Decode and Learn/Germans and Dostoevsky's Hood

Sprechen sie deutsch? Ja! I still do! But not much. Anyway, this is one street down from my apartment in the direction AWAY from the Canal. When Petersburg flooded the waters were this high.

My Russian Professor from Brown (in purple) she's incredible. And our tour guide the old guy in the vest. And the Students with Professor Левенцкий in the back.

Russian Grammar Table. And it's actually more difficult/complicated than it looks.

Essentially. I am trapped in a Russian Language Matrix. Currently decoding and liberating myself from the prison of grammar rules and syntax that has torn asunder my illusions of a simple one to one correlation of how Russian language functions.

Last night I pulled my first all nighter here. I came home napped and then from around 10 or 11 pm until 5 am I employed the help of a Redbull (only my 2nd or 3rd time drinking it in my life) my Russian tutor Ana back home via skype, and my Pocket Russian Dictionary. I got the work done and slept for a couple of hours. Got up told my host mom that I didn't need breakfast went to Sadovaya and had shvormak and then hopped the metro. Took a shower the gym and actually...

Strangest thing just happened I was writing this and then I got "invited out" by some people and I'm just now getting back to it. I'll have to stop here and continue later.

Sorry for falling off on that post earlier. So I went to school right after the gym and I showed up early. I was actually the first one in class. My teacher (the young one) was surprised to see me in class so early and I told her that I wanted to do better in class. I was amazing in class! Best Russian I've spoken yet! I paid attention and could understand 85% of what she was saying and I was really doing well in the class. We were learning about computers and different computer parts and functions.

Anyway, after class we had the Dostoevsky excursion. Which is basically: the neighborhood where Dostoevesky lived and wrote many of his great works including Crime and Punishment. We walked to all the places and on the exact path that Raskolnikov walked at the beginning of the book. So I actually saw where he killed the pawnshop lady and her sister his escape route where he kissed the ground all of those places. The guy who took us on this tour was this old Russian guy who seemed to be very wise. Almost like a sage. Anyway, for all those Crime and Punishment fans out there I just lived your dream. I walked everywhere Raskolnikov walked. I feel like one of Dostoevsky's characters living here though. Knowing that he lived and wrote in the apartment literally right across the street from me. I feel like the novel would be entitled "The Negro of Sadovaya"

A long time ago a lot of Germans lived in this neighborhood too. So there's like some German inscriptions in various places. Plus a few German business are still here. There a STIHL chainsaw and tool store not too far from here. The guys I met later I think one of them were German... That invited me to go out and I knew I shouldn't refuse. You know those Germans. If you don't join their party they'll come get you.

So the tour was great came home and took a nice long nap and had every intention of doing homework when I got up. But what happened was I went to go take the trash out. Met the Russian and I think half German guy and they wanted to hang out with me. So I ran back up and put on some jeans (cause I was wearing my Texas Longhorn shorts) and I grabbed my grammar homework! I was thinking. I'll hang out with these guys and get them to help me with my homework. And we did! We hung out! They helped! Then some girls came. Then people wanted to go into the bar (the one literally on the first floor of this building). One thing led to another... And yeah... So I got back in at an ungodly hour and I realized that I just had a very good cultural practice. I spoke a lot of Russian. Made friends. Took pictures. Cause at the bar I unveiled a few dance moves that I usually keep on reserve for my own personal usage when I'm alone in my room. But the Russians thought I was the King of the Dance floor. And then they played Michael Jackson... I was the only one that knew English... The only Black person... And only American... Do you see where that is going?

Anyway, I'm in tonight though! Mama and anyone else reading this feel free to call me. I'll be here studying away. Not going anywhere.

Strangest thing last night too. The half German kept asking where I was from in Africa and how my family was doing. He was pretty drunk... I explained to him many times that I was a student and I didn't have a wife or kids and that the last time that my family was in Africa was roughly 400 years ago.

Stay Tuned.

White People for Dinner

Yesterday I had dinner with some of my host moms strange friends. Tanya was acting really weird as always. I got the vibe that she didn't want to be there. Anyway, there was a woman that had a haircut like a man and that had a kind of manly build. There was another guy that looked kind of silly. He looked like a nerdy computer person but according to everyone at the table he was a musician. And then there was a girl at the end of the table that was very shy and spoke really softly. I couldn't tell how old she was. She could be as young as 16 or maybe even as old as 27. The manly woman and nerdy guy looked like they were in their 40's. I don't think they were a family but they seemed to know each other very well. They all smoked in the kitchen while we were having dinner and it was disgusting.

They were interested in me and where I was from and asked questions about my family. I explained in Russian that I was from Texas and that I was student studying Russian language and everyone was really impressed with how well I spoke Russian. The dinner was really good and we had wine too. I only had one glass and I had to eat quickly cause I had homework but mostly cause I had to get out of the kitchen and away from the smell of cigaret smoke and animals.

I was very cordial and explained that I had a lot of homework that I needed to finish and they understood. They told me to come back and join them when I finished or if I needed help. I needed help but never finished. I heard someone playing the guitar later and everyone was singing along. My host mom is a psychologist by the way. She told me and I also see some psychological evaluation forms (in Russian) on the kitchen table from time to time.

Pet dogs, cats, and turtles are not house-dwelling animals. No matter how much some people may want them to be. Especially if your living space isn't that large. They let the turtle crawl all around the floor of the kitchen he doesn't have a cage or anything.

