Today started out pretty slowly. It was raining, the temperature was hovering right around freezing, and the whole city was enveloped in a thick fog. The sidewalks were still all icy, and I nearly fell and cracked my head open on the way to the gym at 9:00am. After several days of this dreary weather, one could be excused for feeling a bit lethargic.

But I had a great day. My workout was strong, and it's Wednesday, which means no classes--always a great day. The real clincher, though, was that I got a lucky ticket on the bus this morning. I rarely check for lucky tickets, but this morning I happened to look, and it I was holding an extremely lucky ticket.

What's a lucky ticket? Well this whole custom may have arisen because Russians are superstitious or maybe because the average Russian spends a good amount of time riding public transportation. Whatever the reason, everyone always checks their bus tickets (you always get a ticket from the conductor when you pay for your ride on the bus) for a "lucky" combination of numbers. A ticket is lucky if the first three numbers and the second three numbers add up to the same number. A lucky ticket is especially lucky if it is also a palindrome. So my ticket number, which was 202202, is really good.

What do you do with this lucky ticket? By folk tradition, you should eat it, and afterward you will have some good fortune. I once saw a sign on a trolley in Moscow reminding passengers to keep their tickets until the end of their trip and not to eat them. At the time, I was very confused about why it was important to tell people not to eat their bus tickets, but now it all makes sense. Here is a picture of my lucky ticket. And now it's time to put this whole tradition to the test....

Russia is famous for several things, and foremost among them is its status as a winter country. Russian winter is legendary: It stopped Napoleon and Hitler, and it is impossible to imagine Russian literature without thinking of frigid winter nights. And, while there really are large parts of Russia that aren't very cold at all (the Black Sea coast, the Caucuses, and even some parts of Siberia), everyone thinks of Russia as an icebox.

Russians take winter very seriously, and, given the long history of endless bleak winters spent in drafty wooden houses, the Russian fear of the cold is perhaps understandable. Illness is a huge topic of conversation here, and, if you ask any Russian (and especially any babushka), the cold is the cause of all these ailments. I've been told that I will get a sore throat from not wearing a scarf when it's cold, and walking around outside without a hat is definitely frowned upon. This fear of the cold extends to food and drink too: you will never--and I mean never--find an ice cube in a Russian drink, and cold milk is considered dangerous (it hurts your throat glands); people will generally heat milk up in the microwave before drinking it. Although, by the same token, ice cream is very popular here, so I'm not sure how that all works out logically.

It's been pretty cold here the past week, with high temperatures hovering around freezing. The wind has been whipping, and today we had some nasty freezing rain. Speaking of weather, there has been pretty extensive coverage of hurricane Sandy on Russian TV, and it sounds nasty. A few of my classes even asked me about it today. So maybe it's not so bad to in a country that doesn't have hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, or volcanoes (at least not where large amounts of people live). We just have an infamous winter. 

Here is a song that I've been listening to a lot lately. It's by the legendary Russian rock band Piknik, and the song is called "From a mousetrap" (из мышеловки). I really like this song, and I understand the words, but I'm not really sure what the song means. I could make some guesses at the deeper meaning of the song, but I'll leave that for another time. Here it is: 

The Halloween party was a definite success! We spent all day decorating and preparing, but our efforts were not in vain. We had a good turnout, and the students seemed to really enjoy the party. I don't have a picture yet of the whole group of teachers in our costumes; I'll post it when I do. I went as a Russian sailor, and I must say it was one of my better Halloween costumes. I had a way-too-tight shirt and shorts, a war medal, and tattoos (an anchor and a heart with the word "Mom"). Here's a picture:

This week has been midterms at the American Home, so it has been a kind of strange week. On Monday and Tuesday, we did oral exams, which entailed the students talking about question prompts. At such a low level, of course, it is hard to have a real conversation, but actually things went quite well. Lots of good questions and funny comments, although grammar and syntax suffered greatly. The goal of our program here, however, is an active, conversational knowledge of English, so I would much rather have students who talk a lot and botch all the grammar than students who quietly sit and formulate a few perfect sentences. After all, we Americans will understand the poor foreigner who asks, "Where yours sister is works?" a lot better than someone who stutters around and takes five minutes to say that sentence perfectly.

