Normally, my posts follow a very typical day-by-day structure of the previous week. This post may resemble more of a "freeform" style because, in addition to my weekly activities, I have a few other notes that I've been constantly forgetting to include.
So, during my typical evening ritual of getting on the Internet, I've seen a lot of news regarding the absurdly warm temperatures back home in Iowa. I mean, high 50s and low 60s in early December? What is that?! Conversely, here in Tyumen over the last few days, we've had temperatures at about -12 Fahrenheit with wind chills dipping past -20. Only today has the "warmer" weather started to come back with 6 degrees around lunch and some light snow. I suppose I shouldn't expect anything else when spending winter in Siberia. Since all I had earlier in the week were my tennis shoes and formal black boots with fur, I needed a warm alternative for daily use. I bought some shoes with some sort of wool interior and they're super comfortable. I'm pretty much set with winter gear, but I wouldn't mind finding a little better scarf and/or hat.
I neglected to mention it in earlier posts, but a few weeks ago, I made plans to travel to Katya's and Ira's place in Nefteyugansk for New Year's Eve. I'm really excited for a few reasons. 1) I get to leave Tyumen for a while to see a new city. 2) I finally get to experience a Russian New Year celebration. 3) I get to spend the holiday with some close friends. Although, one thing remains a bit scary and funny at the same time. It's about 12 hours north of Tyumen by train. Of the few people I've told here, they have all asked, "Why? It's colder there!" It's true. It will be colder and darker. Another fun fact is that their trees are noticeably shorter due to the colder year-round climate.
In other news, I still don't have any light in my bathroom. This is something I've consistently neglected to mention. A couple weeks ago, I had my entryway, bedroom, and bathroom light burn out in a span of about 2-3 days. I asked some dormitory personnel to fix it, but nobody ever came (which is actually pretty normal by Russian standards). I went out and bought my own lightbulbs and changed almost all of them myself which was much more convenient. However, I couldn't change the one in the bathroom because it's too high. So, because I've been to lazy to ask for help again and because I can't do it myself, I've been pretty much using my bathroom in half-darkness with the door halfway open for a couple weeks. I've actually gotten pretty used to it.
Here's a piece of good news. After struggling for two months to find the right cheese at the store, I think I've finally narrowed it down. A couple days ago I made a very successful cheese purchase with the exact type of cheese I've been desiring. This should make my life a little easier and will likely result in less wasted cheese.
Similarly, my last two dinners have been success stories. I made my first attempt at mashed potatoes, but I didn't have anything to really go with it. I ended up making the mashed potatoes and adding fried sausage and onions which resulted in a fairly simple yet tasty concoction. It's nice to know that, even without buying any special ingredients, I can manage to make a few extra dishes with the ingredients I usually buy. Also, today revived another American classic: grilled cheese. Of course, grilled cheese it one of the easiest things in the world to make with a frying pan, but at least I'm varying my diet a little bit.
But what else was in the news from this last week? Well, on Wednesday, Katya showed me one of the computer games she's loved to play ever since her family got their first computer. It's called Heroes of Might and Magic. Sure, it's a really old game (by computer standards), but that doesn't mean it wasn't really well made and a lot of fun to play. It's for reasons like this (and nostalgic reasons) that some games, no matter how old, never lose their entertainment value.
On Friday, I went with Niklas and Raia, a Chinese friend of ours, to an Italian restaurant and a DDT concert. We split a couple pizzas, chatted, and killed a little time before the concert. Then, the concert. It was fantastic! DDT is a classic Russian band. Some of their songs have reached pretty much an iconic status. They're songs resonate throughout the country in a sort of Beatles-like way. Nearly all Russians, young and old, know songs like Это всё, Что такое осень, and Метель. The concert wasn't great just because of these legendary songs, though. There was a number of extremely talented musicians that utilized an electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass, trumpet, trombone, drums, timpani, and two vocalists. They covered classic Russian rock, heavy rock, jazz, and Russian folk. It was one hell of a musical experience. I hadn't heard such quality music in some time. It was also interesting that the vocalist/acoustic guitarist (the lead of the band) mixed his poetry into the show.
On Saturday, I had American Corner which turned out fairly well. Again, we had a couple newcomers who were pretty shy and didn't talk much. Our topic was "technology of the future" and whether all scientific developments were good and adhered to typical moral standards. At times, it felt like it I just rambled. I pretty much seized the opportunity to spew out as much information as I could from watching National Geographic, the Discovery Channel, and reading Discovery News over the years. This was especially true when we touched on topics like time travel or teleportation. I'm no physicist, but it seems my exposure to educational television programming made me the expert in the room.
After American Corner, I made plans to meet with Nadya, Vanya, and Katya (other Katya) to go ice skating. When we got to the rink, however, it was packed. Since I was the only one without my own skates, it was pretty much my fault we couldn't get in until much later. As a result, we decided to leave before skating. Instead, we took a drive out to Katya's parents' place outside the city. I believe this was the first time I had ever been inside a house in Russia (all other visits have been in apartments). We hung out with her parents by the fireplace eating candy and drinking tea.
Sunday and Monday were pretty typical. The only thing of note was that Niklas and Sasha came over to my place to hang out late Monday night. It's a good thing I prepared all my plans for class ahead of time, because they didn't leave until 1am. But, I mean, that's college life, right?
On Tuesday, I had one class but I also attended a lecture from a visiting Polish scholar. Honestly, I was bored out of my mind. He gave three lectures today and thankfully, I only went to the first one. He spoke in a mixture of fairly poor English and Russian which I imagine made it rough for all listeners and not just me. I don't really have much more to say about it because, like I said, it wasn't exactly interesting.