Seriously. I'm not supposed to wear my shoes in the kitchen (which I don't mind) but the cat is allowed to lick itself clean and leave cat fur everywhere right in the kitchen! And yesterday was the first time I saw the dog with his muzzle off. The top of his nose was disgusting looking! It was all covered in a blueish green pus. It looked like that from all the times he had been trying to take off his muzzle. It was gross. But I think he was given some type of drug cause he was really sedated and didn't bark or bite at me. He made himself very comfortable under the table while I sat and had dinner with the people.

I'm not the only one who requested a non smoking family. To Russians nonsmoking means not smoking in your presence. My babushka, mother, and Tanya smoke like people in Texas keep on the AC in the summer. All the time. I was talking to some girls at lunch and they said that they BOTH requested nonsmoking families and they said at first their host mom didn't smoke but then she started to smoke on their balcony then the living room and now she's gotten comfortable enough to smoke in the kitchen.

My room doesn't have a closest and the kitchen doesn't have cabinets for the dishes and there's no microwave in the house either.

I also did laundry again yesterday. Coin operated laundromats are a rarity in Russia. I asked Sif and he said he's never found one. So I had to let someone else do my laundry again. I LIKE doing my own laundry. And now it's all over my room in various locations drying.

The white people asked if I played an instrument and I told them that I played the trumpet. It's been a while but I've still got it. First Chair 7th AND 8th grade. Symphonic band. I think there's a free concert for students at St. Isaac's tonight. I have to run back to class now. пока!

Pictures. That's the kitchen/living room. The white people were sitting on that couch bed thing and I was on the side of the table by the computer. Imagine sitting in a room where all someone did was smoke 23 hours a day for 364 days a year mix it with gross animal smell and that's what my kitchen/living room smells like.

stay tuned.

Practice?

In the words of The Great Allen Iverson, "Practice?!"

Why has my fantastic time here suddenly become consumed by homework and reading? Why do I have to practice grammar in class and sit through boring lectures? It's whack. I'd much rather be going out and around in the city to restaurants, bars, and parks and just living everyday life putting my Russian to use in the real world. I'm so frustrated with having to do all of my work that I don't even feel like doing an elaborate blog. Here are some things about St. Petersburg that are fun facts-

-mullets (men with long hair) 98% of men wear their hair long here. it is the most popular hairstyle here. It's disgusting and I hate it.

-rollerblading is probably more popular than biking. Remember back in the early and mid-nineties when everyone wanted a pair of inline skates. I even had a pair. Well that fad has just caught on here. It's also annoying and strange to see people going up and down the streets in rollerblades.

-There are a lot of older people here that are poor/homeless cause under the Soviet Union government their pensions were all taken care of but when that government phased out many of them lost their retirement funds. Every now and then there will be a group of them somewhere protesting to have the country be the way it used to be 30 or 40 years ago.

-In Petersburg there are only about 60 Sunny days a year. So There are more yellow buildings in this city than almost anywhere else in the world. To say you're by a Yellow building here in this city is like saying you're by a hotdog stand in New York. There are also a lot of pink buildings too.

-I bought a Naruto Manga volume in Russian yesterday. It's really helping me learn to read a lot better.

Also... Uh... Why bother. All you do is skim this for the good stuff anyway. No clubs as of lately. No baller lavish expensive VIP sections. Just books and homework and the smell in this apartment isn't getting any better. Enjoy the pictures.

Stay Tuned.

American Cultural Imperialism (Thank God!)

The McDonalds here is the best thing to happen to me since I've been here. It is so delicious! Way better than any American McDonalds! And the Sprite was the perfect mixture of syrup and carbonated water. It wasn't flat or disgusting like the Sprites from McDonalds in France. It was lemon and lime harmonization perfected.

There were these two kids I saw on my way back listening to some surprisingly good sounding Russian hip-hop and I turned around and pointed at them and kind of gave them a thumbs up and their faces lit up like Christmas!

....

I started this blog a while back and saved it. We went on a tour of the city today. I had seen some of the spots already when I was exploring with some of the other Brown students earlier.

I almost forgot that I'm here to be a student. But now I'm going to get really serious about doing well in my class and mastering as much Russian as I can this summer. I'm picking up words and phrases here and there but the grammar is still escaping me. I have two Russian language teachers. One is young and she talks so impossibly fast! (The classes are all in Russian) And my other teacher is older and she talks nice and slow and I do really well with her. She probably thinks I'm the best student in the language class cause I can converse with her and answer questions in class easily. The younger teacher spits off Russian words like a gatling gun spits off rounds. She probably thinks I'm the worst student in the class.

The poverty here is so grimy. Contrary to how busted up and disgustingly awful my apartment smells there's still a lot more worse places the further away you get from the center of St. Petersburg. The majority of Russia's wealth is concentrated into Moscow and St. Petersburg. The further away you get the more depressing and awful things get... Another reason I think the United States is kind of on top of things in terms of administration and quality of life. If Huntsville, Texas was in Russia I'd probably be a farmer and alcoholic.

The metro is MADNESS during rush hour in the afternoon! I'm from the country and I've never had to take metros and buses. So getting around reading the signs and stops in Russian on one of the worlds largest metro systems is a huge leap for me.

And the Taxi's here! Are absolutely ridiculous! You just stop a RANDOM UNMARKED car in the street and negotiate a price and you go off to your destination. There are some cabs with yellow things on top indicating they are a legitimate cab but cabs don't have meters in them! Pricing with cab drivers is best negotiated by people that know the city and know how much things should cost.

Anyway! I'm about to get very serious about my homework and things of that nature. Dinner time...

Stay Tuned