2010: A Russian Odyssey

S Mezhdunarodnym zhenskim dnyom!

(Happy International Women’s Day!) Russians love holidays, I think they’ll make a holiday out of anything just to get out of work. A couple weeks ago we had “Men’s Day” and today was Women’s Day (these are not replacements for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day by the way, those are different holidays). I’m not complaining – I get to skip out on school because of them!

The tradition is to get a gift for women that you know (which can get pricey so I think being selective about the women is fine), so last Friday I took some flowers to school for the cloak room lady and my conversation teacher (we had a test that day). Today I went out and got some flowers for my host mom as well, which are now gracing the living room.

Like on Men’s Day, my host parents’ son, his wife, and his daughter all came to the apartment for dinner to celebrate the holiday. It was interesting to pin a face and personality to all the science fiction books, Formula 1 magazines, and Communist emblems decorating my room.

Their son Kostya speaks pretty good English, and his wife Lena likes to practice so I was a good outlet for that. Their daughter Sofia is about one and a half years old, and her main words are mama, papa, and MEOW. I think she uses “meow” to mean “cat” rather than the sound the cat makes. I secretly love it when the baby is around – I’m like a baby in respect to Russian language because when my host mom is showing her pictures and saying what each thing is, I learn so much! On Men’s Day my host dad read me and explained one of her books – all I needed after that was to be tucked into bed.

Last week I took on a job, internship, gig, whatever you want to call it for The State Hermitage Volunteer Service, which is a group that does volunteer work at The Hermitage. I’m redesigning their website (even they know it badly needs help). Besides that I have two Russian conversation partners now, with whom I’m supposed to meet once a week and discuss things half in English, half in Russian so that we can both get practice. The next couple weeks will be pretty routine, but on March 20 we’re going on an excursion to the city of Pushkin and on March 25 to Moscow, which I’m really excited about!