17 May 2009

So the Night of the Museums (about 25 museums in the city stayed open all night and offered a night pass for all of them) didn’t quite work out the way I thought it would. I hadn’t slept much all week, so I slept until about 1pm, then got up and started studying. Around 2, Olga knocked on my door and said she was worried that I was sick or something and was glad to see that I was still alive. I spent the next six hours studying the infrastructure of the American government, and then headed over to the dorm. I had spoken with Kristina, and she told me that she was going with a few friends around 9pm to the museums, and I had also called An to ask if he was interested in going. I took the metro across town, and while I was on the bus she called me and said that they weren’t leaving until ten… so I called An. Rather than wait a full hour, An and I headed out.

I hadn’t seen An in a couple weeks, and he basically told me he misses me in the apartment. Apparently the new guy that moved in, Marco (from Italy) has become drinking buddies with Valentin, and almost every night they ask him to leave the room so they can have dates over. He said he’s been really frustrated trying to find museums and concerts to go to get out of the dorm room, because if he stays when they ask him to leave, they make it really uncomfortable for him. I felt really bad for him when he told me that. Things got really tense between An and Valentin towards the end, and I guess now with the new guy they are teaming up on An. He showed me three tickets to concerts he bought for the next few weeks (he’s leaving at the end of June) and I asked who he was going with, and he said alone to all three. One of the tickets was to a festival at the Marinskii Theatre that sounded interesting, so I think I will buy a ticket and go with him.

We stood on line for about forty minutes to buy our night passes. While we were there, I watched a kid going up and down the line trying to scalp tickets. I’ve never heard of ticket scalpers at a museum before…

When we finally got our passes, we went straight into the museum at the cashier, and as we walked around we talked about which museums we wanted to see, and it turns out An really did spend the last 10 months doing nothing but studying. He has been to the Hermitage once, to the colonnade of St. Isaac’s Cathedral, and other than that he’s only gone to concerts. He hasn’t been to any other museums or exhibits. I told him that if I were him, I would stop going to class and use the rest of the month to experience Russia. He passed his exam two weeks ago, so he really can relax a little. He said he’d think about it, but I doubt he will. I want to see a lot in my last month and a half a well, and if he’s being kicked out of the apartment perhaps we’ll explore together.

We didn’t realize that there were two separate lists of museums- those that were open until eleven pm, and those that were open until six am. We went to three separate museums that had already closed, and the last one had an enormous line that we would have probably waited in for over two hours, so we decided to leave. As the dorms prohibit exit and entry between one and five in the morning, I told An he could come back with me, and while I didn’t have an extra bed or anything he was welcome to sleep in a chair.

At one point, we started talking about the exam. He told me that his best section was letter writing, and his worst was conversation. I told him I expected the lexical studies section to be difficult. He said “are you scared?’ and I said “a little” and his answer was “why? You’re David Schwartz?”… I need more friends like this.

I decided to wear my new shoes out, figuring that the night of walking would be enough to stretch the leather to the point where they are finally comfortable. It didn’t work. By the end of the night, I was limping, and when we got back and I took off my shoes I had bruises and blisters on my feet.

When we got back to the apartment, it was about four in the morning and An said he didn’t think he would sleep, after I said that I had to get up around 8:30. I felt weird going to sleep while he was just sitting in a chair in my room, so we watched a movie for about an hour and then went to sleep.

Today I went to a picnic on the gulf of Finland. It was organized by STARS (I forget what the acronym stands for exactly, but it’s a Jewish youth group). It was great. Everyone (around forty or fifty people) met at the synagogue to board busses, but Roma offered me a seat in his car and gave me a tour on the hour or so drive there. It seems that Petersburg history is a hobby of his, so it was a pretty good tour. While we were waiting to leave the synagogue, I asked Roma why his girlfriend wasn’t there. He said that they were fighting, and she was there but that they wouldn’t be associating at the picnic. He said “Football is always more important than a girl. Remember- you can always change your girlfriend, but you can never change your team!”
The place was close enough to Finland that one of the girls said that if one wanted, they could ride a bicycle to the border from where we were. The picnic was technically on the deck of a restaurant, but it was on the side of the beach, and it was set up with plates of fresh fruit and vegetables everywhere, salads, drinks, and pastries. All day three guys stood over grills and cooked chicken kebabs. I don’t know if the guys cooking had ever used a grill before, because when they lit the charcoal I saw a guy unload about a half bottle of fuel onto the flame, tossed the chicken on as soon as he saw fire, and used a sheet of plastic to fan the flames the entire time the chicken was cooking. I took a piece from the first batch, and when I bit into it, the inside was still raw. I decided to stick with fruits and vegetables.

At one point I was eating a pear and Roma’s friend Liza who I haven’t seen in a few months came up to me and asked me if I was going down to the beach. I had just taken a big bite of pear, and didn’t answer her. She repeated herself slower, and then gave me a blank stare. I swallowed the bit of pear in my mouth, and said “Yeah I want to go join them, but I want to finish this pear first” and she jumped back and said “you speak Russian now!?” I laughed and asked if that means I speak well now or I spoke that terribly when she first met me. She looked uncomfortable and said that it was really hard to understand me back then and walked away.

All day we ate, played volleyball, Frisbee, shot pellet guns at juice-boxes, and hung out around a fire on the beach. It was a great time.

I am having some difficulties planning my trip to the Ukraine. All week people were telling me that they were interested and then changing their mind. Finally on Friday two girls in my group said they were interested, and then sent me a text this morning saying they can’t go because they won’t be able to get visas for Belarus in time. I texted them back that the visa only takes five days to process and only costs $36, but they didn’t respond. I’ll talk to them about it tomorrow, and if they say no, then I guess I’m going alone because I can’t wait any longer to buy tickets. Roma was interested, but he said he absolutely hates trains. I looked into plane tickets, but they cost almost three times as much as the train. My friend Marina suggested I buy two separate tickets for the way there with a significant delay in Minsk…but I don’t know how the rules for transit visas work and if I am allowed to leave the station. I’ll find out tomorrow. Last night, An and I discussed going to Moscow for two days mid June. I’m glad he brought it up, because I want to go there before I leave, and so does he. I am meeting with Vova some time this week as well, which I am looking forward to as I haven’t seen him since the tour he gave Brittany and I of the Peter-Paul Fortress back in April.