Two Months

So I have completed 2 months in Moscow. Well, it has been a little over 2 months. I can now say that I have survived my first Russian winter. Although I did miss November and December, my students tell me that January and February are the coldest months.

The following are ways to know that you are in Moscow, Russia during the winter:
When you walk outside your face begins to burn within 3 seconds.
Everything within your nose freezes...I mean everything.
When you buy bottled water from the grocery store by the time you walk home it is frozen solid.
When you open the freezer you actually warm up.

My Russkie is slowing getting better. I think it would be much better if I were a student in some language training program. I should have just sucked it up and paid for the language training programming rather than trying to save money by teaching at a foreign language school. In hindsight the teaching job was a bad idea. On average I work about 66 hours a week, and I get paid approximately $22.00 a day. I am always planning a lesson, walking to a lesson, or teaching a lesson. I'm taking a Russian class twice a week. I also study my Russian every night, but I usually fall asleep. (Note to self: Never teach at a foreign language school.)

I had my successful communication with a person asking me for help the other day. That was really cool. I told a lady how to get to a specific intersection. Almost everyday someone asks me for help while walking on the sidewalks (99% of the time it is a failure). The problem is that they speak so fast that I don't hear the street/building they are looking for. So, I ask them to please repeat and slow down. It is extremely funny to see their reaction. They hear my accent, blind a couple times, shake their head, and immediate walk to ask the next person they see for help. I laugh every time. I know what they are thinking. They are thinking "what the..." I would do the say thing in America. If I asked someone for directions, and their response was "can you repeat and speak slower please" I would find someone else too.

(This is a picture of Smolenskaya street near Old Arbat street.)

I took my first excursion 2 weeks ago. I took a train to St. Petersburg. It was really cool. I took the 8 hour, over-night train. When I returned to Moscow I took the express train. It took about 5 hours. The trains were nice. St. Petersburg is a pretty city. It has a more of a Western European feel to it. There are canals with cafes and boats. I visited the Hermitage and Nevsky Prospect. I am planning another excursion to Tallinn, Estonia in May.

Ok, I have mentioned the ill-tempered old ladies in the metros here in Moscow in a previous entry. Well, I need to talk about them again. Every morning I am in the metros at 7:15 a.m. The metro system in Moscow is really overcrowded. Millions of people rush through the metro tunnels everyday. Other than the millions of people, there is another bottle neck - ill-tempered old ladies. I do not understand why on Earth they are traveling in the metros at 7:15 in the morning. Are they compelled to travel on the metro early in the morning? They are like the cars driving in the far left lane on the freeways in America going 60 MPH. They never get over to right and let the faster traffic pass by.