Hello hello!

It has been a while and there is a lot to say, but I want to start with my trip to Kalinovo two weeks ago. During the weekend, we celebrated Sergei’s [not our Sergei, but Alfina’s sister’s husband] 30^th birthday in true Russian style. We spent nearly all of Saturday preparing for the event, cutting vegetables for salads, buying vodka, wine, and a cake, and cooking monties [an Uzbek food that resembles an oversized pelmeni/dumpling that is filled with meat and vegetables, then steam cooked and served with mayo or smetana…yum!]. Once every spare inch of the table was filled with food, we all sat down and ate for a good two hours, pausing about every two minutes to give a toast and wish Seryezha happy birthday. Yes, the men took a shot of vodka with every toast. Yes, I participated once by taking a half-shot [definitely one of the benefits of being a woman in Russia is not being forced to down half a bottle of vodka at every holiday].

The entire weekend again proved to be hilarious. The high points are as follows:

• I ate liver. With fried pasta. For breakfast. The first time I consumed liver in Russia, it was in a pastry in a café in St. Petersburg and completely accidental [the word for liver and cookie in Russian are dangerously similar]. This time, even in the morning without a drop of caffeine in my body, I immediately understood the word and said “No, no no!”, but it was already too late. Alfina sat a large plate down in front of me and told me to try it. Somehow, I managed to choke it down and politely refused a second helping. At this point birthday Sergei walked into the kitchen, looked at the liver, and said “Gross. Who eats an organ that’s primary purpose is to filter?”.

• On Saturday after the birthday celebration, Alfina, Albina [her sister], Zhenya [friend], and I went to the Kalinovo diskoteka. It was in the main hall of an old Soviet building and when we arrived, there were about 4 teenage girls dancing in the middle of the hall and about 30 people standing up on the balcony watching. Does anyone remember when the City opened as a “night club” in Bemidji? This experience was frighteningly similar to that one. I listened to a year’s worth of Russian techno music in one night and bonded with Albina when we both refused to participate in the dancing.

• This time around I noticed that Kalinovo is full of goats, cows, and sheep that just roam the streets. Alfina and I took a walk in a park by the lake on Sunday morning and came across a group of 10 cows that were having a nice little breakfast by themselves…

There is a lot more to report on [I found a hockey team, am about to actually start volunteering, and have been doing lots more strange and frighteningly official representation of American culture] and I hoping to catch up on it during the upcoming holiday weekend: the day of liberation from the Poles! This is my favorite holiday in Russia: it used to be Revolution Day during Soviet times and Russia still hasn’t quite figured out what to replace it with. The last time I was here it was the “Day of Unity and Solidarity” [although Russians joked that they weren’t sure who they were united with] and now we’ve moved to a more traditional war holiday. On Saturday I asked a group of Russian friends when the Russians were liberated from the Poles and no one seemed to know.

Speaking of holidays, Happy Halloween! [Okay, I know this is late now, but it was a few days before Halloween when I actually wrote this…I left it in to prove that I am not completely neglecting this blog, but rather fighting with internet access. I swear.]

P.S. This word of the week was written about a month ago…the homesickness has passed, I promise!