Land of the Wild Game

So this is a bit of a gruesome post. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK…

The other day we had an excursion on a boat. I know. Not very gruesome. Just wait. It gets really sad and gruesome soon. So the ride was long, and when we finally reached land we all had scurvy and were terribly dehydrated, (which may seem paradoxical, but we also very badly needed to use the restroom) Anywho, we found a museum thing that was closed, and decided to hold off eating, and instead tromp around the grounds of the closed museum. A man who runs the restaurant of the museum saw our misshapen bodies (remember scurvy) and invited us into his closed and empty restaurant (no food. No help!) He was nice enough. He had a dog named Baloo, you know from the Jungle Book. So I liked him right from the start. He also had a worker guy in his empty closed restaurant. Well, while the owner was showing off his empty restaurant, the worker guy pulled me aside and showed me various aspects of the restaurant. Here is a dead fish head. Here is a pool table. Here is a stuffed Beaver. You know things like that. Very romantic… Anyway, the worker guy and I had a moment. So we left the restaurant and promptly had to use the restroom. There was just a smelly outhouse thing. So I, along we the others, waited in line patiently. Just as it was about to be my turn, the worker guy told me that I didn’t have to wait in line for the outhouse, that I could use his toilet, in his house (which was attached to the restaurant) I, of course, accepted his offer. I am not opposed to a nice toilet. Anyway, I guess when I was in the toilet the worker guy noticed that we were all hungry. The director told him that we have food, but unfortunately that I can’t eat it (pork, and I don’t eat swine…) So when I got out of the toilet, the worker guy gifted me his fish pie thing (it actually was really tasty) just for me. I was quite flattered. The guy and I obviously had some sort of connection. Ok. Well are you ready for the gruesome part? Well he is dead now! No. I am not kidding. He drowned a few hours we left. We don’t know exactly the circumstances surrounding his death. But regardless, I was quite sad to hear that he had died. Its not like I was ever going to see him again. But still. No one else from my group had any interactions with him. In fact when we found out, he was described to the group as the guy who gave me the fish pie. Him and I had a special interaction. And now he is dead. It is all very sad.

Ok. So that wasn’t all that gruesome. More sad. But still.

Ok the gruesome part. Ordinarily I don’t like to talk about myself personally, but I had this dream the other day, and I can’t get it out of my mind. Anyway. I will just give you the important pieces of the dream.

I was riding a people mover, and I look down and see a giraffe head rolling by. Then I look to my right, and see a headless giraffe fall to its knees, dead. Then I expand my vision, and notice that the giraffe is in some sort of zoo place. I decide to get out of the people mover to check out what is going on. I see that the place is not a zoo but rather a reserve to hunt exotic animals. I decide to enter, being interested of course. However, as soon as I enter, I almost get beheaded myself, but the attacker and his sword just miss me. I take a closer look at the attacker, as clearly I am confused. I am on a reserve to hunt wild game. I am not wild game. As I try to find the hunter I see all around me rhinos and tigers and elephants. Mostly dead, but some still alive, all running frantically for their lives. Then at that moment I get a glimpse of the hunter, he is a monkey. Huge. Like a human in all ways, except a monkey. Think Planet of the Apes, but way better makeup. Anyway, I stop to think about the situation. There aren’t any monkeys that big. This can’t be real. But then I think about it some more, and realize that humans are essentially monkeys too.

Ok So I will let you think about that somemore. But wow. I am still weirded out about that dream. Cant get the image of the giraffe head rolling on the floor, and the giraffe body falling to the floor in slo-mo.

Cancer and microwaves?

So I guess the biggest news is that I moved. But I don’t really want to talk about that. What is more important and far more interesting is the phenomenon of the microwaves here. Just as a point to mention, when I was in St. Petersburg I didn’t live with a family that had a microwave. I figured it was just the norm. They don’t have drying machines, they vacuum hardwood floors, they don’t have microwaves. A very normal assumption to jump to. However, here in Kaliningrad I guess the people want to feel more European, so they have caved, and own a microwave. I really thought that the people here were modern and way progressive, that is until I saw them use the microwave.

