10.10.2008

Friday:

So, Tatyana fixed the TV in my room for me. Which may have been a horrid mistake -- I might end up just sitting and brooding in my room with the TV for the rest of my time here than doing anything else. Which is exactly what I am doing this FRIDAY EVENING. But, I have to get up at 6:20am tomorrrow to go to Pskov, so I hadn't planned on doing anything tonight, anyway.

I've found a couple TV shows I like to watch, of similar vein to what I watch in the U.S. I think I've already written about Звездный Лед/Zvezdnyj Lyod, so I won't bother getting into that. Right now I'm watching ... uh ... Супер Стар 2008... which is ... Super Star 2008. It's another performance show, with various people singing pop songs and being voted on. I can't tell from where they get their contestants, though -- Some of them are old washed up Russian pop stars (which is kind of a small pool, because usually once they're a star in Russia, they stay a star and continue making and selling music successfully until they DIE) singing new pop songs and others are... not? I don't know. It's strange.

The first song was "Два косичики колбаски," which I think means "two small sausages" or something like that. In any case, the singer came on stage wearing a full leopard print outfit, a hot pink KISS shirt, and a fox stole, singing this song, and two people dressed up as sausages come out and dance on the stage. It was quite ridiculous.

All in all, Russian TV is pretty bad. I tried to watch some CSI sort of show the other day, and it was intolerable. The drama shows are even more unbearable. And there's something about Russian intonation that makes everything anyone says sound exactly the same, and sound very very important. I don't know.

Today I dragged myself out to the Hermitage. Last night I was feeling awful, and this morning, too -- I considered just staying in and doing nothing today, but that would've just made me feel worse, so I went out. And got lost. A few times. Which wasn't all that bad, to be honest. It was a lot more busy this time than last. And some strange foreign girl asked to have her picture taken with me. I think she thought I was Russian. So now she's going to go home and show her friends this photo, saying, "OMG look at the hot Russian guy I found at the Hermitage! I asked him for a photo!" Too bad she doesn't know that I'm NOT RUSSIAN!! AAHAHAHAHAHA.

Then I came home and had the treat of PEL'MENI for dinner. Thank God I haven't seen stuffed cabbage for a week. However, I'm getting to the point where I actually like the greasy soup, pizza, and strange meat pies. Which might be good or bad, I haven't decided yet.

Oh, so, I'm reading my textbook for my Russia and the U.S.A class (the text is in Russian even though the class is in English), and the beginning of the section I'm on is describing the situation in America during the 70's. Well, it's going through Watergate, (P.S.: It took me forever to figure out what the hell “Уотергейт” was supposed to be – transliterated, that's Uotergejt. Yep), when it says “By American law, this was a serious infringement of the law.” For some reason, this struck me – Does it have such a statement in any AMERICAN descriptions of Watergate? Does it need to be SAID that this is a serious infringement of the law? I mean, maybe not in the Russian context, but, anyway.

So, I go to Pskov, tomorrow. Tatyana asked me when I was waking up, and when I told her 6:30, she was like “Wow, that's early... Uh, here.” then pulls out a litre of orange juice and three bananas and tells me it's my breakfast, because she's not waking up that early to make me breakfast. I thought that was a little amusing.

Post-Pskov:

This weekend was good, I'd say. It felt good to get out of the city. I guess I went to Pavlovsk last week, which was out of the city, but this was ... REALLY out of the city. Pskov itself was pretty small, but nice. Lots of cultural goings. Five hour bus ride, then we get to the city and have a short bus-tour before getting to the hotel (I HAD AN ENTIRE ROOM TO MYSELF BECAUSE ONE OF THE PEOPLE DIDN'T SHOW UP YAAAAY). After that we went to a cafe, then the Pskov kremlin (For those who don't know, a “kremlin” is actually a Russian walled fort with a church or a monastery). We were free to go after the tour, so several of us just took a walk through the city and its parks. Beautiful day – I got a couple of shots of me sitting on the ancient Pskov wall! Which was, as its name indicates, quite crumbling and decrepit. I was excited to go to Pskov because of its history; during the middle ages, it was captured and traded between Lithuania, Poland, Estonia and Russia on many different occasions.

Today (Sunday), we went to Старый Изборск/Staryj Izborsk, which was basically.... another old fort. The walk TO the fort, however, was ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS. I absolutely CANNOT describe it with words. I took a MASSIVE amounts of photos, which I will upload at some point in the near future. After Izborsk, we went to some monastery (which is still working, and had many a sketchy Orthodox monk wandering about) in a town called Печоры/Pechory. I didn't take many photos here because I was so broken down, but, I saw dead saints. I felt kind of awkward... Being a tourist in a working monastery... I don't know.

Last night I had my first encounter with Russians forcing alcohol on me, and I now don't understand why ANYONE drinks vodka. It tastes like rubbing alcohol. I had three shots, and it didn't do anything to me, so, whatever. I just drank juice after that. Then watched the World Fashion Channel, and now want to go shopping.

I really want to describe the walk to the Izborsk fort, but I really ... can't. It was seriously just so beautiful. It's fall (clearly), so all the leaves are turning, and just... I don't know.

I'm going to make this short since it's midnight and I'm tired and still want to look at some of the photos I took.

The following photographs are from Pavlovsk, not Pskov. (Click to view full image)

















Also some of the Botanical Gardens: