So here's the lo-down..

Alright readers, here's the deal. Tomorrow I depart from the wonderful, awful, cold, awesome, beautiful, terrible land of Russia. I feel that I owe you all a skillfully crafted poignant closing blog post, but I don't have time to compose such a composition in the time I have left here. Packing and cleaning has me in a whirl.

I had planned to post something during the outrageous amount of travel time I have ahead of me, but life is always throwing things at you and through a turn of circumstance I won't have a computer with me on the way back home. So it won't be then.

Know that when I arrive home to Alaska (from which I should still be able to see Russia... right?), get settled in, and have time to properly reflect on my time here in Vladivostok I will write a beautiful closing statement that will leave you all feeling satisfied.

Until then, wish me safe and quick travels. Perhaps you can take this chance to reflect on the past four months of your life. It's an odd feeling, coming to the end of an era and looking back on such an isolated piece of time. It's as though my life outside of Russia were put on pause...

Ok, I can't start thinking about it yet. I have too much to do in the next 18 hours.
So long for now!

Ithaca

Hockey!

We went to Cameron's last hockey game to cheer him on. It was great - the Vladivostok team won 8-2 (if I remember correctly) and Cameron scored a bunch of goals. That was probably due to his incredibly enthusiastic cheering section. And skill, of course. 

Inside the rink, we got to wear these lovely booties. Russians really like their foot and floor hygiene. It made sense here though, because the whole area off the ice was skate-friendly.

Here's the totally rad logo for the ice rink. I liked it.

The end.

The Hobbit

Last night I saw the Hobbit in Russian. In 3D. They had really cool 3D glasses, which looked like this:

Plus, I ate popcorn.

Гулять

I think I may have mentioned this before, but the Russians really like to recreationally walk around. So much so that there's a special verb (pronounced gulyat) that describes that activity. Here are a few photos from around the city, taken at various times throughout the last two weeks or so. I usually had a destination when I was walking (making it not true gulyat-ing), but they're nice photos nonetheless.

Russian policeman helping conduct traffic during rush hour. I will sorely miss the ridiculously uniformed men you find on the streets of Vladivostok...

This is the main roundabout you go through on the way from the school to downtown. It's very Russian-looking, I think.

Russians love Christmas trees too! They're called ёлочна's (yolochkas). Of course here they're New Year, not Christmas, trees, but the idea is the same! The most popular new year song is about a yolochka.

This is just a cute picture of Jordan and I walking. You can tell it's cold out, huh?

This is one of my favorite signs we've encountered. No beer, no cigarettes, no steamy beverages, no hotdogs (I thought that was a banana at first), no dogs, no ice cream, and ABSOLUTELY NO FUN ALLOWED ON THE THRID FLOOR. Not a place I'd like to be. Haha.

This is my favorite wall painting in Vladivostok. There are lots of them on the little walls next to the streets. This one is just lovely though... I made a special bus stop just to take my picture by it!

День Рождения

This weekend was fun because not one, but TWO of our Russian friends had birthdays to celebrate!

 On Saturday we went to a Chinese restaurant to celebrate our friend Sasha's birthday (you may remember Sasha from our excursion to the dacha). We met some new Russians there, sang some karaoke, drank a little vodka, and also acted as interpeters for one of Sasha and Jenya's Japanese colleagues who didn't speak Russian, just English and Japanese. 

On Sunday it was our friend Oxana's birthday celebration. It was an early party with just her American friends, since we'll all leave before her real birthday! We also went to a Chinese restaurant (a different one though!). Oxana, being the wonderful girl that she is, turned it into another early New Year celebration and brought presents for all of US, even though it was HER birthday! We ate delicious food, dressed up in tinsel to celebrate the holidays, and had a wonderful time.

Новый Год

Well readers, I'm out of this fair land in 2 days... as the semester's wound down a few neat things have transpired... but I'm pretty schooled out by this point and don't feel like writing too much. I'll just post a few pictures I guess to give you a taste of the last week and a half. 