So they put my food in the microwave, on a plate. Ok, everything so far normal and understandable. But next instead of closing the door and nuking the food, they put a huge plastic lid thing over the food. Its strange. I thought that maybe it would just be that first time. Or maybe that particular dish was in desperate need for a plastic lid thing. But no, everything gets the plastic lid thing. Yogurt, Juice, Ice cream (yes all those things are microwave friendly here in Russia… not only friendly, but highly encouraged to be microwaved…) I guess I never really thought it was all that strange before I moved. I guess I thought that my host family was unique in their ways, but no. My new family does the same thing. And they are young. They know about Harry Potter, Legally Blonde. They don’t remember when Titanic sank, or what Perestroika means. Like Legit. But still. Whatever. I don’t want my food microwaved. Its cancer in a neat plastic lid.

Running Woman in Heels

Russians don’t really excersice. Its kind of strange because they are all so thin, for the most part. Anyway, there is always an exception to the rule. Every day since I have been here there has been the Running Woman. She is plain in almost everyway. Her hair is at a normal length, with a normal color. He clothes are just ordinary. Her skin is plain, and her face isnt too pretty, nor too ugly. But everyday she waits at the busstop with me. And as soon as the bus rolls into the stop, she dashes down the street, and begins to try and outrun the bus. She is often in high heels, and a heavy black jacket. It is strange, she actually can run as fast as the bus. Her bus ’stop’ is the same as mine, and almost every day when I get off the bus she is always a few feet ahead of me, having successfully out run the bus. Granted, the bus ride only takes about 20 minutes walking. And the bus stops at each stop for a good minute or two, waiting for the last morning stragglers. But still. My hat is off to you, Running Woman. I don’t know why you do it. I don’t really want to know. I don’t know why, if you know you are going to run, wear clothes that are perhaps more appropriate for running. I guess I don’t understand you and your mysterious ways, but I applaud you.

Guest Lecture and Melting Students

Today we had a guest lecture. The lecture room is very small. And the weather today was very hot, and extremely humid. With 20 plus sweaty Americans in a tiny room with 100% humidiy, it isnt a good mix. Anyway. As soon as the lecture started, Kansas decided it would be a genuis idea to shut the door, so that there would be no possibility of a cross wind whatsoever, causing us even more discomfort. I couldn’t take it. I was sweating so much that I couldn’t concentrate. My seat began to be drenched in sweat, and I felt as if I was on a water park ride, there was so much water. The headache began to roll in, and I needed the precious cross wind. I decided to try and converse with Kansas, maybe her kind would understand simple hand gestures, being of such a primitive race, I dared not try to use language. Anyway, I gestured to her in the most simple manner to open the door, to allow for the needed cross wind. Being as dumb as she is, she simply shook her head at me in a negatory way, indicating that not only would she not open the door that she closed, but that in some way, my primitive childish hand gestures were a distraction to the others. Let me just say. Everyone else was melted wax. It was so hot, their forms had all meshed together, they couldve cared less. They really had no idea what was going on. What I thought was particularly funny was that throuought the rest of the lecture Kansas talked to her friend the entire lecture, seemingly not caring about disturbing others then. Whatever. My dream of telling her off is coming closer and closer to reality each day.

Kansas paves the way.

So. This isn’t so much about Russia, but as Americans, specifically the Americans in my group, and more specifically, one American in particular. So that no names are named, lets call her Kansas.

So Kansas is not very nice at all. Let me begin by saying that she deserves everything that has coming her way….

The Internet here is very sketchy, working every once in awhile, and even then, not very reliable or fast. My blackberry has better Internet service than at the Academy, which is kind of sad. However, despite all of this, I still need the Internet. It really is a disease. So I brought my computer to school one day, to find out that there is a password and a lengthy process to get an Internet connection on a laptop. To make matters worse, I have a Mac, which is not very Russian friendly. Anywho, the “Internet Master” told me to bring my computer the next day, when he would have enough time to connect my computer to the internet. Well Kansas, jumped on the bandwagon and decided to get her Mac connected to the Internet too.

