Last Day in Russia

Today I took a train to St. Petersburg. I left around 8am and arrived around 11:30am.

I took a taxi to the hotel, but since check-in was not until 2pm, I left my bags and walked around the city.
I went to the artillery museum, which I enjoyed a lot. I then walked some more, took the metro, walked again, and got back to the hotel. I finally got my room and went out again.

I didn't really know what to do, so I first got some food. I later kept walking and found a movie theatre. I bought a ticket and saw a french movie (in Russian of course). Amazingly, I understood the plot and laughed a lot. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like the movie is going to come out in the USA. I found the IMDB entry for it here: http://imdb.com/title/tt0482088/ . It is called Hors de Prix or in Russian, Роковая Красотка.

Hopefully tomorrow I won't have any problems at the airports, if I do, I will sure write about them here.

Last Day in Novgorod

Yesterday was my last day of work. Other than that, all I did was buy a few gifts for people.

Today is my last full day in Novgorod. Unfortunately for me, this trip has almost come to an end. It seems like it all happened very fast. I can't believe 50 days can feel like 5. Well, I can believe it, I just don't want to.

I packed most of my things already, but as always, I will not be done packing until one minute before I have to leave tomorrow morning. I will be taking a train to St. Petersburg tomorrow morning. I will probably go to a museum, stay in a hotel overnight, and finally go to the airport Sunday morning.

Today I woke up at 8am, which was pretty good considering I haven't slept very well in a while. I had breakfast and went out around the city. I had originally planned to buy a specific item, but then I couldn't find the store, so I kept walking around. I had a few ice creams and discovered an interesting flavor of the frito lays chips. I saw the pink packaging and bought it just to see what it tasted like, the flavor is crab. I don't know who thought it would be a good idea to have crab flavored potato chips, but I definitely didn't like them. I took a picture I will later put online.

I was probably walking around for 4 hours. I went to a few stores and bought some more gifts. The reason I spent more time than I had planned was that they closed off one of the main avenues in the city. I had walked to a store in the middle not realizing the buses weren't going there. When I got out of the store and headed for the bus stop to take the bus home, I realized there were no cars in the street. I walked for about half an hour before I was able to get a bus home, which was only one bus stop away.

Now I have to continue packing or doing whatever else I need to do before tomorrow...

August 15

Sorry for not posting as often as before, I have been quite busy over the last few days. I spent some time yesterday getting my reservation for a hotel in St. Petersburg. I will go there Saturday morning. As expected, I didn't buy anything yesterday. I did walk around a mall to see what was there though.

This morning I woke up at 7am without my alarm clock. Since it has been rather warm, I am forced to leave my room windows open to let the cool air in, unfortunately, this also lets the sounds from all the cars, trucks, buses, people, and everything else on the street. Since I started going to work at 10am instead of 9am yesterday, I realized I have to take different buses. Somehow I manage to pick the only route that changes with the time of day to go to work. Now I have to get on a similar bus, get off at another stop, and switch buses. I guess that's fine because I only have one more day of work.

After work I decided to go buy some stuff. I got myself an ice cream (which are great here) and walked across the bridge to the other side of the river. I found the store my sister had recommended and bought what I went there to get. I then proceeded to take strange buses to random bus stops that eventually led me home. Tomorrow I will have to be more careful. I have a bus pass that allows me unlimited travel in buses and trolleys, but it expires today. From now on, it is 10 rubles per ride. It's not much, but I much rather buy an ice cream than get on the wrong bus and have to pay.

I also found out that my sister is finally in London. The only problem is that her luggage is in Finland, and it might stay there for a few days. I hope she will do ok with what she has. I know she has friends in London that will help her out. The family is very worried though.

Hopefully after work tomorrow I will finish buying what I need and I will be able to relax on Friday.

Less Work

Today I showed up to work only to find out there was no new group of students. I was really looking forward to meeting new people. Since only the supervisors and the locals were there, we didn't do a lot of heavy work. We mostly cleaned and measured everything for the pictures and drawings. They later told me that for the rest of the week, work was starting at 10am, not 9am, which was a nice change. I will only work for three more days, so it's not really a problem.

