Hello again friends!
I will make up for lack of quantity with length. So I’ll give you a minute to get ready. Stretch out your back, hold all calls, turn the TV down, tell your friend or colleague you don’t care who they saw at Chipotle.
…
Ok here we go.
So its March (at least it was when I started this damn thing). Which means spring right? Spring. That wonderful time of year when trees blossom, flowers grow, people fall in love, everythings good, everyones happy….right? …..WRONG. Spring means the 130 year snowstorm that hit St. Pete has turned into the 130 year puddle. That’s right. The snow which was last seen by Benjamin Franklins peers has melted and the whole city is one giant puddle. Which is worse than snow. God forbid anybody walk around here in expensive shoes. Or expensive clothes for that matter. It’s all one big puddle. But surely a city of over a million people like St. Pete should have a decent drainage and sewer system right? Or at least a waste disposal organization which has in its best interests the public good? Haha. Please, Californians, enjoy what you have. The level of unbelievable convenience you have really is an unbelievable blessing. So, what’s the situation here. The situation is the snowiest winter in a century has melted leaving the city and its inhabitants basically in an unprecedented dilemma. And Russians are not especially adept at dealing with dilemmas. The answer to most problems here is to light another cigarette and switch from the small shot glass to the large shot glass. So the snow has melted on the street, yes, but what about the roofs? By the way, what’s the plural of roof: roofs or rooves? I don’t know, and by consequence none of my students know either. But as I say whenever I don’t know the answer to a question about English: “whatever sounds right is the right answer.” For example when they ask: why is it “leave the keys on the table” instead of “stay the keys on the table”, I say it’s not “stay your keys on the table” because it sounds weird. Then I follow it up with a rule: if it sounds weird, don’t say it. I think that’s the basic rule of all languages: if it sounds weird, don’t say it.
So where was I? Oh yeah, the snow is melting and turning the city into the La Brea Tar Pits, except instead of dinosaurs and saber-tooth Tigers getting trapped it’s 80-year old babushkas in wooden shoes, which if seen from far away you might mistake them for a giant walking Coke can, but with less teeth. That’s the thing about Russian women. In the springtime of their lives they are unmatched in beauty (and feistiness), but in the winter time of their lives they suddenly, inexplicably, disastererously turn into hunchbacked walking Coke cans. There is no in-between. One day they’re Miss Universe, the next day they’ve fallen and they can’t get up. Just don’t try and take that cigarette from their lips or they’ll give you a scolding which’ll send you back to…well, Russia.
But I digress again. So the city’s underwater, let’s talk about the roofs (or rooves). Or I guess the correct word here would be ceiling. I live on the top floor of an extremely old building with an extremely old ceiling. This old ceiling has been badly damaged over the years but instead of fixing it they just put in a makeshift ceiling underneath the original. You know one of those office ceilings with the removable tiles and whatnot. To make a long story short when the snow melted from the roof of our building, all the water basically just poured into my room, taking down a quarter of the makeshift ceiling with it. This happened in the dead of night while I was peacefully trying to slumber. I awoke with a bang and saw this catastrophe before me. The old ceiling was exposed and looked something like a cross between Bleu cheese which has been left in the sun for a month and the surface of the moon. The wallpaper came along with it. Our antichrist landlord sends his sincerest apologies and says it’s the responsibility of the municipal authorities to fix it. Which basically means your on your own pal. We have gotten a discount on rent and actually I’ve gotten quite accustomed to my new surroundings here. My Russian room looks like a modern art display. I call it “Russian Room”.
Another tell-tale sign that you live in Russia: you can’t go to work because some strange man tried to enter your flat using the wrong key, which then got stuck, which then took 4 hours to get free. Yes, I was in my flat just about ready to leave for class, when I heard somebody trying to unlock our door. I looked in the keyhole, didn’t recognize him, then told him in English to get his key out of the door (which there’s no chance he understood a word of what I was saying). He started cursing and trying to pull the key out but to no avail. Then he went downstairs to get our little old chain-smoking maintenance lady who likewise started cursing and trying to yank the key out. Then they both left and never returned and I was trapped in my flat. My roommates were both at work so I was pretty much stuck. I called in to cancel my class, and funnily enough nobody sounded surprised when I told them the reason I couldn’t work today. “Yeah, sorry, I can’t come to work today there’s a key stuck in my door and I can’t leave.” I broke a couple knives trying to lodge it out but it was stuck and stuck good. My roommates finally came home, they couldn’t get it out, they called our landlord, and of course the main maintenance guy of the building was on vacation. So we had to resort to calling in some weird specialist who arrived about an hour later with a tool which looked like Arnold Schwarzeneggar’s gun in Predator. Frighteningly loud noises and vibrating doors ensued and finally the key emerged. Just another day here in the land of plenty.