First, we had a Russian New Year's celebration (early... their Christmas-like holiday is in the beginning of January) put on for the international students by some Russian students and the Russian language department. There were games, songs, a tree-lighting ceremony... it was quite silly, but fun.

There was even an appearance from the Russian Santa Clause, Ded Moroz, and his helper Snegurochka!

Another Apology

I feel like you, my loyal readers, deserve an explanation for my lack of blog-itude. So here it is:

...and that's my explanation WITHOUT windchill. Basically, it's been cold as ____________ (fill in your own creative explicative here) out lately and I basically spent the past week and weekend attempting to avoid spending any time outside. On Sunday I had to go to the grocery store, and my face almost fell off. Because my fridge doesn't work I've been storing my food in the inside of my windowsill where it's cool... and this morning it was frozen. Inside. Anyways, the moral of the story is that the coldness has zapped all the motivation out of me. And one can only blog about drinking tea and eating popcorn so many times... Apologies.

Ewww

As I sat writing my last blog post, what should skitter up the wall in front of me but... *cringe* a roach.

I mean, it's nothing new. I know that we have roaches here. Our friend Jenya's room is full of them. But I've never seen one in MY room before, and that's a fact that helps me sleep at night without first shaking out all of my bedclothes.

But there this little sucker was, scampering up the wall like it was nothing. After I got over the initial disgust and shock, I made a move to kill him with my water bottle... but he was too fast and vanished behind the drawers of my desk.

A few moments later, as I was writing about the tragedies of the aquarium, he appeared up the side of my desk and crawled over my notebook. I might have jumped up out of my chair and shivered in disgust just a little. I probably would have shrieked like any young girl should, but my roommate is asleep so I contained myself. As it scrambled about my things, I waited patiently for it to come out in the open so I could get another good shot in. It headed for the crack of my open closet door, so I tried to slam it in the door... but the door doesn't shut all the way. Foiled again! The evil little roach went through the crack and into my inner closet wall. I grabbed my vitamin bottle and lunged *once!* *twice!* trying to squish it against the inside of my closet... but it escaped behind my bathrobe and folded jeans.

Moral of the story: I will never put my clothes on without shaking them out, and I will never again crawl in bed without first removing all my blankets to check for invaders. This means war.

An Ocean-Themed Excursion

Last week, we went on a field trip to this place:

It's kind of like an oceanography/fisheries research institute, from what I could gather. They've been around a long time as far as the Far East is concerned, because fishing has always been a main industry here. They've cooperated with lots of US fisheries organizations, and with some in Alaska too. We toured their museum and then their old book collection, which was pretty cool.

 Outside, there was this great mural. I think perhaps Homer High should invest in something like this. It reminded me of the mariner man all grown up.

They had all kinds of stuffed animals in their museum - freaky fish, majestic albatrosses, a HUGE turtle, and sea mammals ranging in size. No whales though - just seals mostly.

Here's their map of important research areas. We're all pointing to where we're from! This map was pretty great because it had Homer labeled on it. It's rare to find a map with Homer on it in the US... let alone in Russia!

After our visit to the Research place, we decided to go to the aquarium. It was exciting, because I'd never been to any aquarium-esque thing other than the SeaLife Center. This one was a little bit depressing... they had some cool stuff, but you could tell that the animals weren't very well taken care of. My first clue to this was their very sad looking crocodile, who lived in a cage with no foliage just cement floor and a little pool. Poor guy. The little fish looked fine... But then we came to a room with a huge cylindrical tank with a rock mountain in the middle filled with sturgeon, which are one of the prize fish of this area. The sturgeon might have been happy once, but since then they'd grown to be up to seven feet long and looking at the tank I could tell that with the rock mountain there, they were now too big to turn around. They could all only swim one direction. I envisioned releasing them into the wild, only to have a cluster of giant fish that could only swim in circles. Even worse than the giant circle fish was a tank of fairly nondescript fish... I'm not really sure what they were. There were about 16 of them lolling about unhappily in their little tank... but the unhappiest fish in the whole aquarium was the one nondescript fish that was a dead plank of fish propped upright in the corner, where the current from the bubble-maker had pushed it. The dead fish had clearly been there for a while, and I wanted to tell someone that they should probably remove it... but alas it is difficult to locate the proper authorities and explain to them that their average-looking fish is dead and should probably be disposed of. So alas, that dead fish might still be sitting in the corner of its tank scaring small children. Who knows.

