lala how the life goes on

So. My initial shock-filled realization that yes, I actually am here for an entire year, has worn off. Now I'm excited to be here a year! (I'm basically a roller coaster of emotions right now. Oh well, these things happen.)

Today was День Города (pronounced "Dyane Goroda"), aka Day of the City, aka the day Moscow celebrates its birthday, aka an all around awesomefest with many, many happy Russians. ...and also many police. eek. Anyways, us students met up with a Russian student from РГГУ (the university I'm at here) who will be a TA at Dickinson next semester. He brought along some of his friends who also go to РГГУ, and they were all very nice and cool. If I can find people at РГГУ who are as nice as them, everything will be just wonderful. After we walked around a bit/ate at a cafe, the Russians left us and we went to a special День Города concert called Спасская Башня on Red Square.
The concert was sweeeeet. There were military bands and dancers and/or singers from different countries: Kazakhstan, Israel, Britain, Finland, Italy, India, France, and of course lots from Russia. There were also Chinese students from a Shaolin monastery, who had probably the coolest display of dancing/drum beating/martial arts performance I've ever seen. Everything was also ninety times cooler because, well, it was on Red Square. They set up stands to seat all the people, and from our seats the Kremlin was to our right and St. Basil's cathedral to the left.

So. Cool.

The concert was kind of as I expected with military bands playing military-esque music, but there were a few unexpected twists:
The Israeli band played a Fiddler on the Roof medley. No joke. It seemed a little odd to me, just because in Fiddler on the Roof the Russian Jews were forced to leave Russia, and the Russians were pretty much the bad guys. I tried to see if any of the Russians at the concert recognized the music, but I really couldn't tell.
The Britain band had bagpipes and it was aaaawesome.
The many different Russian ensembles included ballet and a children's dancing group (they did the traditional Russian dancing! SO COOL).
There was some famous French singer, I don't remember her name. Everyone loved her.
At the end of the concert, all the bands came together and played, among other songs, Hey Jude, Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da, and Yellow Submarine. 'Tis true, The Beatles are very much alive in Moscow.

By far the coolest moment of the concert was the finale. (Duh.) The bands played a bit of Tchaikovsky's 1812, and tons of fireworks went off at the end where it sounds like cannons.
Tchaikovsky performed by international military bands on Red Square with fireworks going off behind The Kremlin and St. Basil's makes for a pretty awesome experience.
You know, if you're into that kind of thing.

Sigh.