TL

When I was in high school, we often complained of having little to do. On chilly afternoons when nobody really wanted to walk on the beach and we had nowhere to go, we would partake in the time-honored tradition known as TLs. 

Nobody knows who invented the Town Lap, but it is a popular pastime (literally done for no other purpose than to pass time) amongst the teens of Homer, Alaska. A full town lap takes about seven minutes, or half an hour if you include the spit. TLs are a way to admire the beauty around you, chat with those you enjoy spending time with and, eventually, connect with someone else doing the same thing so that with your combined brain power you can come up with a more productive use of your time.

Why, you ask, am I reminiscing about the good old days of town laps when I am so far from the quaint two-lane streets of Homer? Because today I took time out from my busy schedule to do what everyone should do when visiting a new city - a Town Lap.

Of course, because this is Russia and I blunder about with minimal grace, I didn't engage in this TL on purpose. After class and an afternoon nap, I talked Megan into coming with me for a quick trip downtown to the grocery store. As we exited the store, the bus that runs fairly irregularly but stops at the front doors of our school (as opposed to across the highway, where the other bus stops) pulled up. I suggested we get on it, as we had never ridden it before. Ah, the naivete. 

So the bus was really crowded. And we had groceries. And it stopped at a place near our school, but we figured it would be silly to shove our way out the door there only to walk down the hill to school. Because, I mean, the point of taking this bus is that it would drop us directly at our destination.

However, instead of making the left-hand turn we expected it to, the bus traveled further and further away from the center of the city. I didn't really mind though - we were seeing the beautiful snow-sprinkled hills of Vladivostok, the sun was setting and the sky was all kinds of pink, and we had groceries to snack on. I knew there was a reason TLs were so popular.

Soon the bus wasn't so crowded anymore. Then all of a sudden the bus was empty. The bus driver turned to us and asked, in Russian, "Girls, where are you going?" "To VGUES...?" we replied. As with most things I say in Russian, it was more a question than a statement. He nodded and continued to drive. Alright, I thought, we'll be there soon. But then the bus pulled into a bus lot, parked, the driver turned the bus off, and exited the bus to go chat up his other bus driver friends.

At this point we had been on the bus for about 45 minutes/an hour. We were tired. It was past dinner time and Megan had plans to go to dinner and then a basketball games with friends. People started calling us. Where were we? When would we be back for dinner? Those were both very good questions...

So yeah, we got a little freaked out when the bus stopped and it was getting dark out and we had no clue where we were. I apologized profusely to Megan for suggesting we get on the silly adventurous bus when all I really wanted were some groceries. The bus driver may have sensed our anxiety, because he came to talk to us. We talked about his family, living in Russia, what things were like in the US, all the normal things Russians want to talk about. It was kind of nice. It reduced my hysteria. He never really told us how long it would be until we finally got to VGUES, but he seemed to think that we would get there eventually if we continued to sit on his bus. So we did.

Eventually the bus started moving and we headed back toward town. By now it was dark so I really had no idea where we were. Our new friend the bus driver wanted to add us as friends on facebook. He warned us when our stop was coming and refused to let us pay for the bus ride. Which was nice. We got back to the dorms about three hours after we left. Longest grocery trip ever.

It wasn't the type of TL I'm used to, and it was a rather stressful end to an all-around exhausting day. Bus mix-ups happen to everyone. (I consoled myself with a memory of one particularly long bus misadventure in Washington. Knowing that even in a country where you speak the language you can go on accidental town laps gave me hope that I might still be able to survive in Russia despite this minor setback). 

Really though, our bus "adventure" wasn't all that bad. Probably the worst thing to come out of it is that next time I need groceries it will be really hard to convince Megan to come with me. Good thing I'm stocked up for a while!

Wonderland!

Yesterday morning I woke up and what should I find...

WINTER had come overnight!

It was too cool. Kind of cold, actually. But I feel like in less than a week it went from being warm summery weather to a half an inch of snow that stuck! Public transportation went nuts because all the buses clambered to get their winter tires changed. People skidded about. Somehow they managed to plow the roads, because there's still dirty snow left in the ditches today. 

Most importantly, it felt like winter. It smelled like winter. My breath left little puffs in the air like every breath should at the end of October. Everything felt fresher; the air felt airier and the people felt merrier. It felt like I imagined Russia would feel. It was wonderful.

Also, yesterday Renee, the coordinator of our study abroad program, visited Vladivostok. She took all us Americans out to dinner. We went to a Korean restaurant we've been talking about going to for a long time - it's actually owned by the North Korean government. I don't know much about Korean food, but I thought it was great and it was a very fun night. Of course, that might just be my leftover giddiness from the morning's snow talking...

The Circus

One beautiful day in Vladivostok, a group of Americans went to the circus.

 

...And do you know what they have at the circus?

POP

CORN!!!

I mean, they have other things there too I guess. Including, but not limited to:

• The "Tanzania Boys," a slightly racist and oddly provocative group of four African acrobats/dancers. They were very good at stacking themselves on top of one another in various combinations.
• A strong man whose feats were not so much strong but more painful... For instance, he bent a piece of rebar by resting one end against his chest and the other end against his two assistants, then ramming it with his whole body.
• Seven of the saddest camels I've ever seen. I almost cried.
• A beautiful pair of trapeze swingers.
• The oddest act, where a man emerged from a stage/box made to look like a pair of bell bottoms dressed like Elvis. He juggled those juggling sticks, but the stick he tossed was decorated to look like an electric guitar. This strange man also did a crazy balancing act on top of the pants/stage, during which he fell off. It was mildly terrifying. But in the Russian circus you have to try, try, again until you get your trick right. He tried twice more before he perfected it. 
• An act comprised of a couple who blew giant bubbles under rainbow lights. It was more entertaining than you think it would be. They blew some really big bubbles. Then they got a little girl from the audience and blew a bubble around her. She freaked out. In a good way. It was cute.
• Two clowns who were mildly entertaining sometimes. The best part of the clown acts was one gig where they pantsed each other, and one clown had on underwear that said "Любовь" on them, which means love in Russian. I turned to Danielle, who's just learning to read Russian, and jokingly asked, "What does that say!?" I always ask her to read things. She took it very seriously and stared long and hard at the clown's butt trying to sound out the word. 
• Two very well-trained elephants who did some cute tricks. Whoever said elephants don't have knees lied, I saw them climb up and down off their little elephant pedestals with my own two eyes!

