Current mood:

thoughtful

How the other half rolls.
On Saturday I went with my host family to visit their friends' "dacha". I say "dacha" because, to me, that word conjures up the image of a small wooden house, probably over a hundred years old, maybe with electricity, definitely without plumbing, with a big garden for vegetables and a small banya and a babushka in a head scarf sitting on a bench out front. Possibly chickens. Or goats.

On the other hand, I am now hanging with the rich crowd, so this "dacha" was an enormous brand new house with the biggest flat-screen TV I've ever seen, and a yard the size of Texas, big enough for two vegetable gardens, a flower garden, a hothouse, a shed, a swing set, a banya, an above ground swimming pool, and a small fishing pond. Seriously. It was standing in a row of the kind of dachas I'd been imagining, in stark contrast.

I have to say, I adore my host family but this is a completely different experience from staying with most Russian families. My host mom tends to cook very modern, slightly Americanized food - delicious, I don't mean to complain, but not especially Russian most of the time. I think I'm the only one who notices. Well, no one craves authenticity like a foreigner. And I did get to banya it up with a venik and eat shashlik.

On Sunday I got to meet up with two of my former students/friends and stroll around Vladimir a bit. It was strange at first to see them again. Why is it that we think that when we leave a place somebody hits the pause button? Wishful thinking I guess. Of course life continues, people grow and change and make mistakes and learn lessons and have babies, and when we met them again they have lived just as much life as we have. Even here in sleepy Vladimir.

So, I think it's evident by my philosophical rhapsodizing that I'm exiting the honeymoon phase. I get frustrated sometimes at only understanding half of what anyone says, and only being able to expres myself like a four-year-old. I'm feeling homesick during odd quiet moments - I miss my family and my friends and my cat. Today I'm glad to be at work again, moving forward with the textbooks, keeping myself busy, reminding myself that I'm here for a reason.