June 20, 2007 || Quick Post

June 20, 2007

So after I hung up the phone last night with Mom, I thought I was going to take a shower but there were more fun things than that to do! Like… change the wallpaper. The other day, a huge tear had been scraped in the wallpaper (not by me, thank God) so Marina decided it was time for a change. When I walked into the kitchen, she was digging at the wall with a knife, pulling a huge swath of green down. “Can I help?” And so I got to experience tearing huge strips of wallpaper haphazardly from the wall (have to say, it was pretty therapeutic). Now I’m staring at a brownish wall, and when I get back from the Banya and hopefully a movie with Masha today we’ll have a pink, blue, and green kitchen!

The past few days have been busy—trying to set up the blog, struggling with pictures (and a slow internet connection, and of course, class (due Friday: an essay on the topic "How to Stop Terrorism"). Some days are better than others. And hopefully, things are going to get a lot busier—a lot of us have talked and really want to do everything that we can in Saint Petersburg, because we’ve so little time here. So… we’ve started overloading our calendars as much as we feel able (which is still a struggle, since we’re wiped out after class and all). One of our “events” is to go out on the town this Saturday, to the city’s celebration for those who have finished high school. They get a concert, and a speech from the governor, an all night festival complete with legends and banners, and a huge ship anchored in the river with big red sails… I wish OUR cities turned out for us like that when we finished school.

====You Might Find This Interesting====

Ways to quickly make Russian friends (by keying in on popular culture):

1) Check out Che-Byrashka, national cartoon hero. Kids and teens alike will relate to you (he was so popular that he was actually their Olympic mascot one year; he is ridiculously cute and is clay-animated like the old-school Rudolph).

2) Find out who Sergei Balabonov Jr. is (note: he died a few years ago at a young age, so make sure you don’t ask “What’s he been up to lately?”)

3) Read, read, READ Russian literature—Pushkin’s poetry especially (PS it’s worth it).

4) Buy them drinks (this works in the U.S. too)

5) Drop one of these lines at appropriate times: “Pushkin knows.” … Пушкин знает. (when someone asks a question like ‘Does anybody know where Mike is today?’); Good morning, bandits,” ... Здорово бандиты. (when greeting a group of friends to be); “No questions” ... Нет бопросы. (said very forcefully when someone asks “Any questions?”)