Russian Quirks

Just a few things I want to write about on my afternoon off:

Drivers are crazy here. My first experience with this was being picked up from the airport, but they make their own rules, they make their own lanes, they do whatever the heck they want. They also basically drive on top of each other, I'm not sure how I haven't witnessed a bunch of accidents There have been times when I could reach out the bus window and easily touch the vehicle next to us without sticking my arm past my elbow. Also, driving on the right side of the road is the same here (for those of you who didn't know that) but there are quite a few vehicles that still have the driver on the opposite side of the car (on the right). 

While on the metro you definitely need to pay attention to who is getting on, and if you're sitting, give up your seat to someone with a kid, pregnant, or anyone who is elderly. You will get yelled at if you're not paying attention and don't do that. (Yes, it's happened to me.) Also the metro is definitely an interesting experience (of course I come from a small town so I don't use public transportation) there's so many people, and I'm getting good at metro surfing (I've decided to call it this, it's standing up and staying up without falling over and not holding onto anything to keep your balance).

Now that it's been raining here, this next thing seems less weird, but they have indoor and outdoor shoes. We have to change each time we're in a school. The streets are really dirty here so they don't want all those germs and junk all over "indoor" places. All the kids change when they are taken to go outside as well. Indoor clothes and outdoor clothes.

One thing I've found somewhat amusing since I've been here is the amount of man-purses (aka murses, aka satchels) pretty much every man has one to carry his essentials. I'm not sure why I find this so funny, but it seems different from home.

Make sure you go to the bathroom before going out and about because they charge for public toilets (in most places) here, which isn't cool. One thing I'm definitely going to be thankful for when I get back home to America is the fact that our public toilets aren't as gross as they are here. It's a weird thing, but there are a bunch of little things like that we get spoiled with back in America. (and I'm so grateful for that!)

One adjustment I've had to make is that there aren't dryers here, so we have to hang out clothes to dry, we hang them pretty much everywhere (and it takes a while for some things to dry) but we have a clothes line in the bathtub/shower so trying to shower while clothes are drying is an interesting experience.

Another adjustment is boiling our water, the water isn't potable here (can't drink it from the tap) so anytime we want to drink water we have to fill this bad boy up and boil it. We have a few jugs that we fill up with hot water and put in front of a window to cool off before we can put it in the fridge to make it cold. I guess the girls found out before I got here that if you put the water in right away it heats up the entire fridge. This is one of the reasons there are so many hot beverages here (I assume) it's just easier. I'm starting to get used to drinking herbal teas. (Plus now that it's suddenly winter I appreciate the extra warmth it brings)

Light switches on the outside of rooms is super confusing to me. I'll walk into a room and look for a light switch and realize that's not how they roll here in Russia. One of the first days I was here one of the girls actually turned the lights out on me while I was taking a shower (she didn't realize it because the kitchen light is right next to it) and it was pitch black (no windows in the bathroom) so I had to stumble around and go out of the bathroom to turn it back on.

Other than that random stuff life has been pretty interesting in Russia, teaching may be getting easier but I'm not sure if I'm a very good teacher still, I hope I am. My schedule was changed this week so I no longer have some students and now I have new ones so it's been interesting. I'm learning more about the city and some Russian culture, we also have the opportunity to take Russian Language classes every Friday so that's been pretty neat considering it's a completely new alphabet.

Last week I turned 25 and we all went out to dinner and then came back and had cake and ice cream. Over the weekend we got to see a few of the sights here in St. Petersburg and this city is really beautiful. Last night we started planning some of our first "big" vacations, I think over the weekend of Oct. 17-20 I'm going to be going to Finland!

Here are some random photos:

Savior on Spilled Blood Cathedral

Birthday night

We so cool.

Victoria and I at the Winter Palace

Victoria, Kelsey and I at Savior on Spilled Blood Cathedral

Jess, Kelsey, Keeley and I on the metro

Winter Palace

One of the many statues at the first ever park in St. Petersburg (Summer Garden)

Savior on Spilled Blood Cathedral

Zolya wanted to collect acorns

Superman, Batman, Transformers

No dog zone.

Some of the kids I teach.

Downtown.

Puppet parade down the street!

A carnival behind one of the schools we teach at.

This is at one of the schools I teach at and I'm really confused, it's like a pool/shower area and I can't get over the weirdness of it.