time and its creepiness

One week left of classes and I just can’t believe it. I sit here on my bed, my sister at her computer, listening to Christmas music and feeling like time has crept up on me. Was it really three months ago that I was in the airport, waving goodbye to my mom at security? Have I really survived Russia? I don’t know if I’m completely ready to leave yet. I remember arriving in the JFK airport, struggling with my over-packed bags, making the trek to the Lufthansa terminal. My guitar on my back, my handbag on my arm and my two rolling suitcases; what was I thinking? My shoulders and back were so sore the first week in St. Petersburg. I definitely learned my lesson. I don’t know how I’m going to manage on the way back, with all the souvenirs I’ve bought. I think I’m leaving some stuff here. A part of me will always be in Russia that way! I remember my first interaction with Lica and then meeting some of the gang once I got past security. Stephanie was the first one I really connected with. I remember sitting at the gate, observing everyone and honestly thinking: “they’re probably all a bunch of nerds.” Well…I wasn’t 100% wrong.

Today I went with my sister to her social club. For an hour and thirty minutes I sat there while they all discussed things in Russian. I did have a chance to pipe up and explain how to play duck duck goose. They were planning an event for children and needed some ideas for games. Later this afternoon we had a sport’s competition. All our families were invited to come, along with the Russian students who help in the international office, and we separated into three teams and did a whole bunch of silly relays. My team was second. Surprisingly, it was a lot of fun. I totally biffed it in the snow afterwards though. I could hear mumbling behind me and knew that the boys were planning some sort of white wash attack… and I was the target. So I interfered by defending myself and pushed good old Danny Boy around, to show him who’s boss of course, but found myself tripping over the sidewalk and fell flat on my face in the snow. I laid there for a few minutes while everyone laughed. Of course no one was kind enough to help me up so I managed on my own. That’s how it’s done in Russia.

Yesterday I went and saw my kids at the orphanage. They are so fun. Tiring but fun. I only have one more Friday with them. So sad. As we were leaving, the little little ones were walking down the hall single file. My heart just sank. I love those little guys. I couldn’t help but form a huge smile on my face. One of the little boys started talking to me and I just said ‘I don’t know’ (in Russian of course), then a second later he had turned around and started walking towards me talking to me again. I patted his adorable little head and I said ‘I don’t understand.’ The poor guy. I’m sure he was super confused. They are the cutest. Oh my word. I just want to take them all home with me. I think I want to adopt a Russian baby someday. I would love to do that. Then my Russian would come in handy! I’m doing a research paper on orphans and homeless children in Russia and have found out so far that 95% of the children in orphanages actually have a living parent at home. They wind up there because their parents take to alcoholism. Talk about sad. Yula, one of the girls, just yesterday told Lica and Stephanie that her dad died two weeks ago. This is reality.

Speaking of reality, I received some unsettling news. My little brother is going to Iraq. For those of you who don’t know, he’s in the Marine Reserves and it was actually his choice to go. He flies to North Carolina early January and does some training for a month or so and then ships off to Iraq until October. I just can’t believe it. I had convinced myself this would never happen, especially with him being in the Reserves. But…Scotty seems to be really excited about it and my family really supports his decision. He can make his family proud, but he’s gotta come back alive. That’s all I ask. He’s my little brother and only 19 (next month). So, I’m really antsy to get home now. Thankfully I’ll get to see him at Christmas before he goes off and becomes a hero.

My host sister just asked me this morning over breakfast if I thought my life will be different when I go back home. I told her yeah, I hope so. How could it not be? An experience like this will change anyone I think. I’ll still be the same ol Caryn from the block, but life will by no means be the same.

Lord love a duck

yep, it's definitely Russia. the snow has come and is here to stay. the winds have picked up and I'm quite shocked I haven't blown away. the scene from mary poppins often enters my mind.It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. The streets are paved white and the ground is slick. I LOVE IT! Snow is comforting to me. I’m always disappointed by our winters in Washington. Maybe it’s the Eskimo in me.

mornings on the bus are still torturous. i find myself getting nauseaus and my limbs going numb. then there is the occasional surprise looking up and seeing my bus driver picking his nose and eating it. yeah. this is russia. i forgot to mention that a while back I went to the cinema and saw a documentary on british pop bands, like oasis. It was dubbed over in russian but still really interesting. gotta love wonderwall.

less than 2 weeks of class left. i'm super scared. scared for this russian language final we have to take. scared for this comprehensive final over every single thing i've learned all semester. the stress begins. i also have this 15 page research paper i'm working on. that's gonna be a doozy. it's a difficult process interviewing people that a speak a language you dont understand.

