BEWARE OF CITY DISCOVERY TOURS, ST. PETERSBURG

City Tour + The Peter & Paul Fortress is a TERRIBLE program.

They left my 75 year-old grandmother in the hot sun on the side of the road in St. Petersburg despite the fact that the tour claims to "return to the hotel lobby" and despite her telling them that she didn't know how to get back from there.

The guide showed up 30 minutes late, without calling ahead of time. They did not pull the car up for my grandmother who can't walk well; she had to walk a block up the road. I gave the guide my number "in case ANYTHING happened" and confirmed that she would bring my grandmother back to the hotel, which is in a small courtyard off a back alley. I found out later that they had booked a French couple on the same tour (no mention of shared tours online) and that the guide was speaking French to them as much as possible, despite the fact that we paid for an "English Tour." At the end of the tour, they told my grandmother to "get out here" a number of blocks from our hotel, and DID NOT call me or wait for her to call me to make sure she could get back. My grandmother tried to protest and said she thought they would take her home, she didn't know how to get back, but they told her "the tour ends here." She got out in bewilderment and immediately got turned around, leading to a hysterical and panic-filled afternoon for both of us.

Later that day, I called in and talked to the management in Russian (Alexandra Lyubov) in Russian. She said that it was because traffic was so bad (obviously the tour did not officially end at some random point on the street though she admitted that the guide had said that.) She refused to return my money or apologize. Her whole attitude was -what kind of idiot could get lost so close to the hotel.- She refused to acknowledge that the guide should have called me and said that she was usually a great guide. (Who cares?) She agreed that the written confirmation said my grandmother would be brought home but claimed that my grandmother didn't refuse to get out of the car or put up enough of a fight. This is a company that deals with tourists and foreigners! Also, my grandmother said that the French couple (older than her) was also left a distance from their hotel, also after they said they weren't sure where they were.

So PLEASE don't book the City Tour & Peter and Paul Fortress tour with this company. There is a reason that they are cheaper than everyone else!!!!!!

Last week of classes...

So here I am, two days out from being done here for good. Everything has the feel of winding down, Russian lessons ending (whew), the weather is (still) awful. It is definitely time to go home..

Still, there are some end-of-year experiences that I wouldn't trade for anything. Natalia Petrovna invited us out to her dacha (a small Russian summer house outside of town) and we grilled in the rain and drank wine and met all the neighbors. Dachas are so cute, I'm so glad that we got to go out. Everyone was wearing comfy clothes in their self-made little houses surrounded by their gardens, and it really reminded me of my grandmother's Chalet. NP is such a wonderful woman, I'm going to miss her so much. I'm hoping to make it out there to spend the night before the end of the year, but maybe that is being too greedy. I'm just happy that we got to go at all.

I had one of my last days at the orphanage today. I think we are going to try to go next Wednesday and that will be it unless my grandma wants to go. It was sad, one little boy with a lot of emotional problems bust out of the little fence and came running after us yelling "UNCLE I'M COMING I FOLLOWED YOU!" He really likes Adam... He also called me mom, tried to get us all to leave with his best friend. The woman who was working there today wasn't my favorite either, getting on them about not being polite enough with her, telling me that they are too heavy for girls to carry, etc. She even made fun of my Kostya for being a "mama's boy" because he started crying as we were leaving. I couldn't believe it...he is two years old and in an orphanage.. It's really sad but Russian culture is just brutal on orphans, for some reason they are considered evil. There are even TV commercials showing little kids playing with someone saying "See? They are just like normal "home" children."

Tomorrow is the final staff lunch, complete with gifts and poetry recitations, which I must say I'm not really looking forward to. Still, only one last hurdle of fake niceties at the American Home before the end of the year...

Summer in Vladimir

It really feels like summer has set in, so I have actually made it through a full cycle of seasons in Russia. I even got a little burned sitting out before my class the other day. Unfortunately, the weather has been terrible every day that I have a full afternoon free, but I'm determined to make it to the lake this week. One downside of the weather, though, is that I want to put LESS footwear on my feet and Russians find this absurd. Even at airports they hand out the weird blue plastic foot covers that show up everywhere, because Russian people honestly would not walk 20 feel through security in their socks.

Summer also brings the Loss of Hot Water in Vladimir. Every year, the city digs up pipes and every apartment in town, including the million dollar ones, lose hot water for two weeks. Does it seem to anyone else like a full on renovation of the water system might just be more efficient overall?

