Muse back!
July 20, 2008 / Sunday
I've Been Taking Notes
Day seven of my stay here in St. Petersburg. Really, though, it's more like day six, since I arrived in the evening on Monday. Anyhow, I'm about halfway through my visit. This is the first time I've been in a place where it's hard for me to communicate, and boy is it tiring. This may be the first time I've found myself missing home. Usually, I think nothing of being away, as I figure I'll get back to it all when I return, but being by myself in a place so foreign just wears me out.
Next week will be the big test. Boss and big boss go home Monday afternoon, and I'm on my own for the rest of the week. I've decided to forgo a driver from Tuesday on and take the Metro to work. It'll give me more flexibility in my schedule, and more freedom to explore. I'm a little apprehensive about it, but I'm sure it'll be fine once I figure it out.
I've been taking notes since my last post on various things about this place. Here's an update.
The mosquitoes continue to sneak up on me at night. I discovered three more on Saturday night, two more on Sunday morning, and three more on Sunday afternoon. One of them is on the giant scar I have on my knee. A mosquito bite on a scar? Totally weird. Weird like the two I have on my nose. The running total is something like 24.
[ Update: Three more on my shoulders and back, plus another four on my right leg. Total is now 31. Actually, I think it's 32 because I didn't include my other nose bite. Will I have over 60 by the time I leave next Sunday? Maybe I should just stop counting; it's getting hard to keep track. Oh, but counting, it's what I do. ]
The other night, I woke up in the middle of the night with no blanket on me. I was sure I'd wake up covered in mosquito bites. And then I didn't. Or did I? Maybe I did after all.
Later that night, I was kept awake by a loud buzzing sound that would approach my head and then buzz away. It kept me awake because I thought it was a mosquito, but in retrospect, it buzzed too loud to be one. I definitely heard a mosquito trying to eat me last night, though, and after its third attempted landing, I finally got it. It only took about five whacks on my head.
I finally figured out how to adjust the water in the shower so that it doesn't make the hot water heater turn on and off and the water temperature go up and down. I almost boiled myself alive only once before figuring this out, too.
I also finally figured out how to use the washer in the kitchen. I sat for a really long time the other night trying to sound out all the words on the front, and only "synthetic" and "delicate" made sense. I realized today that one of them must say "cotton", so I looked it up, matched the letters, and washed some clothes.
This morning (that would be Sunday morning), I went to the store for some milk and cereal. I had considered going to the cafe instead, but if I'm staying here for two weeks I should try to eat food that's good for me. I haven't had a chance to look at all the brands, but I saw 1.8%, 2.5%, 3.5%, and 5% milk. Are the percentages used by a country picked arbitrarily? The milk here tastes sweeter. I think it's pasteurized at a higher temperature than the milk back in the US.
The yogurt and ice cream, however, taste less sweet. Or maybe my taste buds are screwed up. I picked up a mango and pineapple yogurt today; looking forward to trying it. I also saw mango Fanta, which is intriguing, but since I only like creamy mango things I decided to pass. Speaking of Fanta, orange Fanta is available everywhere.
I really like all the 24 hour shops they have here. People are out at all hours of the night. It's kind of neat to be someplace that doesn't ever totally shut down.
I don't ever want to drive here, though. There are mean-looking traffic police all over the place, but drivers seem not to care much about rules if there isn't one in sight. Lanes appear out of nowhere when someone decides they want to pass. And just because a street is one way, don't forget to look both ways before crossing!
Today, I saw a guy riding a scooter with no helmet, talking on a cell phone, in the rain.
I see a decent number of bicyclists here, and given how the drivers behave, I think they're brave. There are also a decent number of people on rollerblades, and they're somehow able to navigate patches of cobblestoney pavement without falling on their face. I'm impressed.
Construction is everywhere, but it's all hidden behind scaffolding and facades. They like to cover the scaffolding with a print of what the building will look like when they're done. I think it's a waste of money, but somewhat amusing. I'm a tad bummed that a lot of this scaffolding is covering popular sites undergoing restoration, though. Parts of Kazan are covered, along with an entire face of the Winter Palace.
I can read more Cyrillic now than I could the last time I wrote about it. I only have the following letters left: Ё, Й, Ь, Ъ, and Э. (Two of those aren't really sounds on their own, which makes it a little harder.) Granted, that's when my brain's not tired. Sometimes it just wigs out and refuses to transliterate. There is one word that I could read without transliterating, though, even before I started to try to do it: ИНТЕРНЕТ. Internet. Go figure.
On Friday, I asked my boss to help me navigate a Russian ATM. I was all ready for an adventure, and then the thing spit English at me. What a letdown! Not that I want an ATM adventure now that boss is leaving town, but it was funny because neither of us had expected the ATM to be bilingual.
Saturday night, I turned on the TV in search of the culture channel, which Sergey had said would show this super cool clock from the Hermitage that had this whole scene with golden roosters and such flapping their wings and making sounds and what-not. We saw the clock, but they no longer run it. Anyhow, the first thing I saw on the screen was a couple girls in lingerie sitting there making silly faces with international phone numbers at the bottom. I pushed the up channel button. "Sexy-Arab TV" came on with more girls. I pushed the up channel button again. The screen filled with naked girl boobies. I get three "eurotic TV" channels and about five Arab sex channels. And that's all between channels 5-13! There were more as I continued to surf to the higher channels.
I *think* that my apartment here gets satellite channels for a really broad region that's not specific to Russia. I get only a few Russian channels, about as many as I do of English, German, French, Spanish, Chinese, and any other languages I haven't yet identified. Really, though, I'd hoped for local Russian TV.
Two posts down, one to go. I'll finish catching up tomorrow.
July 20, 2008 10:42 AM | St. Petersburg