After work, I showered and ate lunch with the family. As usual, we all argued because me and my sister don't always want a lot of food, which is always given to us. I have resorted to pulling my plate from the table when they want to serve me more food, they still laugh when I do it. I also had a cappuccino, but without the coffee. (I just thought that would be an interesting fact.) We later exchanged email addresses and things like that because it is the last day everyone is here. Hopefully we will stay in contact.

Tomorrow I have to get myself to go buy all the things I have put off until the last week. For example: Pretty much everything. I bought a bottle of vodka and a Russian flag, but that's it. I also need to figure out exactly what to get. I asked my family where to get some of the things, so that shouldn't be a problem. I can't really write what I am buying because I rather it be a surprise to the lucky person(s) who get it.

Last Full Sunday

Today I woke up fairly early, even thought I went to bed late. I spent some time on the computer while the rest of the family woke up. I didn't really do anything interesting. I listened to music, read some stuff, and relaxed.

Later in the evening, two of my sisters friends came over and we all had a nice dinner. My sister cooked some Swedish dishes, which were very good, and we later had cake and ice cream. They talked about many things, I didn't really understand most of them, but every once in a while something would make sense. When they ask me questions I don't understand, I am usually able to answer them after a quick hint in English, but I was so tired, I didn't know when they were talking to me. It was pretty funny when I heard someone say something and then everyone stops talking and looks at me. I do know how to say “You were talking to me?” in Russian, so at least I can ask. We ended up talking about Facebook and mySpace and I tried explaining in Russian why Facebook was better, but failed miserably. I also found out there is a Russian clone of Facebook, which was pretty funny.

Later at night, my sister started worrying about packing and didn't know what the allowed weight was for the luggage. After several minutes of looking in FinnAir's website, we realized it was printed on the airplane ticket. They only allow 20 Kg for checked bags, which I don't think is much. Let's just say that my sister wasn't happy, but oh well, what can we do?

Pictures

Today we found some interesting artifacts at the archaeological dig. I found some sort of carved wood thing, we didn't know what it was, but they said it was important. One of my digging partners also found a frying pan, which was very interesting. It was pretty much a round piece of metal but the fact that it is from 1000 years ago, makes it very interesting.

After work, I went home and had dinner. During a dinner conversation, we started talking about my family, and the grandma said she wanted to see pictures of my family. I brought my laptop and started showing her. Later, my host mother came and sat down. After some time, the grandma left, and later, my sister showed up. After my host mom left, I kept going with some pictures of Mexico, Miami, Rochester, etc... Around 12:30am we decided to continue tomorrow and go to sleep. It was very nice to spend time with the family, the pictures always cause conversations to start, and I get to practice my Russian. I still need to work on the words for nephew and niece, which I keep confusing with the words for a traditional Russian meal.

Stupid Fish

Yesterday was not very eventful, except for the stupid fish. I was going through the dirt (wearing my dish washing gloves) and felt a sharp sting on one finger. It ends up that a sharp fish bone broke through the glove and stung my finger. The top broke and stayed in my finger. It took me about 10 minutes to get it out. Now whenever I grab anything, it hurts. I hope I don't get some 1000 year old disease from the thing, that sure would confuse doctors.

Today I figured out the fastest possible way from my house to the work site. After two weeks of looking at different bus routes and calculating the shortest walking distance to and from the bus stops, I can now say there is no better route. It will only help me for a week and a half, but oh well...

Rain = No Work

So it rained a lot on Saturday... It was sunny on Sunday and today. I arrived to work around 8:30am and saw several puddles on the ground. I figured that was nothing and waited for the rest of the people to arrive. When they did, the supervisors said to come back at 2:30pm. I went back home, listened to some music, ate my lunch, and went on the computer.

I then went to work and found nothing cool. After work I went home again and had some dinner. Now I'm here talking to my friend from Kazakhstan on Skype, which is totally awesome because I hadn't talked to her in a while. And she also helped me write some emails in Russian, so I don't mess up too bad.

Food

Yesterday (Saturday) was pretty uneventful, so I will not wire a blog post for it.

