Longest Thursday ever.
Back in New York now at Chelsea’s apartment in Brooklyn. My flight took off at noon from Moscow, was in the air for ten hours, and landed at two pm in New York. Time travel!
We ended up going into Moscow late Monday night to walk around the beautiful parks, with the fountains lit up red and gold, and MGU and GUM both lit up like fairy tale castles. It was beyond amazing - a lovely warm night, with all the young people out strolling around, walking through Red Square where so much history has taken place. I can’t believe how fast six weeks went by. It’s always sad to leave, but this time I know I’ll be back, hopefully within a year or two, and that makes it easier.
Here's a list I put together waiting for my flight to board at Sheremetevo, half a world away from here.
Things I’m going to miss about being in Russia:
-getting mistaken for a Russian. I love it when random people on the street ask me the time, or when the next bus arrives, or whether this is the line for Delta, because it means I don’t immediately strike people as a foreigner. Not that I always understand the question, or am able to answer it, but still. Blending-in success! Of course, the minute I haul out my American passport everything changes. I hate that look of mild annoyance on the faces of the airport staff when they see a blue passport and realize (sigh) they’ll have to deal with this one in English.
-not getting mistaken for a Russian. At the Fakel market in Vladimir, I attempted to buy cucumbers from a garrulous middle-aged guy and messed up some case endings. He told his partner to pick out the best cucumbers for the инестранка (foreign girl), asked me where I was from, and then gave me a free cucumber to eat while I walked around. He then proceeded to ask my friend Amanda if she was married, and if she might want to marry him. Totally worth the 18 rubles I paid for the cucumbers, I think.
-that feeling of being somewhere between centuries. I get it looking at the cathedrals, standing in Red Square, shopping at the market. I had it at the dacha, after the banya, steamed and scrubbed, wearing a worn-soft old housedress of Babulya’s, washing dishes at the outdoor faucet under the raspberry bushes. I felt like had stepped back into the fifties, or the twenties - some time long past.
-feeling passive knowledge turn into active knowledge. During the last year of Russian classes, doing workbook exercises and cramming for vocab quizzes, I developed a base of grammar and vocabulary that was just laying dormant somewhere near my hippocampus (or brain stem, or whatever). Every day, watching TV, listening to people talking, reading signs, I saw words and constructions that I recognized, and I could actually feel the information shifting to the front of my brain. Cool.
-listening to stories about Soviet times and Perestroika. My Russian has finally gotten good enough that I can understand a lot of what people are saying, if there’s context and they’re patient. I spent a lot of time sitting with Babulya, looking at her photo albums, all those serious-faced women with their scores of children and home-sewn dresses. I also got to hear some stories from Natasha about making do during Perestroika. Sasha’s job took him to the seaside, where red caviar was cheap, and she talked about eating nothing but caviar sandwiches for weeks on end (much to the envy of her colleagues, who were eating kielbasa - she ended up swapping them lunches!).
-Russian women’s clothes. Sparkles, ruffles, short skirts, and absolutely insanely ridiculously awesome shoes. Sitting in the park for an hour is better than a fashion show. Though I will be happy to stop feeling short, fat, and poorly shod all the time. Which is not unrelated to...
-the food. I think anyone who’s been reading this blog knows how I feel about Russian food: the chocolate, the keffir, the tvorak, the blini, the soups, the salads, the homemade jam, and the heavenly black bread. I don’t know how Russian women manage to eat so little of it.
Finally, most importantly, the people. I’m going to miss my funny, intelligent, generous coworkers at the American Home. I’m going to miss the brave and always interesting individuals who choose to teach there. I’m going to miss my wonderful friends in Vladimir, who welcome me into their lives for however long I stay. And I’m going to miss all the Ivanovs: from Babulya who called me мая милая девушка and asked God to keep me as I traveled down to little Varia who can’t yet pronounce my name. I’ve really been blessed in my home away from home.
We ended up going into Moscow late Monday night to walk around the beautiful parks, with the fountains lit up red and gold, and MGU and GUM both lit up like fairy tale castles. It was beyond amazing - a lovely warm night, with all the young people out strolling around, walking through Red Square where so much history has taken place. I can’t believe how fast six weeks went by. It’s always sad to leave, but this time I know I’ll be back, hopefully within a year or two, and that makes it easier.
Here's a list I put together waiting for my flight to board at Sheremetevo, half a world away from here.
Things I’m going to miss about being in Russia:
-getting mistaken for a Russian. I love it when random people on the street ask me the time, or when the next bus arrives, or whether this is the line for Delta, because it means I don’t immediately strike people as a foreigner. Not that I always understand the question, or am able to answer it, but still. Blending-in success! Of course, the minute I haul out my American passport everything changes. I hate that look of mild annoyance on the faces of the airport staff when they see a blue passport and realize (sigh) they’ll have to deal with this one in English.
-not getting mistaken for a Russian. At the Fakel market in Vladimir, I attempted to buy cucumbers from a garrulous middle-aged guy and messed up some case endings. He told his partner to pick out the best cucumbers for the инестранка (foreign girl), asked me where I was from, and then gave me a free cucumber to eat while I walked around. He then proceeded to ask my friend Amanda if she was married, and if she might want to marry him. Totally worth the 18 rubles I paid for the cucumbers, I think.
-that feeling of being somewhere between centuries. I get it looking at the cathedrals, standing in Red Square, shopping at the market. I had it at the dacha, after the banya, steamed and scrubbed, wearing a worn-soft old housedress of Babulya’s, washing dishes at the outdoor faucet under the raspberry bushes. I felt like had stepped back into the fifties, or the twenties - some time long past.
-feeling passive knowledge turn into active knowledge. During the last year of Russian classes, doing workbook exercises and cramming for vocab quizzes, I developed a base of grammar and vocabulary that was just laying dormant somewhere near my hippocampus (or brain stem, or whatever). Every day, watching TV, listening to people talking, reading signs, I saw words and constructions that I recognized, and I could actually feel the information shifting to the front of my brain. Cool.
-listening to stories about Soviet times and Perestroika. My Russian has finally gotten good enough that I can understand a lot of what people are saying, if there’s context and they’re patient. I spent a lot of time sitting with Babulya, looking at her photo albums, all those serious-faced women with their scores of children and home-sewn dresses. I also got to hear some stories from Natasha about making do during Perestroika. Sasha’s job took him to the seaside, where red caviar was cheap, and she talked about eating nothing but caviar sandwiches for weeks on end (much to the envy of her colleagues, who were eating kielbasa - she ended up swapping them lunches!).
-Russian women’s clothes. Sparkles, ruffles, short skirts, and absolutely insanely ridiculously awesome shoes. Sitting in the park for an hour is better than a fashion show. Though I will be happy to stop feeling short, fat, and poorly shod all the time. Which is not unrelated to...
-the food. I think anyone who’s been reading this blog knows how I feel about Russian food: the chocolate, the keffir, the tvorak, the blini, the soups, the salads, the homemade jam, and the heavenly black bread. I don’t know how Russian women manage to eat so little of it.
Finally, most importantly, the people. I’m going to miss my funny, intelligent, generous coworkers at the American Home. I’m going to miss the brave and always interesting individuals who choose to teach there. I’m going to miss my wonderful friends in Vladimir, who welcome me into their lives for however long I stay. And I’m going to miss all the Ivanovs: from Babulya who called me мая милая девушка and asked God to keep me as I traveled down to little Varia who can’t yet pronounce my name. I’ve really been blessed in my home away from home.