First Post in Russia.

Lots to say, but I finally made it to a Wifi (free wireless zone) in Novgorod. Here go my really long posts...

Hello From Russia!

03. July 2009

Hello from Russia! I made it safely thankfully. There were some slight issues, but more on that later. Ahh, I don’t even know where to begin! Well, as I am writing this it is 8:53 pm on Friday the 3rd. Back where you all are it’s 12:53 pm! The sun is shining bright and I can just tell this is really going to mess up my sleeping, I am tired, however I can’t bring myself to sleep…too bright!

I feels so strange to be here, it hasn’t really even begun to process. In my mind I am just thinking, oh I am only here a short time; I’ll be home soon. I haven’t been able to comprehend that I am here for the next 7 weeks or so!

Anyways, getting to Rochester airport was fine, no problems. After saying goodbye to my parents and Kevin, I found a few people from my group that were also taking the same flight. This included my teacher Liza, Don, Adrian (Russian name Uri), and Francesca (Russian name Svetlana). I found out that Adrian and I live moments away from each other and never knew it, small world we live in, crazy really. Anywhos, let’s just say that security and all that stuff really is sooo annoying, especially when you have to take your laptop out of the bag every time and take off your shoes.
The plane ride was only about an hour, I don’t even remember but I think it was on time. The take off and landing made me pretty nervous, let’s just say I’ve never prayed so hard in my life and so continuously. I hate landing, something about the feeling does not sit well with me, especially if it’s a bumpy landing at that. I was pretty anxious that whole flight. We were late landing because we had to fly around a few times before landing. I saw Long Beach from the window.

Coming into JFK we had about 4 hours maybe to wait around. I really liked the airport, it is huge, but it’s nice too. We took the AirTrain to our terminal, which reminded me of Frankfurt airport. Once we got to our terminal we were all either really tired, or hungry, or both. Oh and yeah, one thing I hate, are those moving sidewalk things. I get onto one and lost my balance, because I was also holding my suitcases in each arm dragging them along, and my ticket case holding my passport and tickets flew out of my hand. (I know what you’re thinking now mom…. Oh my, I knew something like that would happen… ) Well, I was like oh crap, it happened so fast, and I was like ahh, the things moving, and there is my stuff on the other side!! So Adrian was all stealthy and jumped over the railing without even thinking it seemed, he’s like a monkey. After the fact we all laughed over it, it was a you had to be there moment. Luckily there wasn’t a lot of people and I didn’t have to worry about anyone stealing it.

For four hours we didn’t know what to do, we got some food, man is it expensive. I got a bottle of water, a yogurt parfait thing, and a turkey wrap.. it came up to almost 20 dollars. Eventually we met up with everyone and boarded the plane. It has down poured just before we landed, but by the time we got on the plane it was all clear!

So, our plane to Helsinki via Finnair was supposed to leave at 5:40. Well we were on the plane by 6, and sitting on the runway. The flight was somehow delayed and they shut off the engines at 6:30. We didn’t get moving again until 6:51. By 6:55 we were taking off and at 6:58 the airspeed was already 163 mph. The flight time was estimated to be 7 hours and 28 minutes, arriving at 9:27 am (Helsinki time… 7 hours ahead of NY).

The best part of these flights in my opinion is the entertainment systems in the seats! Yay for movies, TV, and music.

I decided to watch an international flim, Penguins in the Sky. It was a Japanese movie with English subtitles. The story was about a zoo, the name started with an A, I can’t think of what it’s called. Anyways, it’s a true story about the zoo and zoo keepers and their struggle to keep the zoo open despite falling visitor rates. It spans a large period of time and shows the many innovative ways the staff transformed the zoo into Japan’s most visited zoo, beating out Ueno (I think that’s the name) zoo in Tokyo. I didn’t realize that during winter in Japan they get a lot of snow. Anyways, I really enjoy the movie, it was a great story. The animals were cute, especially the chimps and red pandas!

Personally, I really enjoy international movies. It’s interesting to watch them, even if you can’t understand what they’re saying. At least I find it fun. We had dinner at 8. Grilled chicken with mushrooms, broccoli, a potato pattie thing, salad, and a brownie, a dinner roll, and butter (Kevin, I thought I would tell you it was the Indian butter… and Mary Lou, the chicken and mushrooms reminded me of your Chicken Marsala). I was pretty pleased with the meal, it was really good for being plane food, but that’s no surprise there that I liked it.

