Tiffany's Russian Adventures

2008-02-13T06:25:00.001+03:00

A few pictures from Chelyabinsk

2007-12-18T18:21:00.000+03:00

Quick Update...

2007-12-05T09:54:00.000+03:00

I've been in the Ural Mountains since last Friday (the 30th). I came to see my friend Zhenya who I met this summer while on Cape Cod. I randomly met her at the library one day and well...obviously we became friends. There are also 4 other girls out here that I hung out with all summer named Tonya, Tanya, Luba, and Irina. According to the girls we are actually in Asia right now but I'm not sure if that's right. They have been taking me to the theater and their Arbat and their university. It's been very nice being out of Moscow for a little bit. I've been staying with Zhenya at her grannie's house. Her name is Baba Anya. She speaks no english and Zhenya likes to go off and leave me with her for an hour or 2 at a time. Talk about difficult conversation, but my Russian is getting some good practice. Zhenya's parents came last night and of course there was a big dinner, and when I say big I really mean HUGE. Baba Anya keeps saying that when I go home I'll have fat cheeks because she is going to feed me so much. She is always wanting me to eat or drink tea or something. Last night we had soup, bread, some kind of beet salad which I didn't like, some kind of meat wrapped in potatos and fried then covered with leeks and sour cream (so good), some other kind of meat with noodles inside, pelmeini, compote. Then ofcourse there was cake that Zhenya's mother had made and 3 bowls of fruit brought out. I thought I was never going to be able to stop eating. Any time I tried Baba Anya and Zhenya's mother would tell me to eat. It's a little crazy but it has been soo much fun and so good getting to see Zhenya again. I've missed her so much since the summer ended and I came home. Well, I'll post more when I get home, along with pictures. Right now Zhenya and I are going to the movie theater and then to meet her friend after she gets off work.

Pictures from the Mayakovsky...

2007-11-20T12:11:00.001+03:00

Маяковский

2007-11-20T11:58:00.000+03:00

Karoliina and I went the Mayakovsky Museum today. That place was SO not what I expected. I mean, I knew it was going to be interesting. The guy, Vladimir Mayakovsky, was after all into Futurism and so he collected that kind of art. What I wasn't expecting to feel as if I had walked into a Ripley's/Wonder World place....and that's what I felt like. The house almost looked like a playground and no one cared weather of not you touched the art or got close to it. The colors were so bright and vivid. I guess I almost felt like a giant disaster had ripped through the house and no one had bothered to clean it up they just bothered to paint all over the wreckage. SO FREAKING COOL! Lots of pictures! After that Karoliina and I went to Детский Мир (Children's World) and looked at the fun toys and ended up finding knitting needles and yarn. I am now able to knit. Haha. Yay for me. :)

The Bright Stream

2007-11-18T21:17:00.000+03:00

Went to a ballet Friday night at the Bolshoi called "The Bright Stream." It was pretty fan-freaking-tastic. Originally the ballet had been written during Stalin's time and was a major propaganda piece for the Communist system. The ballet is about a troupe of artists who visit a collective farm during the harvest. One of the ballerinas is a friend of Zina, a girl on the farm. Her husband begins to wander and make advances on the ballerina but she is happily married. She and her husband convince Zina to play a joke on her husband to ward off his advances along with those of an old dacha dwelling couple who have taken an interest in the ballerina and her husband. Comedy ensues as the ballerina dresses up as her husband and the husband as his wife. When all is revealed Pyotr (Zina's husband) begs her forgiveness, all is well and the harvest is completed. The Soviet theme is or course how wonderful peasant life is and how much peasants love to work. Giant veggies and fruits are rolled across the stage showing how bountiful and productive life is in Soviet Russia. The ballet is so comedic in the fact that it's hard to believe the Communist party actually wanted people to believe that this is how life was in the USSR. Regardless the ballet was amazing, the dancing was beautiful and the set and costumes perfect. LOVE LOVE LOVED IT!

