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July 25, 2008 / Friday

I Haven't Been Telling You Everything

Even with all the blogging I've been doing, I have a whole set of notes on things I haven't written about yet. This is going to be a looong post.

Mosquito Saga

Slept like a rock last night. Now that I've figured out the Mosquitall, I've been keeping it loaded around the clock. I put a new one in right before I went to bed. No buzz all night, I had my arms and legs out from under the covers left and right, and I haven't found any new bites yet this morning. :)

I did find three on my right wrist yesterday afternoon. That brings the count to 47. I'm currently avoiding the kitchen, since I opened the window when I cooked. I found a couple mosquitoes hanging out on the wall in there last night. I tried to smack them, but as usual they escaped. I approach the closed door with trepidation when I need to go in for something.

That said, I think I managed to grab a yogurt from the fridge just now without being bitten. Mango pineapple, yum.

The Office

Today will be my last day at the office. I've tried hard to make my team feel more comfortable with me. I'd heard that they were nervous about my visit, but things have been going pretty well. I brought them chocolate covered cherries from CJ Olsen. I figured it'd be a nice gesture to bring them something from so close to where I live.

Working with the folks here has gotten easier. The developer I work with most doesn't speak much English, but he can read without too much trouble. We went from needing an interpreter the first couple days to being able to work on our own with spoken keywords from me, notepad for longer ideas, and just showing what I'm trying to explain on the computer. This week, he spoke a full sentence to me in English. He'd been fairly quiet (in person and over e-mail) up until then; I nearly fell out of my seat.

Other folks at the office whom I don't work much with have made various impressions on me too. On the first day, my boss introduced me to a good number of folks. I met one of them at his desk, and when I looked down and saw his mousepad I almost laughed out loud. It had a picture of a girl on it, and a two-bump gel wrist rest depicting a pair of boobies. Then there was the guy who sat across from me at dinner. We got to talking, and it turns out he drives a red MkIV Golf. :) At that same dinner, I got to play with a cell phone belonging to the guy sitting next to me. It's a sleek little Motorola with touch screen, and it runs Linux. (I think we have something similar here, but it's not sleek. The US is a sucky place for gadget lovers.) There are also folks who ride their bicycles to work every day. I was talking to one of them, and I asked how he rode in the winter. The answer? Studded mountain bike tires. Hardcore!

The building where the office resides is kind of a pain for visitors. It's single-use card key controlled. There's a cafeteria downstairs, but it's outside of the card key area. So, if I want to go eat, I need to find someone at the office to go with me. Not very convenient. Speaking of the cafeteria, when I left around 8 last night, there was a full on dance party going in there. I guess they rent it out for events, too.

The Metro

A few things I've noticed: The stations are grand, and the trains run frequently and on time. Every time I descend (and descend, and descend) into a station, I wonder how they could have built something so large and so deep. At some of the stations, the platform is separated from the tracks by a thick wall. When the trains pull in, they line up the big metal doors and both sets open for people to pass through. The stations have clocks at the end of the platforms, and at some stations there are timers that count exactly how many seconds have passed since the last train. For the times that I've looked, the wait has been between 1.5 and 2.5 minutes. Waaay better than BART's schedule.

Here's the thing that really gets me. Cell phones work perfectly in their deep deep system. The last time I was on BART, my phone *still* did not work. I thought the Bay Area was supposed to be all technologically advanced and stuff? Guess not.

The tunnels that bring riders to and from the platform from street level have anywhere from 3 to 4 parallel escalators. Escalators are turned on and off, or their directions reversed, to accommodate flow. At the transfer station I use, a short tunnel runs four parallel escalators from one platform to another, and a separate tunnel allows transfers in the other direction. Despite the crowds, it all seems to work pretty efficiently.

Motorcycle Safety

In general, the people on scooters here don't wear much gear (and some of them don't bother with general vehicular traffic rules), but the sportbike riders tend to be better about it... except for the guy I saw yesterday riding around with his helmet on his tank instead of his head. The light changed before I had a chance to take a picture.

The Crazy Intersection Near My Apartment

My apartment is located on Utilisa Vosstaniya, one block away from Vosstaniya Square (Uprising Square), where Vosstaniya meets Nevsky Prospekt and also a big rotary (roundabout, traffic circle, etc.). Traffic there is crazy enough with just cars, but the hoards of pedestrians make it even more interesting. The red light for crossing Nevsky is long, and people get impatient. Decent sized chunks of the crowd will try to dash across several times per light cycle during the wait, and what usually happens is that cars will come barreling in with horns blaring and people will end up stranded on this pavement in the middle of the intersection between a couple of solid white lines. It's kind of amusing to watch, but I've taken to walking a different route from the Metro station back to the apartment. I try to avoid massive crowds whenever I can.

