Super-Duper Wacky n' Tacky Euro Adventure

This entry is to let everyone know that I have fallen in love with a girl here in Russia. She is a gorgeous brunette who I just happened to pass one day in the metro. Now she meets me every day as I come home and I couldn’t be happier when I see her face. Yes I have fallen in love with the girl from the Pepe Jeans ad which sits on the ascending wall of the escalators of stancia Shabalobskaya by my apartment. And what a girl she is. If all goes well she tells me that I might one day meet her parents; a couple in a Roberto Cavalli ad in stancia Oktyabrskaya. So far no luck, but I’m hoping to soon be “in those jeans” as a wise R&B writer once espoused. Why do feel the incessant need to go buy denim products? Don’t worry mom, I think this affair stays in Moscow.

It was a really tough one this morning. Here's to the first European hangover for Beto. On the other hand, I really can't put anything in my stomach this morning. I walked into class a little late this morning. Whoops.

The plus side is I had a blast last night. Micha and I went down to Real McCoy's, which is a bar modeled after a Chicago speak-easy. It's supposed to be a great place for expats so naturally we had to leave cause it just wasn't happening. Then we headed to Propaganda for cheap drinks and crappy euro trash electronic music and boy was it fun. This picture is from just before we headed in. We found these Irish kids who were really fun and drank me under the table. Have to chill with them again. Alright I need sleep and aspirin, so till next time.

By the way, Baltika number 9 kicks so much ass.

So I just had a pleasant accidental stroll around my neighborhood behind Leninsky Prospekt. I was looking for a store called Sportmaster-Diskont – took me a while to find it. I discovered a pleasant little park with flowers in full bloom (I know it’s September, but you never know what you’re gonna get in Russia.) Behind the park was the beautiful outline of a local orthodox church. The orthodox religion has seen a huge revival here after the fall of the Soviet Union. In fact pretty much the only charity and donation seen domestically has been all directed to the Orthodox Church. In the middle of the city is the church of Christ the Savior which is a beautiful restoration of the first church to be established in Moscow. If I remember correctly, the tour guide told us that the restoration cost somewhere near $650 million. This is amazing considering the state of affairs immediately following the collapse of the USSR, but then again, the indoor pool that Stalin had put their wasn’t exactly doing wonders for the city’s aesthetic appeal. I think I have pictures of this church from one of my first entries. Anyway, the moral of the story is that the churches provide wonderful sceneries and backdrops in a city that was indoctrinated with a few too many Stalin-era structures that cry out for creativity.

Along the walk I had a small smile upon face as I was truly enjoying the little pleasures that make travel, and life in general, worth every effort we put into it. I was also smiling because of the fact that I had just bought a scarf AND a beanie for under $20. Really good quality too. Sportmaster-Dikont, where have you been all my life?

Tonight drinks with Micha.

FYI: The flowers should be viewed with your head turned to the left 90 degrees.

So Iris and I are skipping class right now. What do Stanford students do when skipping class do you ask? Well, one of us is updating a blog and checking up on the New York Times while the other is catching up on homework. Wonderful. Last night we went retaurant hunting in the middle of downtown and finally settled on one of the most touristy places in all of Moscow. Oh well, it was relatively cheap. Right now the rest of the class is standing in an endless soviet-style line to get cheap plane tickets. iris and I were gonna join them but then we decided we like free internet better than standing in lines. Still gotta find out what Im gonna do for thanksgiving break, but Im sure somthing will come up. Tonight, Micha invited us over to make homemade pastries then maybe a couple of bars. should be fun.

Just got a call from Eric. Apparently Kristall was just physically assaulted by an old fat Russian man in line for the plane tickets. Wow, very glad I didn't go. That's rough.

...At the apartment is usually completely prepared by Iosef because Marina usually works until late into the night and sometimes is not even home for the usual dinner time of about 8PM. I have no complaints about Iosef’s cooking; everything is edible, usually tastes good and occasionally is surprisingly tasty. Then again he is no five-star chef. Sometimes I wonder about what is put in front of me. But I always smile, say spasiba, and happily eat my meal. From what I hear, however, nobody’s host family has any five-star chefs in it. Usually breakfast is porridge (which has a common Russian name that I just can’t remember right now), bread, sliced cheese, sliced meet, and a steaming cup of instant coffee. I’m no fan of the instant coffee, but honestly there are few other ways to better get your day started than what I usually have in the morning. The porridge is everything that porridge shouldn’t be: yummy, not lumpy, and not too filling.

