A day in my life

Since this week has been fairly boring, I’ll give you a taste of what my daily routine is.

My alarm goes off at 7:30, but I’m usually always awake because my host parents get up at 6:30 to get ready for work and stuff. One of the disadvantages of sleeping in the living room is that I hear everything that goes on. After I roll out of bed I have to go quietly into my sisters’ room to grab my clothes and stuff I need for the day. Then I eat breakfast, which my host mom always makes for me (she’s so sweet). It’s usually raspberry tea and some sort of egg/sausage/grain combination, which gives me some nice protein to start my day.

I leave the apartment at about 8:30 and take a 10 minute walk through my apartment complex to my bus stop. Depending on the day, I wait 5-15 minutes for my bus, the 54. If I’m lucky, it’s not very crowded. It takes about 30 minutes to get to the university stop where I get off, since I live across the river. Once I get off, I walk down the road and meet the other American students, and we stand around and talk until school starts.

My school day is split into two classes – grammar and speaking. Sometimes grammar is first, but they switch every couple of days. Speaking is the fun class – my teacher is very lively, and we spend a lot of time just making up dialogues or doing random fun things. Yesterday we were learning members of the family, so we took a fake “family portrait” where we all pretended to be related. The speaking teacher also has an adorable son who sometimes comes in and distracts everyone by making faces. In between classes we have a 10-20 minute break, where most people go down to the produkty (продукты) and buy ice cream, water, and other snacks. Then back to our classroom for grammar, which is less fun but still not that bad. School gets out at 12:50

After school most people go to the university cafeteria to eat, because it’s free. The food isn’t very good though. I usually end up buying some fruit at a produkty to supplement. There is also consultations from 1-2, where you can get extra help from the teacher. I usually go to that if I don’t forget.

On excursion days we all meet back up at the cafeteria at about 2 to go somewhere (like a museum). On free days I often go somewhere else with my friends to eat lunch, or to walk along Bauman (the main walking street with a bunch of stores and cafes) or to wander around Kaltso (the closest mall). On free days I usually start heading back to the university bus stop at around 4:30 or 5 because it’s almost an hour commute going back home. The bus is usually packed, sweaty, and hot, and there’s always a lot of traffic. On bad day’s it can take almost 20 minutes to cross the bridge. Once I get to my stop I walk home and let myself into my apartment.

At home, I usually just end up doing homework. If my host sisters are home, we’ll hang out and watch Russian Disney Channel or play Sims. Sometimes I play the piano or read. Dinner is sometime after 7, depending on when my host parents get home. It usually involves potatoes, meat, cucumbers, and always bread. After dinner I usually sit around with my host mom and talk over tea and candies. After finishing my homework, I usually end up in bed at about 11.

That’s an average school day for me. Weekends, of course, are very different, but that’s too complicated to get into now. My favorite parts of the day are when I get to just walk around town, and of course being with my host family. And eating. I really like eating.

Pictures

I got the pictures uploaded! They’re not very exciting, but at least it’s something.

This is some graffiti I found on the way from our school building to the nearest продукты. Pretty cool, huh.

This is my friend Claire, eating the “Supreeze” pastry that we bought. It was very disappointing. I do not recommend this cake shop.

This is a sideways picture of my host sister, Aynaz, and I. It’s sideways because I’m useless with technology and can’t figure out how to fix it. Aren’t we cute, though?

This is my homework. I have 4 little notebooks (тетрадь) for homework, three workbooks, a bigger notebook and some random loose papers. I also have a midterm tomorrow (yikes!) which is why I took this picture. Study time!

Weekend

So I thought I uploaded a bunch of pictures from my iPod, but apparently I only uploaded one. This one. I will talk about my weekend, though.

This is the Matroishka doll that I painted, along with my friend Claire’s beautiful spoon. It was really fun. And funny to see some people’s “artwork”. Some of them turned out really nicely, though.

The matroishka class was on Friday after school (after tests, actually). Then on Saturday we had an excursion to Bilyarsk, a little town about 3 hours from Kazan. What makes Bilyarsk special is this spring of holy water that is sacred to the Tatars. Tatars from all over Tatarstan come with big jugs to fill up with holy water. Some people also fill up buckets and dump the freezing water over themselves, like a shower. After standing in line for about 30 minutes, I was able to fill up my water bottle. It was nice and cold and refreshing. Nearby the spring was a big hill. We climbed up waay too many steps to the top, where there were some big black rocks. Legend has it, if you walk around the rocks seven times and make a wish, then toss some coins in, the wish will come true.