My host family has been asking me to cook some Mexican food. I only know how to make a few things, and getting the ingredients is pretty darn hard. I asked my real parents for some recipes over the phone, so they gave me a few. I asked my host family about some of the ingredients I would need for certain recipes. Some were in the dictionary, but they had never hear of them, and some were just impossible to translate, even using the Internet.

I found out there is a large supermarket a few bus stops away from my house, so this morning I got on a bus and went there. I found limes (which are impossible to get anywhere else for some reason), some cheese I think might be ok, and some tortilla resembling bread. When I got home, I made some lemonade with the lime juice, water, and tons of sugar. Then I found out that the grandma can't eat sugar, which apparently I missed the whole time I have been here. They liked it, which was a step in the right direction, I have no idea what else I'm going to make.

In the afternoon, I also bough a Teflon frying pan. I showed the grandma and told her my mom loves those. She thought it was for my mom, but when I said that it was a gift from my mom, she stood up and had a very happy look on her face. Hopefully they will enjoy it, at least they won't have to use as much butter and oil when they cook on it.

Today I woke up around 7:30am thanks to the sun (and my allergies), so hopefully I will sleep well because I have work tomorrow.

Another Day (I'm out of ideas)

So I didn't really get much rest last night.
After I posted the last blog entry, I was called to the kitchen to have some drinks and snacks.
Another guest came in, a young guy who I later found out was a friend of the family. He spoke Swedish too, so I had no idea what was happening. He also spoke perfect English, so I was able to talk later. Again, we had vodka and the ladies had some other drink. I'm glad the vodka bottle was not full to start with because they wouldn't take no for an answer. I ended up going to bed around 12am again.

Today I woke up as usual and went to work. I found some cool bones and a big claw, which I thought was pretty cool. My partner found an amber ornament, which was quickly taken by the supervisors. I went to lunch to a nice restaurant with two other friends and had some really good meat with cheese and vegetables. I later tried to get ice cream before heading back to work, but apparently the store closed from 2:30pm to 3:00pm, so I was out of luck. Instead, a friend bought some kvas for me to try, it wasn't as bad as I expected.

The second half of the day was not as eventful, I didn't find any interesting things.
I wonder if there will be another impromptu dinner at 10:30pm tonight. I guess you will find out tomorrow...

First Real Day of Work

Today I woke up around 7am as usual. I showered and had breakfast as usual. I went down to the bus stop and almost got into the wrong bus. I forgot I had to go straight to work, and I was getting on the one to school.

I arrived to work around 8:40am, and since work starts at 9am, I had some time to relax.
I worked until 1pm (With 10 minute breaks every hour) and went to lunch with some friends. We got back around 2:30pm to start work again. I didn't find anything very interesting today, most of the time I spent cleaning for pictures. During the last few hours, when I got to dig, I found several animal jaws, with the teeth still in them, and other cool animal bones. We also dug many pieces of ceramic pots, but those are very common.

Now I'm back home and I am exhausted, time to rest!

Last Day of Class

Today I went to school and took my final exam. I'm not sure how I did, but I don't think it was bad.
After class I went to work and arrived around 12pm. I worked for an hour and then had the lunch break. I went with some of my Russian co-workers to some underground cafeteria in a government building. I don't know how they found it, but the food is good and not expensive. After lunch, we went back to work.

Around 6pm we got out of work. I headed to a restaurant where we had the dinner with all the people that came to study here. Most of them are leaving on Friday. I had some stuffed chicken (At least that's what I think it was.) and other good stuff. We finished around 9:30pm I believe.

When I got home, I was invited to eat some apple pie and something else. The apple pie looked like a pizza from far away, I learned it was a big mistake to actually say what I saw. I hope I didn't offend my sister too bad...

I later found out that the ladies from Sweden spoke English very well and one of them a little Spanish. We spent a few hours learning Swedish/Spanish/Russian and figuring out what we were all saying, it was a lot of fun. I ended up going to bed around 12am, which wasn't too bad.

