July 18, 2007 || A Rush-Through of the Weekend/Peterhof

Sometimes I'm just too tired to write in this blog, and today is one of those days where I'd rather take a cold shower or a nap than fight with Russia. Sunday I came to my regular cafe only to find out that their wireless wasn't working that day... and today, my 20-hour card popped up as having 0 minutes. Thankfully, the nice girl was working today, and even the mean Vasiliy knows who I am by now, so they put in a call to their boss and they gave me a brand-spanking new card for 20 hours, so all is honky-dory. But still, sometimes you just have to laugh at how hard some of the simplest things here can be.

Quite a lot has happened since my last post... I finally gave my presentation on the G8, which went pretty well, I think. The stress leading up to it was worse than the actual presentation. I'm glad to have that out of the way--but now I'm really starting to get sick of school and have started sacrificing homework for cultural exploration, which means that later I sacrifice sleep for homework.

On Thursday I met my tutor, who said that we were going to go out to an "evening club." I really had no idea what that meant, so I just said okay and met her at our usual spot. Turns out it's just a club that opens early and closes early too. So we meet up, and head to the metro to meet her two Russian friends (who both study English but have been given strict orders from Masha not to speak a word of it to me). We're introduced, and immediately Masha starts apologizing--she read online that the place we're going to is a gay club! Her friend Katya picked it out, having been there already, and keeps telling Masha that it's safe and clean and fine. I'm trying to get across that whatever is fine with me--thinking that at least there's no chance of being hassled at a gay club, right?
The entrance was bedecked with rainbow-colored (think Andy Warhol) pictures of Marilyn Monroe, and there's a disco ball throwing snowflakes of light over everything. An exceptionally homosexual man takes our jackets (which isn't important except for the fact that it reinforced the thought that "Yes, I really am going to a gay club") and we walk down the entrance ramp... into a really cool underground room, covered in paintings of heiroglyphs and Egyptian art, but there's also a bank of TVs playing porn. Like, random Playboy videos of people stripping and pouring water over one another. Kind of disconcerting, okay, so I was really put off by it, but even more so because I suddenly thought "Maybe this isn't a gay club after all." But the next room had drawings in the Greco-Roman vase style of boys and old men, young men, and centaurs all naked and in various stages of arousal. So once again, maybe it IS a gay club. For the whole night I was just really confused by the whole thing--but sex was definitely a prevalent theme. The next room was all dark brick and low-lit, with more TVs. Also, a double-row of what looked like bathroom stalls were lined up in the middle of the room. We were really confused by them at first, but later we found out that they were for rent by the half hour, and inside there was a TV, VCR, and headphones. To round out the "experience" part of this night, you'd have to take a trip to the bathrooms. The door is marked male/female, but wen you go in, you'll realize that it shouldn't have that slash in between. On the right wall are two bathroom stalls, and on the left stand the sinks, and straight in front, in the same room, are urinals semi-screened off by hippie beads. Definitely a way to bond with people, right?
But really, I had a great time--Masha's friends were really great, and we finally broke the hug barrier when I told her friends how Masha is like "my little mother" not letting me cross the street if the light is red, and apologizing for at least 10 minutes when we finally sat down at a table about the TVs in the bar. At one point, they even helped me smuggle money into her purse--she's always footing the bill when we go places, and that's just really hard for me to allow, knowing that they get paid so little. We talked about quite a bit--how I mess up certain words ALL THE TIME, and what kind of music they liked to listen to (foreign lyrics aren't as important as the music, since they can't understand them most of the time), and all sorts of other things. They asked me questions about getting into college (whether bribing occurred frequently, like it apparently does here), whether we ALWAYS keep our doors open, so if we need to we can just walk over to our neighbor's and borrow some salt or sugar ("On TV, Americans always have their doors open"), what the average age of marriage is--and the cost of a wedding--hand gestures (the high-five was a little awkward, but the middle finger still has the same connotation), and all sots of other things. Then we danced in the sketchy heiroglyphic room to an interesting mix of music and called it a night--but again, I don't know where they find our tutors. They are infinitely patient--imagine talking in a really loud bar with your friends. Now add in the fact that one of your friends is speaking what is to her a foreign language and doesn't even know all the words you're saying. Wouldn't that be frustrating? But somehow Masha puts up with me all the time without getting frustrated, and I adore her so much for it (you should hear some of the bad tutor stories).