Day of Internet connect. “Internet Master” has gone AWOL. Argh. I ask the professors if they know where “Internet Master” is. They respond that he has disappeared. I thought “Internet Master” and I had a heartfelt conversation the day before. I was crushed to think that he had forgotten about our meeting. So, perhaps a bit melodramatically, I said in Russian, something to the effect, “oh no. Poor me and this situation…”

So Kansas, being the biggest jerk ever, decided to say, “　ак по-русски (which means, How do you say____ in Russian) Chill the F*** out?

Firstly, that is agaisnt the rules of the program. We are to speak Russian at all times. And we arent allowed to say ‘　как по-русски’ and then an entire sentence in English. That goes against our language pledge. But she does it all the time. Anywho. I brushed it off. Shortly afterwards, “Internet Master” arrived, and he quickly was able to connect my computer to the internet. Then he tried to connect Kansas’ computer to the internet. But Karma is a bitch, and even though she has the exact same computer as me, her internet never was able to get connected. SO this is me sticking my tongue out at her. (as a brief side note, I actually have had several dreams about Kansas where I go up to her and tell her that she is perhaps the worst person I have ever met, and I don’t want to converse with her, and will be very happy without ever seeing her again… I doubt that that this will ever happen. But I have never felt such a strong urge to tell someone I hate them before.)

Peachy Scented Russian Toilet Paper

Russians and toilet paper have a very special relationship. During Perestroika, for example, Russians didn’t have toilet paper at all. I think Perestroika hit Kaliningraders especially hard, because their toilet paper habits are quite strange. To begin with, all toilet paper in this city is colored. At school, for example we have blue toilet paper. At my apartment, we have different shades of peach, but it usually tends to be on the darker realm of the spectrum. Additionally, all toilet paper is scented. Usually it is some kind of flowery earthy scent.
At one point my host father joked around with how much toilet paper I went through. I was confused. I felt as if my toilet paper consumption was normal. Did they not realize that they would be going through their toilet paper theoretically 1/3 as fast as before I came? Also, not that this is the most pleasant of topics, but my stomach needed a few days in the beginning to get adjusted to the Russian water and food, if you catch my drift.
I hadn’t thought about my host father’s comment until the other day when we were having our weekly “one-hour ‘time-to-vent-and-speak-English’ meeting.” The leader of the meeting asked if our host stays were going well and if anyone was having any kinds of problems. One girl immediately raised her hand and asked why her host family was hounding her about the amount of toilet paper she was using. Was it very expensive here? She asked. And the reply was, of course, No. (despite the fancy colors and scents.) After she asked her question, many other students, including myself, began to join in that they too have had complaints from their host family about the amount of toilet paper they were consuming. Our director’s only reply was “Russians have a strange relationship with toilet paper.”
I guess if I had to answer why so much fuss with toilet paper, I would probably give the same response. Russians are strange. I don’t understand. But I guess I can’t complain about sitting down and having an aroma of flowers emitting from peach colored paper while I’m on the can.