Anyways, after my movie I decided to watch the videos, Travelling in Japan, and another show about traveling in India. From there I check out the music stuff, watched a Japanese Pop Music Video show, and listened to some Japanese and Indian Hits radio. If you haven’t noticed, I think these countries are interesting.
After that I decided I should really sleep some. I slept for no more than 3 hours I bet, and woke up again around 7:00am (Helsinki time). Soon after it was time to eat breakfast, I honestly wasn’t that hungry (shocking I know). Breakfast consisted of a ham and cheese and butter on sub roll, strawberry banana yogurt, and some orange juice and coffee too! Not terrible, but I thought it was different. My legs were really sore, and they felt heavy. I was soo tired I felt like I was just a robot. At that time we were currently over Sweden. From what I could see out of the window Sweden, and the other countries around it, seemed to have a lot of flat land areas with make small and big lakes here are there, and houses spread out.

What else was really neat about these planes is that now they have on flight maps and you can watch and see where you are! It also tells you how fast the plane is going and how high up you are. The biggest numbers I noticed included 585 mph ground speed, and true airspeed of 546, altitude 39,000 feet.

At that time I was listening to my music and was really excited to be over Helsinki soon! I was thinking at the moment that someday I really want to visit Sweden or Finland, some Scandinavian country. (I know what you’re thinking… wait to finish in Russia first before thinking of where to go next).

My sense of adventure was kicking and I thought, there is soo much of the world to see, and it’s a shame that we spend most of our lives working, if only I could just travel my whole life as a job. Oh well. But, wow, I am beside myself in realizing that I really am doing something awesome! At that point, I was the most excited I’ve been about this whole trip. Looking down, I saw all of these red roofs on houses, it really looks like a cute place.

For a while I’ve been thinking I really want to just get out of NY and see something in the world, just go somewhere, and I am finally doing it! Anyways, got to Helsinki airport, the people (airport staff) here were so laid back, relaxed, not rushing around. Very polite, had awesome accents, and were good looking bunch of people. I love Scandinavians. So many types of people out there, it’s insane!

It just see that everything moves at a slower pace, makes things more peaceful I bet, I wish America were more like that. The bad thing about being here though, was we were extremely late. We arrived about 40 minutes late, and instead of having an hour to catch our connecting flight, we had less than 20 minutes. Talk about rushing around to get where we needed to be, and again go through security. All this rushing, and the workers were so calm and relaxed, it was a nice balance. We finally get to the plane, and it was still there, it was waiting because there were 25 passengers that hadn’t arrived due to delays. That was really nice, *whew*. The plane was really late for leaving, we left at 10:45 instead of 9:30. That was the most rushed we’d been, however, it was a nice little rush, got the adrenalin going I guess, I didn’t mind it, mostly because the plane was still there.

Helsinki is 300km from St. Petersburg. I never realized they were so close. Finland in 7 hours ahead of NY, and Russia 8 hours. We finally landed at 12:35. It was the worst landing of the three flights. The departure and landing of the previous flight was the best. As we flew more I felt less anxious every time so that was really good.
On another note, watching the clouds form the windows, and always being seated next to a wing leads me to two different thoughts. As I sit there and look out the window, the clouds look like they’re suspended in the air, I really want to reach out and touch them, imagine them being really soft and being able to jump on them. Over Sweden the clouds looked like it was ground, like the arctic. Other places they were really big and fluffy. I don’t know. It’s so neat to see clouds below you, not above you. Secondly, planes in general are miraculous things. I don’t know a lot about planes, but I am really curious as to all the things it takes to keep a plane in the air. I certainly know there are a lot of factors, but planes are just miraculous for what they do. I’d forgotten how much I really loved that about them. My anxiety wasn’t bad at all, and for the most part after the first flight I was pretty calm, until landing in Russia.

The Russian airport was certainly a whole lot different than the other two, had to go to customs and then we found the van that was taking us to Novgorod. The airport looks a lot older than the previous ones, and I didn’t even feel like I was in an airport, based on the architecture. It was just a whole lot different; I knew right then that Russian in general is just going to be a whole lot different.

Well, when we saw our bus, it was a bit comical. Let’s just say, the space in the back for luggage was really small and we all had huge suitcases, all 11 of us. We managed, and for the most part, the van was pretty comfortable considering what I thought it would be like. First off, driving in Russia is a nightmare; people are crazy in what they do. Secondly, pedestrians are all over the place, in random spots. We were driving along a highway, and randomly I would see people walking, sitting by a tree, shoveling in the dirt, just chilling by their parked car. Really, I was like this is really interesting. I even saw two random cows sitting in some grass next to a house. Soo strange. I feel like there is only more strange things to come.

