SKID Analis (AIDS test)

So, after two months in Russia, it has come to that time in my travels at which I must renew my Visa. Russia has this thing where they only give out three month Visas, so as a student who obviously is spending longer than that here, I have to renew mine. It expires on 20 April.

For those of you who may not know what is required for a Russian Visa application, I'll explain the process. I need to fill out an application form with whatever personal information--address, name, passport number, good stuff like that. I also need to get more pictures; I had a bunch, but somehow two disappeared, and I gave up six at the beginning of the semester although I'm sure now that they didn't really need that many, so this is good. At least they're cheap. Finally, I have to get tested for AIDS. This part makes absolutely no sense to me. This is why: I didn't have AIDS before I came here, I have had no contact while here that would expose me to the disease, and I haven't been out of the country. Therefore, the only way I could possibly get AIDS would be through an infected syringe. Hmmmmmm.

Well, like good little cadets, we all went this morning to the poliklinika (hospital) and filled out forms that I think basically said, "This hospital is not liable for anything that happens to you while you are here or as a result of your visit. If you get sick or die, that's your problem." Then we paid 350 rubles because they don't have a national healthcare like we do...funny how communism works...We then walked down this hallway, gave our forms and passports to women / nurses in a room and waited for them to tell us they were ready. This is Jessica and me being scared before we went...

I think these explain it all.

The rest of this will describe the process of drawing blood, so don't read it if you're queasy about that kind of stuff...

We watched her take a new needle out of a new package every time. She wore gloves, and even washed her (gloved) hands between each person.

Of course, I was the last one to go. Of course, she would miss my vein. Of course, she would move the needle around in my arm trying to get it into my vein. Of course, everything that could possibly go wrong in this situation did. My arm went numb, pain shot through the entire arm, she wouldn't take the needle out, and my stupid vein wouldn't bleed. Yeah, I cried. And I begged her to take the needle out. In broken Russian (which basically consisted of "nyet, pozhalsta, stoy," and the like). I thought my arm was going to die and never be usable again. Finally, she took the needle out and brought in another nurse to try my other arm. That worked fine. However, 6 hours later, my arm still aches from my wonderful experience this morning.

I had better not have a problem renewing my Visa. And I better not get AIDS or some other disease from that test this morning. You haven't truly lived until you've had blood drawn in Russia, by a Russian nurse with a funny green chef's hat on. At least she was nice. Pictures zaftra (tomorrow).

My Thumb Drive's Not Missing Anymore

I found it! It was in my jeans pocket! Yay. Let the pictures begin. But not yet because I don't have anything good yet.

I ran to the gym today. I thought I would share that because it might sound funny. Maybe not. It did to me because I'm still weak and probably shouldn't yet be doing much of anything. Stupid virus.

I'm going to see Swan Lake tonight at the theater.

I was talking to a guy who sells matroshkas (the nesting doll things) on one of the main roads last week, and he asked me if I was from Poland. Now, I know I sound and act like a foreigner, but that is one comment I was never expecting to get. Honestly, I think it would be awesome if the Russians thought I had a Polish accent because I think Polish is a better language anyway--it's clearer and always uses verbs in independent clauses (but don't tell them that...I still have two months left here).

Next weekend, we're all going to Yasnaya Polyana (where Leo Tolstoy lived) and Tula to see the museum and whatever all else there.

By the way, from now on, you all have to make sure that there are either zero comments or more than one comment on all of my posts because otherwise the "comments" section won't be right. I hate when I have a sentence or phrase without number agreement...

Thanks!

Birthdays in Russia

I have pictures of this but not with me, so they'll have to wait a couple of days.

However, for now, a verbal description will have to do. On Sunday, 18 March, my hozyain had his 67th birthday, and my hozyaika spent all last week preparing for it. Saturday night (St. Patrick's Day), I helped her with the table set up and folded napkins. Then on Sunday morning after I got back from the gym, the table (actually two tables pushed together with 18 chairs around them) was COVERED with food and champagne and vodka. I have never seen so much food at once like that. Well, probably, yes, I have, but it was still a lot of food.

Anyway, people started showing up at 3, and by 8:30 at night, we were still sitting at the table when Vera (my hozyaika) said she was going to bring out mashed potatoes and chicken...I didn't know how to eat anymore.

