From Russia With Love

This long weekend has been pretty eventful and fun! Here are some of the highlights...

On Saturday night we were invited by another Russian teacher, Kate (Katya), that works at the country campus to go to this jazz concert at this fancy club. We got all dressed up but I still had to wear snow boots because it was blizzarding outside. But it was really pretty and I don't have to drive in it so it's not really a problem. Anyway, when we got to the club, it was really posh as the Brits say and you had to be on the list to get in (how VIP am I?) and the doorman was getting annoyed with us because we were waiting for the Russian girl we were with and anyway it was funny. Then he realized we didn't speak Russian and he wasn't so annoyed. When we got to our table, one of Kate's friends was there and about 3 more came later. We ordered fancy desserts and then the band came out. The singer was named Lera Gehner and she was all artsy and and stuff and she sounded a lot like Macy Gray. She sang in English, too, which was definitely a surprise to me (because she was totally Russian) and when she started singing it took me a minute to realize it! And yes, the drummer was way cute which makes everything a little more fun.

Yesterday, on Monday, Becca and Kristin and I took a little road trip to this village outside of Moscow called Peredelkino. Now it was still blizzarding and you might think we were crazy but we just got really bundled up and wore lots of layers. Anyway, this village was a "writer's colony" during Soviet communist times and the famous author Boris Pasternak lived there and that's where he wrote Dr. Zhivago. So our day started fine, we went to the train station and bought tickets which were only 26 rubles (less than a dollar) and we had about 20 minutes until the train left so we went to go find a bathroom. There aren't really a lot of public restrooms so we thought about walking across the street to the mall to find one but we were worried about missing our train so we thought maybe we could find a closer one. Well we saw the signs for the bathroom and it was one where you had to pay a lady (25 rubles...almost as much as our train ticket ha). When I walked in, there were all these stalls with two steps going up to them. So I went in one (Becca and Kristin were in there before me) and all I saw was a sort of hole-drain thing in the floor but I could see the tops of Kristin and Becca's head so I asked them what to do. You just had to squat and hold your pants out of the way...it was so funny and we couldn't stop laughing. Ok so enough bathroom stories. We got on the train and it was only about a 30 minute ride. We got off at Peredelkino and we were left in the quiet snow not really sure what to do next...now I had read in my Moscow tourist book about where to go (you could walk down a path or take bus no. 47). Since everything was covered in snow, we decided to try to find the bus so we went where there were some buildings and busses. But no bus number 47.
So we decided we could walk. So we trudged around in the snow (it was actually really fun) and we saw some pretty houses and when we went down this one street, this guy stared at us because we're in rural small village Russia taking pictures and laughing and pointing and so he watches us walk by (more like stares shamelessly) and then we turned around and he just kept watching so I said hello and he starts chatting with us and we were like "no we don't understand" and tried telling him "english." The funny thing is that in Moscow, if you say something in English, either people will leave you alone, or they'll talk to you in English. But here, they don't speak English and they certainly didn't leave us alone. They just kept talking to us like we understood and as much as we protested and tried to tell them, they didn't stop. After more walking and realizing we weren't getting anywhere, we went back to the bus stop and just got on a bus (number 5 actually). It took us into the "city" which looked a lot like Moscow and we had lunch and thawed out. Then we went back to the bus stop and decided to get on the next bus which happened to be number 5 again and it took us back to the rural part.
But on the ride back, we saw the Church of Transfiguration so we walked up there when we got off and that was what we had been looking for. There weren't a lot of people around but it was so beautiful and colorful. Well, but there were like 3 homeless guys that kept asking us for money. Anyway, we took pictures and walked around and it was just this quiet, ancient church hidden in the snow in this village. We went inside and there was some kind of confession or service going on. It was really small inside but so ornate and beautiful and it felt more reverent than the touristy cathedrals in big cities.
Then we walked around some more and we went to the cemetery where a bunch of writers are buried and it went on for miles and miles and the snow was really deep there.
Then we walked down the road and there was this sign that said "Peredelkino [something] Center". We still hadn't found Boris Pasternak's house (which is now a museum) so we figured it might be that way. But when we got there, it was this huge gated building with a guard. As we were standing outside typing the [something] word into my translator, the guard comes out and yells at us! I was so scared but then he laughed and he was just trying to be funny and scare us. He starts chatting with us and just like the other guy, does not understand that we didn't understand him and only spoke English. Kristin tried asking him where Boris' house was and this old couple was walking by and he stops them and asks them. He motions for us to follow them so we did and they took us back to the cemetery! Ha the lady kept talking to me and telling me things and I really wish I understood her because I'm sure she had some great stories. Anyway, she trudges through knee deep snow in a skirt and got snow down in her snow boots just to show us some graves that we hadn't seen. I think they were famous people and then she pointed to all these small graves together and we gathered that they were communist's graves from what she was telling us. Then they took us back and pointed us to the way out and we went back to the train station. You could tell it was more small town because the train station was tiny and just this little building with the ticket booths whereas in Moscow it's huge and has all these boards and people everywhere. Also, this lady butted in front of me to buy a ticket because she thought I was just waiting for Becca and she kept apologizing when she realized it but in Moscow, people do that on purpose so they don't have to wait or because they know they can take advantage of the fact that we don't understand completely what's going on.
Anyway, it was a really fun trip and so nice to get out of the city! For pictures click here.

So I had a fabulous long weekend and now I have to work on Saturday to make it up which is so lame but that's just how it goes!