ZEE ZEE TOPE

imagine a person shouting the title of this post.  ok, now multiply that by a couple thousand.
that should give you a small idea of my experience last night.

misha, xenia, alex and i all went to see ZZ Top at the swankiest concert venue i have ever seen.  the crowd was comprised of, as xenia put it, "a part of russia that i have never seen!"  guys with leather pants, denim vests, tattoos, absurd hair (facial and head-type) swarmed the venue.  a couple of guys wore fake beards.  for the uninformed, here is an old picture of ZZ Top that I think personifies who they are as a band:

just beautiful, right?  i spent the better half of the show laughing with misha at the images of trucks, clips from the 70s/80s (their heyday) of scantily clad women with terrible hair dancing around them, and sublimely terrible fake-fire graphics (as well as a few bars and truck stops).  

the rest of the time i spent trying to come up with a good description for what genre they fulfill ("southern glam biker rock" was the best i could come up with) and imagining various possible beard stylings that would be omg so fun to try. 

it was quite an experience.  also it was the first time i have a) made it through the day without a nap and b) stayed up until 11:30 pm!!!!  and i slept until 10:50!!!  huge deal.  i feel like i am finally getting over/overish jetlag, which is thrilling.  although it is kind of weird to think of myself as truly living in a different time zone from so many of the people i love.

here are some pictures that xenia took at the concert:

here are the dudes rocking out.  note the black leather suit covering the sequined shirts underneath.

alex making a face for xenia.

me and xen.  my god you can even tell that she's taller than me in this picture.

i feel short.

anyway, beyond that exciting anecdote, a few funny little notes from the day (yesterday, that is.  right now i'm in pjs and expect to do nothing):

-It snowed!!!  It was pretty but did not stick (except to my hair and jacket and poorly chosen-shoes)

-I dropped Xenia and Alex of at the Anglo-American School (an international school) in the morning and watched the adorable little multicultural parade of children (and some teens) in their halloween costumes.

(the count: 2 harry potters, a highly successful mario and luigi, a couple of caped something-or-others, and way more skeletons than i could count- whats up with that??)

-Read the Moscow Times and decided that i'm a fan.  

Note: my favorite (and the most gruesome) article that I found was about bears up north who had lost their food supply due to the local fires and were now digging up graves.  Locals have expressed concern that the bears have developed "a taste for human flesh"...oh my god that sounds so much worse and morbid than it did in my head.

ALSO they had a great section on the broader/sometimes very narrow meanings of a Russian word.  I think it's a column that some woman does regularly for the Petersburg Times (or at least they print it too).  Heres the one I saw:

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/sharpening-your-knife-and-tongue/421365.html

(Lydia: I really think you'd like this!)

-Realized that if you tilt your head slightly on the impossibly steep and long metro elevators going down, it looks like the people are adopting a gravity defying backwards lean.  The degree of hilarity of this realization changes based on the seriousness of the riders expression.  Fantastic.

-Later note: If you are going up, it gets even better.  It looks like the riders are leaning forwards and sticking their booties out.  HILARIOUS.  Also I am five years old.  Also I will try to get a picture of this.

Ok, more about the host family that I just visited in a bit!!

xoxo

char

Went into Moscow center AND used some capital letters this time! (Big day!!!)

So today was my first day of going into the city and it was FANTASTIC.

I rode into town with Sasha and she told me lots of stories of how the infrastructure and generations of Moscow have changed since she's been here (20 years now!!)  

The conversation turned to the now-super-attractive generation of Russian ladies, and the question of whether or not they'll turn out to look like their babushki.  And of the men- everyone, Russian AND non-Russian, has spoken of the unfortunate qualities of Russian men, which I think is kind of funny. 

Sasha told me all about how when she married Misha (her husband of atleast 15 years) the woman at the marriage registration actually pulled her into another room and asked "Ты уверена, что ты подумала?"-- "Are you sure that you've thought this through?"  Sasha said that she had, and the woman further warned her "Русские мужчины не как американские мужчины"-- "Russian men are not like American men."  

Whether or not this is true, Misha happens to be just wonderful. 

So Sasha dropped me off at her office, and I decided to walk down to the neighborhood where the school that I will be working at is located.  It's hard to say whether this decision was more motivated by my desire to see the city, or my fear of the Russian subway.  

So I walked for an hour and watched the sunrise along the silhouettes of buildings along the way, from Red Square to the southern part of the city.