Everyone at the table stood up to give a toast at one point during the meal, going all the way around the table, so you can probably imagine that it wasn't too difficult for 20+ people to go through 8 bottles of various types of alcohol in a few hours. However, there are some interesting customs that go along with this toasting, like the first toast was obviously to my hozyain (Vladimir) and his wife said that one. The next was to his parents, then to Vera, and then various other toasts. One person gave a toast to Vera's parents, who both have died, at which point I realized another very important custom. You don't "clink glasses" or whatever you want to call it when a person mentioned in a toast has died. Guess how I found that out. Jessica and I definitely figured that out the hard way, and I felt like a horrible person. Oops. Oh well, nobody dwelled on it, which was good, and the party went on.

Sometime along in all this festivity, one of my teachers from school began to play the piano and everyone sang along. We sang so many Russian songs. Unfortunately, I am uncultured enough only to have known one of them. Moreover, since this teacher of mine and his wife lived in England for a while, they knew some English songs--not American English, but British English--and they sang them too. The distinction between British and American is important because I did not know those songs either, the words, at least. And people kept asking me why I wasn't singing when the words were in my own native language...as they all sang along. Yeah. However, I am proud to say that I did know the words to "Yesterday," "Yellow Submarine," and the one Spanish sonng we sang "La Bamba." Yes. We did. And people danced. It was really a big huge happy party. And it was awesome. I can't believe we don't do that kind of stuff in the US. People need to sing in groups like that.

That was seriously a fun party.

Truth About the Gym, International Women's Day, and Other Tales

So, it's been about two weeks; I think another post is long overdue by this time. Thankfully, I have some things that I need to mention in here.

First of all, I want to bring up the gym again. I knew when I paid for the first month that it was a lot. Possibly, insane, in fact. However, I also figured that, like they do in the United States, since I only paid for a month, I was paying more than the people who buy a year membership or whatever. Also, I thought that they were taking advantage of my poor understanding of the Russian language and thought it'd be easy to steal my money.

However, when I looked at the brochure of all the services that gym offers and what it costs, I was astounded. First, I was surprised because what I'm paying is one of the "cheaper" services. Second, I had no idea how they figured out what the actual price of anything was because I was paying 3.3 times the amount listed. Why would the gym use a 3.3 x conversion for anything, and what did it mean? I was completely baffled until I realized that the Euro Dollar equals approximately 33 rubles. So then, I realized that their prices were in Euros...kind of...they were actually in Euros with an extra zero at the end. Yeah. And that was also when I realized that everyone who goes there pays the same price. My hozyaika earns less money a month at her primary job than I pay for that gym. The only reason I'm willing to pay is that it's only going to be 2 or 3 months that I'll go, and there's no way I'd ever consider paying for it, even as a "rich American" for any kind of extended period. How do they afford it??

Anyway, next topic. How many people in America actually realize that there is a "holiday" called "International Women's Day?" Probably not many. However, in Russia, it is a HUGE holiday, and it was last Thursday. They sell tons of flowers on the streets, everyone says "S prazdnikom" to every girl with whom they talk, and many places, including schools (and the university) are closed. It felt almost like Christmas, but without the fake Santas and greedy storeowners trying to guilt you into buying things.

Even better was that, since we had no school, the four West Point guys that were there that week (one took spring break to St. Petersburg last week) decided to cook for all the girls. Not just the cadet girls, but the two other Americans here (who are from Texas), the British girl, and the French girl. It was amazing. We walked in the door and were immediately greeted with a rose and told to sit down and stay OUT of the kitchen. In a couple of minutes, they brought out a bowl of salad, and the "feast," as it was so-named, commenced. It was a spinach salad with fried potatoes (try it sometime because it is good...). Next, or rather, kind of with the salad, were grilled cheese sandwiches. Yes. Then, spaghetti with an awesome homemade meat sauce, omelettes, and finally desert. Two cakes and two kinds of ice cream. Along with all this, the six girls managed to finish two bottles of wine and two bottles of champagne. That was an awesome day off of school, I thought, although I ate waaayyyy too much food and couldn't move.

Various other odds and ends:

Rinoks are way better than stores--I bought a pair of shoes that I saw in a store for about 1500 rubles for only 650 ($25.19, if I use an exchage rate of 26 rubles per dollar...), and I also bought 8 movies for 60 rubles, total...yeah. Everything else is about the same. Plus, it's not bad quality at all.

My Russian is getting better, yay! I can actually have logical conversations at times, even though I speak extremely slowly and probably sound like a two-year-old.

Updating this blog costs me somewhere around 40 rubles a week because it takes me an hour to get everything done, especially if I put pictures up.

And I can't think of anything else right now.