I did see some cool things there too though, like piranhas, which I imagined would be bigger with more threatening-looking teeth. They had turtles and an octopus (who also looked sad), and little tropical fish in the front entry area that looked very well cared for. Upstairs they had a collection of preserved animals: fish, birds, marine mammals... that was also interesting. The day was an odd mix of preservation and mild animal abuse and exploitation. 

Souvenirs

Another thing I finally got around to doing this weekend is some souvenir shopping! I won't tell you what I bought... that's a secret. But I did get this lovely shot of me being Russian...

You might be able to tell from my slightly awkward body position, but it was incredibly COLD out yesterday! I was glad I had the Russian gloves I bought a couple weeks ago and my lovely hat. Megan and I about froze on the way home! But it was worth it, because Megan got these gems...

Megan had a whole list of people she needed to get matrioshkas for. She didn't open them all all the way in the store, just picked out some that looked nice on the outside. When we got back and were admiring our goods, I of course felt the need to open them all all the way. Moral of the story: life is rough as the littlest matrioshka. Most had pretty normal faces, though much simpler than their older sisters. However, the last little red matrioshka that I opened might be the homeliest wooden doll ever painted. 

Concerts

My school here has what I consider to be an abnormal number of concerts/talent shows where students perform. Because Jordan is a superstar here, she's always in them. So quite often I end up going, either with the Americans or with my roommate Iuliia. On Thursday I went to one with Iuliia and her friends. This one was a competition with all sorts of categories. There were rappers, singers, music groups, dancers, dance groups... and on and on. It was a very long concert. Some acts were slightly painful to watch. Others were downright amazing.

One of my favorites was a guy who did traditional Russian dancing, like you think of in the Nutcracker. He had on a sailor outfit. His routine was pretty long, and you could tell that he was exhausted because he had little breaks worked into it where he kind of just walked around in circles. But I was still thoroughly impressed. It was kind of the highlight of the concert for me, because it was just so Russian...

The best act was another dancer, a sort of ballerina/ribbon twirler/gymnast who was more flexible than I thought was possible for humans. It was amazing.

Jordan was awesome too, of course. Her act was last and as usual the Russians went crazy. She ended up winning Grand Prize of the whole contest, which was cool and came with a pizza that I too got to enjoy.

A lot of the singers at the concert were the same people I'd seen in other similar concerts, but it was still fun to go! I was also impressed at how relatively well attended these concerts always seem to be. If only we could muster this much excitement this often for concerty things back home! (Sorry I have no pictures for you... you'll just have to take my word for it).

Боулинг

On Friday night we felt like doing something exciting that we hadn't yet done in Russia. As our time here dwindles (I have less than three weeks left!) I feel like there are so many things I want to do here that I haven't gotten around to yet. This weekend was a time to do a few of those things, starting with...

 In case you couldn't guess, боулинг = bouling = bowling. Bowling is kind of a novelty in Russia. When we mentioned it Jenya got very excited about our unique idea. There were several bowling alleys in Vladivostok. The one we ended up going to was very small - it only had four lanes and the lanes started right up against the wall - there wasn't much room for those steps you're supposed to take before you throw the ball. But it was cute!

Russian bowling shoes come with these nice little booties to wear inside them instead of creepy spray afterwards. Bowling shoes everywhere are gross, and they all look the same. We felt right at home!

Of course, one can't go bowling in Russia without drinking a little too. While we were selecting our balls Jenya disappeared and returned with a tray full of shots. This may or may not have affected my bowling game... In Russia you pay for a lane for a period of time (the number of bowlers and number of games is not important). The four of us bowled three games. I got a 101, an 88, and a 129. Dylan won the first two games and I won the last.