The legend about the hill and the spring (which I semi-overheard, so don’t quote me) goes something like this: There were once twelve beautiful princesses living in Bilyarsk when it was captured by an opposing army. The leader of this army made these twelve princesses build a giant hill using only their hands, which became that hill with the wishing stones on top. The princesses turned into stars, and the king, their father, turned into a spirit that became the holy water. Again, I didn’t get the whole legend, so I don’t know how accurate this is.

The rest of the area around the spring and hill was basically a big camp. There were a bunch of picnic benches and barbeques where families were cooking lunch, and a store where you could buy food and ice cream. There was also a place where people could pray (most Tatars are Muslim).

After Bilyarsk my host family picked me up and took me camping. We drove by their dacha, which they are actually in the process of building, and then went down to the beach of some river. This involved an extremely hot, bumpy, and dusty ride in an old car over steep, pot-holed, dirt roads, which was actually kind of fun (roller coaster, anyone?). We set up camp with some of my family’s friends for a big birthday party. We ate a lot, cooked barbecue, swam, talked, etc. It was actually really fun, but a little awkward since the adults kept trying to talk to me and I could barely understand them. No roasted marshmallows, unfortunately.

After we got back on Sunday, we were all wiped out and basically just rested and slept the rest of the day. Nothing new has happened since then, and I don’t think that there’s a lot going on the rest of this week. I’ll try to upload more pictures later.

Fourth of July

I tried uploading pictures today. It didn’t work. So all the photos from my camera will have to wait until I get back, sadly. I guess I’ll start taking pictures with the iPod.

For the Fourth of July we took the bus down to a beach. It was either on a lake or on the Volga river, I’ve heard both. Either way it was really fun. We got these triangle-pastry things filled with meat and potatoes (YUM) and apricots and chips. The water was pretty cold, so I just waded in up to my waist, but it was nice to cool off and hang out. One of the guys in the group brought his Flower Sticks (also Devil Sticks) which we’re awesome. It’s sort of like juggling, but with sticks, and…yeah. Hard to explain. At the end we sang our national anthem, just to celebrate America, I guess. Some people went and got hamburgers afterward, too. I think everyone was a little homesick.

Today was a Tatar holiday, I forget what it’s called. But after school we all got together and played some games – sack races, tug-of-war, egg-and-spoon races. It was really fun. The best one is where two people sit on chairs with their feet off the ground and hit each other with pillows. The point is to try to get the other person to fall or put their feet on the ground. Or something. It was really funny though. It’s a variation off of a similar Tatar game, I think. Our class lost, unfortunately.

This morning my host mom made French-toast things. They were really delicious (although more savory than sweet) but they made me a little homesick. I kind of want waffles right now. Or a burger.

In class today our teacher brought in her son. He’s seven and completely adorable. While we were trying to do dialogues he would make faces at us and do silly things and distract his mom, and he played the games with us after school. Little kids speaking foreign languages are the cutest.

That was it, two national holidays for two different nations. Kind of an interesting cultural experience. I’ll try to take more pictures with the iPod so I can upload them onto here, since the camera thing doesn’t seem to work.

The weekend

So I’ve been pretty busy lately. I’ll try to update you on everything I’ve done.

Saturday was an excursion to a monastery and the Blue Lake. It was really cold and rainy and not super fun, but I’ll still try to put up pictures later. Then on Sunday I went to church and then went to my host family’s friend’s dacha (or something). They may or may not be related, since I was introduced to a bunch of people who were this person’s husband and someone else’s brother and here is some girl’s grandparents and they’re my friends! It was slightly overwhelming. I hung out with my sister Aynaz and her friends Olya and Medina(?), who are eighteen. We couldn’t really understand each other, but with the help of Google translate and lots of giggling we got along fine.

They also have a rabbit (it bit me) and an adorable little kitten. We walked along their dacha street (named, funnily enough, Kaliningrad) and talked. I had a really late lunch and two dinners, so I basically ate a lot of really good food in a very short amount of time. I also watched them clean and gut their freshly caught fish, which was interesting. It actually wasn’t nauseating, surprisingly. I guess I’m getting tougher.

