Per aspera ad astra

I originally intended to post something about Thanksgiving, but realized how superfluous it will end up being when the other teachers post pictures and the like. Also, celebrating the holiday away from home (and in Russia) for the second time made me realize how much I only like the holiday when I celebrate it with my family. While it might be nice to hang on to the American traditions, it’s always slightly unsettling for me to be pushed into celebrating with people I’ve only known a handful of months. I’d rather have my aunt’s turkey and cranberry sauce from a can or not celebrate the holiday at all. Unfortunately, I don’t have much of a choice working at the American Home That being said, our homemade dinner was fairly good (though more expensive than I’d have liked) given our Russian ingredients. I made zucchini casserole and zucchini bread, which both went over well. The teachers prepared food for a little less than 30 people, including the Russian staff and some of our host families (Nina M. was too sick to make an appearance). I’m grateful for all of the people here and my experience, but when it comes to Thanksgiving, there really is no place like home.
And as a quick update on my future plans- we’ve got 8 lessons left (though technically one is our final exam and the other is a class party) until Christmas break. I’ll be hanging around Vladimir for American Christmas (Russians celebrate it on the 7th), and then the day after I’m heading out on the morning train to Moscow to catch my evening flight to London. (!) If all goes according to plan, my mom and Kamandy will arrive the day after. We’ll spend New Year’s in London, Kamandy flies home and my mom and I take the Chunnel (first class!) to Paris for the remainder of break. Have I mentioned how much I absolutely love travelling to new places?

1. The Great Boot Search 2006 is over. After lowering my standards slightly, I found this pair of cute boots with a minimal heel and a pretty design on the side.

2. When we arrived in Vladimir, taking the trolleybus or the regular bus cost 5 and 6 rubles, respectively. Yesterday, I noticed signs up on the bus saying that on November 15 (today!), the prices would be 6 and 7. I was a little disgruntled about the price hike (a shocking 4 cents) and the short notice, but I’m adaptable. That was, of course, until I was informed by Galina Petrovna that after the New Year, prices would rise again to 8 and 9 rubles. Outrage! (hey, when you’re on a Russian salary…)

3. A brief update on my classes (since I never seem to talk about them). All of my students have officially passed their midterms, and we’re coming down on finals and the end of the semester very quickly. Most of my classes should be fine and move on to the next level, but there are a few stragglers who I’m nervous for. Here’s a shot of my 7:30 class hard at work- they’re probably my best/most beautiful class and they all get along really well, with few exceptions:

4. In other work news, testing for next semesters new students starts today and I could not be more excited. I love talking to the new students and, yes, grading their entrance exams, so this is good news in my little world.

5. Nina M. is convinced that I’m in love. Is it true, you might ask- have I been receiving bouquets of flowers, piles of love notes and multiple late-night phone calls? Nope. She’s convinced that the reason I stay out late some nights is that I have a budding relationship with a charming admirer. She’s so sure of this that she’s taken to greeting me with “Russkii ili Amerikanetz?” (Russian or American boy) when I come home, in addition to her usual ‘Dobriy Vecher, Dorogaya” (Good evening, darling). Hey, if it gets her off my back about not eating at home and not sleeping enough, so be it.

This morning, I decided to go shopping for winter boots at the large indoor market in town. To be honest, I’ve been shopping for winter boots for about a week and a half now, going into various stores and coming out empty-handed each time. Including my adventure today, I’ve visited over twenty little shoe stores throughout Vladimir and Moscow, and still have no boots to warm my feet.

Now, some people might accuse me of being too picky. And really, when I’m paying an average of 3000 rubles ($112) for a pair of boots, I think I deserve to be a little selective. But really, I have very simple criteria: I want warm, not ugly shoes that don’t have a heel and will last through this winter. Not too demanding, in my opinion. But when most Russian boots look like a variation of this: or this: , I’m out of luck for the most part. Frankly, i don’t need to look like a hooker or a Clydesdale.

Granted, since I’ve started looking at boots, my standards have gone down. And I actually found a really nice pair of dark leather boots made in Finland which I would have snapped up in a second if they hadn’t cost 7500 rubles ($280). But overall, it’s been a major failure. I find normal boots that only exist in size 6 and 11, I’m yelled at and ignored by busy store attendants (and heaven forbid if I accidentally look at a fall shoe hiding in the winter collection), etc. I hate shopping anyway for the most part, and being pushed around by hundreds of Russians scrounging for the most stylish shoes doesn’t help matters much. Basically, I end every boot excursion the same way, staring at a pair of hot stiletto boots thinking “It wouldn’t be so bad. I might fall everywhere, but I’d be hot.” Fortunately, some angry customer usually grabs the shoe I’m looking at and I trudge back to the AH in defeat.

In Мир Обувь, right before I made my brilliant escape, there was a little kid with the kind of plastic gun that makes noises standing in the middle of the Women’s Shoes section. In addition to the gun’s fake noises, the kid was making shooting noises and spinning around, attempting to ’shoot’ everyone in the store. He’s my hero.

This may not be a particularly coherent entry, but at least it has pictures!

The incredibly friendly people we met at the hostel in Moscow did end up coming to Vladimir on Thursday. After an hour of wandering around trying to find them, Lukas managed to find the AH and we went for lunch at Telega (they had been in Russia for quite some time and had been largely living off of McDonalds). After arranging a hotel for them and giving them some tips about the city, they were off to explore and we were off to teach. Fortunately, after work we met up again and went to a quasi-sports bar for drink (and pseudo-spaghetti for me). Good times were had by all, and I hope to see them again sometime

Helen (Australian) and Lukas (Swedish)

In other news, when I arrived at work yesterday, it was just beginning to snow lightly. By the end of the day, it was still snowing, but now it was snowing heavily and horizontally- making walking to the pizza place down the street incredibly difficult. Overall, we got several inches of beautiful pristine snow that will inevitably turn into a brown-grey mush on the streets. But we’ll enjoy it while it lasts!