On Friday some of the girls went back to Fidel and KK met up with Anant there, but I reaaaally needed to shave my legs, so I spent the evening at a banya. Marina mentioned that there was one right by our house, so we called (her 2nd or 3rd cousin had also stopped over to visit) and I actually set up an appointment(!). It was in a really nice building, as as I ascended the trendy, marble-and-glass stairs I was kind of afraid of what I was getting myself into. No old babushkas and rickety wooden benches? Sure enough, I knew I was out of my element when I was escorted to a "rest" room with leather chairs, a bound menu, and a TV. I got a big bed-sheet-esque towel to wrap myself in and plastic tapochki. Then, well... this place was amazing. They had both a Finnish sauna and a Russian one, a cold bath that was big enough for you to stretch out in and not touch either end, a wall of showers, people working there who would scrub you with soap, or mud, or run ice blocks over you in the sauna, walls and benches specifically for laying out on, and even this one area where someone could hose you down with these two high-powered hoses they had. It cost must more than normal, and I never have to go back, but it was a really, really lovely experience, and just what I needed. After I got home, I slept like a baby (almost 12 full hours--UNHEARD OF).

On Saturday Liza, Trista, and Dan, a new Princeton guy, trekked off to Peterhof for the day. Peterhof is one of the more famous of the tsar's palaces/playgrounds/parks, because of the multitudes of fountains that sparkle there in the summer. We took a boat from behind the Hermitage over, passing the SPB Yacht Club, a sailboat regatta, and Finland in the process. Just BEING on a boat made me feel better--if nothing else, I miss being on the water (and I am DETERMINED to get to a beach and go swimming in Russia). The day we visited happened to be the same day as the place's founding, so there were fireworks, and people in costumes dancing, and all sorts of music everywhere. The fountains were amazing, and all of the named ones bear looking at (The Grand Cascade, Samson and the Lion, The Chessboard Cascade, The Tree, The Umbrella, The Sun, The Roman Fountain, Adam, Eve, The Lion Cascade, The Golden Cascade, The Square Fountains, The Neptune Fountain, The Oak Fountain). Peter was crazy about fountains and waterworks and commissioned many of these to be built, just because they were such cutting-edge feats of technology at the time. My particular favorites were his "joke" fountains, which were originally constructed in order to surprise visitors and spray them with water (they are typically sculpture in their own right, which would shoot out water when people got too close). Most of these today are too leaky to scare anyone so they're turned on 'round the clock, but there are a few patches of cobblestones that are frequented by children and still scare some folks.
I took a lunch and wandered off (I know, I know Mom, but this place was safe), meadering through fountains and mini-palaces and hedged gardens and tree-lined promenades. I found myself at the water's edge, on a rocky beach looking out onto Finland, where I ate my sandwich while people wandered down to poke a finger into the water. We all met up for "tea" which we ate at a cafe on the grounds. The menu itself was worth the trip, what with its hilarious translations. After, we decided to go to You-known-na (it seems so much harder to transliterate things now) Market, an outdoor flea-market where you could find anything... sandals, leather jackets, DVDs, flat-screen TVs, hunting camo, old toys, books, sink faucets... automatic weapons... and the bullets to put in them... it was all very overwhelming (if you decide to visit, go to the bathroom before you leave because this is one place where you're to find the famed "hole in the floor" masquerading as a toilet) so we didn't stay very long.
Later that night Liza and I ventured out to find the JFC Jazz Club, a wonderful tiny club that was packed with people by the time we got there. The singer was American, her band Russian, and everyone was loving it. We stood/danced the whole time, but it was worth it--I never realized how much I like jazz, and how much I wish Notre Dame had more of a cultural scene.

Sunday, of course, was my day for homework--I finished early and tried to find an internet cafe, but ran into too much trouble... but I'm here now, and I'm going to try to upload my pictures from today before writing the next post.



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> Russian grading is conducted on a 0-5 scale, 5 being the highest and 0 being not even worth it. And I thought the French were stingy with 20! ... but I suppose it's equivalent to our 4.0, although Russians aren't as free with grading
>You ALWAYS address your professor in the formal form, and call them by their name and patronymic
>You should ALWAYS greet your professor with hello, and thank them and say goodbye at the end of a lesson.
>Russian professors are much more a part of your life, often asking you how you are, how your weekend was, recommending things to eat and places to go, telling you you're not dressed warmly enough, etc.
>Supposedly the Russian university system is easier--Masha's jaw dropped when I said that at home I normally do 4, 5, or more hours of homework a night. Here though I still feel like I'm doing a lot of work (probably because it's in Russian), but they say that more of the burden is placed on the teacher--if the class does poorly, the teacher sees it as a reflection on themselves, instead of it being the fault of the students. In addition, Russian schools before university are much harder, as is the application process--once you get to university, you've apparently done most of the work and now it's more the teacher's responsibility to teach you.
>Communal thought: Russian society stills emphasizes the collective, so teachers also tend to treat students as a collective--if someone is late to class, they'll ask the other students where the missing one is and expect an answer, and teachers have no problem slowing down a lecture or re-explaining a concept (in general) to a single student--most likely they think that this is a problem shared by all the students, as opposed to how American teachers would think (at least I feel that American teachers would be more likely to say "Meet me after class and we'll talk about it" for example).
>Bribery is common in Russia, in order to get into university--and not bribing as in using your connections, although that works as well, but bribing as in handing over lump sums of money