I love the Internet

Hello hello!

I apologize for the recent silence and what is going to be a mediocre update. I have been shut out of the internet more times than I can count in the past two weeks and as a result I am only now getting around to the backlog of blogs and emails and pictures that I have sitting around on my desktop. As I write this, I am getting ready to leave the city again for Kalinovo [the town where Alfina’s parents live]. This time promises to be wild—we are celebrating her brother-in-law’s 30^th birthday! I asked if girls also have to consume vodka on such holidays and they responded “tol’ko chut’ chut’” [just a little!]. Here’s to hoping I hold my own…

The biggest event in the past two weeks was the opening of IKEA last Saturday. After going to a museum exhibit with all the international students, we organized a mass exodus to IKEA. Or attempted to. First, we waited at a bus stop where we [and about 200 other Russians] thought the free shuttle bus was supposed to run from. After waiting in the freezing cold for over an hour, I broke down and said, “Let’s just pay for a gypsy taxi.” [See word of the week]. Alexei [sole Russian along for our adventure] looks at me and says “I can call my friend with a marshutka and have him pick up us all up.” The intonation of the word “friend” fueled my suspicion that Alexei, who often works through the entire night, is a member of the powerful Ekat mafia [for more information about Alexei, you can see Josefina’s blog, nothingbutperfection.blogspot.com]. Either way, the marshutka showed up and we were off—into 45 minutes of bumper-to-bumper traffic. When we got to IKEA, we again had to wait 20 minutes on the street just to get into the store! Once we finally entered, everyone started screaming along with Midore. There were so many people there that you had to just follow the crowd in the direction that they walked. We grabbed as many things as we could, ate some excellent Swedish meatballs, and lost each other many times. In the end, we stood in line for over an hour and a half to pay for our purchases. It was a very strange experience in which Soviet Russia [long lines and too many people] met contemporary Russia, full of foreign products and credit card machines. In the course of the adventure, I taught everyone the foot game and acquired an awesome dragon blanket that is resting comfortably on top of my hammock/bed : )

There are pictures of the adventure up on the facebook, along with pictures from my first trip to the ballet, which was awesome. We saw Swan Lake and afterwards, Midore, Josefina, and I danced on the street and decided to give up our study of Russian language in order to become ballerinas.

And now I’d like to introduce you all to my new plan for the blog: word of the week. It’s my attempt to talk more about the ordinary things in Russia and in my life here as a crazy American foreigner. If you let me know what you want to hear about, I’ll do my best to include it [food, climate, language, or the amazing fashion of Russian men: the possibilities are endless!].