2-28-07

2-28-07

Last day of February!

Let’s see, I’ll try to recap everything that’s happened since Saturday night rather quickly. I’m online in Café Max on their WiFi, which is more expensive than Kofe Haus, but you don’t have to buy anything else, because it’s primarily an internet café. So I’ve got 48 minutes left and there’s plenty of other stuff I’d like to do online.

Sunday was spent at the mall with Kate, Becky, Hannah, and Hillary. We enjoyed some tasty Sbarro for lunch and then shopped a bit. I didn’t buy anything. There wasn’t a whole lot I liked, and the things I did like were either too expensive or things that I really didn’t need. I shouldn’t be buying clothes I don’t need here, because everything I buy I then have to figure out how to get back.

I do want to buy a new hat, though. Preferably one with earflaps, because my ears always get cold in this hat. I think I could rock a hat with earflaps, but I really don’t think I have a head made for hats.

That night, Becky and I met up and went to the Lenasoveta Theatre to see Chekhov’s “Three Sisters.” It’s a pretty depressing play, but it was really well done and we had a good time. The downside was that, it’s also a long play, and the seats were really uncomfortable. In addition, this meant that I got home at like 11:30, didn’t fall asleep til 12:30 or 1ish, and woke up at 6:30 the next morning to shower. I was pretty worthless Monday.

Monday night we had an “internship fair” at CityBar. The one group I was only slightly interested in had something come up and couldn’t make it, but to be a good sport a couple of us talked with some of the company representatives who no one was talking to. This including a really awkward conversation with a reporter for the St. Petersburg Times. They need someone to do copy editing, but the whole time I was talking with her I was thinking, “As direly as you guys need better copy editing, I hate your newspaper and read it only because it’s in English, it’s really a piece of crap.” Of course I didn’t say that.

I also talked with an American businessman who reminded me of Mark Cuban but with none of the charm. Yeah, I know, it’s tough to imagine. His company engages in, like, providing data to other companies and something with optic cable factories in Belarus. He was being purposefully vague. He handed me a pretty slick-looking business card, but I was pleased to discover, when looking at it later, that it’s actually a pretty shoddy printing job, as on both sides the next is a few points off of center.

Made the mistake of eating too many brownies at CityBar (Elaine, the crazy owner, had just gotten a recipe for brownies using ingredients that you can actually find in Russia and wanted to see if they really were viable. Answer: Yes), and then got heartburn from a sandwich at KFC, because nothing else was open.

Last night, we had an “Open City” party, attended by some other American students and some Russian students. There were free food and beverages, and lots and lots of awkwardness. Russians believe every party needs some kind of awkward junior-high style icebreaker. Or in this party’s case, 5 of them. Yeah, we still weren’t so much into the mingling. But it was a free dinner.

Monday and Tuesday our Grammar teacher was sick. On Monday we had a very nice lady sub for her and she was very patient with us and actually, you know, taught. On Tuesday our Civilization teacher subbed and basically turned Grammar into Civilization. We didn’t finish a single exercise before she said, “It’s clear you know what you’re doing, let’s take a break from grammar, rest a bit, and talk.” So then she led a discussion about Russian food. It was weird.

At the Open City party, some of the American students from another program told us that there’s free WiFi at Subway. I went there before I came here. There’s WiFi, but it said I needed a password, and it wasn’t working for the other girl I saw there. Knowing my luck, Subway chose today to start making people pay for their WiFi. However, Subway was wonderful. I had a sandwich that wasn’t dripping with grease or fried and it had VEGETABLES. My God, it was heaven. And a cookie. A real cookie. Oh, Subway.

I’ll go ahead and post this now, the people who had an afternoon class today will probably be calling soon.