the post, pianos, and plays

I've been impatiently awaiting a package from home for about two months, and it finally arrived yesterday. Of course, there is an interesting story about this blessed event (or I wouldn't bore you with a blog post about a little old package).

My host mom informed me the package finally arrived. "Hooray!" I shouted with glee.
She then called the post and asked if they could deliver it to the house; at first they said yes, but that she would have to call back later to get a specific delivery time.
A few hours pass, my host mom calls back. This time, they inform her she would have to go to the post office and pick the package up, since it's an international package. Furthermore, they were going to open the package and examine the contents, since it's an international package. (What is this, the Soviet Union?)
So.
We're preparing to go to the post, and I'm naturally a little worried that the post office workers will confiscate something from my package. My host mom comes in my room and says:
"Now Kara. I'm going to tell them that your parents are old friends of mine, and that they sent you here to study, and that since it's getting colder, they sent you a package of clothes. What's your last name? I should probably know that."
We set off to the post office.
Upon arrival, she shows the package slip to the worker, who goes to retrieve my package.
As it turns out, since my parents sent the package via DHL, they put it in a special bag. This bag is what had to be opened and signed for, not the package itself.
All ended well and the post workers didn't even try to confiscate my precious foreign clothes.



Last Friday the group went to a piano concert! There were two famous pianists: Nikolai Petrov and Aleksandr Gindin. Nikolai Petrov holds an honorary title of People's Artist of the Soviet Union (Народный артист СССР), which basically means he's a big deal. Petrov and Gindin played two pianos at the same time; it was amazing. I've been playing the piano since I could sit on a bench, so this was one of my favorite things we've been to so far.

Last Wednesday we saw a play of Dostoevsky's "Бесы", translated as "The Possessed" or "Demons" or "The Devils." As you can probably gather from the title, it was a bit of a serious play. The school of actors who work at this theater is very well known and very good. Even though a lot of the play went over my head, I was still left feeling unsettled. ...probably because almost everyone is killed/kills themselves. In any case, the actors were great.

Today a few of us went to the Gorky House Museum. Apparently Stalin gave Gorky this house so that Gorky would come back to Russia from Italy, but Gorky didn't really like the fancy-shmancy art-nouveau style. I, however, did. It reminded me of the mansion in Casper, but with not as many secret passageways (that I know of...).
The best part about today was that we got to hang out with Maya, who was a visiting Russian professor at Dickinson the first semester we all started Russian. It was so strange to be in Moscow, speaking in Russian with Maya, when the last time we saw her we could barely form sentences.


That's all for now, I have a grammar test tomorrow. I can hardly wait.

Next post: stories, pictures, and videos from the football (aka soccer) matches I've been to. Russians are insane about their football, so you should be really excited for this.


From Russia, with love,

Kara