More New Friends

This morning I was faced with the same problem as before, I wanted a 21 ruble water bottle but only had a 500 bill. Instead of making the lady have to go get tons of change, I bought a bottle of vodka and a water bottle so that I would get less change. I wanted to get some Russian vodka to take home as a gift, so it really was not a waste of money, not to mention it is very cheap here.

After school today I went to the same restaurant from yesterday. This time I had two things that seemed a lot like empanadas. One filled with cheese and the other with meat, they were delicious. I also had a margarita for no reason at all and it was very good. My friend had some macaroni and cheese, which I thought was pretty funny.

When I got to the dig, I had to look for the supervisor so he could assign some location to me, and I also had to ask me to put me with Russian students. There is an American student from my program that is also working there, and they wanted to put us together, so I told them that we want to learn Russian and they split us up. I met more people from the Moscow group, they were very nice and talkative, so I got to practice a lot.

Also, two of my host sister's friends from Sweeden are here, which is pretty cool, except that I don't undertstand a thing they say...

Tomorrow I have a final exam, so I guess I should be studying...

New People at Work

After Russian class today, I headed straight to work. I got there around 12:45pm so they told me to come back at 2:30pm. There is an hour and a half break at 1pm, so it was pointless to start working then. I walked around the kremlin and then decided to get some food at a small restaurant near the dig. I was there for a while and around 2:15pm, I headed back to work.

When I got there, I saw a large group of people arrive, one of the supervisors said they were a group of students from Moscow. We didn't start working right away because they had to explain what to do to the new people, so they told me to start working alone. After a few minutes a guy and a girl from the group walked over and introduced themselves in English. I introduced myself in Russian, and they said they understood English just fine. I explained that the only reason I'm there is to learn the language, so after that we only used English when I didn't know how to say something or when the supervisors spoke very fast. Unfortunately, I forgot their names, I guess I can ask them again tomorrow. They will be here for two weeks, so hopefully I'll meet some more.

I worked until about 6:15pm and headed home. I was given an insane amount of food for dinner, which I initially refused, but later came to an agreement and ate it. My host family always gives me too much to eat, always more than they eat themselves, and since I don't like being rude, I eat it, but enough is enough. I hope they understand that I don't want to eat massive amounts of food, and if they don't, I guess I'll have to stop eating it.

Ok Sunday

Yesterday I forgot to take my allergy suppressing medicine (Claritin) and, as expected, I woke up around 6:15am sneezing and with an itchy nose. I have really bad dust allergies, and just sitting in my room, I can see the particles float around. It's very dusty, but when I take claritin, I can manage.

After showering, I stayed in my room for an hour or two so I wouldn't wake the family up. Around 9, we had breakfast. After breakfast I went to my room and took out my map of the city. I found some streets that looked interesting and planned a small walk to get there. I left the house around 10am. The streets were pretty empty, but as I got further away I started seeing more people. I walked into a movie theater and saw the posters of the movies they are playing. Maybe I was looking in the wrong place because I only saw two Harry Potter posters and another one advertising some sort of zombie-horror film in 3D, which should be interesting.
I kept walking, saw several stores, walked in to all the open markets I could find. Some of the fruit stands have things I have never seen before, but not a single one of them has mango. For some reason I decided to look for mangoes everywhere, I guess I was bored. I still haven't asked any of the fruit vendors if they know where to get them, I might try that next week. I later managed to go to some interesting neighborhoods, the kind that makes me feel uneasy to walk through. I ran into a train station and decided to go the other way. I got back to the main street I was on before and went into a pharmacy to buy some latex gloves for work.
I forgot how to say gloves in Russian, so tried describing them to the sales lady. After I realized it was pointless, I took out the ones I used last week, they were full of dirt and ripped, she laughed. I then decided to head home, while looking for mangoes in other markets of course... I ended up buying some marshmallow-like things that looked good, but only after a few minutes of misunderstanding with the salesperson. She put them on the scale and pointed at the price, it said 2.55 p., So I took out a few coins to pay her. She said no and repeated the price. I heard twenty something this time, but the price on the scale said 2.55 p., so I tried to explain to the lady. She ended up writing down the number manually, apparently the decimal point was wrong on the machine, but how was I supposed to know?