Ok, rather than write a million potentially boring things about my day, here is a list of the highlights and fun facts that I learned about Moscow:

-I sat in a starbucks (where I met up with a woman from the school) and in the hour that I was there heard both the Shaft theme song, and Blue Ridge Mountains (the former made almost spit out my coffee laughing, and the latter made me almost spit out my coffee from excitement...a lot of close calls there).

-Walked past a club/restaurant named simply "VIP" (which, of course, made me think of the Russian song "Я персона ВИП"- literally, "I am a VIP person"...the department of redundancy department?)

-Experienced a rollercoaster of emotions regarding my Russian abilities, and how I could improve them/not sound like an idiot (excitement, anxiety, etc.) and remembered GFlash Pro, an excellent program that allows you to create flash cards on Google docs and use them on your iPod touch/iPhone.  Слава богу...И Лидиe (who showed me the program in the first place).

-Fell IN LOVE with the school that I will be teaching at- it's a SUPER progressive school, and while it is primarily taught in English, there is a lot of Russian spoken (which will be good for me).  Plus I met with the headmistress who only speaks Russian, and she's lovely!

-Played a version of Duck Duck Goose with little Russian children and realized how useful it is to know Russian in teaching them English (in fact, it was easier to understand their russian than it was the english).  In general I would highly recommend speaking foreign languages with little kids- their vocab is usually pretty simple, and they're easygoing with mistakes.  Also jesus those kids were cute.

Fun fact #1 : Some of the metro stations used to be bomb shelters, so they are like a bajillion feet under the ground.  I only noticed when I had been on the escalator for 45 seconds and was finally like "wait...something is weird here..." and looked down and I was only half way to the bottom.

Fun fact #2: The metro is a lot like the New York subways, but punctual, faster, and more Russian.  

Fun fact #3: Everyone is white here.  This is not so much a fun fact as a slightly depressing one that is reflective/a causative factor of the level of prejudice in the city.

Fun fact #4: I guess #1 was not so much a fun fact either...

Fun fact #5: The slogan for McDonalds here is "Вот, что я люблю!" which means more or less "Here, this is what I love!" but less awkwardly.  Except I always think of Вот (here) as being sort of a heavy and dramatic word, so it kind of makes the slogan hilarious.

Fun fact #6: There is a megastore/supermarket called Ashan named after some French upscale market, which I can only imagine is the exact opposite of this place.  It carries more muumuus and socks than you can shake a stick at, but NO MITTENS WTF???

Fun fact #7: There is a park near the school where I will work called "Нескучный Парк"- literally, "The Not-Boring Park."  What does this say about all of the other parks in Moscow??

OK thats all for now.  I have some pictures but I'm too lazy to upload them/my iPhone cord is like 3 flights up and I'm fighting the afternoon-intense-sleepiness that usually results in jetlag-prolonging-naps (NOT TODAY DAMMIT) and if I see my bed I'm done for.  

Here are some pictures to make up for it:

You will have a long and prosperous life...IN MOSCOW!

So lydia made the good point the other day that doing anything here is like being stuck inside a never ending version of the fortune cookie "in bed" game.  only, instead of adding "in bed" to the end of every statement or idea, everything i do is rounded off with a thrilling "IN MOSCOW!!" in my head.  then i proceed to giggle like a naive little 12-year-old (interestingly enough, the demographic in which the "in bed" game is most popular).  

for example, yesterday i took a shower, but not just any shower...my first shower IN MOSCOW!  right now i'm listening to sufjan stevens, but what makes it amazing is that i am listening to sufjan IN MOSCOW.

anyway, today i had a pumpkin soup adventure (...IN MOSCOW).

sasha was home working on her dissertation and after noticing my distinct lack of activities, asked me if i wanted to make something for lunch (she knows i love to cook).  i jumped at the opportunity to put off studying russian (oh my i need to review) and immediately found a recipe for pumpkin apple soup on eatingwell.com.  i grabbed the pumpkin that sasha offered, and started trying to hack away at it.  

however, i quickly found that this was no ordinary pumpkin.  this pumpkin was HARDCORE.  i stabbed it over and over all horror-movie style, and microwaved it...to no avail.  then i stabbed it some more.  as i did this, i began to think of the trials of the typical russian pumpkin.  

this pumpkin knew how to survive a russian winter.  this pumpkin was bred from the stock that managed to live and reproduce, while napoleon's army perished.  this pumpkin outlasted the french army!!!

oh my god...i was now hellbent on hacking up this pumpkin.  i knew that within the next hour or so, one of us was going to be made into a soup- and to be honest, there was a concerning period when the answer as to who it was was unclear.

finally i managed to overpower the pumpkin...the pumpkin that overpowered the french army...

i had done what the french army had failed to!!!