The next day (Monday) I went with my friend Claire to Bauman street (the main walking street in Kazan). We ate at this little cafe called Cafe IQ. Apparently it used to be the hipster cafe before the REAL hipster cafe came along, but it didn’t seem very hipster to us. Really good food, though. We got blini with chicken, hot chocolate with ice cream, and cheesecake and apple strudel. The blini were REALLY good, and the hot chocolate was nice and thick. Wonderful invention, hot chocolate and ice cream. I’m going to try that this winter.

Then we went to the main shopping mall, Kaltso. It was really big. I saw a lot of cute dresses, but they were all pretty expensive. Most of the stores in the mall were pretty upscale, which was interesting. I don’t know if Russians really have the equivalent of a Target – somewhere where you can get cheap, fairly-ok quality stuff.

Last night I had some of the freshly caught fish. My host dad actually caught it and cooked it himself, and it was delicious. One of my favorite dinners so far.

Today (Tuesday) we walked to this museum. It was the museum commemorating the 1000th anniversary of Kazan. It was fairly interesting, and could have been fun, but we had a guide who spoke all in Russian. I can’t do guided tours in English, much less in Russian. The pace is just too slow for me. But there was some cool art and stuff. Then I went back to Cafe IQ with my friends Claire and Jen, where we got ice cream sundaes and did homework. Now I’m home, waiting for dinner I guess. It’s really hot here, so all I really want is some water and fruit. And ice cream.

I talk alot about food in my posts…I think it’s just a central thing to me these days. I just eat so much, and it’s interesting food. And delicious. And I just really like food. Maybe Thursday I can figure out pictures (or never…), but until then, poka!

Hipster Cafe

Hipster cafe! It’s really cool.

In between the center walking street and my university is this very steep street with a bunch of cafes and hotels and stuff. To get to the hipster cafe, you have to go down this street, and turn down an alley. Then you go around the back and enter this office building, and climb about 3 flights of stairs past a bunch of offices. Finally, at the last flight of stairs, there is a glass door with the name of the cafe on it (it’s a German word written in Cyrillic, so I have no idea what it’s called). You go through that and get to the top floor of the building, which is the cafe. As soon as you get in the people hand you a cool old clock and write your name(s) and the time on a chalkboard. You pay by the minute, 2 rubles/min for the first half hour and 1 ruble/min for all the time after that. The snacks and drinks are free, though, and there’s free wifi, so you can just hang out as long as you want.

This is the bowl of snacks that you can grab, full of cookies and crackers and candy. It was pretty good. You can see the corner of our clock in the background, behind all of our homework.

This is what I drank, essentially cold strawberry tea (ish). It was pretty good. My friend got a cappuccino, and they had a bunch of different teas you could get yourself. It was pretty cool.

This is my friend Claire (I know, same name) who I went to the cafe with. We stayed for about two hours and did homework together, which was way fun.

Here is one corner of the cafe. It was essentially a big open room, with a bunch of couches and tables and chairs. There was a cabinet with a bunch of board games on one wall, and here you can see a tv with some sort of game console. There are also a couple of private rooms you can get. It was really cool and really hipster. It even had a swing hanging in the middle!

That was my hipster experience. I think we’re going to try to go back sometime (mostly because there was a certain guy there that my friend is now obsessed with).

McDonalds in Russia

Still haven’t worked on pictures, so I have to save most of my stories for later. Sigh. I guess I’ll talk about McDonalds.

McDonalds in Russia is NOTHING like McDonalds in the US. The one on the main walking street in Kazan is really nice – two stories, nice furniture/decorations, etc. They have a cafe-thing that sells coffee and pastries and cakes, plus the regular part. It’s always really crowded, another thing you don’t really see in America. Russians really love McDonalds. We went today after our scavenger hunt to tally up points, and we saw a LOT of couples. In America it’s really bad form to take your date to McDonalds (not classy at all), but apparently it’s good in Russia. My host family asked if I liked McDonalds, and when I said no I had to explain that McDonalds isn’t the same in America. Same food for the most part, but not as nice. Or as busy.

That was my exploratory (that’s probably not a word) cultural experience for the day. That and getting lost with my host sister, but oh well.

Russian and Tatar food

Not much happened today. Well, I went to a hipster cafe, but I’ll have to save that story for later. So I’m going to write about food.

