It is vacation, after all?

Alright.
So maybe I lied when I said I would have plenty of time to update you on more things about Russia.
I do hope to do this someday, or, if you really want to know, you can ask me and I shall spill all the beans.


In the meantime, I'll fill you in on my life as of late:

I'm entering week four of my six week break. A few people from school are here with me, making this by far the most entertaining of breaks I've had yet. Another friend from Russia also came to visit for New Years, and I got to see some high school friends who I haven't seen in way too long.

Side note -- how is it already 2010? This is getting ridiculous.

Anyways, I've been trying to be a good tour guide and take people to all these nifty little unknown corners of Germany/Europe, while also forcing the guests to try different kinds of German beer (I'm sure they really hated me for that) and eating as much of my mom's food as humanly possible. We even got to go up to Bremen, Germany, to visit some fellow Dickinson students who are studying there for the year.

We've ran into Russians literally every place we've been to.
We take a day trip to Bruges, Belgium, and who is in front of us in the line to go up the bell tower? Why, a group of Russian tourists, of course, complaining about the long line. (I found this slightly ironic.)
We venture up to northern Germany only to see a stereotypical Russian man (in the black leather jacket, slightly greasy hair, and sneaky aura type way) reading a Russian newspaper right behind us.
We get to Bremen and find a group of Russian school students doing their little circle dance in the middle of old Bremen.


As the saying goes, you can take the girl out of Russia, but the Russians will just follow her everywhere she goes.

I'll Be Back.

I refuse to believe that I'm leaving Moscow a week from tomorrow.
The only thing that's keeping me from being very sad about this fact is that I know I'll be coming back come the end of January. If it weren't for next semester, I would probably run away, become an illegal immigrant, and you'd never hear from me again.

This is how much I love it here.

Of course, I'm very ready for a break from school. Classes are..well...classes. You know how it goes. Today was our last big presentation for our Language through Mass Media class; all the students from levels four to six had to make a little report on the topic of "Art and Literature in the Modern World." I decided to be philosophical and say that art cannot be defined and that it's different for every person; I then went on to talk about my favorite type of art, music. Grand.
It was a little scary talking in front of more people than I'm used to, but all ended well.

I really haven't been up to much since getting back from Pskov; as I said before, classes nearing the end have forced me to actually stay home more and study. I'm so close to the end, though!

For the extra class I'm taking about Fairytales (I think I've mentioned this class before?), we have a little "open class" on Tuesday where we will perform three different fairytales and sing Russian folk songs. In the longest and most fun fairytale we'll be doing, I have the part of the evil Snow Queen who is angered by sweet little innocent Snegurochka, played by Kelly. Snegurochka is Ded Moroz's (Father Frost's) granddaughter, but in this fairytale she is just a granddaughter who represents all that is pure and wonderful in Russia. To take my revenge for being offered a hot drink (cleary the Queen of Cold would not want a hot drink), I freeze Snegurochka's heart so that she will never feel happiness again! (insert evil laughter here). After Snegurochka's grandparents attempt to cheer her up with candy, presents, and animals who tell jokes, Snegurochka's heart is finally thawed by the singing of Russian folk songs, and the evil Queen is defeated.


Tomorrow we'll also be going to the Kremlin; it's hard to believe we've been here three months and have only seen the Kremlin, but now our Russian has improved a lot so the tour will be in Russian and will (hopefully) be more interesting. Tomorrow night is also the going away party for the students who are only here a semester. We're going bowling. Old School.


I just really still can't even fathom that the semester is ending. Where does time go? I do not understand.


Speaking of time, it's time for me to leave; we're going to a hockey game! The match is between CSKA of Moscow and SKA of Petersburg.
Exciting.



This very well may be my last post before jetting home to Germany, but once I'm home I'll have gobs of time to write about Pskov and so on and so forth.


Before coming to Russia, I wasn't exactly sure why I was so enthralled and fascinated by it; now that I've been here for three months, I'm starting to understand.
This will also be discussed over break.
(Get ready, it's going to be deep.)


Ну, давай.



From Russia with so much love,
Kara.

"Are you gangsters?" "No, we are Russians."

(Quote from Брат 2).


For my Russia Today class I'm writing a research paper about the romanticization of the Russian mafia.

While researching, I found this article and simply had to share it because it's so....unique.



And now, back to work!

Cloudy with a high of 25

Well.

In exactly two weeks and one day I will be back home in the Fatherland, aka Germany. It's so strange how fast the time has gone by.

Today I realized for the millionth time how hard it is to manage my time here in Moscow. I blame this on the size of the city and all the wonderful distractions it offers.
What, you mean I should be studying? But what about that museum I wanted to go to? Or that interesting exhibit that's only going on for a couple more days? Come on people, I'm trying to embrace a new culture. I do not have time for this thing called "school."

Speaking of school, it suddenly got crazy. In all fairness I should have expected this, since one normally is expected to take final exams and do final presentations as the semester nears the end. The end just sorta snuck up me, though, and I feel like I'm frantically rushing around writing papers, final presentations, and studying for exams.
That being said, I'm putting the blog on hold for a bit. Sorry.


On another note, Wednesday was a record high of 7.1 celsius (about 45 fahrenheit), and it's been that warm all week. Everyone keeps saying how ужасно (horrible) it is: "7 degrees in December?! This should never be. We should have snow by now! Horrible!"
BUT. The forecast for next week?

Cloudy.
Highs in the 20s.

Bring it on.

December? Really?

Hi. Just a quick note letting everyone know I made it back from Pskov and it was the COOOOLEST little town.
I don't know if any of you heard about the train accident that happened last weekend, but don't worry it wasn't our train and we're fine.