Adam and I have been sitting in on each other's Russian lessons, which means we have 4-5 lessons a week. It has been going really well, but I'm definitely ready for the ballet break next Wednesday. We are going into Moscow for that, and might stop by and see some English teaching schools too. (Our interviews last week seemed to go well, but unfortunately there aren't any positions in Sochi...)

Last time we were in Moscow, we found this book by Vladimir Lyubarov. He is a contemporary Russian artist who paints solid, gray, somewhat fantastical pictures of Russian Soviet life. He also writes hilarious reflections to go with them with photographs from his life. Some of my current favorites are "Why I paint fat women." (because he is from the country and all the women there are young, very beautiful, and fat, and also the center of anything that actually gets done) and "How I didn't become a football player." His paintings are all very clever, too, with lots of irony about Soviet life. For example, one is called "Fish Thursdays" from the old Soviet law that on Thursdays, all restaurants had to serve fish. Why? Because fish is healthy. Never mind that people were traveling 3-4 hours to Moscow to buy groceries... Anyway, I'm really excited to go see some of his pieces in Moscow with my grandma this summer.

I can't wait to see everyone this summer! I made copies of a hand-drawn family tree for my class the other day and it almost made me tear up...

Sochi, spring, and the summer semester!

So it has been a while since anything noteworthy happened. But THEN I went to Sochi for spring break and things got awesome. Think Russia, then take Russia and put it on a beach resort next to the Black Sea with mountains and tropical plants and nice people and the 2014 winter Olympics. That's right, it was killer. Unbelievably pretty, great weather, cute little house to stay in. In general, there are no gray concrete buildings in Sochi. No apartment buildings at all, really. And no centuries-old churches. Those of you who have been to Russia are now asking yourself, was she really in Russia? Yeah! I was! We found the Russian city where houses are shabby but adorable, painted bright colors with weird additions and balconies and bright blue roofs spread out all over the mountains.

The traffic is awful, I'll give you that, but somehow it isn't as bad being stuck in a traffic jam while gazing out over cliffs and palm trees and sparkling blue water. The city is the longest city in Europe, and nature is incorporated everywhere; there are flowers and trees and bushes everywhere, and big parks and nature reserves everywhere. People sell shish-kababs and Georgian food on all the streets. There is also cool shopping, an amusement park in the middle of town, an indoor water park up on a mountain, the list goes on... I tell you, even the gloomy Russian national character couldn't hold up against the luxury of living on the water. People are nice! Average salaries are also much higher than they are in Vladimir and rooms are not much more expensive. The current plan is to back and live/work there the year of the winter Olympics. Right now a lot of construction is being done, so hopefully the traffic situation will even be better by then.

Some notes about traveling in Russia: you need your ticket to LEAVE the bus or train station after you get off the train. Yeah. Right? How weird is that? My question is, what if you had already thrown the ticket away?

Also, people burst into applause after the pilot lands a plane. Let me tell you, that didn't make me feel good the first time I heard it. I don't want a safe landing to be hailed as an unexpected achievement...

So now it is just 6 weeks until I am done working here and (after 2 weeks of traveling) heading home! And I can't wait!

The hard life...

So I've been spending time at the local orphanage again, and they finally got their act together and have us working with the same group on a schedule, now. That means that the children are finally getting to know us. The system is really good there, but good as in daycare good, not good as in home good. When you walk into the room, all the three-year-olds start yelling "mama?" and sometimes when we are playing they just walk up and touch my arms, or just start crying because they are getting attention and it is over stimulating. Some of them are clearly autistic or have other disabilities and some of them don't, some of them can talk, some of them are really quiet and shy. One tiny blond girl showed me the game that I taught her last December when I thought she wasn't even paying attention.

The hardest case, though, is Asya. She is smart and lively and doesn't cry when we leave or when she has to wait. She loves Adam and follows him around screaming with laughter. She is patient and funny and just adorable. She also is very unlikely to be adopted because she doesn't have blond hair and blue eyes, and we had to sit and watch some of the most racist cartoons I have ever seen with them, Asya as always totally paying attention and answering questions. Last time she asked me to be her mama...what do you say to that? I can't stop thinking about it. If I could somehow put her on hold for enough years to have a job and a place and a situation in which I could raise a child, I would. It's even free to adopt Russian children. I don't know how I'll be able to handle leaving her behind in Russia when I come home...

I got a grill!

