Speaking Russian

Russian is a beautiful, but complex language. I’ve learned that at this point, as long as I have the vocab, people will at least understand and the grammar will come with time. Someday I hope to get the grammar down. Russian uses many words from other languages, but I’ve noticed insane amount of English words. I’m sure there are many from other languages as well, but seeing as English is my language, those are the words I notice. Anyways, So many Russian words are English words spoken with a Russian accent or modified slightly so that they can write it with the Cyrillic alphabet. If the word is a verb, they add ovats to the end of it. Sometimes when people are talking to me, I’ll understand everything except the word that is taken from English and they will have to repeat it over and over, and then out comes the dictionary and then I feel dumb because it is exactly the same in English as Russian. Maybe I just expect it to be something different? For instance, my tutor was telling me about her dog and I told her I didn’t understand what kind of dog it was, but it was a Dalmatian, and she was saying Dalmatian the whole time, but I didn’t catch on. This also works the other way, when I hear words that I think are cognates, but really mean something very different. This has caused me a bit of confusion in class.

The sites

The weather has been beautiful the last 2 weeks, with some scattered showers of course, but this weekend was just perfect! The sun shown all weekend and it was nice and warm, perfect for sight seeing. A friend took me around Petersburg and it was like we went back in time. First stop was an old camera store where I purchased a Soviet Camera and film to take some real Russian photos. Then we headed to the Church on Spilled Blood, Peter and Paul's Fortress, The eternal flame, and then a used book store and a Russian donut shop. On beautiful days in Russia, you can't walk through the city without seeing bridal parties taking pictures in front of ever Russian monumnet or famous lanscape. On Saturday I saw at least 14 brides running around in their beautiful dresses, one in a pink dress. They all take hot pink limozines to the different sites. Its pretty cute.
In the evening I went to a French film festival. When I got the tickets, I did not realize that it started at 12midnight. Three French films between midnight and 7am. My friend Cameron came with me and we helped eachother stay awake. The first two films were in French with Russian subtitles and I could understand them for the most part, but the third movie was very strange, and started at 4:30am and was dubbed over in Russian and I had no idea what was going on the whole time. It was in a really neat building though... Most of the buildings in the center are pretty neat though. They are beautiful! At night I am taked back by how beautifuly lit they all are. It will be interesting to see what this all looks like in the winter.

Rain

I never thought my dictionary and my umbrella would be my best friends. I take them both with me wherever I go and use them constantly. - Note to self- buy waterproof attractive shoes. I’m pretty sure the summer is over and the rainy season has begun. I enjoy the rain enough, but when my socks and shoes are soaked the whole way through, it creates a little discomfort. Russians don't seem to mind having wet feet in their high heals and flats.
Walking on crowded sidewalks with an umbrella is another art I have not yet mastered. It is much harder to pass people when you are playing bumper cars with their umbrellas. I am somewhat surprised to see so many bright and decorated umbrellas. Bright and colored everything for that matter. Coming to Russia, I was expecting everything to be dark and monotonous. People do wear black, but hot pink seems to be another favorite for Russian tops. The buildings are colorful and the streets are filled with colorful stands selling colorful flowers. Every so often while walking on Nevsky, there are people dressed in circus tent looking pants and handing out little papers. I’ve never accepted them, but they these people add a nice pop of color to the city.

Moving In

Sunday morning Katie Miller joined Jasmine and me as we ventured to the цветы stand at the metro near the hostel. After a few extremely awkward moments of trying to figure out what kind of flowers to get, and how many-knowing of course that Russians consider it bad luck to have even numbers of flowers, or anything really. I bought my host mom 3 gerber daisies. She has them now in a vase on the kitchn table. We were all so nervous to meet our families, but I feel like I had a little bit more reason to be worried because I have about the least Russian on the trip. I honestly feel like I have never before learned any Russian. Hopefully in the next few months things will get better and I will be able to understand what Tatyana and Dasha are saying to me.
The are very patient with me. Luckily, one of their favorite topics of conversation happens to be music. Tatyana plays piano and knows lots of famous musicians. Dasha plays the Didgeradoo, which is super cool. She is 22 years old as well and has lots of friends that have been over. I find them a bit intimidating. We live on the 6th floor of what I first believed to be a hotel. Above the door hangs a sign that says Hotel Anabel, but that is only part of the building.
We live up on the 6th flood, which is 112 stairs up, not that I counted... From my window I can see the Hermitage museum and some churches that are all lit up at night. I'd say I'm pretty lucky to live here with these nice people. Last night when I arrived home for the day, I finally met my host father, who had been missing the first few days. He had been in the forest picking mushrooms. The entire kitchen was filled with mushrooms. If you know me, you know that I do not eat mushrooms-ever! But I ate an entire bowl of Mushrooms and onions all cooked up together. I can't say it is my favorite food, but I ate it all. Today when I arrived home from school, Dasha and I had supper, and guess what it was---Mushroom soup! I am pretty sure we will be eating mushrooms for every meal for the next week at least! As long as I get to eat my blini for lunch I'll be ok. They are delicious creps filled with different things, my favorite is cabage and eggs with a little sour cream. ochen vkustvy! They are sold like fast food in many places near my school, but all made fresh! And inexpensive also.