Oh another note...on the way home from the ballet, Chavala and I stopped at Kroshka Kartoshka (a food kiosk) and got a snack. We were on the way home talking about how much we loved cheese (I got toast and cheese and she got a backed potato with cheese) and the next thing I knew I was flat on my ass in the snow and ice. There was no warning, no slipping, no slow motion effect where I could have tried to catch myself. I was just walking one minute and on my back staring up at the polluted Russian sky the next. Chavala, good friend that she is, instead of asking "Are you all right?" instead asked "You didn't drop the cheese did you?" We were cracking up! It was so hysterical. So now I have a bruise the size of a baseball on my hip and the left side of my lower back kind of hurts but I consider it my initiation into snow weather. :)

Opps...

2007-11-15T20:19:00.000+03:00

So the electric was out today in my sector while they did renovations in the building and in stead of being bored Karoliina and I decided to go to the mall. She has been needing a new jacket since it's started to get cold. I probably should have left my debit card at home. TopShop was having a HUGE sale. I just couldn't help myself. I found this gorgeous blue dress and matching earrings and this white sweater that was sooo pretty. I bought some new heels...they were like 4000 rubles but I guess it's not that much. I mean everyone knows how much I LOVE to shop. It's all I ever do. In total today I think I spent around 10000 rubles (roughly $400). EEK! Well...really it's not that much, I normally drop that much everytime I go out.

I guess it's a good thing it's MY money and NOBODY can tell me what to do with it! Afterall....WHY SHOULD THEY CARE?

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow :)

2007-11-14T12:53:00.000+03:00

The snow has come to stay I believe. All day yesterday it snowed and the wind blew. Karoliina and I went to Ramstore (supermarket) and on the way I home I didn't have my hat on....I seriously looked like a snow woman when I walked back into my sector. My hair looked like icicles and I'm pretty sure if I had tried to touch it...the hair would have broken off. My fingers almost had to amputated I think from lack of blood flow even with my gloves on and hands in my pocket, but such is life in the Motherland. Took some pictures today and threw a couple snowballs at Karoliina, Jim and Johann after class. We had fun. Yay for snow. :D :D

Tip...

2007-11-13T12:26:00.001+03:00

If you are going to post a comment and you dont have a blogger account...please tell me who is writing...otherwise I have no idea who you are, and I like to know who is commenting. Thanks. Love you all. See you soon!

2007-11-11T17:16:00.000+03:00

I know I haven't been writing as much I did when I first got here but I'm starting to get comfortable with Moscow and I don't find going out to a bar for a glass of wine or taking the 15 minute walk to the market all that interesting anymore. That and along with the cold and sun going down at 4 in the afternoon, we haven't been going out nearly as much as we did in the beginning.
This weekend Jim, Hildagunn and I went to Vladimir and Suzdal and THAT was interesting. In Suzdal we went to the museum of wooden architecture where they had actually managed to save wooden buildings from the 17th C. and had actually recreated a town. It was an outdoor museum so it was REALLY REALLY cold. It's colder in Suzdal then it is in Moscow. I think while we were there the temp was around -8 Celsius which is roughly 18 for us. SO FREAKING COLD! We also saw a lot of monasteries and visited the kremlin in Suzdal. At one monetary that was turned into a museum they actually have bell concerts where 8 times a day a single man goes into the bell tower and plays 19 bells on his own. NINETEEN...AT THE SAME TIME.... ALONE! Craziness! I got part of the bell ringing on video and it is so beautiful!
In Vladimir we only went to the Assumption Cathedral and actually got to watch an Orthodox service. I really enjoyed going to these cities because all of the churches and some of the monasteries that we visited I had actually studied with Dr. Steeves in his Russian Civ class and now I was actually able to SEE them with my own eyes and not just through a picture in a book or on a screen. I was so ridiculously happy Jim and Hildagunn were starting to get annoyed I think but they understood what it must feel like to finally see something that you never dreamed you actually would. Oh it was SUCH a wonderful day. I would write more but my battery is about to die. So I'll leave you with pictures instead. I know you all care about that more then what I'm writing. :)
Oh and I finally set the comment thing so that anyone can post comments even if they dont have an account with blogger. Just in case some of you want to post comments. :)