Thursday and Friday have been for the written exam. I used the stock exam for my level and changed a few details and created three different versions (gotta try to keep ahead of the cheaters). I even gave an almost identical exam to my students as take-home practice last week. Alas, I have four failures already, and I haven't graded my worst class yet. It's very obvious who is putting in effort and who isn't, but it makes me feel bad to see kids leave whole sections of the test blank because they don't know how to pose a question with the present simple or make a comparison (I get a lot of sentences like, "Black coat more gooder white coat."). On the other hand, quite a few of my students have done really well on the exam, and more than five have over 100%.

Anyway, tomorrow is the Halloween Party at the American Home. This is usually the most popular event of the year, so we're really preparing for this party. Imagine 80 Russians crammed into a small house, dressed in costumes, learning to carve pumpkins, going through a haunted basement, and learning all sorts of Halloween stories and dances. Oh ya--it's gonna be quite a day. We teachers will of course be in costume too, but I won't say mine yet--maybe some pictures will get posted in a day or two. 

Today was the first snow here in Vladimir! Here is a picture of the slightly snow-covered garages near my apartment this morning.

Vladimir is a tough place to figure out sometimes. On one hand, it is home to 345,000 people--about the population of Peoria, Illinois. But, having been to Peoria (albeit for about 15 minutes in the middle of the night), I can say that there is way more going on here in Vladimir. Old Vladdy really feels like a pretty big city, and there is plenty to do. For example, one of my students invited me out to a night club on Sunday night; I, of course, agreed, and we bowled for a while and then checked out the dance floor, which was absolutely packed. I'm going to guess that there are no night clubs in Peoria that are bumping at 2am on a Sunday night.

On the other hand, though, Vladimir feels manageable and small. You can get from one end of the city in 20 minutes by car--maybe 10 if you're with a Russian driver (red lights and lanes are mere suggestions). I frequently see the same people riding the bus with me every day, and my Russian friends often run into people they know on the street. So, ya, Vladimir is a little city, but it is a city, not whatever kind of settlement Peoria is.

Disclaimer--I bear no ill will toward Peoria, and, for all I know, it's a wonderful town. Maybe it's even the night-club center of the Midwest....   

So I've been quiet for a while, but it's been a busy week packed full of activities and preparation for midterms, which will happen next week. Today, I went with the trainer from my gym to the nearby city of Bogolyubovo. There is a very famous church and an ancient monastery there. Here are some pictures from our excursion today:

Also, here is a version of the famous Russian birthday song that should work. It is from the classic cartoon "Chuburashka."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB5TEJfdmRs&feature=related

Wow!! You don't know a birthday until you have had on in Russia, and it especially helps if you have 65 Russian students! The day started with a punishingly great leg workout (squat until you [almost] faint...) and a big birthday breakfast of oatmeal with pumpkin, tvorog, sausage, coffee, and compote. I arrived at work to find my desk covered with signs and candy, and there was a container of tongue xolodets waiting for me too. Nothing like a little tongue on your birthday, although I haven't tried it yet. 

Today, the staff at the American Home told me that there was an electrician working in my classroom, and that he promised that he would be done by 3:50--that is, ten minutes before my first class started. I thought nothing of it, and went to have another cup of coffee while I waited. At about ten minutes before class started, I was told that the electrician left, and so I went down to my room to prepare for my class. When I turned on the light, my whole class of teenagers jumped out from underneath the table and yelled "Happy birthday!" They had decorated the room with balloon, signs, and stickers, and they brought me a cake, so we had cake and tea during class. My next class gave me some amazing gifts: a bottle of classy French brandy, some wooden shoes that they had all signed, and a portrait of me drawn by one of my students. My last class brought in two bottles of champagne, and I figured champagne could only make the present continuous more interesting, so we toasted to my birthday. I've had an amazing day! 

Here are a few pictures of the presents my students gave me: 

 

I've never had a birthday in Russia before, but I'm really liking it so far (and I'm only 14 minutes in!). One of my students called, fellow teachers have been texting, and my host family gave me a gift (a great and very Russian little bag--some might call it a man purse, but it's Europe, so I don't care). The weather has been pretty dreary, and work is demanding, and nerves are fraying around the office (that is bound to happen when you can really express your feelings only to the seven other people who speak your language). As the staff of the American Home warned us, October is typically a tough month for new teachers. But having my birthday is a nice little spark that has lifted my spirits and , thanks to our sauna trip yesterday, the moods of the other teachers. Here is the traditional Russian birthday song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blypORq3HMc

Today we teachers celebrated my upcoming birthday at a sauna. It was an excellent way to relax and reinvigorate our spirits. We decided to rent the sauna for three hours--a normal amount of time for some good Russian relaxation. Now, this isn't simply a sauna like you might find in a gym locker room. This place had a big room with a table, chairs, a stereo system, and room to dance; a billiards table (Russian billiards--a much harder version of the game that uses a bigger table with bigger balls and smaller pockets); and a jacuzzi  and a steam room (a Turkish sauna). We rented out the whole suite of rooms, and so it was just us teachers and a few Russian friends there.