(...ok don't think about that one too hard...)

anyway, the pumpkin turned into a delicious soup, and you can find the recipe here: http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/pumpkin_apple_soup.html

fun side note: as i was hacking away at the pumpkin, lydia and lena and i were chatting on line, trying to come up with dirty variations of famous individuals' names (i think the conversation started as a discussion of unlikely "sexy halloween costume" themes).  below are some of the best:  

e.m. floreplay-ster

John Milf-ton

Horace mann-handler

Derobespierre

the others were also excellent, but probably too dirty for the internet (HAH).  

i think we discovered a new film genre with lots of potential- historical fiction pornos.

(mad props to lydia and lena.)

Мы с Честором (Me and Chester)

Chester joined me for coffee this morning.

Faceoff

...and love

Chestor is, linguistically, quite an interesting fellow.  He understands the commands "sit" and "lie down" in Russian ("сиди!" and "лежи!"), but when you want him to get up the command is "UP!"

I skyped with Lena and Lydia this morning, and Lydia and I have decided that in the future all our pets will be bilingual.

I BEG TO DIFFER

(found this in the Skylife magazine on Turkish Airlines)

Text on the left says:

“Turkish hazelnut comes up with nice flavour and delicious taste.  It makes you strong obtaining energy you need and satisfies your soul.”

That is a seriously weighty claim, my turkish friends.

GAME CHANGER...again!!!

it looks like blogspot allows for commenting better.  so here's the first post that i wrote before:

hey guys,

i’ve decided to make this blog now about my adventures, seeing as i’m now 4676 miles away from many of the people i love (give or take a few- yeahhh i just googled the distance between new york and moscow.  and no, i had no idea before i did that).

anyway, the concept of blogs, especially in the case where i’m not on some “awesome-study-abroad-cultural-learning-adventure!!!” always seemed sort of self-indulgent.  however, with franny’s promise that she would write me blog love notes, i couldn’t refuse.  feel free to read as you will.  also i will try to write with some capital letters soon.  maybe.  no promises.  also if you read please respond! think of this more as a conversational type of space.

ooo also i’ll have an excuse to post all the pictures i want!!! added boooonuuuus!

——————-

anyway.  so right now i am tucked into a cozy bed on the top floor of my stepsister’s house in a little community outside of moscow central-city.  its 8:23am here and 12:35am for most of you guys.  just 32 hours ago, after saying goodbye to mom and jesse, i boarded a flight bound for istanbul.  the following is an account between that time and now:

landed in istanbul,

ate (or tried to eat) everything in the airport that had the prefix “turkish” (turkish icecream MAY have been stretching it)

drank copious amounts of turkish coffee

eventually boarded a flight for moscow

curled up into a strange contorted position and fell asleep on the shoulder of a rather corpulent russian man

landed in russia

skipped the x-ray at customs, thanks to the formidable sizes of the suitcases i was carrying

was picked up by misha (sasha’s husband) 

greeted at the house by the joyous, bilingual dog chester (or честор), who barked his head off despite mishas’ gentle commands of “тихо, тихо” (quiet, quiet).

got excited hugs and stories from xenia and alex, step-niece and -nephew

ate a delicious dinner of pork, zucchini, and brown rice that sasha had made and listened to xenia’s tales of the absurd expectations of highschool teachers

emailed the people who would have contacted the police if i hadn’t (cough cough MOM)

began Винни Пух (winnie the pooh in russian)

crashed SO HARD it wasn’t even funny (10 pm)

————

sooo here i am, monday morning in bed. now i’ll be off to make some oatmeal and coffee (sasha is going to teach me how to use the cappuccino machine this evening!) and figure out something reasonably productive to do with myself.  i’m thinking that i’ll go into the school on wednesday to check it out, meet with teachers, etc., but until then it’s all about wrapping my head around my new reality.  which is SO EXCITING…and so strange and new and everything.  

До скорого, друзья!