I got back around 11:30am. I read another chapter of my Russian history book, went on the computer for a little, and later took about an hour long nap. After I woke up, we had some stuffed peppers for lunch (I would have never guessed that they taste good!) and some other things. Next I went to another store to buy sunblock for work. You may think that the sun is not strong here, but after seeing that my feet have lines because of the sunburn and my sandals, I decided to take care. I'm going to be working from 9-6 in the sun every day, I hate when my skin peels. I also bought another movie, and this time I did get the real, not pirated version. I asked to see it, but the sales lady took out another one that was half the price, and told me I should get that one. I tried to explain I want the legitimate version, but I have no idea how to say that, so I just kept saying I wanted the other one until she understood.

I think I have test tomorrow, but I'm not quite sure what it is on. I'm going to check my notebook to see if I wrote it down somewhere. So that's it for today.

Weddings

Today (Saturday) was a very interesting day. I woke up about 10 times from 6am to 9am, when I finally decided to get out of bed. I showered and had breakfast with the family. After that, I went on the computer for a little and read some emails. Around 11am I left and got on a bus to go to work.

Since someone asked me how long it takes me to get to work, I timed myself each step of the way. I waited for the bus for about 15 minutes. I arrived to the final stop in another 15 and walked the rest of the way. The bus timings may not be accurate because it is Saturday, but the walking should not change a lot from day to day. I walked at a fast pace and it took me almost 20 minutes to get to the dig.

Now to the interesting stuff...
When I got there, I saw the people I met yesterday working and said hi. I then went to the supervisor and asked him where I could work for the day. He told me to work with a girl that was working alone. As soon as I sat down to work, we were given a 10 minute break. The people from yesterday came over to talk, and so did a few others. As usual, they interrogated me about many things, where I'm from, why am I in Russia, why I work at the archaeological dig, what do Americans think of Russians, do I like the pyramids in Mexico, do I like Russia, and many more... I love when this happens because I get to practice my Russian and meet people while doing it. During the next two breaks, I met more people and had more [very] short conversations. I learned that most of that group is from a big city [whose name I didn't get] near the Ural mountains. This was their last day of work and they are all heading back home tomorrow. I hope the next set of people I meet are just as nice.

Once we finished, they did all sorts of strange things. Since it was the last day, they carried out some archaeological dig traditions. They all covered their eyes with shirts and other things and held hands. Some of the local people guided them through a small path with lots of plants, trees, and rocks. In the end they arrived back to the dig, where they had hidden some sort of chocolates [with wrappers] in some dirt boxes, so they dug them up and ate them. Then they gave everyone apples and proceeded to sing the archeologist's hymn. The only reason I know what they were singing is because I saw a piece of paper that said “archeologist's hymn” (in Russian of course) while they were singing. They also did some sort of pledge that they were now Novgorodian archaeologists and received some pretty cool antique nails to take with them. After that we all headed home.

I didn't time my trip back home, but I think it took longer because that bus took forever to arrive. When I got home, I read a chapter of a book I have and later had lunch. Since I was a little bored, I decided to go take a walk, so I what I thought to be a small shopping center near where I live. Being my curious self, I went up stairs, into strange hallways, and got myself semi-lost. Apparently there are four floors in a building I thought was not part of the shopping place. I also found a small market under everything else. They sell fruits, fish, meat, clothes, cheese, and many other things.

I forgot to write about the title! The reason I chose that title is because over the last two days, I have seen many newlyweds. Yesterday I was walking around the kremlin and saw several brides taking pictures near some of the monuments. Later I saw two groups of cars all nice and decorated with flowers and balloons. The first or second car had the newlyweds (one was a limousine) and then there were about ten more cars behind them. Whenever I saw them drive by, everyone was honking their horns. Today I saw a few more, I heard them coming from far away.

So that's it for today, I wonder what I will do tomorrow...

Work, Finally!

This morning, the sky was cloudy and the forecast said there was going to be rain throughout the day. I put on my jacket and went to school. After two hours or so, I looked out the window and the sky was blue and the sun was out. After Russian class, we went to some stores looking for a flag or something and later went to a museum with a lot of golden artifacts. They were mostly church related, like gold covered bibles, crosses, and other similar things.