Going to saunas or banyas (the traditionally Russian version of a sauna) is very popular here, and so groups of friends will commonly rent out these place for an afternoon and расслабяются (rasslabyatsya--an awesome word that means "to relax"). I was a bit nervous about this particular sauna--the neighborhood is not very attractive, and the building itself looks pretty uninviting. It looked at first like it might be more of a place for "extra services" than for good, clean relaxation, but I was wrong--the place has a good reputation, and all the Russian staff at the American Home said we made a good choice. I'm very glad we decided to celebrate my birthday this way, and we all had a great time! Here are a few pictures; I left out the ones of everyone inside the sauna--although we were wearing our bathing suits, it's probably best to keep it modest.

Yesterday, I got a note in the mail that a package was waiting for me at the post office. You see, here in Russia, the postman doesn't deliver packages to your door, but rather you have to go to the post office and retrieve it. The little note that you get also has a form that you have to fill out, and this is especially difficult for us poor foreigners--the form asks all sorts of information about your passport, but an American passport doesn't have most of the details the form wants. So I filled out as many of the blanks as possible and set off to the main post office this morning. 

I quickly found the main post office (the directions I said to turn right at the Lenin statue downtown and head toward Post Office Street--pretty simple). It turned out, though, the my package was at a different post office. I pretty much knew where this other post office is, but I asked the security guard just to make sure. He heard my accent and must have thought I was German because he started to explain what to do in really halting German. When it was obvious that wasn't getting the job done, he fortunately switched back to Russian. I've never been that badly mistaken for a German before. 

Anyway, when I got to the correct post office, I waited around while two ladies argued with the staff about how much they could stuff into their boxes. It turns out that ten kilograms is too much to send to Bryansk (a city near the Ukrainian border). After the staff finally got the Bryansk ladies under control, it was my turn. The lady working behind the desk fortunately didn't mind that my form was only partially complete, and she gave me my package after a about five minutes of searching around in the back room for it. Package in hand, and 45 minutes late for my Russian lesson, I boarded the bus and headed to the American home. Quite an ordeal, but it was well worth the effort. Now I have a bag of candy corn, so it finally feels like fall. 

On Sunday night, a documentary called "The Unknown Putin" (Неизвестный Путин) ran on one of the main state-controlled TV stations. I watched a little bit of it, and it was fairly interesting to see how Vladimir Vladimirovich spends his time and how he works. He and I actually keep similar hours: We both work out in the morning (Putin is a dedicated athlete, and his home in the outskirts of Moscow has a very nice gym and a beautiful lap pool), eat a big breakfast centered around oatmeal and augmented with bread, sausage, and tvorog (basically milk curds), and we both work from noon until late at night. Of course, he is running the world's largest country, and I am teaching 65 bright, young (or young at heart) Russians about polite invitations with would and should and trying to explain how to use articles correctly (a never-ending battle), but I think there are enough similarities.

I'm now on conversational terms with a few people at the gym, and this has its benefits and disadvantages. One guy loves to talk politics with me, which is good I guess. He is a committed pessimist and sees no future for Russia (I don't agree), and during one of our conversations--which often take place in the don't-look-in-the-corners shower--he told me all the reasons that the Putin documentary was a cleverly controlled way to get the narod (people) back into line behind VVP (for the uninitiated, that's Putin's name in acronym form). And that is probably true; it's Putin's 60th birthday, and he's been the prominent fixture of Russian political life for over 12 years--a smart politician knows when he needs to reinvigorate his brand. See for yourself and decide about "The Unknown Putin:"

http://tinyurl.com/8bbjqhp 

Here is the interior of a reconstructed village-style wooden church in Suzdal. The building itself is quite small--room enough for maybe 40 people if you packed them in tight. There are two rooms in this church: an  anteroom and the sanctuary, and these rooms are about the same size. The sanctuary features a wooden alter, and in keeping with the tradition of the Orthodox faith, only men are allowed behind the alter, and parishioners would only go behind the alter on special occasions. In many little villages, the church was the center not just of religious life but of all community life, and so the church doubled as a meeting space and a place for relaxation. So, the anteroom was often used for card games, parties, and other non-church events. Imagine a bacchanalian night of booze-fueled card games taking place in the room next to the sacred alter.