Yeah! That's right! I got braces! And they hurt like anything. Worse than that, though, they are making me feel CLAUSTROPHOBIC. Weird, right? Not something that I would have ever, ever guessed or thought about. I'm hanging in there, though. In general I've been having a lot more issues in Russia with crowded public transportation and so on, maybe due to more stress too. So, this is my big chance to overcome it once and for all! (And hopefully not rip $1000 worth of metal out of my own mouth with pliers....just kidding...kind of...) Last night I woke up and for the first time ever didn't notice the fact that I was sleeping on the uneven wooden planks poorly covered with fabric and nails that pass for a bed, but that was only because I was freaking out at the pressure INSIDE MY HEAD! Man! A whole new level of claustrophobia and no way to get away from it! I really don't think that I have ever felt anything worse than that ever, not in my entire life.

Anyway, panic aside, let's talk about Maslonitsa! To start, I freaked out on the bus there. There were WAY too many people, it was out. of. control. And there was no way to get off the bus, of course, because then I would have been standing in the middle of the Russian wilderness. But, really, all pagan holidays should start with a little insane panic. It just added to the overall feel of wildness that really characterized the day. When we got there, we had to walk about half a mile through the snow. Everything is warming up and melting and it really felt like spring. We finally got there and we ate (and ate and ate), mostly terribly overpriced street food like "warm" spiced wine, and crepes with sour cream, and shish-kababs, and mead, and tea and more mead. There were hoards of drunk men trying to climb a pole (some of them made it!), and geese fights (I didn't go see those), sleigh rides, a stage, traditional dances (people actually kicked up their heels, including us!), really it was just a wonderful wild and glutenous experience. Unfortunately we headed back around 3:30 so we missed the burning of the huge straw icon, but so it goes.

The next day we went to a little town called "Crystal Goose" to visit my ol' friend the dentist lady. (You know, the one who showed us where I could pay to get tortured.) Well! That was an experience, let me tell you! We got there without any problems because the bus was both large and empty, hopped off, and she busted out tea and pastries for us. (I wasn't surprised since she told me she was going to once...or twice...an hour...for the three days before we got there.) We immediately walked over to the local glass and crystal museum. The town was founded by a master artist who specialized in blowing glass. The whole economy developed around the crystal industry, and there are amazing art forms through the ages. Unfortunately, the cathedral where the museum is was ravaged during the Soviet Union like most of Russia's old buildings. They tore off the bell tower and took down the priceless lamps, etc. But in it's heyday, it was a collaborative work of art by some of the most famous artists of the time. The expositions there are absolutely stunning, everything from antique table settings to modern art (with crystal vases engraved with Stalin's face in the middle). We had a three hour tour in Russian, lead by one of Galya's friends. For me, that was about the coolest thing ever, and Adam and Emily were real troopers about it. After that we went back to her apartment and had a really nice meal. Her friend brought her 8-year-old daughter over and she whipped out Old MacDonald (with an oink oink here, oink oink, and a very, very oink oink eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo). We had to sit through some awful, awful family pictures first. It is still hard for me to believe that it is really acceptable to show strangers (Adam!) photos of your daughters dressed up and posing like fashion models at best, and like underwear models at worst! Galya's 19-year-old daughter even noticed how awkward we looked about 15 minutes in, and called us out on it. (Um....yeah. Obviously this is weird.)

In general, on day 1 Galya was nervous and worried that we wouldn't like the apartment and bustling around like Russian hosts do, plus there were a lot of guests so it wasn't too overwhelming for us. Adam, as the only male there, of course had to pour all the (awful!) wine, and he did a killer job, even remembered to stand the empty bottles on the floor for luck. I was pretty struck by how Russians relate to foreigners again. For example, if the situation were reversed and a Russian said something that no one understood at the dinner table, what would the reaction be? "What was that again?" maybe. Certainly not a long pause followed by (rude) laughter and "I didn't understand ANYTHING!" (statement not even directed at me!) I have to admit, I am getting tired of being the entertainment at these sort of get togethers, sort of trotted-out-"look at my Americans do tricks!"-style.

Also, apparently the reason that Galya wasn't worried about me being vegetarian was because she had decided that she would just feed me meat. I kind of guessed that ahead of time based on her totally derisive attitude when I told her. I feel like that was the start of the problems on day 1. For some reason, she has decided that I am her special little pet, which means that she was constantly telling me what to do and treating me like a 4-year-old. She even interrupted the excursion to put up my hood and tie it as tightly as possible. The thing was, it wasn't even cold, and she knew it wasn't! The weird part of Russian culture is that the attitude is "you can't do this alone, you're not capable, you don't know, you're too young, you need me" EVEN when people don't know the answer, they'll always tell you SOMETHING, or get up in your business and tell you what you are doing wrong. It is incredibly unpleasant, and in a lot of people, not a sign of caring, but more of a power play/hierarchy establisher.