Speaking Russian

At first, I thought that Russian was by far the most difficult language I've tried to learn. That's only because I've been spoiled by the Latin alphabets of French, Italian, German, and Spanish. Cyrillic was a hurdle at first, but now that I can figure out the sounds, I'm finding that there are a lot of words that exist in both English and Russian. So, figuring out the meaning of what's around me is easier now. I'm still having a heck of a time with proper inflection, though; it's a total mystery to me. That, and the letter 'o' confuses me. Sometimes it's pronounced 'o', sometimes pronounced like an 'a'. I have no idea what determines which way I should pronounce it.

Fuzzy Dead Animal Wear

Furs (меха, pronounced "mekha", where the "kh" is more of a hissing sound than a hard sound) are available all over the place here. Every couple blocks, I'll see a fur shop. I wonder if it's due more to the fact that this is a tourist area, or that it gets really freakin' cold here in the winter. I think at some point Sergey asked about Greenpeace, and said something about how they should come to St. Petersburg. I don't know whether he meant that they should come save the animals, or experience the cold for themselves so they could see the usefulness of furs in a cold Russian winter. The second thought made me laugh.

Backpacks

Backpacks are useful, but not stylish, and people tend to go for style over utility here. Thus, there aren't many backpacks out on the street, and when you do see one, it's usually on a foreigner (like myself). Speaking of style over utility, there are a heck of a lot of stiletto wearers here, and the tiny little point at the end of a four inch stick they call a heel doesn't seem to bother them much. I see them in the Metro, even. How do they not get their heel stuck in the escalators?

While we're on the topic of backpacks, I've long been bothered by the fact that my backpack shoulder straps aren't pulled to equal lengths when I try to balance the pack. I've had this problem on every pack I've had. Yesterday, while strolling through the Summer Garden, I had an epiphany. It's not the pack, it's me. My right shoulder is slightly lower than my left. Duh.

IKEA

In my Russian phrasebook, there's a translation for something like, "How do I get to IKEA?" I thought it was a joke, but as I read the labels on the furniture at my apartment I realized that they really do have IKEAs here. It's a little Russian palace of Swedish picture guide self-assembly.

Receipt Ripping

Every receipt I've gotten so far here has been ripped before being handed to me. I found this to be a little curious (and inconvenient for doing expenses, as if reading Russian and converting currencies wasn't going to be hard enough), so I asked the great internet what it was all about. Looks like it's a holdover from the days of Soviet Russia (I finally found a way to sneak that term into a post!), when people paid first, then brought their receipt to get the goods. The receipt was then torn to indicate that the goods had been received.

Caviar

I have not had any caviar since I came here, and I don't really intend to. (Especially not in a blin.) I did, however, see an older Russian couple having a picnic lunch by the water. They opened a can of red roe and spread it on a slice of bread. Ah, so people DO eat caviar here! Just not always the really good stuff.

Produce

I can buy fruits and vegetables at the store like we do in the US, or I can buy fruits (and some vegetables) at a fruit stand on the street, or I can buy certain items from old ladies (generally) in random places with high foot traffic. This includes mushrooms, which I'm told Russians like to gather in the forest. There's a guy at the Metro station near the office who sells mushrooms in the evenings. I wonder if he picks them himself?

Superstitions

Big boss likes to whistle. (And hum. And sing. I guess he likes music?) He does it indoors sometimes, which is a big no-no in Russia. They say it will make you poor. I guess it's similar to shaking your leg while seated in China. That'll make you poor also, as you're shaking all your wealth away.

You're also not supposed to shake hands over a threshold here. I don't *think* I've accidentally done that. I suppose if I tried, someone would have refused, or moved us away from the threshold before doing so. Hrm, don't remember.

I'm sure there are plenty more, but that's all I've encountered so far.

Speaking of superstitions, I almost forgot a key Chinese one and was about to buy someone a Fabergé egg with a clock in it. Good thing I remembered before I paid!

Starbucks

I was reading something about their new Vivanno frosty things and thinking about how I should try one when I get back to the US. That's when I realized that I haven't seen a Starbucks since I left. The big chain here is Coffee House (Кофе Хауз). They're everywhere; sometimes I'll see one, walk a block, and see another. They serve coffee, wine, pastries, desserts, ice cream... way more variety than a Starbucks.

Still, it's weird not seeing a Starbucks for so long.

July 25, 2008 02:58 AM | St. Petersburg

Comments

Posted by: heather at July 25, 2008 08:23 AM

Posted by: Ryuuen10 at July 25, 2008 10:50 AM

Posted by: christy at July 25, 2008 02:00 PM

Posted by: Jennie at July 25, 2008 02:05 PM

Posted by: cheddah j at July 25, 2008 06:32 PM

Posted by: Viv at July 25, 2008 09:50 PM

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