Summer rain

Wow, what a week.  It's really hard to believe that the program is halfway over.

• On Monday, our group ate at a Georgian restaurant: Georgian food has a similar relationship to Russian food that Mexican fare has to us in America: foreign enough to be popular, but still not too far off from what we normally eat.  We ordered (on recommendation of Anna, who had been to that particular restaurant before) хачупури, which is a bread dish baked with cheese and possibly other foods inside.  We got one with just cheese, and one with eggs and cheese.  Unfortunately the cheese was very bitter (I think that's called old cheese) and I didn't really like it (it reminded me of the cheese they had at the Serbian wedding reception).  But overall, the dish was fairly tasty.  We also ate шашлыкы (shishkebabs) made from both chicken and lamb (the lamb was really good, but much more expensive: this is only the second time in my life I've eaten lamb) with a really yummy and slightly spicy sauce.  The restaurant is located on the mainland, but in a part of St. Petersburg I hadn't been to yet; also, since it was Monday and we spent all weekend studying, I decided to walk to the restaurant.  It was more than an hour's walk, but not significantly more complicated or lengthy than riding the metro would have been; besides, that neighborhood is very beautiful, along one of the many canals of the city.  However, walking home was a different story; my legs were tired and Latalia started not feeling so well, so we decided to take a маршрутка for part of the way.  I really don't know why they warned us in Princeton against taking маршрутки - I don't find them any less safe than a bus, and they're quicker (if a bit more expensive).  I had a bit of a challenge convincing timid Latalia of this (she hadn't been on a маршрутка yet) but finally settled the matter by getting on; she had to follow or find her own way home (a little mean, but the маршрутка would have driven away if we hadn't gotten on, and I didn't want to walk the rest of the way).  Unlike our last adventure with public transportation, the маршрутка was going exactly where I thought it was, and we got off at the end of our street.  It was totally worth the 27 rubles.  
• Also on Monday, I made a serious shopping trip to "7я семья" to replenish the snack food that I had finally consumed.  I spent 200 rubles and bought animal crackers (they aren't as good as in America :[), salty crackers (which are AMAZING after all of the sweet things I've been having), more pretzel-dough ring things (these ones are cheap and soft and GROSS :P), more peanuts, a couple of булочки (small pastries, sometimes with a fruit or творег filling), and some APPLES!!!!  Okay, so here's the story on the fruit.  One of the other members of our group, Mattias, had been bringing in apples every day as a snack; and since our supper always consists mainly of meat and starch, I was desperately craving some fruit and extremely jealous of him.  He said that the apples were only about 10 rubles each, but every store that I looked in had prices around 56 rubles.  I didn't understand and was getting pretty fed up when I looked more closely at the price tags and realized that the prices were per kilogram.  Duh.  Anyway, I'm really glad that I found that out; at "7я семья" I can buy Granny Smiths for less than 10 rubles each!!!!  Having the fruit this week has been AMAZING.  I didn't even realize just how much I missed it until I bit into that first one.  It was, to quote Molly, "a religious experience."  But really, thank God for fruit and cheap food.  
• Actually, I've made a trip to a store nearly every day this week.  Monday was the biggest, but I stopped back at "7я семья"on my way to school Tuesday and bought a drinkable yogurt for lunch (strawberry, of course ;]).  On Wednesday I trekked out to Идея, another grocery store a couple of blocks from the Institute, where I bought another 8-liter container of water and some булочки с яблоками (apple pastries) for 15 rubles each.  They have become my morning snack every day.  I was much smarter about the water this time than last: I walked back to the nearest bus stop and rode an автобус most of the way home.  (I have officially mastered public transportation in St. Petersburg.  I think I have due occasion to be proud.)