  

I'm worn out from a long day of teaching and slogging around in the cold rain, so I'll let Mark Twain do the talking for me tonight. I stumbled upon this essay quite unexpectedly (my host sister asked me for some poetry recommendations, and the internet is a wonderful way to find all sorts of somewhat-related articles and cultural productions), and it sums up a lot of my experience in learning a foreign language, and I'm sure my poor students, troopers that they are, would agree that verbs are the roughest part speech. Here are the first two paragraphs of Twain's "Italian with Grammar."

I found that a person of large intelligence could read this beautiful 
language with considerable facility without a dictionary, but I presently 
found that to such a parson a grammar could be of use at times. 
It is because, if he does not know the WERE'S and the WAS'S and the 
MAYBE'S and the HAS-BEENS'S apart, confusions and uncertainties 
can arise. He can get the idea that a thing is going to happen next 
week when the truth is that it has already happened week before last. 
Even more previously, sometimes. Examination and inquiry showed 
me that the adjectives and such things were frank and fair-minded 
and straightforward, and did not shuffle; it was the Verb that mixed 
the hands, it was the Verb that lacked stability, it was the Verb that 
had no permanent opinion about anything, it was the Verb that was always 
dodging the issue and putting out the light and making all the trouble. 

Further examination, further inquiry, further reflection, 
confirmed this judgment, and established beyond peradventure the 
fact that the Verb was the storm-center. This discovery made plain 
the right and wise course to pursue in order to acquire certainty 
and exactness in understanding the statements which the newspaper 
was daily endeavoring to convey to me: I must catch a Verb and 
tame it. I must find out its ways, I must spot its eccentricities, 
I must penetrate its disguises, I must intelligently foresee and 
forecast at least the commoner of the dodges it was likely to try 
upon a stranger in given circumstances, I must get in on its main 
shifts and head them off, I must learn its game and play the limit. 

Sometimes you just need a quiet weekend. That was this weekend. I went with my host family to Suzdal and relaxed there. My host family has a tradition of getting a hotel room in Suzdal and inviting some relatives to join them every year, and this year I tagged along. We went there in the morning on Saturday, walked around the little town, poked into some museums, and saw some churches--Suzdal is a city of dozens of old churches. Unfortunately, the weather took a turn for the worse just as we got to the hotel, and it stayed cold, windy, and rainy the whole time we were there. So we were a bit stuck in the hotel room, which fortunately was a nice, cabin-like thing. This morning, we got up early, had the hotel's decent breakfast buffet (which is called a Swedish table in Russian), and went for a swim in the hotel pool. The main building of the hotel is a big old Soviet creation, and the Soviet mentality of relaxation (very controlled, under the advisement of "experts," somewhat like a sanitarium) reigns--along with Soviet-era attitudes toward customer service.

The pool is open from 9-12 daily, and you are supposed to bring your own towel, sandals, and bathing cap. We didn't bring towels or bathing caps, so we had to pay a 200-ruble fee. I misunderstood the whole conversation and thought that the weird plastic thing the unhappy attendant gave me was a shoe covering (if you've been to Russia, you know what I'm talking about) and promptly decided to not use it. So I get into the pool sans bathing cap and have a great old time swimming, and just as we were about to get out, my host dad noticed that the ladies in charge of the pool were angrily gesturing and pointing at me. My lack of bathing cap was apparently a violation of some sanitary principle, even though I had just showered. And oh did the lady give it to me when I walked past her as I was leaving. If you've never been yelled at by an angry old Russian woman, you are missing out; it is an experience you won't forget. I tried not to chuckle and said that I simply forgot; my host family said I should have just responded to her in English.

Anyway, it was a great time in Suzdal. Like I said, sometimes you just need a quiet break from the craziness, and I got the extra benefit of speaking only Russian all weekend. Although as we were leaving the hotel this morning, I heard our neighbors speaking perfect American English--funny that I spent the night next to a bunch of Americans in a hotel in Russia. It's a small world.