At school we are let out for lunch at noon after three exhausting hours of Russian and getting a quality meal is usually the last thing on our minds. Luckily I missed the initial trip to McDonalds which happened one of the first couple of days. Apparently every food item is exactly the same, including the spelling, which is simply translated to Syrillic, but not necessarily anything understandable in the Russian language (ЂИГ MAK). So we usually head to corner grocery store which is big enough to have some prepared foods perfect for lunch, but also small enough to have most of those foods taste similar to the smell I get when Roni and Beni wake me up with their tongues in the morning. I am desperately trying to get us to venture out a bit farther for food, even just maybe a blini stand for crying out loud.

Back at the apartment I have yet to get home at a usual hour because I am always doing something after school until very late. So I usually walk in on dinner or eat after everyone else. Iosef likes me to start off with “salad” which is usually sliced tomatoes, onions, and other unidentifiable vegetables. The salad is covered with dressing which does not even try to hide the fact that it is just plain mayonnaise over vegetables. Mayo has a lot of uses in Russia. The other night I had a pizza that Marina made that had a white sauce instead of the usual marinara. After much probing, I successfully identified the sauce as none other than mayo. Any who, dinner always has a lot of carbs; pasta, rice, (tonight it was pasta AND rice) potatoes, whatever. Not exactly the healthiest foods, but I figure this is a staple because of the relatively inexpensive $ to calorie ratio which is unfortunately on the mind of most Russians. Fortunately the carb-fest is always accompanied with some kind of meat. A small portion, but with the carbs and salad, a full meal is easily accomplished. Never leave the table after finishing the food, because the mandatory cup of piping hot tea must be drank. There is much sugar and cookies too accompany the tea as it aids the digestion of the recently consumed meal. More than anything, tea after dinner is a great time to discuss anything with my host family, or simply watch the latest sports report and try really hard to understand. Usually doesn’t work too well.

Go Dinamo!

ulmerham: don't freeze to death or die of alcohhol poisoning
ulmerham: or get mugged by gypsies
ulmerham: or say something subversive and end up in the gulag
ulmerham: or by up state property and become a billionaire
ulmerham: well maybe that last one

the previous were words of wisdom from a very wise individual.

I am now sitting in some kind of rediculously trendy restaurant surrounded by Parisian wannabes and checking my e-mail. My glass of chilled Stolichnaya next to me is the only thing to keep me from completely running out of this place. That and the fact that the hostess walks by my table every time a new customer comes in the door; then she walks back to her post. Too bad I could never hold a two minute conversation with the woman!

I am currently in a sulky mood for that exact reason. I completely forgot how big the learning curve is when learning an entirely new language. I hate to say that I've only been hanging out with Stanford students, but I really haven't had much choice so far. These beginning few weeks are gonna be tough.

I don't have much battery life left so I must say Paka. But I will return with many more tales from the great Russian city.

Just got back from a nice day of sight-seeing and touristing; independent style. I feel like I got a much better feel for Moscow by just exploring on foot today. Here are a few things I discovered:

*The downtown area is really not that big. The encircling highway (garden ring) that defines downtown just does not have a big circumference. I was easily able to walk from the west border to the south border, and back to the Kremlin (dead-center) without breaking too much sweat.

*Capitalism is really spreading with a vengeance. Although Russia still has yet to recover its GDP output from the original transition, capitalism and western business is everywhere. In the mall underneath red square (where I have been doing most of internet-café time so far), there is more Latin (western) writing than Cyrillic. The west is in mode and the west is investing in Moscow.

*Even on Sunday, Russians sure do like their Piva.

*Americans like us Stanford students are everywhere in this city. Maybe not as much as most Western European cities; but that’s kinda nice because that means there are less tourists and more people genuinely interested in Moscow.

*Deuce Bigalow 2 is a stupid movie. There were only two positive aspects to seeing this amazingly sophomoric movie today: 1) I only paid $7 to see it. 2) I now know where the English language theater is (Russians prefer dubbed to subtitled).

*Just because a sign says “Sports Bar” in Cyrillic, doesn’t mean it really has anything to do with sports, or being a bar for that matter. It was a Japanese restaurant!

*Iris is good people to hang out with. She can give a guy all the hookups on how to find caffeine in a big foreign city.

*There are probably many Roman Catholics in the city of Moscow, but for some reason they like to keep secrets, like where they go to mass every Sunday. Sneaky bastards.

Alright, homework for now. Tomorrow my laptop will be reunited with its long lost love internet, for the first time in about a week. I, I mean it, was going through some serious withdrawals.

FYI: There is a Quesadilla in the picture above. It is a pic from the Japanese restaurant that isn't a sports bar.