The bowling alley was an odd place. We had to go through a little metal detector check to get in. There was a regular pool hall area attached (not abnormal) but then upstairs was a very small club-like area. We checked it out after we were done... but it was mostly just really weird so we left. Quite often in Russia things are kind of lumped together in odd combinations. I like it.

"The Things Russians Say"

Yesterday Megan and I were chatting with Jenya in our usual Russlish. We'd somehow gotten on the topic of AK-47's, because Jenya didn't believe our translation of his Russian word to "machine gun" despite our repeated acting out of shooting a machine gun. So we looked them up on the wonderful world wide web.

Jenya then told us that he'd learned to shoot an AK-47 in high school, where he'd had a class on it. You had to be able to load it fast enough and then shoot it at a man-shaped target. Also in this class he learned how to properly throw grenades. If you didn't throw the grenade far enough, you failed the class. That's probably because if they had been live grenades (they weren't) and you didn't throw them far enough, you would have failed life.

He was really surprised that we didn't have classes like this in America. When he asked why, I just told him that Americans hate guns because they're afraid of them. This confused Jenya, because it's so easy to get a gun in America. You just go in a store and buy it. Here it's a lot harder. But should a Russian with a high school education ever happen to need a gun, he may or may not be prepared to use it... I still haven't quite figured out if Jenya was serious or not. 

A Typical Day in Russia

Ok, so today maybe wasn't typical. But it did feel very Russian.

I woke up this morning and Iuliia pointed out that it was snowing, just a little. During the night a nice white dusting had appeared. It always feels a little bit more Russian to me here when it snows. I spent the morning before I had to go to class doing some homework and looking out my window.

The first very Russian thing I saw was this: a group of boys who looked to be about 15 or so ran out of the building and started having a snowball fight. One of them had forgotten to put his coat on and just had a shirt. The other two were decked out in their jackets. Eventually one of them got a good shot and hit his friend in the neck. They chased each other up the walkway to school and out of sight of my window, where I'm presuming one tackled the other and they tired themselves out. They wandered back looking tired, formed a circle to chat, and pulled out their cigarettes. Classic Russia. I'm mostly used to people smoking now, but it still catches me by surprise every once in a while.

The second very Russian thing happened when I was downtown this afternoon on my way home from eating downtown. It was about 5:00 or so. As we walked through the central square two large fur-hatted policemen walked toward us toting a very drunk old Russian man. Between the two of them they were mostly just kind of lifting and dragging him out of the square. There was no yelling or fighting, just your average street drunk being carted off by policemen.

A note on the policemen: There are a couple different types of policemen around. They're more common to see standing on the street here and you see fewer cop cars. Mostly they just use the cars as roadblocks during rush hour traffic jams. But the great thing about the policemen is their outfits. They wear long coats and big furry stereotypical Russian hats and black gloves. They look so regal and old-fashioned. Especially since they all carry beatsticks, which freaks me out a little bit sometimes. But I've never seen one in action, which is good.

Anyways, I love seeing these odd sights that I know I would never really encounter in America. It's a different world here. Sometimes that's good, sometimes that's bad. It's just the way it is.

День Благодарения

Or, as we say in America... Thanksgiving!

As you might imagine, Thanksgiving's not really a thing in Russia... at all. But we Americans gave it our best shot and went out for family dinner last night. True, we had Georgian food and there was no turkey involved. But we did go around the table and say what we were all thankful for... good food, new friends, and the wacky opportunities we've had here in Russia!

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving (whether or not you celebrate this holiday) filled with good food and better company.

An Afternoon Out

Yesterday after class Megan and I went galavanting about town with two of our Chinese classmates, Sveta and Tolya (yeah... those are just their Russian names). Here's a few photos...

First we got hot chocolate! Yum. Then we hopped on the bus downtown.

We were kind of hunting for souvenir stores, but I got distracted by this pretty little playground...

And park area with arches labeled with what I think might be Vladivostok's sister cities around the world.

Megan and Tolya played on the merry go round.

Here's Sveta and me. She's from Dalian, China, and I'm from... well, not Juneau exactly... but Alaska! Our arches happened to be right next to each other.