• Tuesday also marked my first unofficial outing (of what I hope will be many).  Mattias and I went to this old orthodox cemetary on his island that he often runs past but wanted to explore more fully.  It was so cool!  The graveyards in Russia are vastly different than those in America: they are designed to become overgrown, instead of looking like perfectly manicured lawns.  The outside of the graveyard had tombstones from the 19th century, and it really looked like a woods: the trees had grown up around the graves and there were ferns and flowers everywhere almost obscuring the stone or metal crosses.  We knew it was mostly orthodox because of the cross with the extra, slanted bar on the bottom (although I have yet to research what that means).  The middle part of the cemetary, however, was comprised of very recent graves: many people had death dates within the last 10 or 20 years.  As such, this part of the cemetary was open and not yet overgrown, although we could see how the dirt was left on the graves so that plants could grow undisturbed.  The graves themselves were very different, too: it appeared that instead of burying the bodies in coffins, it is much more popular to be cremated in Russia.  Each tombstone stood at the head of what looked much like a stone bathtub: a hollow structure raised above ground with stone or (if the person was much poorer) metal walls, filled with dirt and presumably the remains of the person.  It seemed that the tombstones followed patterns: persons who died in the early 1800s had mostly metal crosses, while those of a bit later were often comprised of pebbles pressed into concrete, forming a sort of crude mosaic; the newest ones were granite or marble (as you might see in America) and a few had elaborate wooden crosses with icons on them.  One thing that I noticed that I had never seen before was that many of the people who died in the recent past had a portrait of themselves etched into the marble of their tombstone.  These were mostly busts of the people when they were in their prime, although we saw one rather extravagant full portrait and an apparent filmmaker who put a picture of a camera on his gravestone in lieu of any religious imagery.  Some of the stones had messages like you might expect: "in loving memory" and such (all in Russian, of course).  There weren't enough of these for me to notice a pattern, whether there are typical things to put on a gravestone (like we might put "rest in peace").  The other big thing I noticed was that none of the graves dated from the Soviet era.  Many of the older ones were from the 19th century, and there were many from the last 20 years, but if there was any death date between 1920 and 1990, that person was buried with someone who died outside of that time frame.  I wonder whether, since there was a chapel in the middle of the graveyard and it was obviously a very religious place, the Soviets closed it during their time of power (since they shunned nearly everything religious).  It definitely gave me something to think about...  otherwise, it was very clear that Russians respect their dead in many of the same ways as we do.  There were many bouquets of flowers on the graves, both real and fake, as well as many candles and jars of incense (which are more characteristic of Orthodox Christianity).  Some of the graves were simple and humble, while others were extravagant and displayed the wealth of the surviving family (some might even be worthy of the title 'shrine' more than 'gravesite').  One last thing that caught my eye was what looked like letterboxes in one corner of the graveyard.  When Mattias and I got closer, we could see that some of the boxes had marble covers over them with names and dates, and many had flowers affixed: it was a condo-cemetary!  The cemetary was nearly full: I wonder whether the letterbox-graves are available for economic or space reasons.  In any case, that is something that you would never see in America.  
• The weather this week has really taken a turn for the better: ever since Sunday it has been warm, sunny (and mostly clear) although it is often very windy here not far from the Baltic Sea.  I even got a bit of a tan from wandering the graveyard Tuesday (it was a full two hours from the time we left the institute until I finally got home) including a tan line across my chest from my purse :P  Well, such is life: it's better than the "farmer-jane" tan I usually get in the summer from my constant outfit of T-shirts and jeans :]
• On Tuesday Latalia and I met Tatyana's older daughter, Olya, for the first time.  She had been in Turkey during the month of June, on vacation from work, but now her vacation time is up and she has to come back to work (although she tells us that she has a really great job, so that's not a sad thing for her).  She is married and has a 6-year-old daughter, Nastya, whom we have yet to meet.  But Olya was home for supper on Tuesday night and we got to introduce ourselves to her.  Meeting someone new really brought home for me how much my Russian has improved; I understood nearly all of her questions and I found it fairly easy to respond.  If this is what has happened after only four weeks, I can't wait to see how things will be after eight!!  So, we talked a lot to Olya, and learned that T.T. would be going to the dacha for the next couple of days, so Olya would be preparing our meals (as if we can't do it ourselves - I think hospitality is a really important thing with the Russians, so I won't take it as an insult to my intelligence).  I really liked Olya: she was very nice, and interested in our lives, and she looks a lot like her mother :]  She also takes care to speak slowly and clearly to us, but she only knows about as much English at Tatyana.  Overall I hope we made a mutual good impression.
• One funny (and embarassing, to tell the truth) story about Tuesday:  I had told T.T. about having been a Presidential Scholar and going to the White House and meeting Joe Biden.  She was (in my opinion) overly impressed; anyway, she bragged about me to her daughter (that's a little backwards...).  Then Olya asked about how many people were in the program.  I estimated... "around 70," I said.  They looked impressed.  Then Olya asked how they were selected, and I explained that there were two from each state, as well as a few Arts Scholars... then Tatyana asked me how many states there are.  "50" I confidently replied.  Then the last number that I had said reoccurred to me... sheepishly, I corrected myself and said that there were probably about 120 people in the program.  50 x 2 still equals 100, even here in Russia... we all had a good laugh out of that one :P  I made my excuse by saying "I came here to study Russian, not math..."  So for all of you who may be misinformed to the contrary, I too make mistakes.  Silly ones, too.  :P
• On Tuesday night (actually Wednesday morning) at 1:40 am, my phone rang.  Now, usually I turn off my phone at night, because the alarm still goes off even if the phone is turned off.  I was also dead asleep at 1:40 am (like a normal person).  So at first I was very confused, because even in the White Nights I could tell that it wasn't 7am, when my alarm was set to go off.  By the time I reached my phone (which was still in my purse instead of on my desk) some part of my subconscious had registered that it was my ringtone, not my alarm, that was sounding, and I answered the phone.  The voice that met my ear was speaking in Russian, and somehow (don't ask me how) I understood that it was Olya and that she was telling me that her key wasn't working in the door, so would I please come and let her in?  I did, and met her profuse thanks with only a "пожалуйста" (you're welcome).  It was only upon reaching my couch-bed once again that I realized what a feat I had just accomplished.  Roused from a sound slumber I had not only recognized my ringtone but been able to understand spoken Russian and react appropriately.  I think that means I've reached some kind of level of internalizing Russian: I just hope I don't have to test that very often.  (Fortunately, I was able to go to bed early the next night and catch up on my disturbed slumber.)
