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I can't believe it -
I'm finally in Russia. After all the disappointment of thinking that I wasn't
going and all of the trouble we had to go through to get here - we made it. We
arrived around 10:10 in the morning, which is about 2:00 in the morning back
home.
My first impressions of Moscow were that it didn't look like
I imagined it would - I mostly felt like I was in America, only everything was
in Russian. I'm able to read all the signs, but in terms of what they all mean,
I'm at a total loss. The weather was nice - there was a cool breeze and the
heat wasn't unbearable.
It took us about a half an hour to get to the airport to the
dormitory we are staying in at Moscow State University. Once we arrived, we had to go through two
security checks to get to our rooms, in which we present our passport and a
special piece of paper with our room number on it. The rooms are small, but
nice. Each dorm consists of two bedrooms, a small foyer area, a tiny room with
a toilet in it, and opposite of that, a room with a sink and shower. There is
no air conditioning in the building, but it feels fine. We keep our windows
open to let the breeze in and have a gorgeous view as well.
Our teacher gave us about two hours to settle in, which for
my roommate Sequoia and I consisted of napping. When we got up, we met our
teacher and the rest of our small group outside and headed across campus and
down the street to the metro station, where we went to the currency exchange.
After that, we walked further on down the road (about a 15-20 minute walk from
the dorms) to a mall that had a grocery store inside. We spent an hour exploring
on our own and had blini (pancakes with different things inside - mine had ham
and cheese) for lunch and then paid a visit to the grocery store, where we
bought water (you can't drink from the tap here) and toilet paper. Some people
bought chocolate and fruit as well.
We then headed back to our dorms, and took a bus from the
halfway point, which was actually an old van that required all of us to squish
together for the ride. Once we arrived back, our teacher gave us a half an hour
to recuperate, before meeting us back downstairs to head to a place in Moscow
near campus known as Sparrow Hill.
Sparrow Hill is a beautiful area near a gorgeous church
where you can see a panoramic view of Moscow. From our point of vantage, we
could see the skyscrapers of New Moscow, and also over towards Red Square and
had a nice view of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, one of the biggest
churches in Russia that was destroyed by Stalin and then rebuilt.
After taking some pictures, we headed back to the dorms and
spent a little time downstairs in the cafe using the wifi before finally
heading to bed around 10:00. It was still light out and the sun had already
risen when Sequoia and I woke up early at 6 thanks to jet lag.
One of my favorite parts of Russia so far is the fact that
there are SO many people from the "stan" countries everywhere!
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. I have a
weird fascination with those countries and seeing people from those places to
me at least, is so cool! A boy from Kazakhstan helped us find a bathroom
yesterday. He said he had been to Miami before. It was so neat!
So far the only issue with cultural differences we've had,
if you could even call it an issue, is the fact that Russians don't smile. We
learned this in class - that Russians generally just won't crack a smile for a
stranger. Though, Sequoia and I came up
with a game where we tried to get little old ladies to smile at us, and she
managed to get an acknowledgement from one! As an American and someone who
works in retail, smiling at strangers is the norm for me, and it's so weird to
try and not do that here. Just because a Russian isn't smiling doesn't mean
they're miserable - it's just the culture.
Another interesting thing I noticed is that people never say
"excuse me" and generally will not move out of your way. If you don't
move, you'll collide with them and get no apology and no response if you're the
one to apologize for it.
It still hasn't hit me yet that I'll be here for an entire
month, but I'm sure it will soon enough. Today is our first day of classes and
then we are going to the place I've always wanted to go - the Red Square. I
look forward to all the adventures I have and am sure I will have a lot of
stories to tell when I get back to America!