2007-11-11T17:12:00.000+03:00

Pictures

2007-11-11T13:07:00.000+03:00

A few days down

2007-10-29T13:22:00.000+03:00

So the last few days have been very busy. After a stint of staying on campus (and by staying on campus I mean I literally didn't walk outside of the gates of the dormitory, not even for class, for a week) I finally got out did some things. Wednesday I met Molly at the Tretyakov after I finished working and we went to dinner at this cafe called Correa's. The food was amazing. It was like a fusion food resturaunt which is a new concept for Russia. I think my body almost went into shock from all of the nutrients. I've been living off soup, bread, cheese and potatos for the last two months. After dinner we decided to see a film. We saw a film called Изгнание (Izgnanii). In english the film translates into The Expulsion. Suprisingly I understood a lot of the dialouge and the plot of the story. Molly had given me a breif run down of what he expected the film to be about; a dysfuntional family of a father, mother and two children. The mother, Vera, is pregnant but the baby is not her husband's. I think it was a good film for me to see since it wasn't dialouge heavy and the director really set the film up in a way that was easy to understand but was complex at the same time. The title of the film alludes to the large amount of Biblical undertones expressed. The film is basically a retelling of Adam and Eve's expulsion from paradise. I would really like to see the film again, now that I understand even more of what it is about.
Thursday Karoliina and I went to the Tretyakov for a play day. The museum is SOOO big. I really feel like you need two trips min. to get a basic understanding of the museum (one day for each floor). The Tretyakov has me working on translating a biography of Vrubel, a famous Russian painter durring the Symbolist movement in Russia (1880ish - 1920ish I believe). Jus this year they finished an entire room (pretty much a wing of the gallery) dedicated to his work. It houses some of his most famous paintings: "The Swan Princess", "Seated Demon", "Lilacs." While I had been translating for a while, I had yet to see any of these works that I was writing about. When I entered this room I was AMAZED at the beauty and complexity and deepness of the paintings. Some of the were panels, paintings of Russian fairytales protrayed on multiple panels, and they were collassal in size. "The Faraway Princess" must have been 50 to 75 feet long and 30 feet tale and it was one complete canvas. You literally had to stand a hundred feet back to really be able to see the painting in full. I was completely in awe of this room. It is by far my favorite at the Tretyakov.
Friday was pretty much a quiet day. After class, Karoliina, Hilda and I went to Izmailovski park which is a souviener market where they sell a lot of matrushkas. Karoliina bought like 10 for her friends and family, chances are she forgot someone and will have to go back which is fine because I'll need to do some shopping at some point. After that we went home. Hilda and I watched a movie and drank some wine and we were then invited down to Jim's room with Johann, Alexander and Herman. All of the guys proceeded to get drunk and do stupid things like arm wrestle each other. It was quite entertaining to be honest.
Saturday was quite. I came to the Wifi cafe and checked my mail and spent some time translating my text. Around 6 Karoliina and I went out to dinner at Correa's because she wanted to try it. She, like Molly, is a veggitarian so sometimes it's difficult to find a place where she can eat (since Russia is a meat and potatos kind of place) and Correa's is very veggie friendly. Then we came home and watched the latest Grey's Anatomy episode. Quiet day, quiet night. It was nice.
Sunday was wonderful. I got up and read for a couple hours, had some lunch and then started to get ready for the Opera. Jim, Johann, Hilda, Camillo and I went to go see Eugene Onegin at the Hovy Opera. The building was beautiful and the opera fantastic. Eugene Onegin was a novel first written by Pushkin and then made into an opera by Tchaikovski. The basic plot of the story is a girl named Tatiana is quiet and bookish and when her sister's fiancee bring Onegin to the house for dinner one night she falls in love with him. She writes him a letter expressing this love and he rejects her advances saying that he would become bored with married life (just as he has become bored with city living and now country living where he met Tatiana). Years laters he sees her again only he doesn't recognize her because she has been introduced into society in Moscow. Tatiana has matured and grown into a beautiful and poised woman. She is also married. Upon recognizing her, Onegin realizes that he is indeed in love with her and tries to win back her affection. While she admits that she still loves him, she refuses to succumb to desire and allow him to ruin her. She remains faithful to her husband and leave Onegin. I love this story because allow it's about Onegin, Tatiana is shown as the moral strength and goodness in the story. She is a woman and yet she is not the one to fall to her desires. The performace was amazing. The woman who played Tatiana had a beautiful voice and Onegin was arrogent and sad all at the same time. I highly enjoyed the performance. I'd love to see it again in it's entirity (this was only a one act performance. the actual show is over 3 hours long).
So, this is the update of my last week. The pictures that follow are from inside the opera house, Izmailovski, the metro stations and Friday night arm wrestling. Enjoy. :)