My mom is Tatar, but we live in Russia, so I get to taste both foods. For breakfast, I never have anything sweet. Porridge, meat, eggs, and bread are what I’ve had so far. Lunch is in the cafeteria, so it’s not very good (school food). Dinner is always delicious though. A lot of meat and potatoes (literally). Meat and potatoes plain, in a soup, over pasta. Today I had pelmini, which are my favourite Russian food. They’re like a cross between dumplings and ravioli, and they’re usually cooked in some sort of broth. You eat them warm, with sour cream, and they are incredibly delicious. I also had some blini, or Russian pancakes (sort of like crepes). I also had some sort of Tatar dish that was meat and potatoes cooked together inside this giant pastry-pie. Yum!

Russian ice cream is also really good, and really cheap. You can buy it anywhere on the street or in a продукты, a little Russian super market.

Tea is a really big thing over here. I mean, REALLY big. My host parents usually drink about one cup per meal, but my friends talk about how their host families just keep feeding them tea. I, of course, can’t drink regular tea, but I bought some herbal tea and I drink that. It’s not my favorite, but I’m getting used to it.

A sure sign of traditional Russian hospitality is that they feed you a lot. For example, yesterday I had two dinners – one when I got home and another after my parents got home. Even after dinner is done we sit around and drink tea, snack on cookies, cakes, candies, and fresh fruit. I usually end up going out later to get ice cream with my sisters too. It’s all delicious, but a little overwhelming.

My favorite part is the fresh fruit. My host family has a дача (dacha), or summer-house out in the country. Most Russian families do. My family built theirs themselves, and they have cherry trees out there, so yesterday they brought home a giant bag of fresh cherries. Today my host mom’s mom (host grandma?) came to visit and brought fresh raspberries and eggs. I haven’t tried the eggs yet, but the raspberries were delicious! Fresh and juicy and so sweet.  Eating those and the pelmini really made my day.

That’s Russian food (so far). I haven’t been to any restaurants yet, but I’m going to try to go on my next free day. Tomorrow is a scavenger hunt to help us get oriented in the city. I’ll try to write about our excursions or the hipster cafe next time, if I can get pictures to work. poka!

The beginning

здраствуте! At least I think that’s how it’s written. Anyway, my Russian is going well. I got to and from school all on my own today, navigating the apartment complex and bus stops. I’m definitely absorbing more Russian. I’ve started automatically answering “da” instead of “yeah” and I count in Russian now. Plus I can understand my host family a little better, but that may just be because they’re talking slower to accommodate me.

Today was my first day of REAL school, since yesterday was just like five or six tests (ugh). Today wasn’t much better, since we had an hour and a half of grammar. Passive case, ugh. My teachers are really nice though.

After school we did a bus tour of Kazan and visited the famous Kazan Kremlin. I’ll try to upload pictures later, if I can. No promises, though. We saw some nice churches and a very pretty mosque. It rained most of the day today, unfortunately, so we all got pretty wet. Good thing I brought an umbrella!

Tomorrow is more school. I think we have grammar second though, yay! I’m over halfway done with my first week in Russia. It’s just speeding by, huh? Dosvedanya!

In Russia

I made it! After a total of twelve hours of flying and WAY too much time waiting in lines, I am now in Kazan, Russia. We got in Sunday evening after losing a day in transit, and went straight to the university to meet our host families. My host family is incredibly sweet. I have a mom, a dad, and two younger sisters, 12 and 8. My sisters are Айназ and Сайда, or Ainaz and Saida. Their mom (my host mom) is Tatar, not Russian, which is why they don’t have traditional Russian names. I don’t speak very good Russian and they don’t speak very good English, but we manage to communicate.

My little sisters are adorable. We spent yesterday and today playing with balloons and making piggy banks (you know, with a balloon and paper mache). We talk in broken sentences of Russian and English, but it’s a lot of fun. My host mom cooks me mountains of delicious food, and it’s really easy to get full.

Today we (the NSLI-Y students) went to the university where we’ll be studying. Then we walked around the center of Kazan, and saw a lot of Lenin statues. Lenin actually studied at Kazan State University, along with Dostoevsky (I think). We also found this extremely hipster restaurant. It’s on the top floor of an office building, around the back in a little alleyway. It’s actually a coffee shop, so all of the drinks and snacks are free. There is a catch – you pay by the hour. 2 rubles a minute for the first half hour, and then 1 ruble after that. It also has free wifi, so hopefully we’ll end up doing our homework there.

Well, it’s the end of my first full day in Kazan. My host mom is making another delicious dinner (I can smell it from here).