So. Much. Dead. Animal...

Блог 3

         So I decided to take a rather uneventful week and talk about everyday life for me here. I have class five days a week and on weekends… well I've only had one free weekend so far and I already wrote about the ballet, but mostly I just hang out. So, every morning in the dark at around 8:30 I head out the door for the short-but-bitterly-cold walk to the metro station. On my way I usually fall on the ice at least once, get talked to by creepy dudes, or get yelled at for not understanding a simple phrase like, "please move". The harassment is the worst, but I'll get to that later.

          So the metro. The metro is far worse than any public transport I've ever taken anywhere and that includes Beijing. The metros in Petersburg are not the gorgeous pieces of art like in Moscow. In fact if you go to the end of the orange line, the station is positively Soviet. I've talked about metro face before, but I have found that after only three weeks, when someone smiles on the metro I stare at them and wonder what could possibly have happened to have made them so happy. All I know is it was probably bad for me if it made someone else happy… There is no such thing as personal space. I've had people so close to me I'm pretty sure they'd sit in my lap if they didn't think I'd have them arrested. There are far more people on the trains and trying to get to the  escalators than I have ever seen in that small of a space before in my life. They press around you until you are herded by metal gates like a funnel until your neighbors are so close to you, you could lift up your feet and they would carry you through the pressure of how hard they are pushing up against you all the way to the escalator. The first time this happened I had a mini freak out. The second time, the same thing happened. So far nothing has been stolen. You'd think that this would be a prime situation to knick things out of bags and pockets, but I think that it's the worst because your arms are pinned to your sides so there's no way thieves can move. That's all for the better. 

A picture of the old wooden buildings in
Novgorod which should have been
in the 

          After the metro I grab a mashrootka (which is kind of like a bus but smaller and not really official) or the CIEE program bus that shuttles all the cute Americans to and from school. Then I check my coat (it's rude to wear coats in class) and eat the breakfast that my host mom packed me. Then I spend way too long in class and even longer trying to get the school's wifi to agree with my phone, and eat a sketchy but 110 ruble lunch from the school café. Then it's back on the mashrootka to the metro or a café or bar or on Monday nights to the ONLY Mexican restaurant in Petersburg. The margaritas are almost right and so are the nachos. Frankly it's as close as we can get, so we're taking it, and calling it Margarita Mondays. After that I go home and eat something super starchy and sketchy and oddly crunchy, drink massive quantities of tea and try to hash out a conversation about life, the universe, and everything with my doesn't-speak-a-word-of-English host mom and my limited vocabulary. So far I have been very vague about everything, very basic, and she has gone on for a half hour, looked at me, smiled sadly and say, "You didn't understand a word I just said, did you?" To which I look sheepish and shrug and say, "Choot choot" (just a little). Whenever I actually eat all she wants me to she tells me how good of a girl I am and calls me zaichek which means bunny and is a very sweet endearment for children.

The side of the Hermitage at night.

         On my way to school, the metro, anywhere, the biggest change between Colorado and Russia is by far the fashion. Specifically, the coats. One word- fur. So much dead animal! I have (almost) gained far more of an appreciation for these fur coats, hats, boots, everything. The women are just dripping with fur and without it you are actually terribly noticeable. It is both a status symbol and completely practical here given how much standing and waiting we do which makes everything colder. It's truly terrifying how much fur you can buy and all the different kinds of dead animal people are willing to wear here. There are no bounds to the fur… 

So very many dead hats... And my
friend Chris in the back there.

       That is about all for daily life, which is generally good and pleasant if bitterly cold at times, but there is one thing here that I haven't been able to take with good grace and humor. That is the everyday creepiness that I encounter wherever I go. I'd probably be more upset about the situation if I didn't know that it's not just me, and I talk to my host mom about it all the time and she always makes me feel better. The most important thing is to not panic or be paranoid, and to understand that (for the most part) this is a part of everyday winter life here. Every day I encounter some form of super creepy Russian man-ness. Whether on the metro or the street, at a bar or in our school's hallway, I get… well the closest though not at all accurate word is, hit on. I have been followed home, which was by far the worst, creeped on at a bus stop, and called 25 times in one week by the Doorman at SPB (that bar I told ya'll about) because he stole my phone and called himself from it. He stopped calling, and I went to a different SPB Saturday night (they are like Starbucks here, one outside of every metro) and he was working so now he has started calling again. Anyways, I was followed home from the metro by a middle-aged man who kept asking if I was married and where I was from and if I had a cell phone number he could have. That was very scary. The other day started as a good one- no one had done anything at all creepy yet, until on the metro when a guy started making these "kissy" type motions and noises at me and I gave him my best metro-face-I-will-murder-you stare. I've had a guy running down an escalator going down into a metro do a full stop, stare, smile and keep running. I've seen that happen a few times to Russian girls, but that didn't make it any less disconcerting. Another time I was walking to the metro at sunrise and a guy just stepped right in front of me and said, "takaya krasivaya" (how pretty is a roughish translation) and then went back to his conversation. There are a few more but those are the most memorable, and the most upsetting. 

Fireworks and Peter and Paul Fortress across the Neva.

          Don't get me wrong, it's not normal for people to be harassed or anything, just weird stuff keeps happening all around me. This week wasn't totally uneventful. Saturday night was amazing because Saturday was men's day and on men's day they do a salute from Peter and Paul Fortress, which involves shooting off tons of fireworks so you can watch them from across the Neva. Winter fireworks are something everyone should see. They were so loud and echo-y that car alarms started going off all over the city. After this we went to the SPB in which the overly friendly doorman was working, and ended up in the middle of what was basically a Russian game show, complete with a crushed velvet sport jacket wearing host and three VERY scantily clad Russian women. The goal, we soon learned, was to guess which show or game the song playing was the theme of (grammar skills missing, if found please call Cate). Then there was some dancing with the girls and we waited two hours for beer that never came, so we left. Very odd. That was my whole week, and I am hoping that next week will be, if not more eventful, more interesting. Hope all in Denver are enjoying their snow and everyone else has seen the sun more than once this week!