yesterday we went to the novodiechy cemetery, which has some very famous graves (chekhov, bulgakov, mayakovsky, krushev, some others). i took some beautiful pictures, but picasa is not running well right now so i will post them later.
nikki is back from the hospital and doing well. she looks good and we're glad that she's out of that freaking hospital, haha.
not doing much today. rob goes back out for the mission cycle today so we won't talk for 8 days, which is probably good because maybe the time will go by faster. maybe, haha.
i've been feeling a little homesick lately, i won't lie. now i know that i can't live in a city, ever. way too many people and it's way too depressing.
but i'm having fun, tons of history here. i hope everything's going well.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Thursday, March 29, 2007
oh russia.
russia continues. nikki gets out of the hospital tomorrow. the hospital, by the way, is awful. very unsanitary and the nurses aren't very nice because they don't get paid very much. so we're happy that she's coming back, haha.
not this weekend, but next weekend, we're planning a trip to souzdal. it's a city a few hours from here...apparently very beautiful.
i wish i could write deep wonderful entries but it's just not happening right now, haha. russia is going well. we went to a market and bought a bunch of souvenir stuff...might go back sometime soon because it's beautiful. they had bears performing too. i took some pictures and some wee little movies that i shall post eventually.
sorry for being so boring! :)
not this weekend, but next weekend, we're planning a trip to souzdal. it's a city a few hours from here...apparently very beautiful.
i wish i could write deep wonderful entries but it's just not happening right now, haha. russia is going well. we went to a market and bought a bunch of souvenir stuff...might go back sometime soon because it's beautiful. they had bears performing too. i took some pictures and some wee little movies that i shall post eventually.
sorry for being so boring! :)
Friday, March 23, 2007
kremlin!
so we finally visited the kremlin. we had a 4 hour tour, which was insane and intense but amazing. i put up some pictures...the link is in the post below. i made the kremlin its own album :)
my friend nikki went to the hospital yesterday. she had been having intense stomach pain for awhile and her coordinator finally said she should go. unfortunately we went to the sketchiest hospital ever...the hallway looked like a scene from a 1950s insane asylum. she's okay though...they took out her appendix and she is recovering nicely. i went there with her last night around 12 with her boyfriend beslan, from chechnya. i was so glad to have a native russian speaker -- we had to hail down a "cab" (i.e. a random russian person who wanted money to give us a ride) and i would never do that with my semi-limited russian skills. anyway we got to the hospital and met nikki's coordinator (a russian). they weren't going to let me and beslan in -- they were going to make us just stand out in the cold! again, beslan came in handy because he got the guy to let us in (the guy said "why does she need a cheering section?" haha). anyway we were there for awhile, then hailed a "cab" back. all in all an interesting night. happily nikki is doing fine.
again, the kremlin was AMAZING. so many pretty buildings, my camera died because i kept photographing everything. enjoy the pictures. some of them are similar, so please forgive that. we spent a lot of time in the armory, which has all these treasures from imperial russia, including gilded carriages, diamond-encrusted crowns, etc. the total value of that place has to be in the millions or billions. it was wonderful but exhausting...i came back to the dorm and took a 4 hour nap!
well i hope you're all doing well!
my friend nikki went to the hospital yesterday. she had been having intense stomach pain for awhile and her coordinator finally said she should go. unfortunately we went to the sketchiest hospital ever...the hallway looked like a scene from a 1950s insane asylum. she's okay though...they took out her appendix and she is recovering nicely. i went there with her last night around 12 with her boyfriend beslan, from chechnya. i was so glad to have a native russian speaker -- we had to hail down a "cab" (i.e. a random russian person who wanted money to give us a ride) and i would never do that with my semi-limited russian skills. anyway we got to the hospital and met nikki's coordinator (a russian). they weren't going to let me and beslan in -- they were going to make us just stand out in the cold! again, beslan came in handy because he got the guy to let us in (the guy said "why does she need a cheering section?" haha). anyway we were there for awhile, then hailed a "cab" back. all in all an interesting night. happily nikki is doing fine.
again, the kremlin was AMAZING. so many pretty buildings, my camera died because i kept photographing everything. enjoy the pictures. some of them are similar, so please forgive that. we spent a lot of time in the armory, which has all these treasures from imperial russia, including gilded carriages, diamond-encrusted crowns, etc. the total value of that place has to be in the millions or billions. it was wonderful but exhausting...i came back to the dorm and took a 4 hour nap!
well i hope you're all doing well!
