New People, New Words, and Too Much Coffee

While most Russian university students have classes on Saturdays, I fortunately get a full two-day weekend. I had two items on the agenda for Saturday. After doing a little class prep work, I went to a small dorm gathering with mostly international students. It was hosted by a couple Russian students from the psychology department. Essentially, they had us participate in team-building, friend-making activities while they filmed us (likely to analyze us later). We did a couple cheesy group activities that were made slightly more awkward with the constant presence of a camera. One project, however, was pretty fun. We split into two teams and were instructed to create a depiction of the Tower of Babylon without communicating among ourselves vocally. I don't actually know how it all lasted, but after an hour and a half, I left to meet with Oksana and some of her friends to go to a movie. (Oksana is a student in the international relations department who I met at the forum.) We took the bus to a mall and met her three friends Dasha, Sasha, and Zhenya. First, we had a quick bite to eat at Traveler's Cafe. The movie was called "Духless" and is based on a contemporary novel. The rest of the group was pretty excited about, but afterwards, we agreed it was just ok. As with any other Russian movie I've seen thus far in my life, I gathered most of my information from context and visual cues and only understood about half of the dialogue.

I only had one fun activity slated for Sunday before working on lesson plans for Monday. Irina, my boss, set me up with four of my students to take me on a small city tour and to just hang out a bit. After first speaking in Russian for a few minutes, I realized that this excursion was also intended to be good English practice for them. We walked to a few typical sites in the city center such as, Lenin Square (with a massive statue of Lenin), a square filled with cat sculptures dedicated to the cats sent from Tyumen to St. Petersburg to alleviate a serious rat problem, and the newly constructed boardwalk along the river. We stopped for a long time at Traveler's Cafe (same cafe, different location than on Saturday). The coziness, coffee selection, and pastry choices makes the cafe seem like a place my Grandma Rosemary would really enjoy. I ordered some french press coffee from a Costa Rican blend. The three cups there plus the two cups from this morning made for a total of five cups of coffee for the day. As I write this post, I expect to crash from my caffeine high at any time. The group (Andrei, Masha, Masha, and... another guy) was a lot of fun to talk with and I think we both helped each other with Russian and English. I walked away with two new Russian words: piracy and spontaneity.

Since we didn't go out for lunch as I expected, I prepared a late lunch back home. When life in Russia doesn't present you with Ramen noodles, you find a substitute. Luckily, I found the Korean equivalent, "Doshirak." I may be a teacher now, but I still eat like a college student.