Falling, packages, and no Russian, oh my!

Because Victoria is so amazing and has a huge impact on my life I've been writing in my personal journal daily, just recording little things that happen, and although it's only been a week since I've been doing this I'm in love with it, it's been amazing realizing what happens on a daily basis here and how each day teaching goes and just little things during the day that happen, special teaching moments, etc. Today I was writing and I decided it might be a good thing to share on here for my friends and family back home.

Today I slipped and fell hard on the ice. It was super painful and embarrassing, I'm like 97% sure my legs flew up over my head like in the cartoons, however, it was not an out of body experience so I can't say for certain if that is true. My hands were in my pockets so unfortunately (and luckily) I fell on my side which means my elbow/knee/shoulder took the brunt of the fall. I couldn't bend my arm for about 30 minutes after that and I was a bit worried. Once I got done teaching and came home I checked and I had a big lump on my knee (I had like two kneecaps), and a bruise had started on my elbow. I had a rock embedded into my hand and Kelsey did surgery to remove it (hopefully I don't get gangrene). Now I'm really sore on my shoulder and my neck hurts. It was awkward and also people just keep walking by and don't pay you any attention here if you slip and fall on ice.

A few days ago I got a packing slip in the mail with my last name in Russian so it was clear I got a package and I was stoked, but unfortunately I had to contact our coordinator here so she could help me figure out how to pick it up, the back was all in Russian and we needed to fill it out as well as show my passport, etc. So she said she'd be free to do it on Thursday so I tried to ignore that it was sitting in the mail waiting for me (I was pretty excited about it), we got to pick it up and I found out it was from my Gammy and she had sent me two pairs of fleece-lined leggings which are going to come in super handy here (I've already been wearing the pair I have under my pants everyday) so I'm super happy that I have more, especially since it's getting colder and snowing more (it's only October!)

Just as a little background for this story - in our classes we have five rules (well six) and the number one rule is "NO RUSSIAN, ENGLISH ONLY!" The kids get in trouble if they're speaking Russian and get sent to the Russian chair, some call others out when they're speaking Russian, some don't realize they're doing it and some just don't care. We try to make the Russian chair a bad thing because then they don't get to participate in whatever fun activity we're doing. Today in class, during one of my lessons, a Russian teacher came in and started speaking Russian to me (happens a lot, I tend to give back the deer in headlights look), I thought I picked up a few words asking me if I spoke Russian when I didn't reply at first (and clearly looked super confused) so I said "Het" (nyet) which means no in Russian and she left. One of my students, Giana, looked at me, almost offended and in shock, and said "No Russian, English only". And she was right, I had totally broken the golden rule. I thought it was really funny that one of my students called me out on it, especially since my Russian is VERY limited.

p.s. I bought a Harry Potter book in Russian for a dollar today - I know, it's super impressive.

Russian Quirks Part 2

Once upon a time I thought I was starting to understand Russia (sort of) but then new things happen and everything is weird and topsy-turvy because, as we like to say when strange things happen, "it's Russia" - and Russia is weird.

Russians do not do engagement rings like they're done in the United States, they're extremely simple just gold or silver bands that just become wedding rings after the ceremony. Wedding rings aren't worn on the left ring finger here, they're worn on the right ring finger if they're even worn at all. 

Women are held to a very high standard of fashion here, everyone looks like they're going to a fancy party (where mini-skirts are allowed), it's like -100 degrees outside and they're wearing mini-skirts because apparently that's what happens in Russian society. They always look so put together and amazing, it makes me really feel uncomfortable because I know I stand out a lot, I'm lucky if I don't have my hair flying in every which way. How do people even deal with humidity? How do people deal with the freezing cold?

One thing I was sadly mistaken on was animal sounds being universal. THEY AREN'T. It makes it really difficult to say "it's a duck, ducks say 'quack, quack'" and the whole class is saying "nooooooo" and laughing at you because you're a dumb foreigner and then they start jumping around like frogs because that's similar to the animal sound frogs make in Russia (I'm assuming it's like a croak). Sorry kids, I'm right, ducks totally say quack and frogs say ribbit in America, deal with it. One thing I'll never forget (and we say this to each other all the time) is what every kid says at some point during class "teacher it's a no", so I get that a lot as well. If I come back and say, "it's a no", you know why, the kids made me do it.

Public displays of affection are very common here, one of the schools I teach at the teachers kiss the kids on the faces and everything, the kids will kiss each other on the faces and arms when they pass by just because, but I notice it so much more now because in one of my classes there is a little girl who will kiss up my arms, yesterday she kissed me on the cheek and a week ago she randomly kissed my side. It's pretty strange, but I guess "normal" here.

This last one isn't a Russian quirk, but I've noticed it in myself since being here...I'm losing my ability to speak English, which wouldn't be bad if I was gaining more Russian, but that's not really happening so I'm just becoming language-less. Which I guess all of the charades we do with the language barrier will help me in that aspect...I've also found myself almost shocked when I hear people outside our group speaking English. 