Saturday, March 17, 2007
FYI...
i'm putting some new pictures on my picasa...check them out :)
http://picasaweb.google.com/caitlinelectric
http://picasaweb.google.com/caitlinelectric
Friday, March 16, 2007
been a little bit
i'm sure you're all dying because i haven't updated! haha, kidding.
anyway russia is going well. i'm changing my ticket tonight for april 29 or 30, so come see me in maine :) . we were talking about going to egypt at the end of march but it doesn't look like that's happening. if it does happen, it'll be in april, and only for a weekend or so. i'll need to buy a bathing suit since i definitely didn't pack for egypt when i came here.
we're going to see a play soon, "tartuffe," which the theater department at beloit did last year. the tickets were only 200 rubles (less than $10), and it's in this beautiful theater not far from RGGU (the school i'm at). i was supposed to go see "Giselle" at the Bolshoi Theater tonight but i'm feeling pretty awful (exhausted, dizzy, nauseated...etc.). so i'm going to chill out at home.
classes are going well. the other day in practika rechi (discussion practice) we learned that in russian there is no word for "privacy." the only one in my dictionary is the same word as "seclusion." this explains why our russian friends don't knock when they want to enter our rooms, but rather just come on in, haha. i told the story about how the housekeeper came in and called me a boy, since she had to UNLOCK my door to come in and didn't knock at all. haha. i thought maybe it was just an american thing to be freaked out by it, but there are people from england, france and germany and they all agree with the lack of privacy thing. now we have to write an essay, "what is privacy?"
something a little more serious. a korean girl who studied at MGU (mosckovski gosudarstveni universitet...the other school here in moscow) was attacked and beaten to near-death by 11 russian skinheads. she died in the hospital a few days later (this all happened about a week ago). apparently the russians surrounded her and said "russia is only for russians" or something like that. what's lame is that russia hasn't really reported it as murder, which is what it is...it's more like "a student died today." pretty awful. :( we're kind of nervous for hitler's birthday (4/20)...i think we'll all stay in that day.
otherwise things are going okay. i'm going to go lie down, i think.
anyway russia is going well. i'm changing my ticket tonight for april 29 or 30, so come see me in maine :) . we were talking about going to egypt at the end of march but it doesn't look like that's happening. if it does happen, it'll be in april, and only for a weekend or so. i'll need to buy a bathing suit since i definitely didn't pack for egypt when i came here.
we're going to see a play soon, "tartuffe," which the theater department at beloit did last year. the tickets were only 200 rubles (less than $10), and it's in this beautiful theater not far from RGGU (the school i'm at). i was supposed to go see "Giselle" at the Bolshoi Theater tonight but i'm feeling pretty awful (exhausted, dizzy, nauseated...etc.). so i'm going to chill out at home.
classes are going well. the other day in practika rechi (discussion practice) we learned that in russian there is no word for "privacy." the only one in my dictionary is the same word as "seclusion." this explains why our russian friends don't knock when they want to enter our rooms, but rather just come on in, haha. i told the story about how the housekeeper came in and called me a boy, since she had to UNLOCK my door to come in and didn't knock at all. haha. i thought maybe it was just an american thing to be freaked out by it, but there are people from england, france and germany and they all agree with the lack of privacy thing. now we have to write an essay, "what is privacy?"
something a little more serious. a korean girl who studied at MGU (mosckovski gosudarstveni universitet...the other school here in moscow) was attacked and beaten to near-death by 11 russian skinheads. she died in the hospital a few days later (this all happened about a week ago). apparently the russians surrounded her and said "russia is only for russians" or something like that. what's lame is that russia hasn't really reported it as murder, which is what it is...it's more like "a student died today." pretty awful. :( we're kind of nervous for hitler's birthday (4/20)...i think we'll all stay in that day.
otherwise things are going okay. i'm going to go lie down, i think.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
saturday
so thursday was international women's day, which in russia means a day off from school and work! that was quite nice. we chilled out all day and did nothing, it was beautiful.