Anyway, by day two, she was actually straight up bullying us, me in particular. I was literally at a loss as to what to do; I honestly could not force another layer of too-small clothes on or eat another bite. She was scrubbing our boots by hand and slamming the condition of our coats. I felt sick to my stomach and she was badgering us to have more, putting more food on the plate, ignoring me trying to explain that in our culture "I'm full" really means "I'm full." (Again, total lack of respect for/belief in diversity or cultural differences.)

This was obviously an extreme case, but the underlying theme of Russian hospitality is always that. Russians are so proud of how honored guests are, how people lay out feast even when they don't have the money, but really, even to Russians (I asked) relating to a Russian hostess is really stressful and unpleasant. We really had to start just laying down the law and being incredibly rude about what we were going to do. So all of that combined with some heavy conversation (that woman can make ANYTHING depressing) made the trip pretty stressful. But the crystal market there is AMAZING, the weather was beautiful, the forest was great (in the day that is; my favorite Emily quote from the trip was "I just don't know if we should follow a stranger into dark woods outside of town at night in a town with a big drug problem..." We literally had to refuse to walk any farther to get her to stop.) And the 8th of March, Women's Day, was HUGE. Everyone went crazy with gifts and good wishes on the street, it really is super important here.

Hooray!!!!

My grandmother is coming to visit me in Russia before I go home! I'm so excited I can barely stand it! I've already started planning a schedule! So, it looks like I will be coming home the 16th of July.

Not much has been happening lately. Natalia Petrovna, the woman who cleans the American Home is basically and angel; she is the one who bought me mittens for my birthday despite the fact that she probably makes about $200 a month. She always asks about my family and reads the stories I am reading for Russian class so she can discuss them with me after, and she just bought Adam's guitar for her son's birthday. He wouldn't let her pay full price so she made us an enormous cake pastry thing covered in powdered sugar and promised to invite us over. It was almost heartbreaking when she invited us. She came up to me and told me that she wanted to invite us over, but... It turned out that she was embarrassed that her house was too small for the "American standards". (She supports her daughter and her bum of a son-in-law as well as their little son.) Her dream is to see a classical ballet at the Bolshoi, so we wanted to buy her a ticket, but haven't been able to figure out a way to get her to accept them. A few months ago we gave her a card and a box of chocolates and she was totally overwhelmed just by that...

We are halfway through the winter semester so I have a few extra days off this weekend. We are planning to go to Suzdal to see the celebrations for Maslonitsa, a pagan holiday that revolves around worshiping the sun, celebrating the beginning of spring, and, more recently, starting the Lent fast. There are going to be goose fights, street mead, greased climbing poles and lots and lots of blini (crepes) which represent the sun. Sounds like a party to me... I also just heard from one of my friends from Middlebury, so I'm hoping he will be joining us for our little pagan celebration!

About a week ago Sasha invited me and Emily over to meet his family and have dinner. It was just the most pleasant evening of all time; they are such a great family and so silly. We just had a blast, did everything from looking at baby pictures to trying on Maxim's old Russian army jacket. At one point Sasha's mom started saying: "well, yeah, Stalin had his good points and his bad points. I mean, sure he was kind of strict, but..." and Sasha chimed in "yeah, kinda strict, I mean, he killed about 30,000,000 people" and everyone laughed for ages. His mom even was ok with me not eating meat! Everyone just really made an effort to understand everyone else. Things like that remind me of why I am here in this country, especially since Sasha is coming to South Carolina to work this summer! I can't wait for him to meet my family-- it really reminds me of how I felt finally meeting Masha's family this winter. International friendships are the coolest...

Spring is finally setting in here, too. Adam and I are planning a trip to Kazan in March, which should be amazing. We also bought tickets to a modern ballet in June; it is still surprising to me that I'm dating the coolest person ever, someone who actually wants to do all of the cultural things that I want to do and more. I told him that I've decided we are soul mates which it turns out he is ok with. Life is just so good right now...

Lots of love to everyone!

P.S. weird details of the day: maternity leave in Russia is THREE YEARS long! And you can come back and get your same job! Also, it is common knowledge that cabbage is "good for boobs", and the president declared no more daylight savings in Russia because all the switching of the clocks is making people sick. Really. Look it up.