36.6°C is Normal? And Bats are Healthy

The metric system and I have always had a shaky relationship. The metric system has teased and taunted me all my life, especially rubbing it in my face by my love of the sciences (if you don’t understand this sentence, well then, get smarter).
However, my relationship hit a particularly rough part about a week and a half ago when the Russian government was afraid of me spreading Swine Flu like a deadly poison that I breathed and oozed out of my skin. At the time of all the craziness I was confused about whether or not I actually had a fever. See the confusion lies in the fact that I don’t know centigrade at all. I have absolutely no sense of what any temperature means. Its like the time when I went into a store when I was a little girl with a 20 dollar bill with a mission from my parents to buy a bagel, which costs approximately a buck and some change. Proudly I ordered the bagel all by myself, waited in line patiently as my bagel was being prepared, paid at the counter, barely tall enough to see the lady behind the cash register, and walked out with my change. Of course I should have had about 18 bucks and change, but instead I had about 4 dollars and change. That stupid woman behind the counter seized on my stupidity, just like the metric system. That woman knew that I had no concept of money, I had no idea how much change to get back, that I would just trust everyone would give the proper amount of change. Dumb, dumb, dumb. I am not sure how I could have been that dumb. But I was. I really had no concept of change. Of course I knew math, and was fairly good at it, but having to apply my skills in a real world situation was just too much, and proved too much. Well, me and centigrade are just like that. It could tell me any temperature and its equivalent in Fahrenheit and I would believe it. But I do have a few tricks up my sleeve. I have a Fahrenheit thermometer that I brought just to out sly that trickster centigrade.
So, when I was “sick” with Swine Flu, from the onset I took my temp 98.6°, which is normal, healthy as a bat, (I know bats aren’t known for their health, but I think bats have gotten a bad wrap these past centuries, and when I was in Ecuador I met quite a many healthy and kind bats. In fact, I am the head of the ‘Healthy as a Bat’ committee in my hometown. The movement has really gained a lot of support in the last few months, and I think soon we will have national representation soon). But just like centigrade and I don’t get along, Fahrenheit and my host family perhaps have an even worse relationship, so they urged me to take a stab at my temperature with their “Grodysnik aka Градусник” (thermometer: for those of you who cant understand my terrible Russian-English transliteration, or for those of you who don’t know Russian….) And well, I had a fever according to them at 36.7°. What? How could that be? According to my trusty “Farhenheit-nik” I didn’t have a temperature. I then converted my temperature from centigrade to Fahrenheit and found that I had a completely normal body temperature, if not a bit low.
So what exactly happened? Well I was obviously confused. Something somewhere went wrong. According to Fahrenheit I didn’t have a temperature. According to the centigrade thermometer, the Russians all seemed to think that I had a fever. And according to my conversion from centigrade to Fahrenheit I didn’t have a fever. So obviously this led me to believe that perhaps the Russian’s think that a fever is a different temperature that what we in the “normal” world think.
So I decided to do some of my own investigation. When you google ‘normal body temperature’ the first thing that shows up is google calculator that says normal temp is 37°. Yeah. I agree with that. And my temperature with centigrade thermometer was less than 37°, thusly how on earth did the Russians think that I had a fever? Next, I found a wikipedia article about “Normal Body Temperature.”  And one of the very first sentences in the article is about the history of getting a normal body temperature, and in the article, there is a sentence that reads:
In Russia and former Soviet countries, the commonly quoted value is 36.6°C (97.9°F), based on an armpit reading.
Seriously, this is like the strangest thing I have ever heard. The entire country is whack. They are all brainwashed. They think that our normal body temp of 37°C is a fever!!!!!
Whatever. It is crazy. This furthers my opinion that I really don’t understand this country and its crazy ways.

Beware of Swine Flu

The last few days have been a bit “stressful” to say the least. Many times I said to myself, “oh crap. What have I done now?” “Russia is going to deport me?”

Deport me? I know. I must be like the world’s most badass spy or something. Got to come back to Russia, at my young age, and I pretend I don’t speak Russian, and coyly go to the nuclear testing plants and secret KGB meetings. “Oh. Sorry. English. Don’t understand” all the while batting my cute little eyes. Curling my hair. As I am kindly asked to leave the secret KGB meetings, I slowly walk out, faking a sprained ankle, and linger just long enough to find out that soon world war three is about to begin. I send the message telepathically to the US, because I am just that good, and right before Obama and I have our secret mind bonding session, the secret Russian police catch me, and threaten to deport me, unless I teach them the secret ways of the Bene Gesserit (READ DUNE!!!). I of course refuse, bound to a secret oath. And I am deported.

Ok. So of course that isn’t exactly what happened. And I wasn’t deported. But almost. Although, just for the record I am a badass spy. Super badass. So badass that I can freely talk about my badassery without fear of getting caught. [Badass count: 5]

What really happened was swine flu happened. (I know, terribly worded English sentence, bare with me, I don’t claim to be all that good at English). Just for the record, Russia stopped the import of Pig products from the US due to a fear of Swine flu. Ridiculous. Its like that stupid picture of a kid kissing a pig with the caption reading, “The real cause of swine flu…” Give me a break. Anyway. Needless to say, Russians are unbelievably afraid of getting swine flu. And with a whole slew of Americans coming to their city, the town is a bit on edge.