the weather here has been really nice...getting warmer so we don't need hats/gloves/scarves. it's very nice, though the metro is very warm.
yesterday we went to two art museums, the pushkin and then the gallery of european and american art of the 19th-20th centuries. we saw some pretty famous works so that was nice. van gogh, rembrant, renoir, matisse. good times. on the way we were on the metro and my arm got slammed in the metro door (the doors here, by the way, do NOT automatically open upon hitting something). that hurt a lot actually, and i was kind of happy that nobody around me spoke english because i probably said some things that would offend the casual english-speaking listener. haha. jordana and stuart laughed at me afterward.
today seems like it'll be a pretty chill day as well. i didn't do anything last night because i think i'm getting sick, but we'll see what happens. i probably should do some homework, but we'll see how much actually gets done! :)
the weather here has been really nice...getting warmer so we don't need hats/gloves/scarves. it's very nice, though the metro is very warm.
yesterday we went to two art museums, the pushkin and then the gallery of european and american art of the 19th-20th centuries. we saw some pretty famous works so that was nice. van gogh, rembrant, renoir, matisse. good times. on the way we were on the metro and my arm got slammed in the metro door (the doors here, by the way, do NOT automatically open upon hitting something). that hurt a lot actually, and i was kind of happy that nobody around me spoke english because i probably said some things that would offend the casual english-speaking listener. haha. jordana and stuart laughed at me afterward.
today seems like it'll be a pretty chill day as well. i didn't do anything last night because i think i'm getting sick, but we'll see what happens. i probably should do some homework, but we'll see how much actually gets done! :)
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
hello
russia's going well. pretty warm actually...i mean, warm for march. right now we've reached that period where there's no snow but no sun, just a lot of dirt and sludge. yuck. but it's still fun so i'm alright. :)
i posted some new pictures! so check them out! here's the link if you don't feel like going down a few entries for it: http://picasaweb.google.com/caitlinelectric
i met this girl maya from russia the other night when we went back to the canadian embassy, she's very cool. we hung out yesterday and i got complimented on my russian! woo! then later i got complimented again by another girl who lives on my floor. i was very happy :) after that i walked over to korpus 6 to get some money from the ATM and got into this discussion with one of the Oxrana (och-rana, the security for the school). well, it was less of a "discussion" and more of him talking and me nodding. he asked me if i had a russian soul, haha.
i'm still trying to plan going home early. i'm really nervous and afraid that the army will say "hey, it's april 15, go home." if that happens, i won't see rob because i'll be here and won't be able to switch my ticket. so let's hope it's either the day he's getting now, or later. please. :)
i'd like to say that right now the radio in the cafe just began "my heart will go on." and when i first got here it was "the wall." YES.
so yes, we went back to the canadian embassy on friday. i didn't go for long, then gabrielle and i went to yolki-palki, a restaurant chain here. i didn't eat but the food looked decent...we're going to another one tonight. (yes dash, more food!)
classes are going well...i have a big grammar test tomorrow :( it should be pretty "uzashno" (awful).
i posted some new pictures! so check them out! here's the link if you don't feel like going down a few entries for it: http://picasaweb.google.com/caitlinelectric
i met this girl maya from russia the other night when we went back to the canadian embassy, she's very cool. we hung out yesterday and i got complimented on my russian! woo! then later i got complimented again by another girl who lives on my floor. i was very happy :) after that i walked over to korpus 6 to get some money from the ATM and got into this discussion with one of the Oxrana (och-rana, the security for the school). well, it was less of a "discussion" and more of him talking and me nodding. he asked me if i had a russian soul, haha.
i'm still trying to plan going home early. i'm really nervous and afraid that the army will say "hey, it's april 15, go home." if that happens, i won't see rob because i'll be here and won't be able to switch my ticket. so let's hope it's either the day he's getting now, or later. please. :)
i'd like to say that right now the radio in the cafe just began "my heart will go on." and when i first got here it was "the wall." YES.
so yes, we went back to the canadian embassy on friday. i didn't go for long, then gabrielle and i went to yolki-palki, a restaurant chain here. i didn't eat but the food looked decent...we're going to another one tonight. (yes dash, more food!)
classes are going well...i have a big grammar test tomorrow :( it should be pretty "uzashno" (awful).
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