Current mood:

content

Не очень плохо! Not too shabby.
Had my first Russian lesson with my old Russian tutor, Tanya, yesterday morning. She said (I don't know how truthfully) that I hadn't forgotten anything and that she was proud of me. Yay! She was definitely dealing me some tougher vocab words then she used to, and though I'm still making tons of mistakes with case endings (stupid genitive plural) I can usually fix them when she points them out. So overall I felt pretty good about myself. Especially because I had a long involved conversation with my host dad after dinner on the subject of alcohol and the merits of, say, beer versus cognac, which is all he drinks. I've gotten used to my host family's sense of humor, enough so that I can understand their jokes and even contribute one of my own once in a while. I really enjoy being around them.

Weekend recap: On Saturday we finally got some sunshine after several days of rain, so my host dad and sister took me to the park whose name I can never remember because it’s a long, complicated date - I’ll just call it Gorodskoi Park. Turns out that in the back of the park they have these incredibly old Soviet era kiddie rides, all metal painted bright primary colors, little airplanes and cars and swings and whatnot. Ksyusha and I rode on a kind of mini roller coaster, pleasantly creaky and stomach-churning.

After that my friends Larissa and Vova picked me up for a trip to Suzdal, a gorgeous small town often overrun with tourists about twenty minutes away. We walked around, looked at all the lovely old churches, checked out the souvenier stands. The babushki were out in force selling their wares - it’s a pretty common sight by the side of the road or at a market here to see old women sitting on wooden crates selling whatever they’ve got, mostly fresh fruits and vegetables or flowers or sunflower seeds. We bought some pickles, which the babushka scooped out of a big wooden tub and gave to us in a little plastic bag. It's a pretty sweet life - walkin’ around in the sunshine, eatin’ a pickle. When we had our fill of gazing at the cathedrals, we stopped for soup in a cafe. I had solyanka, a kind of hearty meat soup, with sour cream and dill of course.

Back in Vladimir I had a totally different culinary experience - my first trip to "Мистер Гамбургер" (Mister Gamburger), a kind of imitation McDonald's. The menu was simple and hilariously transliterated - my favorites were probably the "Мистер Чикен" chicken fingers and the "Чизбургер де люкс". Heh. I opted for a молочный коктел (milkshake) and картофль фрис(fries), which were both awful.

Sunday it was back to the banya and then relaxing around the house. Every time I go to the bany it seems a little less weird to sit around with my host family in a bathing suit and drink tea. This time Yarik and Ksyusha taught me to play Durak, a popular Russian card game.

Oh, and another forgotten pleasure of life in Vladimir - reading all those books I always meant to read by raiding the American Home's small library of classic literature. I read Tess of the D’Ubervilles last week (not recommended on a gloomy overcast day) and have started on Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.