It took two hours to get to Novgorod; honestly it seemed a whole lot longer. Most of us fell asleep. It was inevitable. I probably got an hour of sleep all together. So, driving in the city is even worse, and pedestrians are all over the place, walking in and out of traffic whenever they please. It’s insane. I am not surprised if people get hit. Also, the country, and what I’ve seen of it so far, seems pretty old and a lot of the houses are also old, run down looking, and some were falling apart. Other apartment buildings look like they were ready to fall down, yet just a little ways away you’d see a house that was better looking. I guess this surprised me, although, it is Russia, so I shouldn’t be surprised. It just seems underdeveloped in certain areas.

Anyways, the van let me out at the bus stop directly in front of Olga’s (my host mother’s house). She met me with her dog Beesha. We got to her apartment after lugging my suitcase up four flights of stairs, luckily they weren’t that steep at all. I was getting sore from carrying and dragging all my stuff, so glad to be here.

Olga also has a cat named Shira. Shira is all black, with green eyes. Small and very active. She loves my room and I often find her climbing around my things, under the bed, popping up here and there, soo cute! While Olga was out walking Beesha, Shira jumped up on the bookshelf, she saw a fly. She’s constantly playing with my pens! Right now she’s running around, and just jumped on Beesha. She’s a very entertaining cat.. and now she’s playing with the strings on my sneakers.

First thing I did when I got here was take a shower, after a small house tour. I’ve never felt so disgusting in my life. Her apartment is really small, but I knew that it would be before I got here. Then we ate! I’ve been told numerous times that Olga is an amazing cook! Well, she made some egg and sausage, and perogee looking thing with dill, all baked, like you’d make keish (I don’t know how to spell it) Along with that was lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, bread and yogurt to put on the egg stuff. It was really good. I can tell that I am really going to enjoy her cooking!
Then we had tea (pronounced chai). Green tea, and chocolate! Now, I don’t normally like drinking tea at home, but for some reason I didn’t even mind it! Apparently we have tea everyday ( I can get used to this.. )

Our communication consists of frequently looking up words in the English/Russian dictionary, along with hand gesture, lots of laughs and patience. I hate not being able to communicate, but I personally thought I did well. There are lots of things that I am like oh man, I know what I want to say and I know I learned this, but I just totally forget the word! It’s going to be a great time here, I can tell.
I was the most nervous I have ever been in my life honestly, to be sent off the van, but the minute I saw Olga I felt really comforted. Liza grins and gives a laugh that seems kind of evil when she tells us were just getting pushed off the van and off we go. Haha, that description alone made me really nervous. So, I am very relieved. After tea I got my things in order in my room, and then we sat together on the couch and shared photographs and things about our families and ourselves. I found out that Olga is a geography teacher, and has traveled to many places in the world, including Egypt, Brussels, France, Germany, and New York just to name some. And Kevin, Olga said that you have добры eyes, nice, big, kind eyes.

So, then Olga went out to walk her dog and go to the store, I got my PJs on and started writing (so that’s what I’ve been doing). I already feel so welcome and at home here with Olga, it’s great! This is going to be a great trip.

Hmm.. oh lastly. Our group consists of: Liza and Don (who’s not a student, but who’s come to Novgorod many times, this is his 4th, he would be in my Russian class at Brockport and help out), myself, Francesca, Michelle, Adrian, Jim, Doug, Steve, Matt, and Magda (from Poland). The last three are not Brockport students. The youngest is 18, the shortest is myself. Francesca and I are going to make a good team. She doesn’t worry enough, I worry too much so we balance, and Michelle is the “mom”. Were like the three musketeers. Then there are all the guys! So, it will be nice. Steve, Adrian, Francesca and I are staying for 7 weeks, and the others only 5 (they aren’t doing an internship). I like the group a lot; it’s going to be a fun summer!

Well that’s all for now! I promise other posts won’t be this long, but there was a lot to say. Now I must go to bed, it’s 10:45 ish. I’ve been up, for let’s see… almost 32 hours, with only about 4 hours of some type of sleep. How am I not passed out right now, I can’t tell you! The sun isn’t as bright now; it’s like twilight.
Tomorrow, Saturday, we’re getting a tour of the Kremlin, Sophia Cathedral, and Yaroslav Court. It’s not until 1 so I can sleep in! Hope you’re all doing well, miss you lots!

Доброе Вечер (Good night)
~Caша (Sasha)


Pictures!

En Route to Russia ~
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032931&id=208300966&l=39e561bcf0

Arrival and first day ~
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032932&id=208300966&l=9e515ac3b6

Just copy and paste those links and it will take you to that page!


PSS - Don't be afraid to ask me any questions or email me. Mom I would like to hear from you!