Not to mention, our travel to Russia was less than pleasant. We had a flight from DC to Frankfurt. Five hour layover. Frankfurt to St. Pete. Another five hour layover. But it was actually longer. Medvedev came to the airport, (unexpectedly, expectedly. Doesn’t really matter. The Russians don’t know how to deal with such an incident, and as a result the airport was shut down. We had to wait two hours longer than we were supposed to, before we knew what was going on….Beware, big group of Americans. Tell them as little as possible, Maybe they wont squirm as much…..Then when we finally got to board, but all the air traffic was backed up and we sat on an old, rickety, hot yet cold plane for an additional two hours. We could have walked to Kaliningrad in the time we waited. (I know, clichÈ, but it works, no?) Needless to say we were traveling for over 24 hours without much sleep, people were bound to get sick).

Anyway. I lost my voice. Gone. We were told before we came to Russia. Don’t cough in front of host family, fear of swine flu. But I suppose talking should have also been on the list of things not to do.

I talked to my host family, and they got scared. I hadn’t even finished my sentence about how my day was, granted I talk really really slowly in Russian, due to the fact that its hard…. Pity me, and my host dad was already on the phone with a doctor to come over and see if I had swine flu (In Russia, often, the Doctor will come to your house to treat you, unless of course you are really sick, this is the normal method of care)

I of course protested. Most likely sounding like the most annoying Russian 2 year old ever, with my limited vocabulary, and not full grasp of Russian intonation. But regardless, the doctor came. Wanted to give me an IV. Vehemently refused. I have read enough to know that AIDS is rampant. NO way Jose… Or maybe I should say, NO way Ivan Ivanovich.

I had a slight fever, and looked sick, due to the fact that I was being examined by a man with a face mask, speaking to me in not my native tongue about rotavirus that, leukocytes that, all the while not wearing any shoes. As a brief side note. Russians don’t wear shoes in the house. They all wear what is called, Tapochki, like slippers. But I am using the guest pair, so the doctor had to go without, and instead was just wearing socks. Kind of hard to take him all that seriously with a face mask, and no shoes. Different set of values and cultural norms I suppose.

With a fever and possible infection I was mandated to be quarantined.

Next day, had to go to the hospital to find out for sure if I had swine flu. I guess someone in the clinic overheard someone say swine flu, “that girl, the foreigner, with the funny clothes, yeah she has it” and quickly everyone fled. When I went out to pee, everyone in the waiting room went white with fear. It was kind of funny the power that I had over everyone. Like I was superwoman, and they were all afraid of my x-ray vision and that I was seeing what color underwear they were wearing, and they were turning white, cuz, ironically, they all forgot to wear underwear…..

Anyway. Tests came back. No swine flu. Just regular flu.

All is well with the world. “The Americans won’t be deported, yet” That should be the headline. A pretty engaging headline isn’t it. Maybe I should work full time just writing headlines for stories. I’d be pretty awesome at it I think. Of course, practically every headline would most likely be “Fighting Mongooses Eat More Chicken Eggs.” Wouldn’t you want to read that story? I mean, you’d want to know what are fighting mongooses, and why do you care that they are eating chicken eggs. How does all of it affect you? Gripping eh?

ZOO time

Kaliningrad has a zoo. I don’t go to zoos on principle, except for the San Diego Zoo. (ask me about this later if you want to know why) Animals are often kept in too small of cages, and yadda yadda yadda, you get the idea. Anyway, the zoo here is particularly bad. It was built during the German times in the mid 1800s. And in true Soviet fashion, no updates were done to the zoo. Today it stands how it did when it was built. With the animals having never seen freedom, or most likely another animal of the same species.

