Nerl River. There is a very famous, very old church in Bogolubova called Pokrov na Nerle, and we could see that from the air. We saw little villages and clusters of houses and cottages, and lots of trees and fields. I got scolded several times by Konstantin for hanging my head out of the window. He said I was going to catch a cold for sure. I stayed there though, it was the best place to get a good view.

We stayed in the helicopter for two rounds of skydiving and then headed home. I had an awesome time and I was right, driving with Konstantin is much scarier than riding in a helicopter.

P.S. Konstantin took lots of pictures and when I get my hands on them, I'll try to post some.

2006-08-21T20:01:00.000+04:00

One of the main reasons I decided to live alone this year, rather than with a host family, is because I wanted to invite guests over. I've never lived alone, and although I appreciate some time to myself, I usually like having people around. I wasn't sure before I came if I really would have people over, but so far my apartment has been bustling, with someone there almost every day. Yesterday was a good example.

I was actually having a nice quiet Sunday, enjoying my solitude and making lots of plans to have a productive day. I went to church, then to the store to buy some food. I put away and organized that food, then went to the market. I hadn't done any serious food shopping yet, so I had a lot to buy. And at the market I bought more than I thought I would; pretty much anyone who tries to get my attention will get me to buy something, and probably much more than I need. This is especially true if they are really elderly and sitting at a bare table with something like a big jar of berries or pickles that they picked or pickled themselves. Anyway, I came home with more food and less money than I intended, but I figured it would be OK because my food would last a long time. I was thinking about my plans for the rest of the day--go running, go to the banya, cook something, do laundry at the American Home, plan the next day's orientation activities--when I got a call from my friend Alyosha, who I hadn't seen yet. "Denise and I were wondering what you were doing," he said.
"Nothing," I said, "You should come over."
"OK," he agreed, "But we're with Sara (another teacher) and Irina (her host)."
"That's fine," I said. "Come over."

About a minute after I got off the phone with Alyosha, the phone rang again. This time it was my friend Vova. I told him to come over too. Pretty soon Alyosha, Denise, Sara, and Ira were sitting in my living room (really my only room) drinking tea and eating cookies. When Vova came, we headed out to a park outside of town. Then we went to the American Home and played a full-contact, yard-destroying game of 500. After that we decided we wanted to introduce Sara to Ali G since most of us have been quoting it since we got here (the tradition continues...) . We recruited Nicole to come with us, and on our way out we ran into Eric and Aaron, who wanted to come too. Soon we were crammed into my room, watching Ali G, drinking more tea, and eating more cookies. Later we started playing charades and other games and eating more food. In the middle of one game, Alyosha got a call and turned to me. "Sergei wants to say hi," he told me. I reached for the phone but Alyosha said, "No, not on the phone, he's coming over." In a few minutes Sergei was at the door, along with his girlfriend and another friend. So at this point my solitary Sunday afternoon had been transformed into a 12-person party in my tiny apartment. Pretty soon I had an empty fridge, a sink full of dirty dishes, I had gotten nothing done, and I was happy.

2006-08-18T17:12:00.000+04:00

So I gave up, and now I have a blog. I resisted for a long time, not wanting to aquire an exaggerated sense of self-importance or waste even more time on the computer and end up sticking a pencil in my eye. But apparently some people want to read about my life, and they keep bugging me, so here it is. My life, blog style.

After spending last school year teaching English in Russia and having a great time, I decided to come back and give it another try. I teach at the American Home in Vladimir. It looks like an American home, as you might have noticed from the picture. It has an English program and does some other projects in the community. Check out the website: http://serendipity-russia.com.
I came back to Vladimir last week, on August 10th, and was joined by 6 other teachers, all new to the American Home (there's one more on her way, but she's not here yet due to problems with her visa/passport). It was good to meet the new teachers, but it's sad to be here without my old crew. Their ghosts haunt every corner of the American Home (not litrally!) and I think about them all the time. I think this year will be great as well, just different.

This year I'm the high and mighty lead teacher, so I get to deligate stuff, help lead orientation, and remind people to do their dishes. A few days ago, unfortunatly, our omniscient and extremely hard-working teacher's assistant had to go to the hospital because of complications with her pregnancy. I'm worried about her, and now I'm more or less leading orientation by myself.

I feel like I've been on the computer all day trying to set up this blog stuff, so I have computer ADD and if I get a pencil in my hand bad things could happen. So I better go, and ramble about my life more later. Thanks for reading, and please comment.