More on the note that Russia is weird - some guy at our apartment building was outside smoking in his recliner (which wouldn't be easy to get outside, the elevators are super small) and then 5 minutes later he and the recliner were gone. Today it was snowing upwards, there is fish jerky in the store and there are so many more things that apparently just make Russia a strange place.

Some Happenings.

So this weekend was supposed to be the start of our vacations out of country, unfortunately we found out that there are issues with the visas being processed so we won't be able to leave Russia until October 30th for our long vacation (and they're actually really hoping it gets done by then) so we had to cancel our trip to Finland that was supposed to be this weekend (Oct. 16-19) and reschedule Estonia (Oct. 24-26). We're all pretty bummed about it, but we're trying to make the best of it, some of us lost quite a bit of money since we already had things booked for the trips.

Kelsey and I being American.

Since I last wrote I ate my first American food meal (Burger King) and we've had some adventures. We've been spending a lot of time exploring the city on the weekends, so we've been finding some stuff that's less touristy, which has been fun all on its own. One Friday we went to the oldest cemetary in St. Petersburg, there were actually a bunch of famous people buried there.

Next to a giant sculpture rose.

Coolest cemetary.

Super creepy.

That same weekend we got a chance to go see a Russian ballet, we saw Anna Karenina and it was really beautiful.

This weekend we tried to keep things fun, because we were supposed to be in Finland technically, but we didn't want to get too sad about it, but we also wanted to be somewhat lazy before things start getting crazy and we're traveling out of the country nearly every weekend next month. We hung out and took a bunch of pictures at a park close to our apartment on Friday.

Kelsey's face in this picture is amazing.

Victoria says this describes us perfectly.

Kelsey always makes the best faces.

Tepemokin' it up.

If trees had arms part 1

If trees had arms part 2

 After that we went back to the apartment and decided whipped cream mustaches would be the very best idea...ever.

On Saturday we decided to go back to the Winter Palace (which we've seen on the outside) and go INSIDE. Inside is part of the Hermitage Museum which is absolutely enormous. I still can't believe that people lived in the Winter Palace (Anastasia lived here guys!), we got lost (and only saw like a quarter of it) and we even had a map. Here are some facts about the palace in case you don't believe me: The Winter Palace has 1500 rooms, 117 staircases, 1,786 doors and 1,945 windows. The pictures don't do it justice, it's beautiful, and I'm really happy students (which we are considered here) get to go for free so we'll definitely take another trip back to explore it some more.

This is a Peacock clock.

Nailed it.

Learning how to be a model.

TODAY IT SNOWED FOR THE FIRST TIME. SNOW. 

It's gonna be a cold next two months.

Busy, busy.

In honor of October starting this week we decided to do some decorating, these are a few of the decorations we made.

This past week was a good week of teaching for me, I really enjoyed doing picture frames with the kids and seeing what they drew to put in the frame. Sometimes these kids make me want to pull my hair out and other times they're just sweet. Some more than others.

So on Friday night we left to go on a boat tour of the city (well to watch the bridges open up) and it started at 12:50 am. We got harassed by some drunk guy on our way to the metro and he kept grabbing us and speaking in Russian and we couldn't get him to go away. He did finally, but not until he smacked Caitlin on the butt and ran away. Jerk.

I'm really glad we went when we did because it was pretty chilly. It was an amazing experience and really cool to see. The boat ride lasted an hour and a half and then we were stranded (public transportation stops a little after midnight and doesn't open up again till almost 6 am) so after our boat ride we wandered around and then found a cute little quite bar called Bibliotecka (Library) and had hot chocolate until it was time for buses to run again. Unfortunately our bus never came, some Russian guy tried talking with us and he was trying to be helpful to show us the metro but I think we confused him, we finally found the metro right when it opened and just that home. We didn't get back to the apartment till almost 7 am.

We woke up a few hours later to get going again, we ended up going to the Smolny Cathedral which was very pretty (and we saw it on our boat ride)

We walked up over 300 stairs to the top of each bell tower to overlook the city and it was amazing.

After that we met up with our Russian language teacher and she took us to this awesome Russian Arcade Museum where you can play all the old arcade games.

They had an awesome photo-booth that we had to take advantage of.

Soops Cutes

After that we went to Brett and Pauls host apartment and Paul and Jess made dinner for us, it was really good and also they've got the coolest apartment I've seen here in St. Petersburg, you can step out onto the roof and just look out (they're on the 16th floor). However, this meant another late night for us, we didn't get back to the apartment until about 12:30 am and we actually ended up seeing the crazy drunk guy from the night before, but he didn't recognize us and Jess was about to punch him for what he did the night before.

It was definitely an action packed weekend and we're all exhausted because of it. So much to see!

Next weekend we're planning on going to Pushkin and we're going to see a ballet and then the weekend after that is our three day weekend in Finland!