Борщ и Блини

I know I might have complained just a smidgeon about Russian food, but I feel the need to add that when done right, Russian food can be absolutely delicious. Today we had another "master class" like the ceramics class we took a couple weeks ago. This time, it was on Russian cooking! We watched as a master chef (who we later learned is one of the best chefs in Russia... I think he might even have a cooking show) prepared borsch and blini. 

You've probably already heard of these Russian foods - they're two of the most common. I had never actually eaten borsch before... and man, was it delicious! Borsch is soup made of (in the order that I saw them go in the pot) cabbage, potatoes, beets, tomatoes, carrots, fried onions, meat, and seasonings including pepper, red pepper, garlic, bay leaves, and dill (Russians love dill). Borsch is usually eaten with a dollop of сметана = smetana = sour cream. Above, you can see my delicious bowl of homemade borsch and dream of its deliciousness. I've had a sore throat for the past few days, and that soup felt mighty good going down.

We also had blini, which are the Russian version of crepes. We watched the masters make a few then we each tried our hand at it... The instructors made it look so easy! My blini was not entirely round but had only one little tear in it, so I considered it a success. At the end of the cooking lesson we were all served an early dinner of the borsch and some blini that had been made earlier and filled (then rolled). One was filled with rice and meat, one with barley and mushrooms, and one with творог = tvorog = kind of like Russian cottage cheese, but creamier. 

It was a fun time, and delicious! I'm still full from it. I dare you to have a better dinner than I did today! 

СНЕГ!

Сегодня шла снег! Снег был красивый и белый. Я очень люблю снег!!!

 ____________________________________________________________

Снег = sneg = snow and it's beautiful and white and I love it.

Город

 I know you're probably yearning to see more of what Vladivostok actually looks like. Well, yesterday I went гулять-ing (= gulyat = the Russian word for just wandering about for the sake of wandering. The Russians are quite fond of this.) with some friends who needed to get to the train station to buy tickets for their Trans-Siberian journey. I, however, just wandered about taking some lovely photos for you. Enjoy!

In the middle of downtown there's a little square of outside markets.

It's starting to get a bit too chilly for outdoor fruits and veggies!

The great thing about being in Russia is that you don't have to wait until after Thanksgiving to start decorating for Christmas! Or, the big winter holiday here, Новый Год.

Eventually we made it to the station. In my opinion, it's one of the pretties buildings in the city. Later after walking around in the chilly outside, we got to warm up with some toasty piroshki from a street vendor. Yum!

The Real Downer...

Tonight I'm going to take a break from my exciting and artistic and culinary life to deliver a little heartfelt post to you all:

I love being in Russia despite all the goofy things that go wrong and all the things that seem weird to me (and maybe even moreso because of these things.) I love the people here and I love the Russian style of living and outlook on life. Everything here seems a little bit more in-the-moment, a little more carefree, and yet thoughtful at the same time. I'm always surprised by the weird mix of characteristics that make up Russians - their love of the countryside paired with their desire to move to larger cities, their academic focus on a specific career and their ability to live a life outside of school. The fact that they have so many odd rules and yet live largely outside of the law. I love it all.

But I feel like no matter how much I learn about Russians they will never really learn very much about me. I feel like language has always been a huge part of my personality. If there's one thing that I think I can do, it's hold my own in a conversation. I can talk fast and use big words and sometimes be a little intimidating with my speech, if I do say so myself. And I honestly think that's a huge part of who I am. So it's really starting to frustrate me here that I can't really convey these things that make me me to the people I meet here. Because I tend to be quite fond of them. Sometimes I'm amazed I have any Russian friends at all when I must look so stupid to all of them. And this might be taking it a little bit far, but I feel like the Russians that I do associate with don't really like me for the reasons I think people should like me for (these being mostly my sharp wit and entertaining speech habits) because those don't really exist here. It's weird.

