Oh my, you came from so far away!

• That’s a direct quote from the old security guard who wrote me a day pass for the university on Wednesday. And indeed during the last week I have come to realize just how far I have traveled away to end up just east of the Urals and Europe. A couple of interesting [and, for the most part, cool] facts about Ekaterinburg:
  There is no McDonald’s in this town [although rumor has it that one is being built right now]. They do, however, have a MacPik, which is a Russian knock-off of the great American chain.
• The town is still often called by the old name (Sverdlosk) in many places, such as train schedules [which made for an interesting time purchasing our tickets] and by many Russians who don’t live here.
• Even the American Consulate seems to be run mostly by Russians…
• The center of the town sports one of the coolest Lenin statues I have seen to date in Russia (picture to come).
• I stand out so much here that when I was in the ACTR office, one of the Americans said "yeah, I saw you on the street yesterday." In other words, she remembered seeing me before she met me.

The past week I was indoctrinated to the wonderful world of Russian documents and paperwork. I think I spent more time waiting in lines this week than I ever had in my life: after three unsuccessful tries, I registered my visa at my university, stood in line twice at a bank to pay for my registration and my visa [don’t ask me what the difference is], registered for a student ID at my university and got stamps from three different university offices on it, officially registered with my dorm [more paper signing, stamps, and glue-sticking of photos], registered my room for the appropriate furniture and fixtures, got checked for lice, and x-rayed for…well…I guess I still don’t know what. Tomorrow I am going to stand in line at a different bank to pay my tuition and my dorm fee and then [in theory] I will set. Whew.

Between all of that, I have been steadily exploring the town and loving what I have found so far. A couple days ago I went for my first run in "Park Mayakovskovo", which is a gorgeous park about 20 minutes away from my dorm. It is huge and covered with birch and pine trees—despite the fact that it is pretty much right in the city, it feels like you are running through a forest. Also, for the first time in my life, I saw several Russians running the park—my favorite was a man who was running with his dog, who he had trained to hold his water bottle in his mouth! Tomorrow Jacob and I are going planning on going hiking in one of the even bigger parks on the outskirts of town.

One of the most interesting things about the town so far is just how compact it is. After spending the last week walking around most of the city, I have determined that it does not occupy much more physical space than Bemidji; yet instead of 11,912 people, Ekaterinburg has over 1.5 million in the same amount of space. This means that there are people everywhere—particularly crammed onto buses and trams and stuck in seemingly endless traffic jams. That said, the city runs amazing efficiently and seems to have a good handle on how to move all these people around everyday. I’m interested to see how it all functions once the mud and snow arrive.

Yesterday our fourth roommate arrived—from Japan! That makes for a good American-European-Asian bloc that we have going on here on the third floor of Chapaeva, dom 16A. : ) Her name is Midore and her Russian is…coming along : ) She an incredibly sweet girl and has an excellent habit of screaming (literally) whenever she is exited—it has made for a couple of exciting days and one ridiculous trip to a Russian supermarket this evening.

Hmm, what else? Some of you will be happy to know that I taught Turil [Jen’s good friend from Turkey who is quickly becoming my favorite person in Ekaterinburg] how to play "Set" the other night, which—with the language barrier and all—was quite a task. I now know how to say diamond, filled, and shaded in Russian, but still haven’t tackled "squiggle."

Also, I know that you all might be tired of hearing about Russian haircuts, but one observation must be documented. Remember back in the early 1990s when boys used to wear short hair with one skinny long rat’s tail in the back [St. Philip’s people: think Mike Dryer]? Well, that fad has hit Russia hard. I can’t tell you how many seemingly attractive Russian boys I have met, only to have them turn around to reveal a rat’s tail down their back! On that note, I am off for my new evening ritual of beer and cribbage with Jen—vsevo dobrovo (take care)!