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 paint a very good picture!
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