So now I'm really busy what with it being the end of the semester and everything (only three weeks left! THREE!), and sadly I don't have time to tell you about the glories of Pskov at the moment.
However.
I will give you links to my pictures and write a more detailed post in the near(ish) future.


http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=347273&id=602370412&l=085aa02355

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=347362&id=602370412&l=b27546c2e0



Пока мои дорогие!
(Goodbye my dears!)

gooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal

Apparently one thing you're not supposed to do when going abroad is go to a sports match because it's potentially dangerous with all the crazy fanatic people.

Oops.



A few weeks ago some of us went to a match between one of Moscow's teams, Lokomotiv, and team Amkar from Perm (a city about 1000 km from Moscow, near the Ural mountains). We sat in the cheap seats, aka fanatic fan section, aka the best and most fun section.

This is a bit from the opening ceremonies.


Everyone was insanely into the game, constantly yelling chants and singing Lokomotiv songs in order to cheer their team onto victory. After many close attempts by Lokomotiv to score a goal, the score was still tied 0-0 with only a few minutes remaining; suddenly, a shot, and GOAAAAL -- Lokomotiv won and the crowd went wild.

Walking with the crowd to the metro after the game. The cars are all honking because they heard about the win, and the crowd begins shouting the player's name who scored the goal; they then start singing one of Lokomotiv's songs, which happens to be the tune of "When the Saints Go Marching In." (Sorry in advance for the shakiness)




Our next adventure takes us to the World Cup qualifying match between Russia and Slovenia. If you'll remember, I watched the match between Germany and Russia in a sports bar and Germany won. Russia then went on to play Azerbaijan and tied 1:1. This meant Russia had to win this match against Slovenia in order to stay in the World Cup qualifiers.
We actually didn't buy tickets ahead of time and instead went early to scout out tickets. ...and when I say "we" I actually mean Phil, the football aficionado of the group, went up to random people selling tickets and miraculously found three seats together for the girls and another seat for himself. Tickets in hand, we set off to buy Russia scarves and find our seats.
Everyone was given masks to prevent Swine Flu (which we fondly refer to as "the грипп" - the flu). Although I'm sure the masks are as effective as they are fashionable, we only wore them for the photo op. Also please note our amazing scarves.



Post Russia scoring second goal = happy fans


Our side and the other side of the stadium shouting "Вперёд, Россия!" (pronounced "fpeeryode Rossiya", means "Forward Russia!/Go Russia!")



Russia was slacking a bit towards the end of the game and Slovenia scored a goal. Russia still won, but when deciding who qualifies for the World Cup, they count the number of goals, which meant Russia and Slovenia had to play another game to determine who would go on to South Africa. (I think I'm explaining this correctly? If someone knows better, feel free to tell me I'm wrong). Sadly this time Russia lost with a final score of 0-1 Slovenia, which I think means they're out of the World Cup.


After the win we saw, everyone was ecstatic. People in the metro were shouting something along the lines of "GO RUSSIA!" and being generally insane. It was one of the only times I've seen large groups of happy Russians in public. While riding the escalator out of the metro, I was still wearing my Russia scarf and people gleefully shouted "За шарфа России!" (To the Russia scarf!) at me.
It was the coolest.



Next sporting adventure: HOCKEY.
Stay tuned.


p.s.
Tomorrow we go to Pskov, a smaller city about a 12 hour train ride to the North/West of Moscow.
Next update after I return!

obsession

If I were to rate today on a scale of 1 - 10, it would be a 1000000000000000000000.
Today was a fantastic day.
Today I had one of the most unique experiences I've yet to experience.
I still can't get over what happened today.

Curious yet?



Today we went to Переделкино (Peredelkino), a little place about a 20 minute electrichka (commuter train) ride away from Moscow.
Does the name Boris Pasternak ring any bells? He was a poet and author extraordinaire, most known in the West for writing Dr. Zhivago. He lived in Peredelkino from 1939 until his death in 1960 and his house is now a museum.

I admit, I wasn't very excited to go on another excursion to another museum about another famous dead Russian guy who I didn't really know anything about.
However, this was not to be just any ordinary excursion!

The museum wasn't really like a museum at all; it's just his house. The museum people kept everything like it was when Pasternak lived there. It was like Pasternak had just stepped out and would return any moment to find a group of Americans looking at the pictures on his walls.
The woman who works there and gave us a tour of the house was so obviously in love with her work and Pasternak; when she talked about him, you could tell how important he was to her. It made me want to know everything she knew and feel how she felt about Pasternak. My Russian has also improved a lot and I understood most of what our guide told us, making it that much better.

After our guide explained a little about Pasternak's growing up years and education, she showed us the room where his piano is. I was longingly looking at the piano as the guide started talking about the room, and Kelly mentioned to her that I play the piano. To my extreme surprise and shock and disbelief and so on and so forth, our guide said: "Well, you can play something if you want!"

Yes.
That's right.
I played Pasternak's piano.
I played THE piano that Pasternak played.
Little old me played Pasternak's piano. Pasternak!

After warning everyone that it probably wouldn't sound good because I haven't played in months, I started to play Chopin's Waltz #7 in C Sharp Minor. I could only get a few measures out before I forgot how the waltz went, but it was one of the coolest things I've ever done.
I'm probably never going to wash my hands again.
Just kidding.
Kind of.


Upon our return to Moscow I went to a bookstore and bought a book of Pasternak poems.
I might be a little obsessed.




Next post will have football videos. Sadly my computer crashed and I lost everything; luckily I have it all backed up and just haven't had time to put everything back yet.
I guess I was too busy playing Pasternak's piano.
Hope you don't mind.