It's weird to think that, two weeks from now, our group will have disbanded, our adventure together having come to an end and all of us having gone our separate ways until late-August.
Because there are only six of us, professor David included, we know each other pretty well by now, and it's just a fact of life that we probably get on each others' nerves from time to time. We've really got a great group, and I'm going to miss these guys as much as I'll miss the town of Vladimir and everything in it!
Speaking of the group, I have to mention something here that I told my friends I would. You see, we take turns having "on" and "off" days, though most of us are usually "on," which is a good thing.
Our first work day, now a couple weeks back, saw three casualties: First, when we were putting our trays away at the school where we had lunch and talked to some middle-schoolers, Mack knocked over the trash bucket containing all the leftover noodles, soup, juice, and other assorted food remnants that people had scraped off their plates--pretty nasty. Second, during tea time after we had finished our tasks at the Association for the Parents of Handicapped Children, my face randomly started bleeding profusely, I think because I accidentally scratched a bug bite I got while we were gardening. Finally, just a few minutes later, Kevin knocked over his cup, pouring hot water all over his pants and making it look like he'd wet himself. Somewhere, David has a picture of the three of us--Mack, me, and Kevin--standing together, representing the three snafus of Day 1. For the three of us, Day 1 was an "off" day.
At the banya, stuff happened, and we'll just say Abby had an "off" day.
In Moscow, the otherwise-perfect Lilly made her first mistake: tripping and falling whilst going down the stairs at the train station. She proceeded to make two other mistakes: leaving her cell phone at the hostel after we'd checked out and gone to catch the train back to Vladimir...and something else I can't remember, but which was noteworthy because Lilly's the one who always remains unscathed while the rest of us mess up. :P
Kevin...It really hasn't been Kevin's day for a few days, as he's borne the brunt of our group's allergy-suffering from the ridiculous amount of pollen in Moscow. Also, he's got a bunch of blisters from walking and other stuff, so the poor guy's kind of a mess right now. OH! And he's the one who ate a cold mix of sour cream/cottage cheese, thinking it was going to be vanilla ice cream. Ok, enough bashing Kevin.
Today was my turn to have it be not-my-day. (Also, Mack overslept and was late to class, so he deserves a mention for it not being his day, either.)
My morning lesson with Lena was disrupted by the presence of the biggest bee I've ever seen in my life. It was some kind of mutant (or maybe just Russian?), the size of three normal bees combined.
We had decided to sit outside, since the weather was so nice and I honestly just wanted to feel a little freer, less confined, less forced into activity. So, we slowed down the pace, did some dialogues, and worked on vocab and phrases. I just didn't want someone to come up and ask what we were working on, or if I had already learned X, because Lena is doing a fine job, and I'm satisfied with the pace at which I'm learning. It's a difficult language, with difficult pronunciation rules for even the seemingly-simplest of words, and I don't care about learning via traditional textbook methods; I just want to get by as best I can while I'm here. Plus, I'm not getting graded on my progress, so I'm welcoming this freedom to experiment with a language. I know I'm perpetually messing up, but it's fun to just try without worrying or being self-critical that "I had a test on this; I should remember it!" Additionally, from an etymological standpoint it's interesting. Every word that I don't know in Russian is a challenge to pull together all my linguistic knowledge and to try to approximate the word in Russian.
For example, trying to figure out the word "day":
In English, day. In German, Tag. In Latin, dies. In Spanish, día. In Polish, dzień. Sasha, a woman who works in my dorm back at Vanderbilt, taught me to say "good day" in Serbo-Croatian, and the word for day was dan. As it turns out, the word in Russian is день ("dyehn"), which makes sense, as Russian, like Polish and Serbo-Croatian, is a Slavic language.
Or for a more specific word like apple, I know that Russian's Slavic cousin Polish uses the word jabłko, which is close enough to the actual Russian word, яблоко (yahblakah), that I can get by pronouncing it the Polish way, which is already familiar to me and committed to memory.
ANYWAY, the mutant bee invasion was one problem today. Also, my purse got eaten up, shredded, and spit back out by the security scanner at the train station back in Vladimir en route to Moscow; that casualty carried over to today, when it was deemed an actual fatality and when it was clear there was no hope of reviving it or use, therefore, in keeping it.
After our lesson, we went to lunch at a place called Café Solyanka (named for this traditional soup dish), where I had the best borsch, called "Moscow-style," so far in Russia. We then headed out one last time to work at the dog shelter, where the guys did stuff involving wood, saws, hammers, etc., and we girls socialized the puppies--who are now so much bigger!--in between painting a wooden fence. It was really hot outside, no one had sunblock, and I was still
sunburned from Moscow--I didn't expect to be in the sun as much as we
were. (It was really the riverboat that did it.) So, as I was crisping in the late afternoon sun, we tried to move a big, heavy, unwieldy iron plate on the ground that the fence was laying on top of so we could more easily paint. Unfortunately, it fell and did a pretty good job of crushing my left middle finger. By this point, I was already splattered with blue paint, and so I expect my finger to be literally black and blue come tomorrow morning. Hopefully, I'll be able to feel the tip of my finger by tomorrow, too....