Ok, so now its mid-April and the good news is the weather has turned, the city has dried out (for the most part) and I’m enjoying sometimes sunny 45-50 degree weather here, which feels like a balmy tropical paradise. I was in Prague for a week, which coincidentally was at the same time president Obama and Russian president Medvedev were there signing some nuclear treaty. Spent some time in a hotel with the parents and then in hostels filled with filthy Australians. Those Australians are everywhere. My girlfriend had her 30th birthday dinner and I made a lovely toast to her entirely in the Russian language, then afterwards we went to a club and I made a mockery of myself by drunkenly surrounding myself with every girl there except the birthday girl. She wasn’t too happy about that. Hell hath no fury like an angry Russian girlfriend. Good God. But everything’s fine now, I guess. Nothing a bouquet of flowers can’t fix. Have I mentioned the Russian females obsession with flowers? Well, they’re obsessed. There’s all sorts of rules about the number and colors of flowers to give. For example, never give a Russian lady an even number of flowers (which are for dead people) or of the yellow color (which are the “goodbye forever” flowers). There are literally flower stands on every corner here, sometimes more. Flowers everywhere.
And last story before I leave you all. Flashback about six months ago I was in a pub and some Finnish girls called me over to sit with them. I dutifully obliged and started talking with them. A few minutes later some old man inexplicably came over and started talking with them too. Who was this guy? I whispered to one of these girls that this “creepy old man” should go away. The old man heard me and got offended. “I might be old,” he said, “but I’m not creepy.” His anger started escalating and I felt it best to leave before people started breaking beer bottles to use them as knives. Now come back to the present. I’m at the same pub with a friend of mine. We’re talking at a table and my friend recognizes someone she knows and calls him over. To my horror it’s the exact same creepy old man I just told you about. We’re talking and it seems as if he doesn’t remember me and I let him not remember. And now the kicker. I asked him what he’s doing here in St. Pete and he answered to my utter surprise “I’m the General Director of Ford Motor Company”… !!!!... Haha. I called the general director of Ford a creepy old man and got away with it. Only in Russia.
Well that’s all. The days here are getting longer. Gets dark at about 10pm now. I included some pictures below. Until next time, whenever that might be.
p.s. you know in an email address people say “at” for @ right? Not here. Russians say “sabaka” for @. What does “sabaka” mean? Dog. Russians say “dog” for @. Say your email using dog, it’s a guaranteed laugh. My email address would read as “daveray four dog gmail dot com.” Ok bye.
I will make up for lack of quantity with length. So I’ll give you a minute to get ready. Stretch out your back, hold all calls, turn the TV down, tell your friend or colleague you don’t care who they saw at Chipotle.
…
Ok here we go.
So its March (at least it was when I started this damn thing). Which means spring right? Spring. That wonderful time of year when trees blossom, flowers grow, people fall in love, everythings good, everyones happy….right? …..WRONG. Spring means the 130 year snowstorm that hit St. Pete has turned into the 130 year puddle. That’s right. The snow which was last seen by Benjamin Franklins peers has melted and the whole city is one giant puddle. Which is worse than snow. God forbid anybody walk around here in expensive shoes. Or expensive clothes for that matter. It’s all one big puddle. But surely a city of over a million people like St. Pete should have a decent drainage and sewer system right? Or at least a waste disposal organization which has in its best interests the public good? Haha. Please, Californians, enjoy what you have. The level of unbelievable convenience you have really is an unbelievable blessing. So, what’s the situation here. The situation is the snowiest winter in a century has melted leaving the city and its inhabitants basically in an unprecedented dilemma. And Russians are not especially adept at dealing with dilemmas. The answer to most problems here is to light another cigarette and switch from the small shot glass to the large shot glass. So the snow has melted on the street, yes, but what about the roofs? By the way, what’s the plural of roof: roofs or rooves? I don’t know, and by consequence none of my students know either. But as I say whenever I don’t know the answer to a question about English: “whatever sounds right is the right answer.” For example when they ask: why is it “leave the keys on the table” instead of “stay the keys on the table”, I say it’s not “stay your keys on the table” because it sounds weird. Then I follow it up with a rule: if it sounds weird, don’t say it. I think that’s the basic rule of all languages: if it sounds weird, don’t say it.
So where was I? Oh yeah, the snow is melting and turning the city into the La Brea Tar Pits, except instead of dinosaurs and saber-tooth Tigers getting trapped it’s 80-year old babushkas in wooden shoes, which if seen from far away you might mistake them for a giant walking Coke can, but with less teeth. That’s the thing about Russian women. In the springtime of their lives they are unmatched in beauty (and feistiness), but in the winter time of their lives they suddenly, inexplicably, disastererously turn into hunchbacked walking Coke cans. There is no in-between. One day they’re Miss Universe, the next day they’ve fallen and they can’t get up. Just don’t try and take that cigarette from their lips or they’ll give you a scolding which’ll send you back to…well, Russia.
