Oh. My. Goodness. My legs better be toned as hell by the time I get home or this entire trip will have been a massive waste. Liz took Corinne and me to meet with Volodya, a SRAS employee who gave us an orientation. This involved a walk to a metro station, a ride on said metro, and another walk to the Russian language and culture department building. SPbSU is very much an urban campus, with buildings scattered throughout the city (the math department, Volodya said, is actually outside the city proper, in the suburbs!), but this building should be the only one I'll need to worry about while I'm here.
I arrived in Russia without a ruble to my name. The currency exchange kiosk in Charlotte didn't have rubles, and the exchange kiosk in Munich's credit card swipe thingy was broken. They would have taken more than half of the $9 in grungy bills I had in commission, anyway. Luckily, I've notified my bank of my travel plans and my debit card does work in Russian ATMs.
We were running a little late by the time Liz, Corinne and I arrived at the Mayakovskaya metro station, so I didn't have time to withdraw any money from the bank of ATMs there. Corinne covered my fare today, because she's really nice. After a three-minute escalator ride, we emerged into the tunnel where you board the metro. The walls were covered in a red tile mosaic, the design of which included a silhouette of the face of the modern poet Mayakovsky, for whom this station is named. It was surprisingly pretty, especially given the no-frills, very utilitarian Russian aesthetic throughout the rest of the building and in most of the city. The mid-20th century urban architecture is pleasing in its orderliness, but at the same time the lack of any real ornamentation is both boring and kind of depressingly faceless (and it makes landmarks a little difficult to discern).
The three of us boarded the metro; Corinne was quick enough to score a seat, while Liz and I stood and held onto the rail. Heeled boots were probably, in retrospect, a really bad idea, but I'm not sure I could reach the handrail in the metro without them, honestly, and the acceleration and braking isn't as smooth as my delicate American sense of balance is used to, so I need to hold on to something. And thus comes into play the title of this post: blisters. Turns out the boots aren't quite as perfect as initially thought; my left foot is blistered up something fierce. I don't really have anywhere else I need to go today, though, so I can let it rest for a while. The boots are very warm, though, and I'm glad to have them--it beats walking around in this freezing weather with my thin-canvas Converse or my white tennis shoes, which are apparently among the telltale marks of the American tourist. I slipped a couple of times on the ice and dirty slush-slime coating the sidewalks and roads, but I kept my balance.
There was a stop between Mayakovskaya and our destination (Vasiliostrovskaya, because the station is on Vasily Island), and lots of people got off there, so Liz and I seized the opportunity and sat down. A helpful sign on the opposite window announced that seats are for passengers with small children and the disabled, but of course in the absence of either of those things, no one looks at you askance for sitting down. When we arrived, there was another three-minute escalator ride up to ground level, where we met Volodya and received our cell phones. Liz left us to go buy gloves and go to class, and Volodya took us to the appropriate university building so we could sit and chat someplace warmer than outside. On the way he told Corinne and me to pay attention to our surroundings, because we would have to find our way back home by ourselves. He pointed out a huge pink church we could use as a landmark to remember where to turn to get back to the metro.
Once we found a small lobby on the third floor of the building, Volodya sat down with us and explained the important things like how to extend our visas (which we'll have to do next week, since we need to start the process 20 business days before it expires; both of our visas expire in March), where to go to take the placement test and get our schedule finalized, and how to put money on our new cell phones. Nothing fancy, just a basic Nokia brick that doesn't appear to have a lock button, so butt-dialin' ahoy! Which is kind of a problem, as it is a pay-as-you-go sort of thing. I put some money on it after withdrawing some from an ATM. I'm not entirely clear on the terms of use for the cell phone, so if you need to get in touch with me just email me (elondon@stetson.edu) or message me on Facebook. If it's really urgently important you can call; the number is +7 (898) 112-9014. Remember the plus sign. I know it doesn't cost me anything to receive calls but I don't know if that applies to international calls or not.
Volodya left us after taking us to the office and helping to translate for us and the secretary who made copies of our passports, visas and migration cards. The other office ladies took care of the paperwork and had us sign it, and then they sent us to another room to take a placement test. The office was closed for lunch, so we bought some coffee and went back to the lobby where we talked to Volodya to kill time until it reopened at 2. The building has one of those coffee machines they have at rest stops, where you can buy a cappuccino or hot chocolate or some similar hot beverage; we each bought a small latte. Or, rather, Corinne bought us each a small latte; I still had no Russian money on my person. The cup was itty-bitty, about 6 oz, and the machine dispensed about 4 oz of coffee, but it was hot and very strong.