Propaganda Bar
Looking Russian...
Ya lyubliu vodka!
... I had so many things that I wanted to include in this post, but the internet cafe time passes wayyyy too quickly. Included are a couple of photos from last night. We all dared to stay out past1AM when the metro stops and it turns out not to be so bad. I am now officially a big fan of gypsy cabs.

To all those I haven't contacted yet: so sorry. I will have more internet access soon.

Had an unsuccessful search for a roman catholic church today. Turned into a Moscow walking tour. You miss soooo much when you're just taking the metro!

So we didn't get to Lenin's library today because we all had a late start, but I'm off now to meet Iris for some coffee, then maybe a movie later! Paka!

The Ladies
Russian arch of triumph: not as triumphant.
Sunglasses ad. Doncha think?

Look who finally made it!

Sneaking up on the paparrazi
Not to be racist, but Asians make the funniest poses.
WWII memorial


St. Basil's Cathedral

...to dance with the shirtless balck man.
Dancing next to black people is a bad idea. Notice two girls on the left laughing at me.

Okay, just had to put in a quick entry before bed because I had such a great time tonight. Turns out the best salsa bar I’ve ever been to is in fact in Moscow. There are a couple of great pictures before the security guard made us put the camera away. There are also a couple of movies I took of Russians dancing to Mexican and Cuban music. Hilarious. If I find out how to put movies on the blog, I’ll be sure to include.

Might I also add that this is the best weather that I’ve ever found in ANY city. There wasn’t even a need to put on my spiffy blazer that I brought out! I know I’m eventually gonna hate the weather, but I am basking in its full glory as of now.

So by now I’ve had many mini-conversations with Russians. One was with this black dude (see pics) who happened to be the only black dude in the entire bar. Of course he ended up being an employee, hired to show people how to basically dance to black music. As I was brought up to center stage with this shirtless black man and two very scantly-clad women, I realized this would be a good man to get to know. I had a proud moment as, after the center-stage dance, our entire group was trying to figure out where he was from. I intruded in my broken Russian:
Me: do you speak English?
Black dude: niet.
Me: French?
Black dude: niet. Hispanski.
Me: Sweet!

I found out that he was from the Caribbean, but I couldn’t quite understand the exact island. Might have been Granada, but I’ll have to check back. Anyway, I’m proud to be putting my mad language skills to good use.

Cool; that’s it for now. Tomorrow we go on a very touristy bus tour of Moscow. Great. Can’t wait. (sarcasm!)

Okay, this whole travel thing is starting to perturb me just a little bit. It just took me exactly 1 ½ hours to get home from the academy because the escalators conveniently stop working in the afternoon at Park Kultury station where I change from the red line to the brown line. Someone notified me that this probably won’t change any time soon.

On a more positive note, I just got my new Russian cell phone! The number is 89264467321. To dial from the U.S., I think one must dial 001, then 7 (country code), then the number. Just in case anyone is interested in chatting for a few.

Tonight we’re hitting some kind of bar of some kind. Lord help me to stay awake so that I can actually make it.

Just got back from the group bus tour of Moscow. It was loads of fun complete with a stereotypically old Russian lady speaking English in a stereotypical Russian accent and leading the way. We hit up all the great tourist traps that Moscow has to offer. Now that we’re done with that, I’m frankly looking forward to getting to know Moscow for what it really is: Not a place for tourists, but an adventure if one makes the trip independently and with an open mind. Tomorrow Iris and I will begin such a journey by checking out the Lenin library and perhaps stopping by the old man’s tomb. Apparently he looks really waxy. Can’t really blame him, he’s been dead for awhile now. In this entry I am including a picture of all the students that are in Moscow for now; all us dumbasses that haven’t learned the language yet. From left to right: Iris, Alina, Eric, Becky, Jessica, Kristal.

Here is a short introduction for each of them:
Iris: Resident bad-ass fencer chick who decided to spend her last quarter at Stanford abroad. Mad props for that.
Alina: The youngin’ and only non-dumbass of us all who already knows Russian. Can we say “crutch?”
Eric: Maybe chronically too happy? He has diesel pants that I desperately want and so I secretly hate him.
Becky: Whenever one of us is lost, just look for Becky among the puny Russians and you will be found. The girl I’ve known since the beginning of freshman year turns out not to be so shy as she declared last night, “I’ll have a shot.”
Jessica: Opinionated on everything, this girl will tell you what’s on her mind and then tell it to you in Russian as well (this one also cheated by taking Russian and living in the country awhile before we all got here).
Kristal: Or Kristinka as she is more fondly remembered fits right into the Russian scenery. Except for her blaring American accent. She provides the only hints of normalcy to our off-the-wall group. Then again, how could someone named Kristinka be normal?

Tonight: drinks at a place called “propaganda.” Love the irony of the name.