The other day was a free day, and my host family invited to take me to the zoo. A very nice gesture, but I kindly declined. “But why?” they asked. “I have been to a zoo recently” I told them. “But you have not seen our zoo. It was built by the Germans” as if that makes it better, that just means it is OLD! After about ten minutes of back and forth like this, I finally caved and told them that I haven’t been to a zoo recently, but rather that I don’t go to zoos. Their response? Actually quite surprising. “But then how will you ever see these animals?” An interesting question I suppose. I have seen them on TV. In books, in photos. “No. How will you ever see these animals alive?” I suppose I could go to each of their natural habitats and see them, I somewhat jokingly countered. But then I started thinking. That’s not the argument. I was not put on this earth just so I can see great animals. Some animals I will never see, and that is OK by me. There is no need to keep these animals caged. It is not on my list-o-things to do in life to see a lion. I have been to zoos, sadly. And I have seen all of these great beasts before. And frankly, I wish I hadn’t been.

However, I do give my host mother credit to her Russianness. I am under the strong belief, that Russians believe that nature was put on earth merely for the benefit of humans. That is why there are no vegetarians in Russia. That is why nature is something to destroy. There is no recycling in Russia. And animals are meant to be in cages to be gawked at four our amusemnt. It is definitely a totally different world….

American Edumacation Bad

Of course in the beginning of any homestay there are many getting to know you type of questions. And being from the US there are many ‘how the US is worse than Russia questions.’ The most important of this line of questioning is education. For those of you who don’t know, Russians are very proud of their education system. They believe that their system is the best in the world. That their students work harder than any other people in the world. And also that they are the only people who have to take exams throughout their schooling. “Very hard exams.” Just as a background this is essentially how their education system works. They start school at the age of 7, and go to school for ten years. At various points within those ten years of primary education they are given tests to judge how smart they are and what they should study in the future. At the end of the 10^{th year, they have to take exit exams from school, and entrance exams into university. Before I continue further, let me digress. They start at 7? We start at five. One for team America. They go to school for ten years? We go to school for 13. Score again. They take aptitude tests? Who has heard of STAR testing, SAT, High School Exit Exams? Three points for team USA.}

After acceptance into university they must study what they ‘major’ in. For example someone studying history can only take history courses. And there is no freedom in course work. Every student studying history takes the exact same courses. At the end of each year, the students must take final exams. (Again, I must interject. I am on the quarter system, which means I have to take finals three times a year. What is truly funny is that the Russians think that they are the only ones who take these exams, and that they are in some ways more difficult that ours.) At the end of their four years at university, mind you there is no derivation from this, they have a month or so off, to prepare to study for their final university exams. Ok so we don’t have a final university exam, but if we did, we certainly wouldn’t be given a month to study for it. Additionally, students only go to school for half a day. There are morning university students, and evening university students. This is also a place where Russians will argue that they are better than us, because their classes are 90 mins. Well I have had 90 min courses, but I don’t take just three of them, like the Russians, I take four or five. Score again for team America. At the end of this “intense” four-year study, students may come out with a technical degree, like a medical degree. In fact, in Russia, a person can become a full-fledged medical doctor at the age of about 22. (This takes into account the one year of ‘residency’ that the students take after their four years of study.)

I find all of this just preposterous. I mean my host dad is so convinced that his system of education is superior that he often challenges me with, lets call them, “questions of the world.” Like the other day he asked me “Who did Russia fight against during WWII.” Thinking to himself that as a silly uneducated American, I would have no idea. I would like to think that every American could answer “Germany” with little hesitation. Upon my response, there was an audible gasp from my host family, truly shocked that I knew the answer. Convinced that American education was inferior, and that we essentially know nothing. He asked me the other day, “Where is Armenia?” Ok this one maybe not every American knows, but I am a Russian and East European Studies major. I better know where Armenia is. Of course I answered correctly, and again shock. There have been several other questions like this. “Who is your president?” Really? I think you get the idea. They really have low expectations of American system of education. In fact I don’t think that me answering all of their questions correctly convinced them that the American system of education is good. They told me that they attributed my knowledge to the fact that “You Travel….” Not sure how that helps me understand who Obama is, but I guess I will let them continue to think that they have the best education system in the world.