A Few Words

Hello again my wonderful blog followers,

Looking back on my posts of late, I feel you may be overwhelmed with photos and perhaps wondering more about what I actually think of the city, not just how things (and how I) look here.

So, here is a post of solely words to clear up some of the things you may be wondering about. Or perhaps to introduce ideas you've never even really considered. These organic thoughts may lack organization, but should overflow with entertainment value.

First off, I would like to remark on how terrifying Russian drivers are. This weekend Megan, Dylan, and I went on a road trip to the country with our new Russian friends (TEASER ALERT! A post about this with many pictures to follow). Anyways, the road trip really cemented my thoughts on Russian drivers. Bus drivers, taxi drivers, and regular people with cars all drive like escaped convicts running from the law. I think I've already mentioned that in Russia there's no standard of which side steering wheels are on in the cars. Also, Russian drivers pay little attention to lines on the roads. Wherever they see a space their vehicle might fit through, they race through it. Instead of keeping a moderate speed, Russian drivers are very jerky. They stop and start and honk their horns and go a million miles an hour over bumps and train tracks and all manner of obstacles. If I die in Russia, it will most likely be from riding in a vehicle. That or drinking the water (which I of course don't do).

So there was a nice little rant.

Next I will tell you about Russian food. So yesterday I was in the kitchen cooking dinner (chicken and potatoes). Our good Russian friend Liana was with Danielle (another American) cooking their dinner. They're on a diet together, so Liana was cooking them healthy Russian food. First she fried some little hotdog-like chunks in a pan. Then she added cabbage and let it steam. There was a lot more cabbage than hot dog... healthy, right? Then when it was almost done she added a cup of Russian sour cream (called smetana). Healthiness = out the door. That's pretty much the story of Russian food. There's so much mayonaise and sour cream and whatever in it that it kind of loses its health value. Russian food involves a lot of dill, which I love. There's a lot of fish here because Vladivostok is a coastal city. A lot of the time it's easy to get good seafood here and not too expensive. Good meat is harder to come by. Random things are really hard to find like tortilla chips or salsa. Other things have become staple parts of my diet like spreadable cheese. Good Russian cooking is delicious, but the cafeteria on campus has a fairly small collection of mediocre food. I am excited to start cooking my own food and went downtown to buy a pan today but the store was sadly closed. I'll go again tomorrow. Also, the dorm kitchens are strangely devoid of ovens and microwaves, which further complicates things. But a lot of kids in the dorms cook and in the evenings the halls always smell delicious.

It's finally starting to cool down here - highs in the mid-sixties and last night it got down to freezing (but just barely). I'm ready for it to feel like fall, which is my favorite season. The leaves are falling, but that crisp cool fall air hasn't quite arrived yet.

My classes are ok - I don't love them but I also don't hate them. Sometimes they're horribly hard and sometimes they're pretty easy. The subject matter itself isn't difficult to grasp; I just have an awful vocabulary and it's sometimes hard for me to understand directions or questions as I hear them without pausing to look up words in my pocket dictionary (which I take with me everywhere). That book is probably the single most useful thing I brought with me.

Alright... that's a lot of writing for right now and I'm feeling sleep creep into the corners of my eyes (that works the same in Russia as it does in America. I hope you enjoyed this piece of my mind. If you, my lovely blog readers, have any comments or things you would like to know about Vladivostok feel free to comment here or on facebook (since I don't think you can comment without a google account). Also, sometime when my internet connection is working a little better I'll upload pictures and tell some stories from this lovely past weekend at a Russian vacation home.

I hope this post finds each and every one of you happy and well and enjoying the beauty of fall. Goodnight.