16 April 2009

Whenever I’m on the bus, I see the warnings of the fines/penalties for attempting to catch a free ride, and when I look at the old women who work as conductors I wonder how they enforce anything. Yesterday I found out. After the conductor scanned my bus pass, I sat down, and I heard a deep voice behind me ask to see my ticket. I turned around, and an ENORMOUS man in plainclothes was flashing a red badge at me. I showed him my bus pass, and he went on to ask two or three more students before sneaking to the back of the bus and sitting down again.
The other day, I was in kind of a bad mood…I don’t know if it was the bad weather, the frustration about my classes (I changed another class this week), or what…but I was feeling a little hungry while I was walking around the city, so I stopped into a fruit market for something to eat. As soon as I walked in, I saw a big pile of Red Delicious apples. I bought one, and with the first bite I knew the taste and knew it was American. I bought two more (the woman behind the counter thought it was funny) and when I left the store the sun came out, and I walked around eating apples (which did turn out to be American, they had a sticker from Washington state) and enjoying the day. I don’t know why that was all I needed, but I was in a great mood after that.
Valentin met up with that girl from the jazz club a few more times, and apparently mentioned to him that her favorite song was “Your Song” by Elton John, so he spent the next two days learning it so he could sing it for her. I recorded one of his practices with my camera... I couldn’t stop laughing hearing the Romanian Elton John in action.
Last night Valentin invited some of his (Romanian) friends over for dinner. An and I were invited to join, and it was a nice time. It was about eight of us in total, and they prepared Romanian food, dessert, and one guy had even brought Moldovan wine. They didn’t give me names for anything, but they had a salad made of cucumbers and tomatoes in some kind of sauce, rice, chicken with peas and corn also in some kind of sauce, and the dessert was a bunch of fruit cut up in a yogurt sauce (I read up the other day on lactose intolerance, and apparently pure yogurt should be digestible, but that most of the stuff available in the United States has added milk solids and such to give a richer flavor). It was a lot of fun…even if I didn’t understand 90% of what happened. In the middle of dinner, I received a phone call from a woman in the city offering me a room in her apartment. Even if I already found a place, I’m glad I received more than one response…although I’m not sure where she got my phone number if I only included my email address in the advertisement…
Today Kristina and I went to the consulate. She wanted to find out where it was and ask a few questions and asked if I would go along. I didn’t mind, and I figured while there I can ask about preparing for the Foreign Service exam.
When we got there, we gave our passports to the guard (Russian, but American employee) outside the door, and he handed them both to a Russian police officer. Before we could say anything, he told us to wait a moment walked into a little shack with darkly tinted windows. About a minute later, he came back and handed the guard our passports. The guard asked if everything was in order, and then gave them to us. I really don’t like the idea of Russian police recording who goes in and out of American consulates, and I don’t understand how they are able to do that, or why the American guards are compliant…especially considering when he took our passports we were technically standing on American soil.
When we got inside, Kristina spoke to the woman at the desk, and I walked around. In the seating area, there was an enormous portrait of Barack Obama, a slightly smaller portrait of Hillary Clinton, and a small notebook-sized picture of Joseph Biden. When I returned to the room where Kristina was, there was an elderly woman at the counter telling the girl behind the desk that she is worried because her Russian friends have been telling her that the dollar will expire on the first of May, so she needs to find another currency. The girl behind the counter didn’t know what to say, so she just more or less said “Your money is safe, I promise.”
I asked her about study materials for the Foreign Service Exam, and she went to get someone else. The guy who came out to speak with me turned out to be the Vice-Consul for St. Petersburg, which was kind of exciting. He was a really nice guy and gave me some advice as well as his card. Afterwards, I asked him about the police outside. He said that that isn’t normal, and that he was going to look into it. He said if I come back, when walking into the consulate I don’t have to give the Russian police my passport and I can say no. I told him that I didn’t give it to him, that the consulate guard did, and he looked surprised. He told me that that should never happen and he was going to find out why it did. On our way out, he came after us and took down my name to include in his report about the police. I’m glad I had an opportunity to speak with him, but the whole deal with the police made me feel a little uncomfortable. I don’t like the idea of foreign police keeping tabs on me.
The other day I was at the gym, and I ran into Ivan Serge’evich again. I was talking with him, and at one point I misused an idiom. He told me that that isn’t how Russians speak, and that if I really want to learn the language I shouldn’t be sitting in class and studying in the dorm, but I should be out spending all my time socializing with Russians. I told him I’m working on a balance, but he just kept telling me that I was going about my studies all wrong.
Anyway, English Club was cancelled for tonight, so that means I can have a leisurely dinner which I’m going to get started on now.