somewhere, beyond the sea: no James Bond movie title from me today

Today is Friday. I arrived in Russia on Monday. It’s amazing how much can be crammed into half a week. I suppose since I left on a Saturday night it’s almost been a week and there were plenty of experiences to be had on the journey. I got my first stamp on my passport, I watched Tommy Boy and Gladiator while waiting for flights, and I got to tell the Russian lady asking me to explain the information on her boarding pass, “I do not understand much Russian.” As she apologized and walked away, I couldn’t help but feel proud of myself.

So Monday. I moved my meager possessions into my room and Tanner gave me a tour of everything we can walk to in our little niche in Akademgorodok and for dinner we stopped and had some booz, a kind of spiced meat encased in a noodle with hot juices. I’m getting hungry just thinking about it.

On Tuesday, Tanner, Christian, and I went to a language hangout, where native speakers of many languages could mingle with people wanting to practice that language. Since I don’t speak much Russian, I planned to sit at the English table all night and make awkward small talk, but when I got up for a beer my seat was immediately filled, so I went to the German table and gave them some practice speaking slowly and telling me what word I meant to say. When I went to another English table, I felt like a celebrity with all the Russians asking me about America or my experience in Russia so far. I even got to rant about politics during my fifteen minutes of fame.

On Wednesday, I got to observe the beginner and advanced ESL classes. This coming week I will begin teaching the intermediate level, which I’ve been told is kind of a grab bag from both. Three or four people came up to me to introduce themselves and tell me they’ll be in the intermediate, so it’s easy to get excited.

On Thursday, I had my first actual Russian lesson. Three hours is a long time to be so focused on one task, but I love learning languages and I really want to be able to the grocery store without having to use Google Translate to pick out food and without being afraid of answering a simple question incorrectly. Actually, that happened to me on Wednesday. I stopped for a bite and I had answered the questions I was expecting to come up, but then the lady asked me another question. All I could think to say was, “I’m a foreigner,” and by her laughter I assume she already knew that. Turns out she was just asking if I wanted a napkin. I now have an irrational hatred of napkins.

Today, we took apart some furniture and added some stuff to our humble abode. I heard a couple times that my teacher thinks I’m a good student and stuff, so, whatever. That’s cool. I got some Kinder chocolate at the store. Someone left a guitar at the apartment, so I’ve been playing that almost every day in my downtime.

This turned out a bit longer than I was expecting, but this Zits comic sums up my feelings about editing:

In any case, that’s all I have. If you have questions, comments, well-wishes, or any sort of message, you can email me at ajkriegz@gmail.com or chat with me on google hangouts or text me at google voice. Thanks for reading!