Ye Olde Folk Twig Thine

I saw a car/motorcycle accident today. Firstly, and this may not really be all that relevant, but although there are ‘lanes’ and ‘traffic lights’ here, they are more like a friendly suggestion. Just like the seatbelt law. All the drivers know exactly where the police hang out, looking for seatbelt offenders, and all the drivers put on the seatbelts only when they pass the police. It’s an odd symbiosis. I think after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russians, don’t want to follow the word of the government, so their rebellion is to not wear their seatbelts. I am not kidding about this. Several Russians have told me that seatbelt offences are society’s way of rebelling against the already dead Soviet Union. You go Russians!  Anyway, back to the accident. The motorcycle was in the rightest ‘lane’ and a taxi was coming from the other direction and made a left and hit the motorcycle head on. The motorcyclist flew about 20 feet across the hood of the taxi and landed in the street. The front end of the taxi was destroyed, the motorcycle was left in pieces. It was especially terrific (I once used the word ‘terrific’ in an essay to describe  Tito’s reign. I wanted to say that he elicited terror. My teacher read the essay, and when I got it back, the word was underlined with a question mark. So, again, now I wanted to use the word ‘terrific’ to mean illicit terror, and I decided to have some backing up from a dictionary. An in fact it is in there, ok, perhaps it says that it is archaic, but really what does that mean? Ye olde folk twig thine.) to hear the accident. There was no desperate braking sound, just a crash and burn sound.

Anyway, after the accident, no one really seemed to notice that there was a man lying in the middle of the street. Traffic moved along as usual. Narrowly driving around the injured man. A few minutes later an ambulance came, it just happened to be driving along the street…because usually ambulances take about 30 mins…and to my horror, they just moved the man, without immobilizing his neck or anything. I guess for the record, the man seemed to be ok. A.k.a. there wasn’t a huge puddle of blood on the concrete and a cracked skull, and limbs several feet away from the rest of his body. The man even sat himself up into the ambulance. I mean, hello, Spinal Cord injuries. Hello! Internal bleeding! I have nothing more to say about this.

Minty Star Fresh

There is this gum here that I absolutely love. It is so delicious. It is minty and has a minty watery center. Yumm. In fact, last time I was here I bought a pack special for brother as a gift. When I bequeathed it to him he “loved it” (ok that is to say that he didn’t really like it, and that is just because his taste buds are not as refined as mine…). Anyway, there is just one place where one can buy this delicious delicacy, “Viktoriya.” Anyway, the other day I ran out of my minty-mint and I was going out in public, (I am a star here, it is very important that I am minty fresh all the time. And this is no joke. I have been on TV and in the newspaper here.. thusly a STAR. Ask me about it later..) and I desperately needed my gum. So I decided to quickly stop and get my precious. Unfortunately, the lines were unbelievably long. You know, Friday night, Russians have got to booze it up. Anyway, I was already late for my very important star-like engagement and I didn’t want to wait. I just had gum. I could be out of there in a snap. So I decided to talk to the plebeians if I could go in front of them, fore they had a lot of groceries, and I just had my much needed gum. The smarmy sot looked at my one item, then looked me in the eye and said, “no” and that was the end of the conversation. NO?!? Are you kidding me? How rude! In the states if someone has the balls to ask to cut, then you better have a good reason to decline the cut. A simple ‘no’ won’t cut it. As if it was worth anything, I said in my head over and over again, “a**hole.” I’m not sure if it actually did anything, but the point of the matter is that it helped me, and really that is all that ever matters.

the bus

I was on the bus and the woman next to me smelled like poop. This is not to say anything bad about Russians, just about the poopy woman.

Dolla’ Dolla’ Milk Y’all

So I am not sure if I have just been oblivious (Miriam has braces?) or that it was just a ‘coinkey-dink’ (coincidence- for those not in the KNOW) but the other day I was in a mall and as I saw two people whip out their wallets to pay, I noticed in the window part of the wallet, you know, where normally we have our ID card or what not, was a US Dollar Bill (*queue music* I am proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free, and I won’t forget the men who died to give that right to me… *queue tears and too much patriotism*) Anyway. Really. Odd. I don’t keep Euros on the dash of my car. I don’t eat out of plates that are laminated with Rubles. Seriously. I don’t get it. Russians are always talking about how much they don’t really like America, and if they could go anywhere, it surely wouldn’t be good old USofA. Hypocrites. Sure thing Russians, you don’t like America. *wink.* And I mean if we are being frank, why wasn’t Jefferson peeking out to say hello, or Franklin. I mean, Washington? Really, that old fart?