pictures

2007-10-29T13:09:00.000+03:00

First Snowfall

2007-10-15T18:22:00.000+04:00

Snow started falling yesterday. I'm not sure how long it will last. It's suppose to warm up again, but I thought I'd share a couple pictures of the snowfall. Enjoy.

Pushkin and Pushkin

2007-10-13T15:48:00.000+04:00

So, the other day Karoliina and I decided that we wanted to go the Pushkin museum of fine arts. It houses some of the most famous paintings in the world, such as Degas "Blue Dancers" and Piacasso's Acrabat. So, we left campus, got onto the metro, and off at the right exit. We followed the signs that said Pushkin museum. We found the building went inside, checked our coats and began walking around. At first everything was fine....but then it started to feel wrong. There were no paintings....just books and sketches and manuscripts. Dummies modeling clothing and tables set up with cards and writing stationary. Then it hit us. We were in the wrong museum! We went to the Pushkin Museum...a museum dedicated to life and works of Alexander Pushkin. We felt like such idiots wandering around asking people where the art was. About an hour after we got there we left. We walked for a bit and finally found the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. Life was much better once we got to the right place, but we thought it was funny story to share. Here's some pictures from the day. The first is inside the Pushkin Museum, the next is the Christ Savior Cathedral and the last is out front of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts.

Fried Snickers!!!

2007-10-03T13:44:00.000+04:00

Yes, the title of my post is completely correct. Last night Jim, Karoliina, Tim, Hilda, Johann, Alex, Lyn, Camillo and I made friend Mars and Snickers bars in one of our kitchens. I think it's the most fun I've had since I've been here. Everyone was just completely oblivious as to how we should make these things. It was an experiment all its own. I'm sure the wine and beer that was drunk didn't help the situation at all. Regardless we had SOOO much fun. We made a HUGE mess and the little babyshka on the floor even came in a couple times and told us to be quiet or open the window because smoke was filling the halls. Snickers of course let to frying other thing...such as grapes (not bad actually), gum (that was Tim's idea and I wouldn't suggest it) and cupcakes (brilliant!! and that was my idea too). It took the 9 of us an hour to clean the kitchen afterwards but it was totally worth it to spend 3 hours with these people being totally stupid but having good and harmless fun in the kitchen. Who knew all you needed to have a good night was candy bars, flour, eggs, milk, oil and a stove? Haha.

Another Day

2007-09-30T18:33:00.000+04:00

So, Samantha and I went for a picnic today near the university right by the Moscow River. It was fun. The weather was beautiful and we ate lots of snacks and just talked about what we've been doing and how much we both hate and yet love Denner for sending us here. We're not really sure how we got sucked into this major...it's like Denner just forces you into it while making you think it's your own decsion when really it wasn't. These are the things Sam and I talked about while sitting on the river. A perfect end to the weekend if I say so myself. On the way home I went picture happy with the yellowing leaves. Enjoy the photos. I'll update soon.

Where I Live

2007-09-27T17:37:00.000+04:00

So, I don't think most people comprehend how HUGE this building is that I live in. Sometimes I don't even think I know how big it is. At night when I come home and it's all lit up I just stare and I think to myself "Holy crap. This is my house!" So, I decided that I would post some pictures of the outside of MGU so maybe you might have an idea of what I'm surrounded by everyday.