We had homemade blini, brought to us by one of the women at the dog shelter, again with delicious, fresh apricot marmalade. We took some pictures as a group, kissed the doggies good-bye, and boarded a bus back to our respective host families. Also, before leaving, Abby, Lilly, and I signed the doghouses we'd previously painted: "With love from America." :)
(One last note about working at the dog shelter: met X, had a great conversation; her English was about the same level as "our" combined Russian; made my first joke in Russian! "Do you have a boyfriend?" "No." "Why not?" "Мне нужно 'Такого, как Путин'!" "So, bald?" ... turns out she--like many young Russians--didn't know the song, but Abby and Lilly got the joke, which was satisfaction enough.)
The bus ride itself was interesting; I got stuck between two drunk guys. One guy was standing, since the bus was so crowded, and I was afraid I was going to have to grab him when--not if--he fell over. I think something was wrong with the other guy, as the lady on the bus who collects money and hands out tickets seemed to recognize him, and then they started yelling at each other with me in the middle. Also, we passed two different scenes of [minor] car wrecks, and a trolley and a car almost collided because the traffic was so bad. When I finally got off the struggle bus, I crossed the street, got home, ate dinner, took a shower so I no longer smelled like wet dog, and then pretty much turned right back around to meet my group at 19:20 on a street corner, as we would be visiting the town's blacksmith shop.
Honestly, I expected this to be boring. We were told we'd each get to make a nail to bring home as a souvenir. Woo-hoo, a nail! But actually, this was one of the funnest evenings in recent memory, as the blacksmith himself was a cute, super bubbly guy--described by David as a "short little ball of energy"--who was hilarious. Aleksey's shop is incredible and is filled with his works from top to bottom. He explained that it's a family business; he was his father's apprentice from the age of 5 and eventually took over after his father died. He's also a new dad to a one-month-old baby boy, whom he said he hopes to one day train in the art of smithing, too, and if he had a daughter he'd train her, too, he said. He told us a lot of really interesting stuff that I never would've thought or cared about before, like the intricacies of horseshoes and a legend behind the good luck horseshoes are associated with. He explained that, during tsarist times, blacksmiths and millers were the two main professions, and that the only differences between a contemporary blacksmith shop like his are (1) electricity instead of pumps to get the fire burning under the coals; (2) see notebook; and (3) .... It was really interesting and almost surreal--a very "old world" kind of feel and a continuation of our skazka (fairytale) that began at the banya our first weekend here.
He demonstrated use of his various tools, showed us how to make a nail, and then we each got to try our hand at it. None of us hit right on the mark, and it was cool to learn first-hand about the reality (and, for blacksmiths, the necessity) of "striking while the iron is hot"! It was ridiculously fun and an unexpected but major adrenaline rush to be hurrying to swing a big hammer on a +1000-degree-Celsius piece of flaming iron. He then offered us tea and let us roam around, looking at his various works and taking pictures. I asked if he has a favorite thing he likes to make; he said no. He also told us about how, last weekend, during the Night of the Museum (where all museums are open all night long and, mostly I think, free to the public), he received a visit from the Russian Foreign Minister* and the Minister of Finance/Economics or something, who also got to try their hand at making a nail. Apparently, they did "ok...." ;)
Above ("a family business"), I've linked to the smithy. The blacksmith's full name is Aleksey Borodin, and his father was Yuri Borodin. Also, I just came across THIS interesting story about an honorary axe they gave to Putin back in 2008! And here's a story, in Russian, that includes a picture of them together. Aleksey is on the right. We had been told that the city administration of Vladimir had begun calling him a local phenomenon, as nobody can believe that it's just him doing all this outstanding work, but I didn't realize he and the shop were this well-known! An axe for Putin! :P
When we finally had to leave--Aleksey said he'd be working until about 02:00 or 03:00 this morning, which means he's probably still up hammering away!--I walked into McDonald's, thinking I'd grab a snack on my walk home. I went in, looked at the menu, thought about how crowded it was, and chickened out. I could've ordered and been fine, but at the moment I wasn't really feeling it. Honestly, I wasn't that hungry, but I just wanted to try making a transaction on my own. I guess I decided that today wasn't the day for that, though.
I've still got to go back and fill in details on Moscow. And also, I think, on the banya, which was now two weekends ago! I may not get a chance to do so until we leave Vladimir, unfortunately, but that's why I've taken a bunch of pictures--so I can recall the mundane, forgettable details that combine to create the wonderful, unforgettable experiences I'm having.
Off to bed now. Darn. Just realized we had a lecture today following our lesson. The lecture was on Russian economy, particularly the economy of the Vladimir region. It started off dry and over my head, as I know nothing about economics, but once the speaker--(list position; see notebook)--opened it up for questions, I asked several questions and got really insightful answers in layman's terms. More details later on this, too, I guess. This is why I take notes during the day. ;) Ok, NOW, off to bed.
*This guy was apparently quite drunk at the time!
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