People will be people. My host family is great. My host dad has been nick-named ‘Mario” by the other American students. He is really funny and makes me laugh so much. Dinner conversations are the best with him. He always is saying ‘I am hungry’ and yells from his bedroom in the morning ‘bye bye’. He knows only a little English. He’s the cutest. And my mom is really fun too. She bought me gloves because I didn’t have any. She’s the best. They are both professors at different universities.

My host sister is Karina. Which translates to Caryn in English, how cool is that? The Russian students, ironically, had already been calling me Karina. And then somehow I acquired “Santa Karina”. This sister of mine though. She’s an odd one. Just a tad socially awkward. She basically runs my life. And she started liking a Russian boy. There’s definitely been unnecessary drama between the two. People will be people. Or kids rather. It’s nice to know we’re all the same. Whether in America or in Russia.

Mullets are everywhere. And when I say that, I mean both men and women have them. I was warned about going to a hairdresser here. I may get a she-mullet on accident. Makes me chuckle. I went with my host sister to the swimming pool today. Let’s just say, I didn’t do the banya…but I did the pool. Everywhere I looked there was a speedo. With some pretty big fella’s strutting them. Have I ever mentioned my distaste for speedo’s?

Like every Friday, Stephanie, Dan, Lica and I went to the orphanage. Except as soon as we got there, we were instantly told to turn around and go back and catch the bus before it left. I guess the older kids were at camp and they didn’t want us to play with the young ones. We were all bummed. But me and Lica ended up getting some pirogies and hung out at her apt. I stopped off at the Post Office and mailed some post cards. I ticked off several Russians. I think it was the 12 post cards I was buying stamps for. And for some reason, the post master puts all the stamps on herself then hands them back to me. This is Russia. Some things just don’t make sense. Actually, most things don’t make sense. We visited the Sakharov Museum. It was interesting, considering it was the apartment where the guy who made the H-bomb lived. Learned he was awarded the Noble Peace Prize. How ironic. A guy makes a nuclear bomb and realizes testing it would blow up the whole world…then turns anti-nuclear. Interesting.

It's pitch black outside by 4:30pm. And we get out of class at 4pm. It's a weird thing to get used to. I'm wanting to crawl into bed and sleep at 8 o'clock. Of course, anyone who knows me, knows that never happens. sleep? what's that?

I finally received the package my mom sent me in september. yep...almost two months. i finally have my power cord for my computer. Lord love a duck. the friends i've made on this trip are what keep me sane. or maybe keep me insane. either way. i couldnt do it without them. they definitely feed my hunger for laughter. just the other day I was coming to the reality of the fac that....soon we will all be departing and a lot of us will neve see eachother again. that's sad. it's gonna be hard to say goodbye. parting is such sweet sorrow...or something like that. leave the fancy words to the poets. its gonna suck.

a girl on a slow pony home

It’s pretty crazy how normal life has become. Even after moving in with my host family. I don’t know if it’s just me and the fact that I adjust rather quickly to new situations and places. I thought I’d be missing home more than I do. I’ve found that it becomes easier the longer you are away. It’s always weird and hard at first but then you get into a routine. You get used to how things are. Like that fact that the toilet is in a different room than the sink and shower. You always take your shoes off at the door. Traffic is horrendous. Cold water stops working for no reason at all. Taxi drivers get lost. Wallets are stolen on the bus. The power goes out in a whole apartment complex. The store is all out of your favorite kind of chocolate cookies. Everyone carries a plastic bag with them. Mom won’t let you out of the house without a hat on. Russians dancing in the halls at school. Drinking tea 5 times a day. Being served tongue for lunch. Using hand motions 99% of the time. Having to take your own role of toilet paper to the bathroom with you. People doing drugs on the street. Men giving up their seat for ladies on the bus. Showering at night. Not showering for days in a row.