Pictures

2007-09-24T19:12:00.001+04:00

So, people have been complaning that I haven't been putting up enough pictures and that the ones I do put up of buildings should have me in them. So, today after class (cause I finished at 12:20 today) Karoliina and I just decided that we didn't want to be inside the campus or anything and so we left. We went to Tverskaiya Ulitsia and just walked around took pictures. We stopped by a coffee house where we were able to pick up a copy of the Moscow Times which is an English newspaper and we had dinner had an Italian resturant on one of the little side streets. Then we walked down to Red Square and took pictures there for awhile and now we're home. The pictures in this post and the post before are from today. Some are from the University Metro station, Pushkin Square, Red Square, St. Basil's, Lennin's Mausoleum, places like that. All in all, it was a great day. Now I'm headed back to my room to do my homework and relax. I've been busy the last couple of days. :) :)

2007-09-24T19:07:00.000+04:00

Saturday Night

2007-09-23T18:26:00.000+04:00

Saturday night Karoliina, Anders and I went to a club called Propaganda. The night was very interesting. The club itself is actually really nice. It's kind of small which makes the atmosphere really cozy, you're able to actually GET to the bar (which is sometimes nearly impossible in the US) and yet the place was packed. The music was interesting. I'm not use to Techno music and people dancing. The three of us danced all night from like midnight till 4. I met a couple of English guys (one of whom was dancing with me and trying to make out with me without even knowing my name cause he was so drunk). It was actually kind of funny because his other friend was like 'Ok buddy, time to back away and go to the bar.' When the guys first started talking to me they were speaking in Russian and I asked where they came from and they said England (in Russian of course) and I told them I was from America and I don't think they quite understood because the one guy started saying in Russian how he was tired of dealing with Russians and it was nice to meet another foreigner and then I said in English "You know you can speak in English. I will understand, being from America and all" and his eyes just lit up with this "Holy shit another English speaking person." Needless to say the night was interesting. We all danced until 4 and then Anders found the 3 of us a cab and we came back to the university and then I got up early to go to the football game. Life is good in Russia right now.

Football! (and of course by football I mean soccer)

2007-09-23T18:04:00.000+04:00

A bunch of us went to a football game today where two Russian teams played each other. Locomotive and Spartik. The fans were absolutly CRAZY! They yelled and screamed and chanted and cursed. Worse I think then American Football fans during games such as FSU and UF (and that's saying a lot). This was suppose to be one of the 'calm' games and there still must have been nearly 500 police officers and militia standing guard all over the stadium and grounds. The game itself was actually a very good one. The score was tied until the last like minute of the game when the home team (Locomotive) scored and won.
The pictures are all from the game. It was great fun.

Just a little update

2007-09-17T15:06:00.000+04:00

Don't get me wrong...I'm LOVING it here, but the way things work here is absolutely crazy! The office keeps telling us that we don't need a registration and yet the police are stopping some of the people at night and demanding it and then bribing money from them up to like 1000 rubles which is about $40 American dollars. So the office tells us no such thing exists and then magically it does and to come back tomorrow but then it's still not ready and to come back the next day and the next and nothing ever seems to get done. Jim has decided that we should all just go sit in the office everyday after class and wait for something that isn't going to come. They're telling us that we don't need it but we do, they don't have it but they do, it'll be ready the next day but it's not. It's a lot of fun let me tell you. Besides that I really do love it here.
My class is a little bit of a joke. I mean really when the teacher looks at you and says скажите пожалуйста, сколько вам лет? (Tell me please, how old are you?) I almost want to slap them. Really, I don't need to be going over how old I am and what my name is and where I'm from. I need a conversational class that is going to expand my vocabulary and teach what I need to have everday conversations with Russians. Bah. Whatever. Too late to change now I guess.

More Pictures

2007-09-13T17:42:00.000+04:00

Some more pictures!!! There's one of me just near Red Square, one of the street that the Tretyakov is on, one of the front of the Tretyakov and one with the enterance to Red Square (the big red building.)

