On pass the days, and time is flying. The past week was uneventful for me. Though not, I am afriad for Slizah; but that's not my story to tell. I did not got to Ulan-Ude as promised - that's this coming week. Actually, ten minutes after writing last week's entry, Colleen called me to say that we had made a mistake, and the break actually starts ( Read more... )

Not too much out of the ordinary for the last two weeks. Classes. Choir. Living in Russia. Living here has become something of a routine, which is nice. I feel quite comfortable in the city, and in most day-to-day situations (although I still avoid talking on the telephone), and I have ceased to feel in any way like a tourist, though I still ( Read more... )

The story now continues ( Read more... )

Writing about nature has always been hard for me, in its elusiveness and its multi-faceted grandeur which makes description inadequate and probing deeper futile. So will this be. We went to Baikal early on Monday morning, the 26th, taking a marshrutnoe taxi, packed in around our copious luggage, four hours to the little harbor south of Ol'xon. ( Read more... )

Autumn arrives, a change felt in the composition of the air, the sound of the laughter on the street, the smell through the open window next to my bed, the feeling of the rough wool sweater from home against my skin. Despite the chill, or perhaps because of it, flies enter my room during the warm day through my screenless first-storey window, ( Read more... )

It's been three weeks now since we left, which has, of course, flown by. Culture shock has not, so far, really been a problem, which is nice, although I'm waiting for it to take me when I'm unprepared. So far so good. I'm getting to grow comfortable in the city, or at least in the center, where I live. I know my way around, and have a sense of ( Read more... )

Indeed, we have had our first snow of the year. On Thursday, there was rain and snow in the morning, which changed to just snow for a few hours and then back to rain. We were told that this always happens and then the weather changes back to warm. It was more than slightly surreal to see snow coming down when the leaves on the trees were still ( Read more... )

So, I'm actually not going to delve into the stories I mentioned last time, for simple lack of time. Suffice to say, I had an interesting experience at the airport. A real Kulturnyi Momyent. So. Irkutsk. After arriving in the airport at 5:10am local time, I met my хозяйка (host mom). Her name is Lyudmila Alekseevna, and she lives right in the ( Read more... )

Okay...I'm in Siberia now, safe and sound. Or, as safe and sound as one can reasonably expect to be in Russia. We flew from the States on the 29th of August, getting into Moscow in the afternoon of the 30th. I had a chance to practice my now-abysmal French, as we were flying Air France, and on the flight from Paris to Moscow, I was next to a ( Read more... )

Привет, ребята! Second-to-last day at Middlebury (Russian gulag). I'm setting up this blog for those of you who want to track what I'm doing in Russia in the coming months (now accepting stalker applications!), or those who are just really, really bored. I don't know the internet situation in Irkutsk, but I will try to update at the very very ( Read more... )