If my life had a color palate...

this would be it. 

Morning- Mikhail Vrubel- 1897

Утро М.А. Врубель

Hermitage, St. Petersburg

My new ride...

What do you think?  Is the sickle and hammer a bit much?

Chinese food + Mothers = VICTORY

So this weekend was Victory Day which means the entire country of Russia went on vacation and had picnics.  I went on my first Russian picnic today, with shashlik in Sereberyanyy Bor. Sunday there was pretty awesome parade, which I watched on TV, glancing out the window to see airplanes on their way to Red Square.  Since the city was going to be crowded, we celebrated Mother's Day Saturday night.  We went to a Chinese restaurant called Дружба (Friendship) and had authentic cuisine- way more so than what you get in the US (ie no florescent sweet & sour pork or General Tsao (whoever he is)).  It was DELICIOUS. As for Moscow prices, quantity, and quality you really can't beat this.  We ordered 5 dishes (with rice and tea) and each could have fed 2.  Chinese style, of course, which means sharing everything. 

Here are some pictures to make you jealous:

Look how much we had left over!

Победа

It's kind of freaky that I took those pictures in the last post in the morning before a car was found that was rigged to blow up a block away.  I ate breakfast right next to where the car was found (I kind of wish I had been taking pictures and captured some vital evidence).  With everything that has happened since the March Moscow Metro bombings (the list is growing), I'm thinking someone doesn't want me around.

Oh well, I live.

Monday, May 9th is День Победы (Victory Day), the day when we celebrate the end of The Great Patriotic War (aka WW2).  The whole city is decked out in patriotic colors, which is a little strange considering that the Russian Federation was the USSR in 1945, so there are СССР posters everywhere.  It's quite soviet.

A choir made up of WW2 veterans comes to my school every year and I got watch in the high school assembly.  There is a male choir too, but I got to see the women perform.  Oh they were a beautiful, lovely group.  Their motto, which is taken from one of their songs about drivers on the front line, goes "We're can't die yet, we still have things to do at home."  I like that.  They said that they could deal with everything that's going on as long as they can sing.  This is so amazing considering the older, retired people have some of the hardest lives here in Russia.  They believed in the Soviet Union and were very proud to be a part of one of the greatest countries in the world.  Now all they get is a lousy pension that can't begin to cover the costs of living today.  And they still sing...

20 Hours in Nizh

Claire said we should write an article about what to do with 20 hours in Nizhnii Novgorod.  I'm going to try to give you the highlights of our trip, but first you need to understand that we are so lucky to get home safe.  You see, it took 3 tries to get there.

Claire, Lucia, and I first wanted to go over Women's Day weekend.  This would have given us 2 whole days to see the sights.  But, because it was a holiday, the train tickets were more than double the normal cost.  We decided to go a few weeks later.  Our tickets were to leave on Friday at 22:35 from Moscow, and return Sunday on the 16:35 train.  We got to the train station an hour early and saw that what we thought was our train wasn't to leave till 00:45.  Ok... so we sat around and read for a few hours.  When it was time to get on the train, at midnight, the lady checking tickets said "Нет поезд, нет вокзал!"

So, the lesson here is that there is a difference between Казанский Вокзал and Курский Вокзал even though the difference comes down to tiny letters printed on the bottom of the ticket.  We bought the tickets at Курский and the train was to return to Курский and it's the only station I had ever left from so why shouldn't we leave from there?!  Needless to say, we persisted to changing out tickets and we went home at 2am.  We reconvened at 10am to take a 12:50 train on Saturday.  From Казанский Вокзал.  We did not arrive until about 8:30pm that night.  After a little trouble checking in (bureaucracy, registration, эта Россия...), we soon we were able to get to the apartment of the RSP program director.  My friend Debbie was there and we ate pizza and actually found a bus running late enough to take us back to the hotel.

The hotel was quite nice and we all slept well.  Saturday morning Claire, Lucia, and I went to Debbie's for breakfast.  We wanted to go to church at Vineyard, where I had gone when I was a student, but it turned out that there was some kind of exhibition in the hall where church is normally held so there was no church.  It was actually probably better, time wise, that we could spend more time walking around the city.

The main pedestrian street is called Большая Покровская.  At one end is Полошодь Горкого and McDonalds, and at the other end is the Kremlin.  We walked the length, stopping to take pictures of the statues and to duck into little shops to end up at the Kremlin.  We had lunch in a cafe in the Kremlin wall that my mom and I had gone to when I was a student and it was very delicious.  A fog was rolling as we walked back to take a bus to our hotel.  By the time we got to the train station at 4pm the fog was quite thick and you couldn't see much out the windows of the train.  Good weather to be on a train, as opposed to a car or plane.  Did I mention the train is 7 hours?

It was a great trip, despite a few inconveniences, and I am so happy we were able to go.  Shout out to Debbie, the RSP mom who is one of the coolest девушки I know. 

Mouths closed, eyes here, please!

Today I magically returned into my alter ego- Miss Wood. I'm subbing 6 & 7th grade science, so I spent the day explaining independent and dependent variables. Unfortunately I forgot how much using a teacher voice takes out of me and I promptly fell asleep as soon as I got home to the tunes of Dido (ok ate a brownie and ice cream while watching Say Yes to the Dress, and I walked around the block with Mom first). Three glorious hours later I awoke refreshed and had dinner on the patio with Mom (ie salsa, chips, Camembert, crackers, and wine).

Something that always puzzled me during student teaching was that I got crazy cravings for chocolate. I have, despite my gender, never really loved or craved chocolate in my life, but I had to keep a supply with me during those 4 months. As soon as it ended, so did the cravings. During my second class today, they returned. Strange, no? During my semester abroad in Nizhni I developed an appreciation, to say the least, for dark chocolate, which is probably the most common here. Yet on Sunday I discovered chocolate мята (mint), which I had never seen here before, and it's actually amazingly delicious. I think I'll be making a trip back to that store very soon...