Not only the dollar bill thing. But at the same mall where I witnessed the dollar bill “event” there is a food court. Duh. At the food court there is two Russian food places and one Chinese food place. All three of these places had almost no one in line, and food in the hot trays that was barely eaten. But there was one place called, “Southern Fried Chicken.” (I know, total rip off of KFC, but whatevs, I don’t have stock in it, what do I care…) At SFC one can get can the usual wonderful American fare. Hamburger, fries, fried chicken etc. Well, you can guess, the line was about 30 people long, no joke. (When it comes to lengths of time one must wait for food, in this case, 30 people long, I never kid. I know the importance of eating in a timely manner, and the not wantingness to wait… –I know, I just made up a word, but forgive. Want only speak Russian— a 30 person line is not a laughing matter. That is some serious waiting time) I find this particularly funny, because almost every Russian I have had a conversation with has asked me about the food here compared with my motherland. I usually say the same old thing, they are different, but not necessarily in a bad way (LIE—BIGGEST LIE EVER!!!) but I usually do add that I oddly miss Hamburger and Fries. To which I get the same response from all the Russians, “Really? Hamburgers are really unhealthy. We stay away from them, they are no good. No good at all.” All the whilst (thank you Shakespeare) shaking their heads in disappointment at what a bad habit I have, and that they are thinking that my lifetime ingestion of hamburgers is going to warrant an early death… Please. Russians drench their food in butter. Everything is either served with mayo or sour cream. Their milk comes in no lower that 2%. They don’t know what tofu is. And they think it is strange that I want to drink water on a daily basis.

Aliens and Fanny-packs

Thank you Russia for keeping the trend of fanny-packs alive. I thought the trend was almost dead, baring my aunt, and the random tourist who undoubtedly just got dropped off by aliens at Disneyland. But here in Russia, the culture is still alive. And I love it.

House of Soviets is what?

There is this terrible eye sore of a building here in Kaliningrad. It is called the House of the Soviets. It was built, duh, during the soviet period. It looks like a 3D “H” and can be seen from practically everywhere in town. And guess what, it is empty, completely empty. The Russians, I guess I should say Soviets, built it on the site of a beautiful Konigsberg castle that had been there for centuries. And why did the Soviets decide to build the building on the same site as the castle? Well because they wanted to destroy everything that was beautiful in the city. In fact when they tore down the castle after WWII there was a big celebration, it was in the news, there are tons of photos of the demolition of the harmless beautiful castle. And now, the building is empty and gross. The same thing happened with the roads. The Soviets thought that their road making skills were superior to that of the Konigsbergers, so they decided to redo practically all of the roads. And now? Well all the Soviets built roads are in terrible condition, and all the remaining E. Prussian roads, which are almost 200 hundred years old, are still in great condition. I am not sure if this is a commentary on the Russians, or on the Germans, but regardless, booo House of Soviets, yaaaah poor helpless castles.

Watermelon and Ice cream and a dab of Crime

Russians are strange. So yesterday a man came over to “meet the American” it was weird. Although he did bring me watermelon and ice cream. I know a strange combo, but there is a backstory. My host mother informed me of the American-meeter and that he was going to bring a gift and she asked what I would want. Of course I wanted ice cream, “ice cream would be nice” to which she mouse-ly replied “and maybe watermelon tooo?” yeah yeah ok. Fine. (not really all that interesting, I know, but really. If I was to say that I had ice cream and watermelon, u wouldn’t pause for a second and think that it is strange? Huh…) Several things were worth noting in this meeting. Only one of which I will talk about. Firstly (and lastly… aww, don’t u want to know what the other things are….) the man told me about a Russian law, and this is not a joke, that Russians are allowed to punch someone, but only once, a second blow is considered a crime, but one blow, a-ok, by the Russian way. I dunno. Im not sure how I feel about this. I don’t want to beat someone up for fear of getting shot. I expressed this concern, and their reply “no one has guns here” excuse me? That is the biggest farce I have ever heard. Practically everywhere you turn here is mafia run. Whatevs, Russians can think that no one has guns, and I will think that watermelon and ice cream go well together

Some things to think about

A few things to think about….

I went to post office to send some postcards to the US. The woman asked me if I wanted to send my postcards by plane or by train. I answered by train….

