A few pictures from Chelyabinsk

Quick Update...

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...

Маяковский

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

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...

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?