Kremlim visit

2007-09-09T21:13:00.000+04:00

We went to the Kermlin today and it was absolutely amazing. I would have taken pictures of the outside but it was wet and raining and very very cold. It's the first cold day we've actually had in Russia. It reminded me a lot of Florida because it was a wet cold and it kind of soaked you to the bone. I've had a chill since I woke up this morning. Our guide for the Kermlin, Lena, was very very nice. She took us through some of the churches. The Church of the Assumption is where the Tsars were married and coranated. The inside was decorated in frescos and icons depicting the Virgin's Assumption to Heaven. I wish I could have taken pictures but of course you can't for obvious reasons with caring for the art. The second church was of the Archangel Michael where Russian rulers were buried up until the time of Peter the Great I believe but I can't quite remember so don't quote me on that.
I really loved getting to see these churches. I had studied them with Dr. Steeves in his Survery of Russian Civilization class and I was fascinated by them and their vast history. These churches have stood through wars and political upheavel. One can't help but be in complete awe of their simple elegance and design.
Lena also took us to the Armory which is a state museum now. It houses carriages, clothing, jewals, silverware, and weapons. We were able to see the coronation gown of Catherine the Great and Alexandra, the last Tsarina of Russia. In some cases it was almost impossible to imagine that woman such as Catherine had been so tiny. I mean really their waists must have been the size of my thigh or something. THEY WERE SOOO TINY! Honestly, as I was looking at some of the robes and jewals I felt like it was such a waste of pearls and diamonds. I mean seriously, does a horse really need a jewal studded headpeice encrusted with over 1,000 diamonds? I think not....but whatever.
I'm really starting to make friends here as well. We have like this little international group. Jim is from England, Ozge is a Turkish Greek who lives in America, Hilda is from Normay and Marilyn is from Sweden. Then we also have Jessica from Florida and Johann from Sweden who sometimes join us. It's nice because sometimes we speak Russian to each other and then when we don't understand we just switch to English. We also have one thing in common that really pulls us together and that's our complete and inexplainable fascination with Russia. None of us can explain it but we've just always been drawn to this country for some reason and now we are all getting to experience it together.

Some pictures...

2007-09-08T15:32:00.000+04:00

The first is Samantha, Becka and I in front of the Lennin Library, followed a picture of the common room on my floor. The next three are views from my window. The first of these is directly across from me so this is exactly what my sector of the dorm looks like. The last picture is the front of the main sector where all the shops and cafes are.

Correction

2007-09-07T21:51:00.000+04:00

So of course Denner has been reading my blog and I've now had two corrections on my Russian. It's not рыка (which actually means roar) it's рынок. There I've corrected myself. I never said my Russian was perfect and I'm sure Denner would atest that it's not. ;)

Don't get use to this...

2007-09-06T20:00:00.000+04:00

I will not be posting everyday, but since I had my first class today and I met with the man who will be my supervisor at the Tretyakov I figured I should post about it.
My First class was very interesting. It was four hours long with a 20 minute break from 12:20 to 12:40. My teacher's name is Anna Leopoldovna. She is very nice and although it's a little frustrating that she doesn't speak english at all (she knows a few words here and there) I kind of like the fact that I'm completely submersed in the language and forced to use all of my knowledge to answer a question only half right. I don't think I did badly. She excellent after a few of my answers which made me feel good. I guess we'll as time progresses. I have classes everyday for 4 hours. One would think my Russian would be much better by the time I leave. Time will only tell.
My meeting at the Tretyakov went well. Everyone I met was very nice, especially the man who met me at the enterence. He spoke very little english but I knew enough Russian to understand most of what he was saying. He took me through a couple of the galleries and even though we barely understood each other you could tell that we both were completely happy walking around the museum silent, staring at these priceless works of Russian art. He's going to have me translate Russian to English for their website and most of it I can do from my dorm room which is nice. I think I might actually go to the museum once a week as my classes make it difficult to be there very often since they are in the middle of the day really. I'll get a museum pass with my picture on it and everything. The cool thing about that is that the pass allows me to get into every museum in Moscow for FREE! Museums of Moscow here I come!