Russian News

Here are a couple of the headlines from today's issue of The Moscow Times, the daily paper absolutely everyone who speaks English reads here:

- Medvedev Says Books Turn Minds to Kasha: on the subject of creating one uniformed history textbook for all of Russia. Is Europe being too critical by the recent pronouncement that the Nazis and Soviets were equally responsible for the outbreak of WW2?

- Court says 'South Park' Not Extremist: Moscow City Court ruled that South Park does not promote religious hatred. I get a weird feeling when I know shows like this are being watched outside the US...

- Yelling 'Beat Blacks' Not Ethnic Hatred: a 9th grade Kyrgz boy was attacked by a group of 20-30 boys in St. Pete this year, resulting in his hospitalization. The police ruled that it was not motivated by ethnic hate because linguistic experts concluded phrases that were yelled like "Beat the Blacks" and "Russia for Russians" are not racist. Just sick.

Oh Russia is a tragically fascinating place. I hope to understand it someday, if it doesn't kill me first.

The end? Nah...

As I become repatriated into the expatriate community, I am faced with a serious dilemma. Am I still indiana.amy? I've thought about starting a new blog, but I do have an older blog about adventures in Mother Russia that I could revitalize... I haven't touched it since July 22, 2007.

But I cannot. I could say that my soul has been infused with corn and fields from my time spent in the land of Up and that I could never escape my destiny to be indiana.amy, but really it's just too much of a hassle to change sites.

The irony of my life is that I hate long-distance, internet-only relationships and it now seems the only way I have to keep in contact with my friends is to glue myself to a computer. This is probably why letter writing has become my latest obsession, and I would be truly grateful if I did receive a few back. Still, it is inevitable that in order to preserve friendships (and until I make some real live friends here) time online must be spent. I am thus setting up ground rules for myself, such as:

- Any time I sign into facebook, I must write real messages on at least 2 people's walls. Picture comments do not count.
- Any days where online time exceeds 2 hours, I must blog (if only to prove that my mind has been working)
- No unpremeditated TV (not that I have access to much, being located where I am)
- Avoid wikipedia at all costs

I'm also confessing an increasingly noticeable obsession for reading other people's blogs, particularly those from places I want to go (I'm talking to you, Afghanistan).

And, I'm just saying that several friends have not updated their blogs in a while, not naming names (everyone listed to the right!!!)... ;-)

The KGB and Me

While I was studying abroad in Russia my cousin came to visit me and while he was there, the kids I taught English to wanted us to come to one of their PE classes. They set up a makeshift shooting gallery in the basement of the school and were learning how to shoot bebe guns and put together AK-47s. I only last night got these pictures... priceless.

Slightly off centered, but stable.

уронили мышка на пол
оторвали мышку лапу
всё равно, его не брошу
потому, что он хороший!

Four days! Four days!

I'm going to Russia in 4 days... :-D

Some good memories...

Spring Break Mission Trip: Russia

If you didn't already know, I am going to Russia for a Spring Break missions trip. I haven't ever really been on a missions trip so I'm pretty excited. This is a picture of everyone on our team. We are going to play with Russian orphans (which, to be honest, sounds very clichéd to me, because I know that it is so much more than that implies) through an organization called the Boaz Project.

Yay! Jesus loves Russian orphans! So do we!!!

If you would like to know more about this trip click here. If you would like to donate to this trip click here. Thank you so much! I know, for me, this trip is going to be very significant in my life and spiritual journey, especially since I spent last spring in Russia and basically fell into fascination, if not love, with this post-Soviet, frozen, riddle-wrapped-in-an-enigma-of-a-mystery nation. This trip will give me the opportunities to practice my Russian and to gain a vision for what God may have in store for my future.

And it's going to be fun to play with Russian orphans :-)

Блини (Blini) Day

As many of you are aware, this Tuesday is the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, and thus has been deemed the day when people indulge in their wildest fantasies and vices, as they are to spend the next 40 days repenting. Some call this day Marti Gras (Fat Tuesday), but in Russia it's called Масленица (Butter Week) and it lasts a week :-) It also has roots in a pagan holiday marking the end of winter. For the Great Lent, Russian Orthodox don't eat some combination of oil, sugar, dairy, or meat (extremely devout Orthodox they give up them all), so in this week the Russian pancake or блини is prepared. More can be found out about this holiday at http://www.maslenitsa.com/

After watching a video from last spring of my friend Natasha demonstrating how to make блини, with no measuring devices and a little translation, I have just successfully prepared a batch of my very own. Here is the resulting recipe, with American measurements, that will yield about 6-7:

0.5L milk (a little more than 2 cups)
1 egg
1 Tbsp water
3 small spoonfuls of sugar (more or less depending on yo' flava')
a bit of salt
knife tip of baking soda (about 1tsp)
- Mix the above, and add flour for consistency. Here's where it gets tricky, as I used skim milk it took about 3 cups, but it might take less with more milkfat. The batter should be thin, but creamy.
- Heat oil in a skillet. Now, real Russians would put in more oil every blini, but in case you want to live a long and healthy life, this is not necessary.
- Using like a ladle, pour in enough batter to coat the bottom of the pan. (Pick up the pan and tilt it around to make it spread)
- When the batter lightly bubbles, it's time to flip it. There is a skill here which must be learned with experience.
- Taste test this first one to see if you need more flour or sugar. Oh and the first one usually looks kind of bad.
- Repeat until the batter is finished.

Voila! Enjoy your homemade Блини with sweetened condensed milk, jam, chocolate, fruit... whatever you want!

Anyone wanna have a Blini Party?

I can type in Russian again!