Zdrastvuitye!

I'm going to need to figure out how to type in Cyrillic I suppose--but for now, I'm going to make do with weird transliterations.

I'm currently at an internet cafe with my new apartmentmate, Roxanne--we have our own rooms but live with the same host mom. I wrote this up last night to post, so this is ~8:00 Moscow time on August 30.

It's been a whirlwind of a day. I left Chicago O'Hare at about 4:30 PM on Scandanavian Airlines to Stockholm, Sweden, where we landed at about 7:30 AM local time. The flight proved to me that being on a plane can in fact be enjoyable--they gave us nice blankets and pillows, the movies were free (so I watched The Other Boleyn Girl--stupid, don't see it--and the second half of Monsters Inc.), and the food was excellent. For dinner we had a yummy little chicken thing with rice, broccoli, salad and cheesecake, and the "light breakfast" was rolls with cheese and jam, yogurt, and OJ. Ridiculous. I spent the rest of the time reading the NY Times and sleeping a bit.

When we landed in Stockholm, I had about two hours to kill, so after getting my passport stamped I wandered around for a while and then crammed in some last-minute Russian studying. It turned out to be a English is not the primary language, so it was neat to hear announcements first in what I presume was Swedish before hearing them in English. It made me realize how lucky I am to know English--I don't know how I would travel without getting totally confused if I didn't.

Anyway, I got on a 10:05 plane to Moscow on Aeroflot. I had a small moment of panic when the visa-checking lady at the gate said mine might not be okay--it had a starting travel date of July because of the way the program set it up, so I think that was the problem, but it was fine in the end. The flight was decidedly less fancy, and I was in the very last row window seat surrounded by a huge group of loud guys, but I just passed out so it was fine.

And then--Moscow! The Swedes, as it turns out, aren't all that uptight about passport control compared to the Russians. You have to have a visa, and when you get here you have to fill out a migration card just so, and they keep half, and then it has to be registered by the next business day, and then you have to bring the other half back when you leave the country. But I got through that and customs without a hitch, and directly on the other side were two Russian boys with signs--"Neubauer Katherine." They took my bags and drove me to my host's apartment, which took a while, so I dozed off and tried to read some billboards, which had a wierd mix of Russian and English on them. I couldn't communicate very effectively with the boys, but one of them spoke decent English so we chatted a bit. I think they're students at the university where I'll be studying, so I may see them again. They had the radio on, and aside from Russian pop, it played two English songs--"I Will Survive" and the song from that movie about Chihuahuas that came out this summer. The whole thing was kind of surreal. We managed to find the apartment and up we went in a creaky old lift that could barely manage two people and my bags.

My host mom, Svetlana, met us at the door--"Zdrastvuitye, pazhalsta!" Now, I was told that they would try to place me with someone who speaks at least a little English, but Svetlana, mmm, not so much. She's very kind, though, and we hobbled through a little conversation with lots of pantomiming. She showed me how to lock the doors properly--Russian apartments have two doors at the front and the key must be turned just right--and my room, which is lovely. It's pretty spacious, probably a bit bigger than a Wilbur double for you Stanford kids, and I have a desk, a neat little bed, a wardrobe and even a magnificently out-of-tune piano! My window looks out over a park where kids were playing basketball and soccer (oops, footbol) and some other beautiful apartment buildings. Svetlana gave me some bread and cheese and tea, and then I unpacked while she ran some errands.

I'm feeling fantastically optimistic about this whole thing. I think the living situation is going to work out beautifully--we had DELICIOUS borscht for dinner last night and kasha, or porridge, this morning, with plenty of tea for the intrepid traveler with a cold (me). Last night I watched the clouds turn pink at sunset out my window. All of my things are in their proper places, and last night I crawled into my cozy little bed and fell asleep. It's hard to imagine this going any better, and while I'm sure difficulties will arise soon enough, for now I am perfectly content.

CONVENTION = WOW.

I have a TON more to say about that, but for now I'm just trying to get my brain around the fact that I'll be leaving my house in twelve hours for Moscow. I'm panicking quite a bit--I just feel like I'm TOTALLY unprepared for what's going to happen. I don't even know what to pack or anything. AAAH.

Okay one little note before I go back to packing--Obama is going to be the next president of the United States. Just typing that sentence sends a little whoosh of happy through me.

YES. WE. CAN.

Kat will go to Moscow... but first a little backstory.

I spent this summer in Madison, WI working for Grassroots Campaigns, which is a fundraising organization. The first half of the summer I spent working for the Democratic National Committee going door-to-door and the second half was for the ACLU on the street. I usually worked 40+ a week and the organization was a more than a tad, well, unorganized, but all in all it worked out very well. I learned a ton, got to use my brain and talk politics all day long, plus I got paid. So while it was certainly a frustrating job at times, it was totally worth it.

Other than that, I had a great summer in Madison. Erica found me a great apartment on Langdon Street just a few blocks from the Union with my own bedroom and a roommate who was hardly there at all, so I got to try living on my own for a while. Let's just say I ate a lot of Ramen and scrambled eggs and PB&J and perhaps the pile of dishes in the sink was a little large at times. Definitely a different experience from living in the dorms (I miss my roommate, Lynn!). I spent a little time with Erica and Monica, friends of mine from high school who live right down the block, though not nearly enough. And halfway through the summer I started dating Nate, who I met at GCI (so DEFINITELY worth it). We had a crazy fun three and a half weeks lindyhopping, doing crossword puzzles, hiking on Rock Island, shooting guns out at the farm, starwatching, and just plain hanging out, and now we're going to give it a shot long distance. I also spent a lot of time with my family--we went to the Boundary Waters again, as well as a wedding up in Northern Wisconsin and my grandparents' cottage on Lake Sylvia in Minnesota for my birthday weekend (aaah I'm no longer a teenager!). I was able to spend at least a little time with lots of different relatives, which was great, and plenty of time just hanging out, reading, sleeping, and making a rather weak attempt to teach myself Russian.

Which brings me to the point--I'm going to Moscow! Right now I'm in Racine preparing to go to the Democratic National Convention in Denver next week, where I'll be sharing a position as a page with my sister Greta (in short--we're two slaves for the price of one). Very shortly after my return from that trip I'm off for good to the Motherland on August 30 to do a Russian immersion program for three weeks before the quarter starts. This blog is for you, my friends and family, to know what's going on in my life, since we all know I'm TERRIBLE about responding to emails.