2007-09-05T16:20:00.000+04:00

These are a couple pictures of my dorm room. I don't have a roomate and I'm not sure if I'll get one but right now I'm ok with that. There are two rooms that share a little enterence way with a toilet on one side and a shower and sink on the other. More pictures to come. Promise!

The First Few Days

2007-09-05T15:29:00.001+04:00

Well I've been here since Monday and it's now Wednesday. So far it's been quite interesting. I don't think my feel have ever hurt so badly in my entire life.
My room isn't all that bad really. It reminds me somewhat of the new dorms but less nice of course. I have my own room which is very small but I have a bed, a big closet, a dresser with shelves and a desk. I'm also on the ninth floor so I have a fantastic view of the rest of the main building and the rest of the city. The main building is HUGE! It can house 30,000 students, has two cafeterias, a few cafes, a laundry room, multiple kiosks that sell everything from water to meat, a bank, ATMS, phone services, clothing stores, and numerous other areas where students recieve their books and buy notebooks, paper and pens. The building is so huge that it alone has it's own zipcode! Jim and I (Jim is an English guy who is using the same program I am and toured with me the first day I got here with the director) were trying to find our way to the рыка (Ree-Ka) which is an open air market and we accidently took an entire loop around the main building and that took us the best part of an hour! This is why my feet are now killing me because I was wearing highheels in an effort to fit in and my feet just can't take that.
The way the dorms are set up are very strange. The entire building is connected but yet in order to get to the main sector of the building you have to go outside your sector of the dorm and reenter throug the middle into the main part of the building. Also they issue each student a Propeskt which you have to show a guard inorder to enter the grounds of the University. Then when you enter your dorm sector you have to show another guard you student ID (I don't have one yet so I have to show them my passport) and my Propeskt so they know that I actually live in that sector. If you don't live in that sector you must leave your ID with the guard until you leave again. I don't think they allow anyone without a Propeskt into the main University/dorm area (unless of course you bribe the guards which happens often and works very well). A few hundred rubles is all it costs to get your friends into the dorm grounds. very strange indeed.
I finally met Molly (a woman Dr. Denner put me in touch with) She, Jim and I had dinner last night at a Georgian resturant. The food was amazing. I had a spiced chicken, something with eggplant in it that you put on the bread this Georgian specialty bread that has egg and cheese in it. SO GOOD!
When I first got here I had very little time to do anything. I wandered around and found CafeMax where I used the internet to make my first post and then I went back to my room and 30 minutes later Josh showed up with Jim ready to take me to the center of Moscow. First he showed up around the main university building where we live, then he showed us where to registar the next day (which is a completely different building), took us to the рыка and down to a shopping center that's basically a mall but smaller and it has a продукты (products) store where you can buy groceries as well as cloths and other things. It's like a mall with a grocery store. The Josh took us on the Metro and showed up where to buy passes to use the Metro and he then took up to the Lennin Library and walked from there to Red Sqaure. I didn't have my camera on me or else I would have posted pictures but we are taking a trip to the Kermlin this coming Sunday so I'll be sure to take pictures then.
Jim and I went to registar for class yesterday day and since yesterday they've made us take two of almost the exact same test to gage our level of Russian. We start class tomorrow at 10:50 with another girl, also from Florida (She graduated from UCF) and it's to be just the three of us in our class. That will be very interesting indeed.

I'm here!

2007-09-03T15:13:00.001+04:00

Well, I've been in Moscow since 10:30 this morning (Moscow time) and so far it's been quite an adventure. Absolutely NO one understands what I'm trying to say and my Russian isn't quite good enough to communicate everything needs. My bedroom isn't all that bad but the matress isn't all that comfortable and my sink spits water at me everytime I turn it on. The shower looks like there's mold growing on it (I checked and there isn't but it still LOOKS like it) and the girls here dress so nicely they'd put my cousin Stephanie to shame. I'm not quite sure what I got myself into but I'm hoping this turns out to be everything I dreamed it would. I've waited my whole life to be out on my own in a foriegn country; let's hope I don't screw it up.