Aaron, Alexei and Bob play snow-softball outside Joanna’s apartment. I tried pitching and apparently not all of my long-dormant softball skills have vanished, because I throw a mean snowball.

On the walk home from Joanna’s, Molly was struck with the urge to make a snow angel, and as usual, I captured it on film.

Recently, Nicole and I decided that we could not deal with ourselves much longer without getting haircuts. Fortunately, we know this excellent gentleman named Alexei whose mother works at a beauty salon downtown. Here he is, in all of his manly glory (I’ll clarify that the hat wasn’t his, but it just looks so fitting, eh?)

A few words about Alexei, since he’s apparently read my older blog. After scruntinizing my criteria for the perfect Russian man, he declared himself the almost-perfect man. Unfortunately, he has one tragic flaw, according to my criteria:

The Manpurse.

Irregardless, his mother is a hairdresser (and a wonderful woman to boot) and we were two devushki (girls) in need. Off we went!

Nicole’s cut turned out fabulously.

As for me, the jury’s still out, but I think I’m lookin’ alright.

Also, if any loyal readers happen to be enthusiasts of the game called Set, a few of the teachers were playing a while ago and came upon this mathematically improbable occurence- fifteen cards and absolutely no Set.

Any guesses?

Edit: fifteen minutes later, Nicole found a Set. Congrats!

This week, the AH teachers had a bit of a reprieve from the clutches of ESL. Unfortunately, five days isn’t long enough to go anywhere particularly exciting on a teacher’s budget, so some teachers went to Petersburg and some stayed in Vladimir to be productive and/or sick. Since I hate Petersburg almost as much as I hate being productive/sick, Moscow was the destination of choice for this fall break.

As the average Moscow hotel runs around $100 a night, we opted for a hostel, which ended up being an excellent choice. Sweet Moscow is located on Stariy Arbat, which is essentially a long street of overpriced restaurants (we were across from Hard Rock Cafe) and souvenir shops. It’s centrally located and, hey, our hostel only cost $25 a night, which by Moscow standards is a steal.

Average rooms at the hostel have 6-8 beds; I shared my sleeping space with a group of young Germans, a guy from Peru, and a younger guy from Sweden (who is incidentally coming to Vladimir tomorrow on the Golden Ring trip). The hostel was incredibly clean and the manager was super friendly- if you’re planning to venture into the second best city in the world anytime soon, I’d recommend staying here.

I have what some people might call an ‘addiction’ to matryoshka dolls (see above). Fortunately, I am too poor to buy anything that I saw in the various shop windows along Stariy Arbat.

The first day in Moscow was relatively uneventful and consisted of massive amounts of wandering around. For our first meal, I demanded a stop at Teremok. For those not totally obsessed with Moscow, Teremoks are small stands that sell various types of blini. My personal favorites include the ham & cheese, as well as the с сгущёным молоком (sweetened condensed milk). They’re a tasty Russian alternative to McDonalds, at about the same price.

After wandering through the cold some more for a while, we returned to the hostel for a short nap. I sifted through the free English newspaper eXile at the hostel and after reading several restaurant reviews, decided we needed to get out for a decent meal. What followed was one of the greatest culinary experiences of my life.

The place we went to was called La Hacienda (but since Russian doesn’t have an “h” equivalent, it’s technically La Gacienda), and it’s by far the best Mexican food in all of Russia. As recommended by eXile, we ordered the pico de gallo (which was free since it was our first time!) and I got a strawberry margarita (see below).

After this amazing beginning, I ordered a chicken burrito with guacamole, which was also incredible. The entire experience was awesome. Our waitress spoke English and Russian, but unlike most, was willing to speak Russian with us. The restaurant itself was well-decorated, and my margarita rocked. As evidenced by the next picture, it was a весёлый evening. (In Russian sign language, this is the sign for весёлый, which means happy in English)

Though I’d been to Moscow twice already, you can’t ever get enough of Красная Площадь, so we spent a good amount of time there on Monday. Here’s a pretty typical picture of the lovely onion-domes of Saint Basil’s.

Yesterday was the holiday commemorating the October Revolution (which Putin decided to throw out last year) and some commies are still holding strong. The square was entirely closed off to the public, but there was a small procession of communists allowed to go pay their respects to Lenin on Monday.

On a recommendation from Lukas the Swede, we went to the Novodevichy Cemetery yesterday. It was basically the hip place to be buried during the Soviet Union. Here’s a few of my favorite dead people…

Nikita Khrushchev- (Никита Хрущёв)- former leader of the CCCP, post-Stalin. There’s a picture of him in the classroom that I teach in 75% of the time, so this was a special moment.

Yuri Nikulin (Юрий Никулин)- famous Soviet actor/clown

Nikolai Gogol (Николай Гоголь)- one of the greatest Russian writers (and one of the few who doesn’t write about love and nature all of the time)

There were a bunch of really neat graves with beautiful sculptures/artwork and then there were a few totally random markers, like this poor chap who will be forever commemorated with a hole in the ground.

A view from outside Novodevichy.

Before we left, we stopped at a genuine American-style mall to get some more tasty Teremok. Before we left, I snapped this shot. I actually think I like ‘travelator’ better than ‘escalator’. It’s got much more of a ring to it.