It's not that I feel like I'm a different person here. It's not that I feel Russia has changed me significantly. It's more that a vital part of me is trapped behind the ever-present language barrier. It's not that I don't have interesting conversations here. (I do.) It's not that people don't like me here. (They do... or at least I think some of them do.) It's just that all of my interactions are like half-interactions where I can only represent the tip of the iceberg that is the intellect of Ithaca.

And that's the most discouraging part. As weird as the food here is, as unreliable as the hot water is, the one thing that I get most homesick for is just conversing with someone unhindered. Not worrying about understanding the words we're saying to each other is a luxury I may never look at the same again.

My Little Ceramic Friends

As previously promised, here's a picture of my little classical Russian toys:

I've been slacking on my mini-blog-Russian-lessons, so this seems like the opportune time. 

First, we have the куритца = kuritsa = chicken. I was disappointed with the painting of the куритца because I really liked it before it was painted. But it's still cute I guess.

Next, there's the лощадь = loshad = horse. The лощадь is my favorite! He's very красный = krasnie = red, and majestic. 

Last we have the рыба = reba (like the country singer) = fish. The fish is technically not really a traditional Russian toy figure like the chicken and the horse. But fish are all over in Russia, so I figured he should count! Never have I seen so many types of dried/smoked/somehow preserved fish in a normal grocery store. I'll take a picture for you all someday.

So there you have it, four new Russian words! Extra points if you can slip them into an everyday conversation just to confuse someone. I do that with English all the time... not to confuse people, but just because I now speak a highly adapted dialect called Russlish that comes from wanting to practice Russian and also trying to make people understand me when I don't know the words for things. But it's better than nothing!

Catch A Car

Before coming to Russia, one thing I was warned about was the "gypsy cab" phenomenon. Basically in Russia a lot of not-actually-cabs will pick people up flagging down a cab. Often in big cities these guys are involved in some illegal trade and can get you into trouble, or charge exorbitant prices... or whatever. But they really only exist in big city nightmares, and Vladivostok isn't a big city at all.

The public transportation shuts down here at about 10pm. There aren't very many cab companies around and it's always a long wait if you call for one. So the normal thing to do here is to stand on the side of the road with your arm out and wait for somebody to pull over. They aren't gypsy cabs at all really - they're just normal people driving about at night on no particular time schedule who are willing to stop and pick people up. They'll roll down their window and ask where you're going. You'll tell them and name your price. Usually we ask if they'll take us to the school for 100 rubles (about $3.00). If we're going somewhere downtown from downtown we'll sometimes find someone who will take us for free. I think it's a pretty effective transportation system, especially in a place where not very many people have cars and the heavily relied-upon public transportation isn't running. For you worry-worts out there: I've never flagged down a car on my own, only in a group. Partly because I don't trust my Russian to haggle down the price, but also because it's always smartest to travel in packs, especially in a foreign city.

So the other night when our Russian friends went to catch a car Jordan and I used the English phrase "catch a car" to describe what they were doing. They loved it. It really is a fun thing to say... so they practiced over and over... "catch a car, catch a car, catch a car..." it was quite entertaining. However, it was one of those classic moments I have here where Russians are so excited to learn English that I never really learn Russian. I'm still not sure how to say the equivalent phrase of "catch a car" in Russian. All I know is that if you stick your arm out into the road eventually some nice Russian will come along and take you and your friend wherever you want to go for cheaper than a taxi will. Thank you Russia.

Life As Usual

[This post is from Wednesday... Russian internet just didn't want you to see it until now.]

Not much to blog about these last couple of days... it's just been a normal week of school. This study abroad program really is heavy on the studying. Many programs through Lewis & Clark are more travel-oriented programs, where students get to galavant about with other kids from LC and see different parts of a country, studying here and there as they go. This language-intensive program is kind of the opposite. You're supposed to get permission to go to neighboring cities (or at least alert someone) and we have 2-3 classes/day. With homework too it gets to be a bit much sometimes, but hopefully the hard work will pay off. Although I know I've mentioned that I haven't made as much progress with Russian language as I'd hoped to, I still like to think that I'm improving a little bit! I think being around the language it's hard not to pick up a few things.