So I was walking with my host sister the other day, and a little boy was peeing, openly and freely onto the planter. I asked my host sister if this was normal, and she replied, “its Russia. Of course its normal.”

Every night I am dinner for mosquitoes. When I was in Ecuador with no electricity and running water, living in a thatched hut with no doors, the bug problem wasn’t as bad as it is here. Why? Because Russians don’t know what a screen door is!

Our refrigerator smells like old food. I asked about the baking soda. She didn’t have any. We went to the store. They didn’t have it. I guess Arm & Hammer has some personal vendetta against Russians…

My host mother came back from the beach the other day all burnt. I asked her if she used sunscreen. She replied that she gave the bottle to her daughter…

Our teacher told us that staring at a computer screen is harmful to our health. Russians also believe that drinking cold beverages will make you sick, and sitting on a cold surface will make you sterile…

My Magical Wand

I was in class and a magical wand appeared out of nowhere and landed in my lap. All of the other students stood in awe as the wand told me that it would grant me three wishes. Being near lunchtime, and dreading my salad heaped with mayo, I wished for a bagel and cream cheese, hamburger and fries, and all the chocolate covered strawberries I could eat.

OK. So of course that didn’t happen, but man how I wish I had some of that yummy food now…

But what did happen isn’t all that far off. We were sitting in class and the teacher was blabbing on about something (newspapers, media, blah blah blah) when an elderly Russian man enters our classroom and demands to speak with the best student. Our teacher of course wanted to select me, (humility has left the building…) but she was hesitant to hurt the other student’s feelings, so instead she blabbed on about how all of us are good students, and that she can’t say who the best one is. The Russian man would not accept this as an appropriate answer, and persisted again with this question, to which again the teacher replied (note the teacher didn’t say “shoo get out of here, we are in the middle of class, what are you doing!” but instead kept up with that man’s silly quest) the man was getting impatient and instead of asking his question a third time, he instead entered the classroom, headed straight for a girl in our class named ‘E’ (anonymity is key) and handed her a pin with the city’s crest on it. After that the man immediately left, not saying a word as he handed the pin over, or as he walked out, and class went on as usual. Weird. So many things were not right in that scenario. I don’t think I need to innumerate them all, but you get the idea, and as I said earlier, the story of the magic wand granting me three wishes was not all that far fetched after all.

My Schweppes is not for sale.

Today I was waiting at the bus stop. It was around 9pm, but it was still hot out. My friend had just bequeathed to me her Schweppes which she didn’t want to finish. The taste wasn’t too unpleasant, and while I was waiting at the bus stop, decided it would be a nice refreshing idea to drink my newly acquired Schweppes. As I’m waiting for my ever rare bus to come an old Babushka approaches me. (I’m not sure why I needed to say “old” by definition all babushki are old. But I guess my point was that she was old, and I don’t know if that makes this situations better, or just even more pathetic…) Anyway, the woman asked me something, but I didn’t hear since I had my headphones on (Song: Catch Me Running Round- Band: No Fun At All) but she was pointing to her throat. At this point my Schweppes was almost empty, perhaps barely a swig left. I took out my headphones in time to hear the babushka repeat herself, saying that she is very thirsty and wants just a little of my water. Firstly, I didn’t have all that much left, as stated previously, which is ridiculous because the woman was blabbing on that after her tiny sip she would promptly return it to me. This brings me to my second point. If I were to give this strange woman my swig of Schweppes, I surely am not going to want it back after her lips have touched it. And this isn’t because she is old, or strange… Ok its because she is strange, but regardless, I like my Herpes-Free self, thank you very much. Well ordinarily I run a no-sharing business, but since I didn’t buy the Schweppes, and it was almost gone, I decided to “do the right thing” and give her my remaining swig. When the transaction was over, I moved away from the woman, to distance myself. I didn’t know if perhaps she would want some thing more from me… Anyway, when she took the swig she immediately spit it out. “what is this? I have never tasted this before?” I explained to her that that is what Schweppes is, flavored tonic water. “Never in my life have I ever tasted anything like this before” the woman said as she went to the trash can and in a very anticlimactic way threw away the remaining liquid and the bottle in the trash. I’m not sure how I feel about this whole scenario. It was weird. Agreed. But maybe the woman got what she deserved? I dunno. But I guess I have learned my lesson- Never drink an almost empty bottle of Schweppes on the street so enticingly again…