I think before I came to Russia I had the mentality that America was at the center of the world. And it may be in some aspects. I guess I’m just realizing how big our world really is. There is so much out there. So much to be seen. So much to learn. I feel like my journey to Russia has opened my mind a lot. It’s also triggered a lot of desires within me. Like my desire to travel. So broad yet so simple. I feel like once I get back to the states, I won’t know what to do with myself. I graduate in May and that’s a scary thing. But it’s also exciting because I have the whole world in front of me. Where will I venture off to next? Where will this heart lead me? There are moments, like for instance, when I was gargling this nasty medicine stuff for my sore throat and it just hit me. I’m 11 hours away from what I always thought was reality. But the truth is, I’m living reality. This is life, right now. Whether I’m in America where I’m safe and comfortable or in a foreign country, challenged by unfamiliar things. Time doesn’t stop. And it definitely doesn’t run according to my schedule.

It’s only the beginning of a world I’m dying to see
Frightening yet exciting
My pulse races to the beat of this dream
I feel I’m jumping into a faith I don’t know if I have
And courage, I’m still trying to find

My heart longs for things I can’t explain
My feet are drawn to a place I’ve never been

dancing cheek to cheek

it's been an eventful last couple weeks. it started to snow a couple times but never stuck. it actually seems colder now than it did then and still there's no snow. the lowest I think has been 2 celcius...still havent figured out the conversion to farenheit. moved in with my host family a week ago yesterday. it has it's awkward moments. i guess I'm just not used to having people stare at me so much. meals are fun. my host dad is a jokester. they speak little english but their daughter, who's the same age as me and goes to the university, is pretty decent in her english. so she's my translator. i have a nice big room to myself. and a bolshoy (big) koshka (cat) named piersik (peach). I'm getting better at understanding the language. not so much speaking it. or using it for that matter. which is sad. we went to Kazan this last weekend. It's a city as far east as Moscow is west, I've been told. it's about 8 hours on the train overnight. it's the center of Islam in Russia. the Kremlin has a huge mosque that we got to tour. it was really interesting. i finally found some postcards there. for some reason they dont have poscards in Nizhnii. every Friday I have my service project at the orphanage or preeyuit (shelter). they celebrated their 12th anniversary and had a big performance they put on. it was the cutest thing ever. I want to take them all home with me. we got to drink tea and have snacks afterwards with them. i just love them. it takes about an hour to get to class on the bus every morning. and it's so crammed, i dont even have to hold onto anything. packed like sardines. no joke. it's a pretty difficult task trying to move. an arm in the face, a shoulder in the back, and then the lovely butt in the stomach or cheek to cheek. it sounds humorous but when you're in the moment, it's pretty torturous. this weekend we have our halloween party. me and stephanie are going as nerds. pretty stoked about that. we're also hittin up a discoteka. that will be interesting. the sun's come out today. I havent seen it in a while. tonight's my host mom's bday so were going to have a birthday dinner. it's been 2 months as of today. only 1 1/2 to go!! cant believe it.

just a run of the mill day

my day begins waking up at 8:30 ish..and heading straight down to breakfast. Which consists of Kasha, otherwise known as oatmeal, cream of wheat...some days if we're lucky enough we get noodles in milk. mmmm! Then I head back up to my room, get dressed for the day and am out the door headed to class around 9:20. Class begins probably around 9:40. Ira is our teacher on Monday and Tuesday. Elaina is on Wed and Thur. Ira doesnt smile as much as Elaina but they are both sweet. Russians say things in such a stern way, it makes you wonder if they like you or not. But really, that's just Russians. We go an hour and have a 10 min break. Then another hour and have CHAI...my favortie part. Except its not real chai. They just call normal tea here chai. We head down to the International office and both classes come together for 30 minutes. It's a gay ol time. We then proceed back up to class for the next 50 minutes. Class is done around 12:30 and then we walk back to the Profilac and have lunch at 1. Lecture then begins at 2 till 4 ish. That of which I am quite frequently in and out of. Good ol Harley, bless his soul. He starts each class with current events or world news if you will. That takes about half the class time. I'm usually in another place. I'm such a good student. Class is over and we head back to the Profilac. I sometimes go running or do some homework or just hang out until 6 when we have dinner. Then after dinner it's a mix of a whole bunch of nonesense. Some people go to the RSP apt to get 'real' studying done. Some just stay cooped up in their rooms and others roam the halls making loud noises and laughing their heads off...I would never condone that kind of behavior. This is a serious scholarly program. No fooling around here. =) Homework usually happens. The russian students helps us sometimes. Inevitably, someone has a guitar out and is making some ruckus. Then I'm usually in bed between 12 and 2. And there you have it. Another day, another ruble. Oh and I've been trying to explain the 6 million dollar man to my friend Dan (i'm a rhymer) but he thinks I'm just a fool making it up. Give me a shout out if you know what I'm talking about. My "stoke" of the day, a phrase fresh off the press as of tonight, was that I got my internet FINALLY registered!! Tuesday nights we have Bible Study, Sunday nights we go to Harleys for hang time and a movie. All other nights we are free to spread havoc on this university. Soon there will be no more dorm life and we will be moving in with our host families. that will be a sad day.