It definitely wasn't the biggest circus, like we'd heard rumors it was. But it was pretty entertaining. And I made friends with an elephant, so that was neat.

Here's Danielle and I with our new elephant friends. The one to my left is named Jenny. She rubbed her trunk against me as we were taking this picture and I could feel her trunk hairs prickling me through my sweatshirt sleeve. Weird!

Picasso

This sunny little alley might not look like much, but one afternoon we discovered that it is in fact a portal to a magical world of wonderful art!

The alley led us to an art gallery where a Picasso exhibit was going on. You probably think Picasso's work looks something like this:

However, this was the only "traditionally Picasso" piece in the collection. It was a private collection on display, and it mostly consisted of sketches and smaller Picasso works. They looked more like this:

  This piece (L) was my favorite..............This one (R) was very creative.

It was really cool that we were allowed to take photos... but there was a lot of glare because of the interesting lighting in the gallery. It looked like this, with a long line of little paintings/drawings all the way around the room. 

The gallery director noticed us speaking English, and was very excited to tell us all about the Picasso collection (in Russian) as well as give us a tour of the gallery's permanent collection

Did you know Picasso was also a ceramicist? 

(R): This is why I love art. Because a guy named Picasso can make a rough slab like this and a collector will later pay hundreds of dollars for it. (Incidentally, the most expensive piece in the collection was a small vase with a woman on it that was worth either $600,000 or $1,000,000 - I can't remember which of those was the dollar amount. The director told us the price in some other currency.)

(L): This was my very favorite piece. It's a little bowl about five inches in diameter and four inches deep. The outside is flat black and there's this wonderful cricket relief inside. If I owned this bowl I would eat breakfast out of it every morning then return it to a place of honor as the centerpiece of my kitchen. In fact, I would probably design my kitchen around this bowl. It's that great.

Here we are, chatting it up with the director. Notice the lighting. Unorthodox, but a great space!

I was inspired, and returned home to make my own art. I call them, "Sad Window Lad" and "Woebegone Window Woman". Megan and I were slightly traumatized when my once-happy window people started crying from over-condensation. But, we figured, it's art. Just go with it.

Georgian Restaurant

Here we are on the bus on the way to the Georgian restaurant the other night. We had a nice Russian lady take our picture for us.

You can kind of see in the background that the buses here have really great little curtains around the tops of the windows. It's pretty fancy.

Mmmm, delicious Georgian restaurant! In all honesty I probably will go back there, even though my stomach didn't have too much fun. 

A Whirlwind Weekend

Hello there world,

This weekend has been a flurry of wonderful adventures which I look forward to sharing with you in greater detail soon! For now my internet is being slow and I can't download pictures, so I'll just give you a quick overview so you don't feel like we're losing touch too much.

Friday we Americans went downtown to have Georgian food for dinner. The restaurant was cute, reasonably priced, yummy, and after our appetizers it turned into a dance hall as well. A festive time was had by all!

Afterwards, we met up with some Russian friends and hung out at a bar downtown. Miles, Cameron, and I had plans to head to Russki Island in the morning so we left at a reasonable hour and barely managed to convince the door guards at the university to let us in (we were after curfew). Luckily, they took pity on us poor Americans. I chatted with Megan and Jenya (Russian) for a bit then tried to rest up for the next morning's adventure.

My attempts were unfortunately stymied by a freak bout of food poisoning, which led to a very disheartened blog post last night during my recovery. But at 9:30 this morning I was bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and ready to go!

Miles, Cameron, our Russian friend Inna, and I went downtown and took the ferry (about a 45 min ride) to Russki Island. It is very rural and quaint, and we wandered about through old coal plants, a quiet little monastery, and an abandoned factory. We bought some really good fresh honey and milk. We walked along the beach until Megan and Jenya met up with us (they drove to the island), and Cameron and I headed back to the mainland for a nap.

This evening I had a lovely dinner with Danielle and Alouna (whose name I finally figured out how to spell in English). The waiter was very patient with Danielle's lack of Russian and we tried to teach her how to ask for the check in Russian to impress him. This sadly failed. We'll have to practice a little more.

Tonight we watched a Russian movie and finally got to eat POPCORN! I LOVE POPCORN! Up until now, I have had no way to make popcorn because I can only find microwave popcorn and there are only stoves and sinks in the kitchen. However, Jenya has a microwave in his room (illegal in the dorms... don't tell!) and he let me borrow it. It's good to have Russian friends!

Tonight I'm going to bed full and happy (my stomach feels fine thank you very much!) and excited that tomorrow we're going to try to go to the Russian circus. It's apparently the biggest circus in the world. And I've never been to a circus!

The unfortunate part of having such a great weekend is that my homework is piling up. Sometimes I forget that I'm here to study too, not just have great Russian experiences! Tonight I would like to encourage you all to follow my questionable example; throw responsibility to the wind and take advantage of any opportunities you may find floating in the breeze. 

Bleh.

On a list of not-so-charming things about Russia, I would like to add cockroaches and food poisoning. I ran into both tonight. Bleh.