Anyways, tonight I'm going to take the night off from my busy life as a student to go out with my roommate Iuliia. It will probably look something like this:

I guess my advice to you all today is to take a break from your own busy lives and indulge yourselves a little. See the sights, smell the roses, and do the things you love.

As long as we're on the topic...

Looking back, almost all of my recent posts have somehow involved food. So I figured I'd take this opportunity to continue the trend and share with you one of my long-term projects for my time here...

So lots of things in Russia are weird. Not drinking the tap water is weird. Not having a standard side of cars for the steering wheel to be on is weird. The fact that people don't flush their toilet paper but instead put it in little baskets next to the toilet (not because the septic system can't handle toilet paper, but just because) is weird. 

But one of the weirdest things is to see normal American things transformed into weird Russian things. Like, for instance, simple Lays potato chips. They have Lays in Russia, which is cool because I'm a big fan of potato chips. But none of the flavors here are anything you'd even expect might exist in the world. I've been trying my best to sample all the weirdest and most wonderful types during my time here. Here's a few of the highlights:

Alright. I know you want to know how they all were.

Let's take it from the top left and work clockwise.

1) Красная Икра = Kracnaya Ikra = Red Caviar. These chips tasted nothing like caviar, but were rather odd and kind of sweet. They weren't horrible, but weren't my favorite. And I was really disappointed because I wanted them to actually taste like caviar.

2) Бекон = Byekon = Bacon. These are pretty much delicious. They taste like a little bit saltier and less sweet version of American barbecue flavored Lays. A friend told Megan and I that we had to try them when we got a chance because he'd had them... and we were not disappointed.

3) Белые Грибы со Сметаной = Beliye Gribie so Smetanoy = White Mushrooms and Sour Cream = Fail. These were horrible. I could hardly eat them. I love mushrooms... but these were so awful. Ugh.

4) Краб = Krab = Crab! These are my favorite to talk about because they're just so weird. Who would ever decide to make crab flavored chips? Also I love that they come in a pink bag. I feel like a pink bag of Lays would never exist in the US... because what normal chip flavor would possibly be pink? The chips inside this pink bag taste exactly like that fake crab stuff that is really some sort of fish rolled up. When I was a kid my mom would always put it in chef salads and it was decently tasty but mostly I liked to unroll it and turn it into a giant zigzag. Anyways, imagine that flavor plus potato chip. I think they were actually pretty good once you got past the initial shock. Others had mixed opinions. Some people thought they were awful. Perhaps it was my fond memories of salads past and my love of the pink packaging with a cute little crab on it that made me like the chips... I don't know. All this taste testing is hard work!

P.S. Although I've tried all the weirdest flavors, there are more odd Lays out there... stay tuned for further culinary updates.

HAMBURGER

For dinner last night Megan, Jordan, and I treated ourselves to a humongous delicious greasy real American burger at the Irish pub. I'm not sure if it's because I was starved for real food or just because it was an awesome burger, but it was one of the most delicious burgers I've ever eaten in my life! It had cheese as well as some magical sauce and some sort of bacon/ham hybrid too. Yummmmmm...

While we were waiting for our food three Russian men sat down at the table next to us. The noticed we were Americans so of course they wanted to chat. These particular Russians were really into Native Americans, and flipped out when Megan said she lived near reservations and knew about Jeronimo.

When our food came, we wolfed down our burgers like savages... and the Russian men asked why we were eating such horrible food! We were shocked. This was delicious food. We told them that it was like American food and we wanted food from our homeland. The guys were really excited for us to try Russian food (which we clearly already have) and enthusiastically bought us a plate of something that I forgot the name of. It was basically strips of raw but smokey-flavored salmon that we put lemon juice and pepper on and ate with black bread. Not going to lie, it was delicious. But we had already eaten a burger and had a beer......

I was SOOO FULLLLLLL. It was ridiculous. But worth it. This was probably the most satisfying meal I've had since being here. Often food in restaurants here comes in reasonable sized portions and I missed ordering something and having an impossibly huge plate of food delivered to me like always happens in America. The Russian admonished us that hamburgers are the reason Americans are fat... but we said they were delicious. And really, for the night, that was all that mattered!

