очии хорошо!

I survived my first week of Russian!

Seriously. I survived!

It was a tough tough week--they've crammed a TON of information into our heads this week. I've been studying my little brains out. The upside is that I can actually have something resembling a real conversation now without too much trouble. The downside is that I'm EXHAUSTED, which I can live with.

We also got our passports back with papers all finished, so now we don't have to be so afraid of the police. Consequently, I've been going around Moscow with a few other students seeing some awesome things. Roxanne and I can see a ferris wheel out our window, so we decided to check it out--turns out it's this exhibition center from the thirties that was a pretty big deal in Soviet times. So a few of us wandered through that on Wednesday. It's this weird juxtaposition of these grand buildings and ornate fountains and statues of triumphant peasants and factory workers against sketchy carnival rides; these days the space is available to whoever wants to rent it, so there are all sorts of trade expos as well as rides like the Condor, which I went on with Roxanne and Carolyn. A little scary--safety regulations here aren't, shall we say, strictly enforced--but it was cool to see that area of Moscow stretched out in front of me. There are just lots of bizarre little things, like the kiddy ride that had a teepee and a little plastic log for the kid to sit in and paddle underneath and the game where you shoot a fake rifle at a target that was themed with cowboys and Indians. They were pumping American music through the speakers throughout the grounds, so we had some Rihanna and Elton John to keep us company. There were also old Soviet planes and rockets and stuff in another area of the grounds, plus we had some мароженое--ice cream--which was weird but tasty.

Yesterday Nastya took us on a little walk up a hill so we could really see all of Moscow before us, which was great. She pointed out the Kremlin and a few other landmarks, and there were all these great little tourist-trap stands selling Matryoshka dolls and fur hats and old military gear. Haven't succumbed yet, but I'm sure I will eventually. I want a fur hat, yo. Anyway, we turned around and right there was Moscow State University! It's an unnecessarily large and imposing building, but very beautiful. Apparently it has the largest campus in the world, but only because it owns a bunch of land in Siberia. (Stanford's second, whoohoo!) It was neat to see, but the best part was just being out in Moscow, somewhere other than my apartment, and talking to Nastya. She's really cool, and apparently her job is to take us where we want to go and hang out with us, including on weekends, which will be awesome because she'll know what's worth seeing. This weekend we're going on a bus tour of Moscow, and while I'm not usually a huge fan of bus tours I'm looking forward to this because we'll finally get to see the Kremlin, and Nastya says the guide is "fun, not boring at all." Plus, this weekend is the celebration of "the birth of Moscow" so there's all sorts of stuff going on, and Nastya's going to wander around with us in the afternoon. Plus it's warm right now--probably 75-80 degrees. We're told that won't last long, so we're going to take advantage of it while we can.

Other random things:

This random Russian student at the Academy came up to us the other day at lunch and wants to be friends, so we're going to meet up this weekend sometime with her and her sister. She loves Americans, which is a rarity these days. We stick out like sore thumbs at the Acadamy though, so I guess there's not much we can do about it--all the girls there are impeccably coiffed and dress like they walked straight out of a magazine, so we look pretty grungy by comparison.

Roxanne and I have decided to make our own бутерброд, or Russian sandwiches (the only difference is that they're open-faced and smaller), for lunch so we don't have to buy them at 40R a pop, so we went to the supermarket this afternoon and got some stuff, managing to complete the transaction without anyone getting severely confused. We're going to save up and have extravagant meals on the weekends. The food we've had so far has been surprisingly tasty; everything I'd heard said that Russian food was terrible as a rule, but Svetlana and the school cafeteria seem to have it down pretty well. However...

On Wednesday, we waited for Svetlana to come home and feed us until 8:30, but then we gave up and went to макдоналдс--McDonald's. It's right up the block and I have to say, it's pretty swanky. They have free wifi and something translated roughly as a McCafe, which has coffee and pastries and stuff--very weird. My cheeseburger had sour cream on it. I love Russians. We also passed a fancy little Sbarro on the way back, looking quite a bit more cleaned up than it does in your average American mall food court.

I'm able to steal wireless from someone in our apartment building on a fairly consistent basis, and it seems to be more reliable than the internet I'd have to pay for, so I'm going to work off that unless it becomes ridiculous. I have to sit right at my window, which is kind of a pain but it's a nice view. Most Russians turn off their routers when they're not using them (if they have them at all, which most don't) to save electricity, but we seem to have found one who doesn't. It's a lucky break. Also, my phone unlock code arrived today so I finally have a Russian number and less outrageous international rates! It's free for me to receive calls and 30 cents/minute to call the US, so I won't be spending hours on the phone but it is an option.

Off to take a nap before dinner--borscht again, hooray!