So, during my typical evening ritual of getting on the Internet, I've seen a lot of news regarding the absurdly warm temperatures back home in Iowa. I mean, high 50s and low 60s in early December? What is that?! Conversely, here in Tyumen over the last few days, we've had temperatures at about -12 Fahrenheit with wind chills dipping past -20. Only today has the "warmer" weather started to come back with 6 degrees around lunch and some light snow. I suppose I shouldn't expect anything else when spending winter in Siberia. Since all I had earlier in the week were my tennis shoes and formal black boots with fur, I needed a warm alternative for daily use. I bought some shoes with some sort of wool interior and they're super comfortable. I'm pretty much set with winter gear, but I wouldn't mind finding a little better scarf and/or hat.
I neglected to mention it in earlier posts, but a few weeks ago, I made plans to travel to Katya's and Ira's place in Nefteyugansk for New Year's Eve. I'm really excited for a few reasons. 1) I get to leave Tyumen for a while to see a new city. 2) I finally get to experience a Russian New Year celebration. 3) I get to spend the holiday with some close friends. Although, one thing remains a bit scary and funny at the same time. It's about 12 hours north of Tyumen by train. Of the few people I've told here, they have all asked, "Why? It's colder there!" It's true. It will be colder and darker. Another fun fact is that their trees are noticeably shorter due to the colder year-round climate.
In other news, I still don't have any light in my bathroom. This is something I've consistently neglected to mention. A couple weeks ago, I had my entryway, bedroom, and bathroom light burn out in a span of about 2-3 days. I asked some dormitory personnel to fix it, but nobody ever came (which is actually pretty normal by Russian standards). I went out and bought my own lightbulbs and changed almost all of them myself which was much more convenient. However, I couldn't change the one in the bathroom because it's too high. So, because I've been to lazy to ask for help again and because I can't do it myself, I've been pretty much using my bathroom in half-darkness with the door halfway open for a couple weeks. I've actually gotten pretty used to it.
Here's a piece of good news. After struggling for two months to find the right cheese at the store, I think I've finally narrowed it down. A couple days ago I made a very successful cheese purchase with the exact type of cheese I've been desiring. This should make my life a little easier and will likely result in less wasted cheese.
Similarly, my last two dinners have been success stories. I made my first attempt at mashed potatoes, but I didn't have anything to really go with it. I ended up making the mashed potatoes and adding fried sausage and onions which resulted in a fairly simple yet tasty concoction. It's nice to know that, even without buying any special ingredients, I can manage to make a few extra dishes with the ingredients I usually buy. Also, today revived another American classic: grilled cheese. Of course, grilled cheese it one of the easiest things in the world to make with a frying pan, but at least I'm varying my diet a little bit.
But what else was in the news from this last week? Well, on Wednesday, Katya showed me one of the computer games she's loved to play ever since her family got their first computer. It's called Heroes of Might and Magic. Sure, it's a really old game (by computer standards), but that doesn't mean it wasn't really well made and a lot of fun to play. It's for reasons like this (and nostalgic reasons) that some games, no matter how old, never lose their entertainment value.
On Friday, I went with Niklas and Raia, a Chinese friend of ours, to an Italian restaurant and a DDT concert. We split a couple pizzas, chatted, and killed a little time before the concert. Then, the concert. It was fantastic! DDT is a classic Russian band. Some of their songs have reached pretty much an iconic status. They're songs resonate throughout the country in a sort of Beatles-like way. Nearly all Russians, young and old, know songs like Это всё, Что такое осень, and Метель. The concert wasn't great just because of these legendary songs, though. There was a number of extremely talented musicians that utilized an electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass, trumpet, trombone, drums, timpani, and two vocalists. They covered classic Russian rock, heavy rock, jazz, and Russian folk. It was one hell of a musical experience. I hadn't heard such quality music in some time. It was also interesting that the vocalist/acoustic guitarist (the lead of the band) mixed his poetry into the show.
On Saturday, I had American Corner which turned out fairly well. Again, we had a couple newcomers who were pretty shy and didn't talk much. Our topic was "technology of the future" and whether all scientific developments were good and adhered to typical moral standards. At times, it felt like it I just rambled. I pretty much seized the opportunity to spew out as much information as I could from watching National Geographic, the Discovery Channel, and reading Discovery News over the years. This was especially true when we touched on topics like time travel or teleportation. I'm no physicist, but it seems my exposure to educational television programming made me the expert in the room.
After American Corner, I made plans to meet with Nadya, Vanya, and Katya (other Katya) to go ice skating. When we got to the rink, however, it was packed. Since I was the only one without my own skates, it was pretty much my fault we couldn't get in until much later. As a result, we decided to leave before skating. Instead, we took a drive out to Katya's parents' place outside the city. I believe this was the first time I had ever been inside a house in Russia (all other visits have been in apartments). We hung out with her parents by the fireplace eating candy and drinking tea.
Sunday and Monday were pretty typical. The only thing of note was that Niklas and Sasha came over to my place to hang out late Monday night. It's a good thing I prepared all my plans for class ahead of time, because they didn't leave until 1am. But, I mean, that's college life, right?
On Tuesday, I had one class but I also attended a lecture from a visiting Polish scholar. Honestly, I was bored out of my mind. He gave three lectures today and thankfully, I only went to the first one. He spoke in a mixture of fairly poor English and Russian which I imagine made it rough for all listeners and not just me. I don't really have much more to say about it because, like I said, it wasn't exactly interesting.
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