12 May 2009

Thoughts while eating locally made animal crackers: either there are very few elephants here, or they have some really strange looking elephants.

Forgot to mention this in my last blog- I had a rather weird argument with the woman who teaches conversational Hebrew after English club last week (they have English club and Hebrew lessons at the same time). Lonya was giving a few of us a ride home, and she out of nowhere asked me what my problem is with Israel and why I’m not coming to the independence day celebration. I told her I didn’t know what she was talking about, and she told me that this upcoming Thursday is a celebration for Israel’s Independence Day. I told her Thursday I have English club, so I won’t be able to make it. Her response was “there are English Clubs every week. How many chances to you get to celebrate Israel’s Independence Day with us? One! Don’t you want to celebrate Israel’s independence?” to which I told her “I’m not really interested in their independence day. I don’t celebrate France’s Independence Day either. I’m not an Israeli citizen.” She asked if I was Jewish, to which I said yes, and she said “Well there you go. That’s enough.” I told her that none of my family is from Israel, and that I have no family in Israel, and I don’t even know anyone from Israel, so as far as I’m concerned being Jewish might influence my politics, but I don’t think it gives me any reason to get excited about a foreign country’s independence day. She said “does your community contribute to the Jewish Federation?” to which I said yes, and her answer was “well there you go. You’ve already paid for this event. There’s no reason not to come.” And with that she got out of the car, said ‘see you Thursday’ and went home.

So I had a pretty busy weekend. I planned on going to the parades for the Day of Victory…but I overslept. Nonetheless, I went to the Park of Victory and walked around. I saw a military band perform, saw what the park looks like without snow, and went to the Gagarin Park again (a small carnival in the middle of the park). I asked one of my friends whether Yuri Gagarin’s family receives money for the park, and she told me that the street is named after Gagarin, so the people who opened the park found a loophole and claim that the park is named for the street its on, not the astronaut and therefore don’t have to pay any royalties. After leaving Gagarin Park, out of nowhere there was a torrential downpour and heavy winds. That more or less ended my Day of Victory tour.

Sunday I was able to really cook for the first time since I got here. My friend that taught me to make sushi came over, and we made eggplant and chicken parmesan. Since I hadn’t cooked anything in such a long time, I went all out. I cut the eggplant and chicken very thin, and layered them in a dish like lasagna. I think it came out well, and my friend said that there is nothing like that here. Up front I had said that we would be preparing the American view of Italian cuisine. It was difficult gathering groceries, as the vegetables here are much different. I had to go to three different stores to find fresh spinach, and in that last one I also found Portobello mushrooms.

Yesterday I had the day off from class for the holiday. In the morning when I went to Vera, I had a talk with her about our financial agreement. I told her that if I am only coming to her for dinner three to four times a week and I don’t eat much breakfast, than the amount we agreed on earlier is ridiculous. She agreed with me, and said that rather than the money I gave her being for the month of May, she said we would stretch it to a month and a half. Personally, I was hoping she would give me some of the money back and then at the end of the month I would say ‘I’ll take care of myself from now on’ but I suppose this works as well. When the money does run out, I am not going to renew anything with her. Her family is very nice, but I don’t like that she treats me like a customer every time I go downstairs. With Olga, as soon as I gave her the money for rent it was over and done with, whereas Vera treats it strictly as a business agreement and like I’m intruding on her time with her family, even though she was the one who came up with the idea of me having meals with her.

After breakfast, I got on the metro and went down to Kupchina where I met up with Sasha and Max. The three of us drove to Pavlovsk Park, where we walked the grounds for a bit, then rented bicycles and biked around the park. It was a lot of fun, and a much different experience there on a bike in the sun than on a sled when I was last there back in march. Apparently Sasha never really learned to ride a bike, so we stopped a lot to make sure we didn’t lose her (she had trouble driving straight and kept wandering off the paths). It was a great time. After we came back and returned the bikes, we went to a little restaurant across town that Max remembered from when he used to live in the neighborhood, and the three of us ate shwarma.

I think I need to tell Olga that I can’t watch her cat anymore when she goes away for a day or two. He’s driving me crazy. When I’m in the kitchen he climbs on the table and tries to put his face in my food, when I use the sink or open the refrigerator he climbs in, whenever I close the door to my bedroom he starts crying and scratches at my door. He doesn’t like being alone, and he gets really upset whenever he doesn’t have company. This weekend he realized that his crying wasn’t working, so he started pulling magazines off the shelves in the front hall, knocking things onto the floor in the kitchen, and breaking into the cabinet under the kitchen sink and tearing open the garbage bag. He has realized that when he makes a lot of noise I come out of my room, and as soon as I walk out he starts rubbing against my leg. After two nights in a row of not being able to sleep with all the banging and crying, I took a metal hook off the coat rack and locked the cabinet under the sink closed. All last night I heard clanking coming from the kitchen as he tried to get to the garbage. When I noticed Vera’s cat climbing around the window during breakfast yesterday, she told me that a cat can fall up to five stories out a window and be fine. Olga’s cat had better make some serious attitude adjustments soon, because our apartment is on the sixth floor.