• Olya made breakfast for us both Wednesday and Thursday morning.  She made it much earlier than Tatyana tends to: it was ready by 7:50 instead of the typical 8:07.  Latalia and I were very glad for this because it meant that our walk to school was much less rushed than usual.  In Conversation class on Wednesday we did a ток-шоу (literally pronounced "tok show-oo"- I love Russklicized English words) in Russian.  It was possibly the most fun I've had in class all semester.  Each member of our group was given a role (I was the daughter) and we role-played a talk show where we had to resolve a problem: Dad wants to travel but Mom would rather stay home and watch TV all vacation.  What should they do with the kids and pets?  Our professor was the family dog, and every time we talked about the family and fogot to mention her she would bark - "gaf-gaf"!  It was crazy fun.  In my group are probably 8 of the smartest people you could find, and then you put them together and unleash their collective creative genius.  It was like drama, all over again.  In Russian.
• Thursday we had our final exam in Grammar.  It wasn't too bad - only six pages, single-sided, and I remembered nearly everything: there was one concept I was unsure about but it turns out that I got it right in the end.  In the afternoon we had Conversation, as usual: every day our homework is to think about a certain subject in Russian, and at the beginning of class we talk about what we thought about.  (I say the beginning of class, but as the semester goes on this has gotten longer and longer - now it takes nearly an entire period to get through all 8 people and their thoughts, which I suppose is a mark of growth.)  This day the subject was "sports" and many people talked about the sports that they played when they were younger or what they currently do for exercise (we have a couple of serious runners in our class, including Mattias who seriously reminds me of Daddy in several ways :]).  Phil Miller, one of the kids in our class, was a diver in high school and also practiced gymnastics for a while: thus, he is very flexible.  During his time to talk he tried to explain what kind of gymnastics he did, but the teacher didn't understand, so he demonstrated by doing a backflip at the front of the classroom.  Fortunately, he didn't get hurt, but it looked pretty dangerous... Molly, one of the other girls in the class, told him that she would only be impressed if he did a handstand-pushup.  He's a guy: of course he tried it.  He did a handstand at the front of the room, but couldn't balance for very long: he went to rest his feet on the wall and instead they found the door, which (since it was unlatched) opened at the touch of his feet and he slowly and gracefully toppled upside-down into the hallway with a terrific 'thump.'  The other group was at this moment taking their grammar final in the adjoining classroom, and Stas was administrating it.  Upon hearing the commotion (according to later reports) he jumped several inches into the air before rushing out into the hallway.  All we saw was Phil get up, brush himself off (he was, of course, unhurt) and give Stas, who was now standing in the hallway, a sheepish smile before re-entering the classroom (and, might I add, continuing his shenanigans).  However, as I learned later, Stas, upon returning to the testing room, was heard to mutter, "That man will be the death of me," which is, of course, a very dramatic, romantic, and utterly Stas-ian thing to say.  I would be hard-pressed to say whether I've ever had a teacher who was kinder or cared more about us than Stas.  For his sake, I am quite sad that I will not be continuing with Russian but instead moving on to bigger and Deutsch-er things.  I also can't believe that he's leaving this weekend: I'm so glad that we at least get to eat dinner with him tonight before he returns home to his wife and daughter.  