Soon enough it was 2 o'clock and we went back downstairs to the office. After stumbling through a conversation with the secretary there, it was eventually articulated that we were new foreign students and needed to take a language placement exam. She had us fill out some more paperwork and then gave us the test and told us we had one hour to finish it; we both finished in about 40 minutes, and the test was very quickly scored and our results given to us. Unfortunately, the office where we would have our schedules finalized was closed by the time we were finished taking that exam, so we have to go back tomorrow. We need to go back tomorrow with photos so we can get student IDs, anyway; for as much walking as it involves, and as cold as it will be, we might as well make the visit worthwhile.
Corinne's Russian is about as poor as mine; hopefully we'll both get better over the coming weeks. She scored a 55% on the placement test; I got a 69% (hurr hurr), but only by the grace of God. I suppose I guessed right on a few things, or something. She's only been studying the language for one semester, but she learned it by going to Irkutsk and immersing herself in it. (Knowing I would probably not ace this exam and not wanting to artificially raise expectations, I told the secretary I'd also been studying the language for one semester.) There you have it, folks; it's possible to learn five semesters' worth of Russian in a single semester by immersion. We should both improve quite a bit by the time we leave, then. She leaves May 21st; I wish it would have worked out that we could leave together.
Trying to navigate the streets of the island to find our way back to the metro station was quite an adventure. We stopped at a cafe and got lunch, because we were hungry and I needed to break the 1000-ruble note I got from the ATM. The cafe served sandwiches on blini (savory crepes, basically); she got mushroom, I opted for ham and cheese. I have said in the past that there are few sandwiches that can't be improved by serving them on pancakes instead of bread, and lunch today confirmed that assertion. Then we decided to just go back to the metro station and find our way home. We stopped at a drugstore to see if we could find any vitamin D supplements; maybe I'm just domestically blind, but I can't seem to find the bottle of supplements Mom said she bought for me. Hopefully I find it or can buy more; it's probably not good to go from taking 1000 units of vitamin D per day, in sunny Florida, to 400 units as part of a daily multivitamin (f*** yeah gummy vites!), while living in a place that doesn't get a lot of sunlight. The only vitamin D supplements Corinne or I saw were pretty expensive, so we're going to look around a little more; there are little drugstores all over the place here. I'm gonna search my luggage again before spending money on something I may already have, too.
I almost wish I wore contacts (or could afford Lasik or something), as much as I like how I look with glasses on, because I can't cover my nose and mouth while outside without fogging up my glasses. And it's so cold out that the condensation on the lenses will actually freeze, making it exponentially more difficult to clear them off; I have to unzip my coat and wipe the lenses with my sweater, because it's warm enough to melt the frost. My sweater isn't 100% cotton, but my lenses aren't scratched or anything. Just linty. It occurred to me somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic that it probably would've been a good idea to toss my cleaning cloth and lens cleaner into my bag, but there's nothing I can do about that now other than buy replacements. There are opticians all over the place; I'm sure I can find a cleaning cloth in town. As a result of the cold, my nostrils and lips are all dry and starting to crack; I've made mental notes to move certain little essentials like my Blistex and my phrasebook (thanks Heather!) into the pockets of my coat (thanks Mamaw!). It started snowing a little bit on the way to the university with Volodya, but thankfully it was done by the time we left.
Corinne and Liz are going grocery shopping at the moment; every time I stand up my left foot cries out in protest, so I think I'm basically in for the night at this point, unless we all decide to go get shawarma or go do something fun this evening. Jorge and Alex have decided that, because Corinne and I have never had shawarma, that they need to correct this injustice as soon as possible. Shawarma is quintessential Russian street food. It's meat, and that's all they'll tell me about it. I don't know what kind of meat it is, how it's prepared, or what it looks like; I suppose I could Google it, but I hate to ruin Jorge and Alex's fun. If something like that comes up this evening, then I might be persuaded to get dressed again. It's already after 6:00 here, and it's not even quarter after 9 AM at home--that's crazy to me, that my day is basically over and none of y'all have even had lunch yet. In the case of most of my Stetson friends, I know most of you aren't even awake yet.
I should have my schedule finalized by tomorrow, and then I have the weekend (probably, Saturday classes aren't unheard of here) to party it up before having to put my poor chapped nose back to the grindstone on Monday. Apparently classes have already started, even though the SRAS webpage for my program says the program begins on the 8th...maybe it's just Russian language classes, I don't know. Much as I'm dreading the language classes (Russian is hard, and last semester was pretty rough for me), I'm actually pretty excited to be going to class at all. I'll have something to do, finally! Corinne and I will probably end up in the same Russian class, and we're both doing the Russian Psyche program, so I'm thinking we'll just go to class together all the time. I wouldn't mind that, she's pretty cool. Alex is in the program too; I'm not sure if Jorge is, I don't remember if he said so. He and Alex have the same Russian class, at least. I know nothing about Liz's schedule other than that she had a class today at 12:20 and was done by the time we got back (4:30ish).
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