But I digress again. So the city’s underwater, let’s talk about the roofs (or rooves). Or I guess the correct word here would be ceiling. I live on the top floor of an extremely old building with an extremely old ceiling. This old ceiling has been badly damaged over the years but instead of fixing it they just put in a makeshift ceiling underneath the original. You know one of those office ceilings with the removable tiles and whatnot. To make a long story short when the snow melted from the roof of our building, all the water basically just poured into my room, taking down a quarter of the makeshift ceiling with it. This happened in the dead of night while I was peacefully trying to slumber. I awoke with a bang and saw this catastrophe before me. The old ceiling was exposed and looked something like a cross between Bleu cheese which has been left in the sun for a month and the surface of the moon. The wallpaper came along with it. Our antichrist landlord sends his sincerest apologies and says it’s the responsibility of the municipal authorities to fix it. Which basically means your on your own pal. We have gotten a discount on rent and actually I’ve gotten quite accustomed to my new surroundings here. My Russian room looks like a modern art display. I call it “Russian Room”.
Another tell-tale sign that you live in Russia: you can’t go to work because some strange man tried to enter your flat using the wrong key, which then got stuck, which then took 4 hours to get free. Yes, I was in my flat just about ready to leave for class, when I heard somebody trying to unlock our door. I looked in the keyhole, didn’t recognize him, then told him in English to get his key out of the door (which there’s no chance he understood a word of what I was saying). He started cursing and trying to pull the key out but to no avail. Then he went downstairs to get our little old chain-smoking maintenance lady who likewise started cursing and trying to yank the key out. Then they both left and never returned and I was trapped in my flat. My roommates were both at work so I was pretty much stuck. I called in to cancel my class, and funnily enough nobody sounded surprised when I told them the reason I couldn’t work today. “Yeah, sorry, I can’t come to work today there’s a key stuck in my door and I can’t leave.” I broke a couple knives trying to lodge it out but it was stuck and stuck good. My roommates finally came home, they couldn’t get it out, they called our landlord, and of course the main maintenance guy of the building was on vacation. So we had to resort to calling in some weird specialist who arrived about an hour later with a tool which looked like Arnold Schwarzeneggar’s gun in Predator. Frighteningly loud noises and vibrating doors ensued and finally the key emerged. Just another day here in the land of plenty.
Ok, so now its mid-April and the good news is the weather has turned, the city has dried out (for the most part) and I’m enjoying sometimes sunny 45-50 degree weather here, which feels like a balmy tropical paradise. I was in Prague for a week, which coincidentally was at the same time president Obama and Russian president Medvedev were there signing some nuclear treaty. Spent some time in a hotel with the parents and then in hostels filled with filthy Australians. Those Australians are everywhere. My girlfriend had her 30th birthday dinner and I made a lovely toast to her entirely in the Russian language, then afterwards we went to a club and I made a mockery of myself by drunkenly surrounding myself with every girl there except the birthday girl. She wasn’t too happy about that. Hell hath no fury like an angry Russian girlfriend. Good God. But everything’s fine now, I guess. Nothing a bouquet of flowers can’t fix. Have I mentioned the Russian females obsession with flowers? Well, they’re obsessed. There’s all sorts of rules about the number and colors of flowers to give. For example, never give a Russian lady an even number of flowers (which are for dead people) or of the yellow color (which are the “goodbye forever” flowers). There are literally flower stands on every corner here, sometimes more. Flowers everywhere.
And last story before I leave you all. Flashback about six months ago I was in a pub and some Finnish girls called me over to sit with them. I dutifully obliged and started talking with them. A few minutes later some old man inexplicably came over and started talking with them too. Who was this guy? I whispered to one of these girls that this “creepy old man” should go away. The old man heard me and got offended. “I might be old,” he said, “but I’m not creepy.” His anger started escalating and I felt it best to leave before people started breaking beer bottles to use them as knives. Now come back to the present. I’m at the same pub with a friend of mine. We’re talking at a table and my friend recognizes someone she knows and calls him over. To my horror it’s the exact same creepy old man I just told you about. We’re talking and it seems as if he doesn’t remember me and I let him not remember. And now the kicker. I asked him what he’s doing here in St. Pete and he answered to my utter surprise “I’m the General Director of Ford Motor Company”… !!!!... Haha. I called the general director of Ford a creepy old man and got away with it. Only in Russia.
Well that’s all. The days here are getting longer. Gets dark at about 10pm now. I included some pictures below. Until next time, whenever that might be.
p.s. you know in an email address people say “at” for @ right? Not here. Russians say “sabaka” for @. What does “sabaka” mean? Dog. Russians say “dog” for @. Say your email using dog, it’s a guaranteed laugh. My email address would read as “daveray four dog gmail dot com.” Ok bye.
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