• But this wasn't the only thing that made Thursday the highlight of my week.  I'm finally used to heels now (or, at least, the pair that I brought from America, which fit my feet exceptionally well and are quite comfortable, as heels go) so I was wearing them again on Thursday.  Just before class let out for the day there was a sunshower outside: the sky was bright blue, but the rain was pouring down.  It only lasted a few minutes, however, and by the time we started walking home the weather was beautiful again.  At least, it was beautiful right above us: as I reached the first intersection and looked down the road I could see a visible gray front of thunderheads quickly rolling towards us, complete with lightning and a gray curtain of rain.  I decided to try and beat the storm home, since I didn't have my umbrella with me.  I found out that you can, indeed, run in heels, as long as you keep well-balanced and take short steps.  I was still about three blocks from home, however, when the storm broke upon me.  Huge, sparse raindrops quickly evolved into a 'soak-you-to-the-skin' downpour before I could go more than 50 feet.  The thought crossed my mind at one point to seek shelter in a doorway or store, but as I looked around and didn't see any immediately nearby, and as I was already wet and had no idea how long the storm would last (and as the lightning and thunder were something terrible, directly overhead) I decided to book it for home and try my luck.  Not surprisingly, by the time I reached my apartment I was thoroughly saturated and water was streaming from my hair and skirt.  My purse was also soaked, but fortunately nothing was damaged (good thing, too: I had my iPod, phone, camera, wallet, and $125 textbooks in there!)  The storm subsided probably 10 minutes later, and then Latalia came home much drier than I (she had, intelligently, taken refuge in a store through the worst of it; she had also had her umbrella with her, and a coat on).  But the rain was warm, and honestly, had I not had my purse with me, I may not have hurried home so quickly: it's good for the soul to stop and dance in the rain every once in a while.  :]]  Besides, clothes dry, and you only live once!
• And that wasn't even the end.  About 6:00, another terrific storm rolled in.  From my desk I could see it approaching and hear the nearly incessant thunder through my open window.  It was so incredible that I took video of it, since pictures couldn't capture the unbelievable swiftness with which the clouds moved or the quick succession of thunderclaps.  There was even hail, for a little while!  I was forced to close my window because although the storm was moving parallel to that side of our building, the rain was falling so hard and so fast that it was splashing into the room off of the windowsill.  But again, the rain was warm and the air smelled so fresh afterwards that it wasn't really an unpleasant experience, after all. :]]  I was, however, glad to be inside during this display of God's power, which lasted nearly an hour!  And I mean, full-blown thunderstorm for nearly an hour, not just raining.  It was truly Awesome.  Unfortunately, Tatyana wasn't as lucky as Latalia and I; I'm not sure where she had gone, but she was intending to be back at 6 and was walking home when the storm hit.  She, being a native St. Petersburger, had her umbrella with her and took shelter somewhere, but by the time the storm was winding down at 7 Latalia and I were both very hungry.  (We're both accustomed to eating between 5 and 6 in the evening, at home.)  We didn't know where T.T. was, so we finally decided that fending for ourselves for supper, under the circumstances, was allowable.  Of course, as soon as we put the frozen блины in the microwave and started warming them up, Tatyana walked in.  I should have known.  But, she wasn't offended by us making our own supper, and only offered to help us prepare it now that she was home.  (Good thing, too; I was worried that she'd be mad at us, since she hardly ever lets us prepare our own meals.)  So supper was microwaveable ham-and-cheese blini and cold hamburger котлеты, made with a new recipe that actually turned out to be quite good (the meat was ground up and mixed with onions and some spice that I couldn't place but that made the burgers almost too tasty).
• Today I had my finals in Reading and Conversation: I don't know when we'll know our grades, but I'll let you know as soon as I find out.  I'm not too worried: the work is hard but I know I've vastly improved and I feel good about all three exams.  Actually, I'm pretty sure I got an A in Reading (but I don't know if the grades she handed out were only for some parts of the exam or the entire thing: it had four separate components - an essay, vocabulary exercise, recitation of a poem, and an oral response.  That was by far my most intense exam) and Conversation was really easy.  But we'll see.  I'm sure I'll live up to my expectations, as usual.  

So, another week gone.  The time has really started to fly by here.  This month I really want to take more advantage of the rich culture that surrounds me on every side in this beautiful city, whether that be going to the Hermitage more often (I could spend 20 hours there and still not see everything) or the other museums, or just wandering around the many parks and neighborhoods.  I want to go to the Necropolis, where you can see the tombs of Doestoevsky and Tchaikovsky; Peter and Paul's Cathedral, whose spire is the tallest point in the city and in which are buried all save two of the Russian tsars; the Field of Mars with the Eternal Flame in the middle; Church of our Savior on Spilled Blood, possibly the most picturesque (and certainly most Russian) cathedral in the city; Tsirk na Fontankyeh, the city circus; the zoo; and the list goes on.  Now that my Russian is much better and I've discovered that I won't necessarily get lost every time I step onto the metro, maybe I'll be less inclined to hole myself up in my room each afternoon and play endless rounds of Solitaire on my iPod (I kid you not, that is what I spent the last week doing).  But, only time will tell!!