Speaking of it being a small world, I was working out at my gym this evening, and a guy about my age walks in wearing an Ohio State shirt. I didn't believe my eyes at first. I watched the guy for a second and immediately realized that he was Russian--no American would wear sandals and a short bathing suit to the gym, and he had a small mullet, which is something that no American would have. So, at this point, I'm thinking that either he studied at OSU as a foreign student, or someone gave him the shirt. I eventually went up to this guy, said hi, and mentioned that I have exactly that same shirt and that Ohio State is the name of my university. He was a bit surprised and said that he bought the shirt in Turkey and has never heard of OSU. We chuckled about that, and no I'm on handshake terms with another person at the gym. I don't know if my little gym in Dobroe, Vladimir, Russia, could have handled another Buckeye, anyway.

Here's some pictures of Suzdal from this weekend. There was a farmers'/souvenir market going on when we got there, so that's what the first two pictures are. The others are from walking around, and the last picture is of our hotel. 

  

Today several students in my teenager class brought in cameras and said they really wanted to take pictures with me and the whole group. I told them that if the class went well--no behavior problems, no cheating on the quiz (well that's pretty much a lost cause, but I can hope anyway)--we could take pictures at the end. And it worked out well; I finished everything I wanted to do with about five minutes left--a perfect amount of time for a group photo. Here's what turned out. This is my Monday-Thursday 4:00-5:30 group, and they are special because they are the first group I ever taught.

Each city has its local slang, its terms for places and roads that aren't immediately obvious to non-locals. I've been living in Vladimir now for almost 2 months, and I finally learned a bit of the local slang today. Pekinka (Пекинка)--it's a word I've heard thrown around by my host parents and my students, but I never could understand what it meant. Finally, tonight I was chatting with one of my students on Vkontakte (the Russian equivalent of Facebook), and the word came up in conversation. I took the opportunity to do a quick Yandex (the Russian search engine) search of the word. It turns out that Pekinka is the slang term for the highway I live right next to. Why this funny name? Well, this highway supposedly runs all the way to Beijing, which is called Pekin in Russian. Add a little cute Russian diminutive form, and you get Pekinka, the road I live next to. I'm starting to feel like a local! 

I was thinking about what to muse about on this blog today when it occurred to me that something is missing in my life. No, I don't mean love or world peace or any of that token stuff. I'm talking about sirens. You don't realize it, but we are surrounded by sirens in the USA. Fire trucks, ambulances, police cars, volunteer fire fighters, tornado sirens, useless noon-on-Wednesdays emergency siren tests, police impersonators trying to pull people over--whatever it is, it's the rare hour that passes without a siren sounding in the background. 

Here in Russia, there just aren't sirens. I mean, every once in a while, I a feeble little siren sound for a second while a highway patrol officer (гаишник) pulls someone over, but that is rare. Also, sometimes an ambulance will go by with its siren on, but no on pulls over or even lets the ambulance through. And there most certainly isn't any kind of weekly emergency siren test; shoot, there aren't even fire alarms in most apartment buildings (that always scared me when I was living in a 12-story apartment building in Moscow that had just one door and no kind of fire alarm of sprinkler system. Fortunately, my building here in Vladimir is new and has alarms). 

It's strange how little things that you take for granted and relegate to the back of your consciousness take on a new importance when you suddenly are without them. Although I must say, for someone who has studied city planning and tries to keep abreast of local news and procedures, I've never understood why it is necessary to test tornado sirens every week, and I have no idea what the different signals mean and doubt anyone else does either. I mean, really, who sits around and times out an emergency siren and says to themselves, "Oh that was two 30-second sirens followed by a 15-second siren--that means we're doomed."?     

It feels great to be totally isolated from all the blather and insult hurling of election season in America, but occasionally some election news filters over here to Russia. The other morning, I was watching the news before I left for work, and just as I was about to turn the TV off, Mitt Romney's face flashed across the screen. I won't betray my political leanings, although I must say I was hoping for some good (bad) news. Anyway, Mitt's comment about planes needing windows that open was the centerpiece of a little story about the US elections. This story was complete with a cartoon depiction of the real scientific reasons that plane windows don't open and was rounded out with a few clips from old movies of flight attendants getting sucked out of holes and open windows in planes. And having seen on Russian TV what in US would be considered a mild political attack ad, I went off to work with a little smile that surely was completely baffling to all the morose passengers on the bus. Thanks for that Mitt....