I'm an aunty, orphanage shoes and 4am pranks

So last wednesday my neice Jordan Marie Jamieson was born!!! I was so bummed I missed it. I saw pics and couldnt help but get a little choked up. I started volunteering at an orphange here in Nizhnii. It's one of the nicest orphanage supposedly and by the looks of it, I agree. The kids were intense right off the bat. I guess they never get hugged or kissed. So they are all over us. Dan, Stephanie and me and Lica, our RA, went for just a couple hours. We were told to bring slippers for while we were there. So thanks to Dan, we now call them orphanage shoes. I got mine down the market for a whoping 150 rubles. My russian class has downsized. They decided to start and advanced class and so we lost 3 students out of my class. Now were just down to 6. But I think it's helped. Today was really good. It's never really good. So this last Saturday I believe it was, I was sleeping over in my friend Theresa's room and several of the boys decided it would be funny to prank us at oh 4 in the A.M! I sleep through anything. But thankfully Theresa doesnt. I woke up to her yelling 'Andrew', thinking she was dreaming but once I opened my eyes and saw the door wide open I was super confused. Then all of a sudden the door closed and we heard the key turning from the outside. Theresa lept from her bed, realizing we were being locked in and that she had to pee. I was still half asleep, trying to make sense of what was going on right before my eyes. Then Andrew jumps out of the closet with a wimpy 'rarrr' and then Dan and Joel unlock the door and eventually they leave. War has begun. Let the pranks begin. Oh and I had an audience of Russians tonight...I was requested to play some songs. Of course they dont understand them. It's good practice. The leaves are falling and the wind is picking up. I think snow is expected soon!! Cant wait! p.s im geting home sick!

peeing in the bush, Bartok and cheesecake

Visited Suzdal and Vladimir this last weekend. It was GORGEOUS! This is what I was imagining Russia would be like. It’s Fall here. My absolute favorite season! Leaves are falling and they are everywhere. I actually made some “leaf angels”! It was wonderful. I have to note that it was about a 5 hour bus ride there. So our potty breaks consisted of the bus pulling off to the side of the road and boys in front of the bus, girls in back. Into the woods we went. Theresa, trekked into the woods with heels on. She came out with bare feet. It was quite the experience to say the least. The weather has been outstanding. I can’t believe it. The sun has been shining and it is super warm. We stayed at this hotel that had two suites. I took the mattress from my room and put in on the ground so I could be between Meredith and Theresa. I woke up to mosquito bites all over my body. But it was worth it. Our hotel had a bowling alley, swimming pool, restaurant, sauna, bar…you name it. Had a tour guide who totally reminded me of the bat off Anastasia (one of my favorite movies btw)..Bartok! It was the funniest thing. Some Russians, when they speak English, sound so funny. I love it. Got to see so many churches with the onion domes. Such beauty and incredible artwork. The frescoes inside the church buildings are unbelievable. It baffles me that people are this stinkin talented. Women have to wear head coverings and even skirts at some orthodox churches. The babushka’s yell at you and point to these wraps they give women who don’t have skirts. There are Sabakee (dogs) everywhere. They run wild. You'll see cats inside buildings all the time. And packs of dogs just lounging in the sun. Harley, our director, an interesting fellow, talks to these animals. He especially likes the cats. He tends to chase after them trying to get a picture. He’s a 65 year old man. So funny! An Orthodox Priest spoke to our class. We also had some American missionaries come in last week and talk about their ministries. Ohhh I have to mention this FANTASTIC café here in Nizhnii called Biblioteca. They have the best latte’s. Move over Starbucks! And their cheesecake…no joke…like a taste of Heaven. Been there three times now and I’m IN LOVE! Can’t believe it’s been a month already. Oh and the Babushka’s changed my sheets. No more pink! I’m happy.