Сок

While drinking my orange juice this morning I turned the carton around to be greeted by these two jokers....

This kid on the top... man. This wouldn't even fly as an acceptable school picture back in my day... and here he is on the back of a juice carton! It reminded me of in Tom & Jerry when the little girl's picture is on the back of the milk carton... except that instead of being lost these kids are talking about how much they love fruit.

And let me tell you, this guy ^^^ loves fruit!

The carton roughly translates to: Why do I love Fruit Garden?

Because delicous! (They don't really use articles in Russian).

The little girl's reason is something like: For beautiful fruits.

As you drink your juice this morning from a boring carton with no goofy children's pictures on it, ponder the many reasons that you love сок (pronounced sock). 

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In case you didn't figure it out from the contextual clues, COK = sock = juice.

Керамика

Ah, керамика... one of my favorite Russian words. Because it is the word for one of my favorite things in the world... ceramics!

Yesterday after all our regular classes, the American students met for a "Ceramics Master Class." I was SO EXCITED. For those hapless readers of my blog who do not know how fully obsessed with ceramics I am, I'm telling you now. I love it. Adore it. Dream of it.

Our adventure began with a descent into the bowels of the dormitory building, down to the basement floor where the laundry room is located. There, we opened an unmarked door and wonder of wonders, a tiny ceramics room was hidden inside! Who knew it had been hiding underneath my bedroom (a few stories below, but close) all along! It was wondrous! Anyways, we met with a ceramics master maker of traditional Russian toys/figures. She gave us a quick demo then we set to work making our own traditional Russian toys. I made a little horse, a little chicken, and a little fish.

Sadly, I took no pictures. Here's a picture I borrowed from the school website, though. Megan and Dylan, my LC pals, are hard at work. They each made a woman, like the one you can see in the foreground.

We made our figurines and left them there to be fired. Next week we'll go back and paint them all pretty traditional Russian-y. It felt so good to have my hands covered in clay again, and we all had a blast playing around with mud. Everyone's stuff turned out really good, too! I can't wait until my next journey back to this magical transient land hidden next to the laundry room and filled with strange figures. It's like a clay-dusty Russian Narnia. 

Выбор

Привет всем! -- Priviet vcem!

That means "hello all" in Russian. I'm going to try to incorporate more Russian phrases in my blogs so you can learn along with me! Feel free to practice at home with your friends. I guess I should give you the real Russian to look at and also the phonetic spellings... the title of this blog post is "Vibor." I won't tell you what it means... hopefully you'll be able to figure it out from the great story I'm about to tell.

So as you all (hopefully) know, yesterday was the election for the next president of the United States of America. You may have listened to it on the radio, watched the live election coverage from the comfort of your couch, or just heard the results on the morning news (depending on how invested you were). What do Americans stranded far from American news in Vladivostok, Russia do? Why, we get fancy invitations to watch the election at the consulate of course!

On Wednesday afternoon after our classes we donned our warm coats, gathered together and got on a bus to head to the consulate for the second time. It was COLD out, as it has been in Russia. But we didn't have to wait long (just long enough for a security check!) before we were in the nice warm consulate munching on snacks and watching the elections (live coverage!) on a big projector screen. It was extra fun because we kept switching between networks and the consulate people were coloring in their own map of how states voted. Interactive elections!

There were some Russian students there who we had met at a "round table discussion" in our RFE class. They'd held a mock election for non-US citizens at the consulate election party, and it seems Russians really love Obama. Of 53 voters 49 voted for Obama. Poor Romney. Anyways, it was nice to chitchat with new American friends and thoughtful English-speaking Russians. Even though I'm not super politically informed, it was neat to see people of all nationalities, ages, and occupations come together for an event.

It will probably be one of my fondest memories of an election. Partly because it was actually enjoyable, and partly because... well, how many people can say they watched the US presidential election from Vladivostok, Russia?

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Выбор = Vibor = Election. Literally means "choice."