When we finished walking through the museum, I headed to work, since the weather was so nice. Apparently I arrived in the middle of a break, because the site was empty, except for three people. I asked one of them if there was work today and he said yes, so I waited until everyone else arrived. After some of the supervisors arrived, one told me to go talk to another one and ask him what I could do. So I went and he told me to work with some other guy that was standing there. Unfortunately, this other guy doesn't seem to enjoy talking, so we just worked quietly. We found many bones, pieces of ceramic, and other interesting things, much more than last time I worked. In one of the 10 minute breaks we get every hour, some people came over to ask me questions, so I was very happy. They first asked me if I spoke Russian, so I said I speak a little. They knew some English as well, so it was fairly easy to communicate. Unfortunately, this was their last day of work and they are all going back to their home towns next week, just my luck. Hopefully next week I will meet more people. Actually, one of them said that they might work tomorrow, and since I don't ever do anything on Saturday, I think I will go and see who is there.

No More Cold Water!

So this morning I woke up and headed to the kitchen to heat up some water for my shower.
Once I had it, I headed to the bathroom to shower. Being strange as I am, I decided to open the hot water just to see what happened. Cold water started to come out, but it wasn't quite as cold as the cold water, so I decided to use that. I started with my hair, and after a few seconds, the water didn't seem too cold, so I opened it all the way. A few seconds later hot water was burning me, but I was so happy, I didn't really care.
I think they had just turned it on because the hot water pipe, which is out in the open and usually very hot, was cold when I touched it before.

Anyway... The rest of my day was not quite as exiting (if you consider the hot water to be). My history teacher had to go to St. Peterburg so I went home right after Russian class, and since it was raining, no work again today.

I hope again and again that it doesn't rain tomorrow. If I go to work, I get to meet new people and practice my Russian, if I don't, I get to sit here at home for most of the day.

Uneventful Day

Today was pretty uneventful. We still have no hot water, but this time, I got a small bucket with hot water from the kitchen in order to shower. I shaved and showered without suffering too much. After that, I had breakfast and went to school.

During class, it was raining outside, which pretty much meant no work for the day. After history class, I got on the bus and headed home. When I arrived, I had to explain to the grandmother why I didn't go to work. I don't think she quite understood because she had an unhappy/disappointed look on her face. How do I explain that if it rains, the earth is moist, and therefore they don't do archaeological digging? I had lunch, did some homework, programmed a little, and then felt a need to go out. I went to the movie place and bought two DVDs. They were only about $4 each and this time, I made sure they were legit, unlike the last ones I got.

During dinner I drank a shot of vodka with my host dad and now I'm here. The interesting thing is that it happened after the discussion about me not liking beer and other alcoholic beverages. It was a funny series of events that led there. It wasn't too bad, I have had worse, this one didn't burn my throat. Now I still have nothing to do, so I think I'm going to sleep early today. I hope it doesn't rain tomorrow so I can work...

Cold Water

So today I woke up as usual and headed to the shower. When I opened the hot water, nothing came out, and I heard this very strange noise coming from the shower head. I thought for a few seconds and then decided to shower anyway. I still don't know if that was a good idea. The cold water here is extremely cold! After a few minutes, I was done showering, but I was also trembling like crazy. I then decided not to shave with cold water; maybe later I'll heat some on the stove and use that. I later found out that we will not be getting any hot water for three days, oh well… (In this building the hot water is supplied everyone. People don’t have their own heater in each apartment.)

I went to school, then to an art museum, the St. Sofia cathedral, and finally took a boat ride along the river. I saw some pretty cool churches and monasteries, an unfinished bridge from the 1910's, and other interesting things. Once we got back, we went to a restaurant to have dinner because one guy from the group is leaving early. I had some very good food there. I'm not sure what it was, the dish was called “Pink Flamingo” and didn't exactly say what the meat was. I doubt it was flamingo, but they did have some ostrich like pictures on a brochure on the table, which was sort of weird.

Now I'm going to go to sleep...