From Russia With Dave - 4/14/2010

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.

From Russia With Dave - 1/16/2010

Well hello friends, been a while eh?  Maybe too long.  To catch up this'll be a long one.  So starting at the beginning since last time:

December 1st, the first day of winter is here in the north of Mother Russia.  And actually for St. Pete the weather is tolerable.  And by tolerable I mean around 40 degrees.  Let me tell you that 40 degrees feels like Bora Bora at this time of year.  Global warming is here folks run for your lives!  Not too much snow yet either.  My big, obnoxiously heavy, furry winter coat is still hanging on the coat rack where it belongs and my big clodhopper winter shoes are still snug underneath my bed, where I'm guessing it serves as a little house for the mouse I swear is doing something under there.  Probably starting a family.  On that same subject there is a rotten watermelon in our kitchen which has been sitting on the floor for at least 5 weeks and has now turned into something resembling a hatched Alien pod.  Maybe thats whats underneath my bed.  I'm having visions of John Hurt right now.

Anyway so whats been happening?  Well I was in Paris for a week with the girlfriend, her 2 girlfriends, and their 3 respective children, 2 girls and a boy, all 6 years old.  We all shared the same flat.  Sound exhausting?  Something bordering on the outskirts of hell?  Well it wasn't that bad but now I know what its like to take whiny children on vacation.  No thanks Dr. John.  We did go to Euro Disneyland though which was hilarious.  Only because every Disney character speaks French, which is hilarious.  Buzz Lightyear was the funniest, "To Infinity and Beyond" just doesn't sound as cool in French.  We also visited a waterpark in which I was forced, yes forced, to wear Speedos instead of my swim trunks.  Yes I had to buy Speedos, put them on, and walk out into public.  In Speedos.  Oh horror of horrors.  It was like Apocalypse Now except no Dennis Hopper.

What else?  I had my birthday on Dec. 14th.  Some of my classes were kind enough to get me gifts.  Besides the obligatory coffee mugs and men bathroom stuff, one class got me a bottle of vodka, a jar of pickles, a can of herring, and bread.  Either a traditional vodka snack or they're worried I'm not eating enough.  And another one of my classes actually made me something.  Yes, put time and effort into silkscreening me a T-shirt.  In this particular class I say "Crystal Clear" a lot.  As in "is that understood?  Is that clear?  Is that crystal clear?"  So, bless them, they made me shirt with a bunch of crystals on it which said Crystal Clear?  I've decided that Crystal Clear? is the new Got Milk?

So then I went home for a week for Xmas, after missing a couple flights and spending the night in indiscriminate airports of course.  When I left St. Pete everything was normal, it was snowing but just normally, nothing to write home about.  But when I returned after my week in the States I was shocked and awed into discovering the place had mutated into a veritable Matterhorn of snow (including that still-extremely-scary snow monster).  No seriously, the city was covered in mountains of snow.  It was amazing.  I then learned that during the week I was gone, St. Pete experienced its worst snow in 130 years!!  Yes, 130 years!!  The last time it snowed like this there was this strange and possibly devilish thing called "electricity" forcing its ways into the traditional lifestyle of everyday people.  The Soviets never saw snow like this.  So to sum up, there's a lot of snow everywhere.  A friend gave me present of a scarf, which is about 10 feet long, and after wrapping it around my neck about 6 times I look like the Michelin Man (you know that tire guy).  The trees have taken on a fantasy-like white color and its really beautiful here right now.  Winter wonderland.  And everybody has jolly red noses.

And then New Years happened here.  If you all remember from last year New Years here is like Xmas and New Years wrapped into one mega-holiday.  New Years is the day that Santa comes and presents are exchanged.  Except they don't call him Santa Claus here they call him "Grandfather Frost".  And he wears a long red robe (sometimes blue), and sometimes even carries a long scepter, which I want.  He also has a granddaughter which I think is just plain wrong.  I know that Santa has a Mrs. Claus but the thought of them producing children is just way beyond my already vivid imagination.  So I spent New Years with the girlfriend, her sister, her sisters boyfriend, and the daughter.  The boyfriend brought a bottle of whiskey along, which we both finished, which was hilarious.  I was feeling no pain when my girlfriend informed me we would be visiting her fathers house.  I had never met her father before and all that whiskey I drank had suddenly seemed to be a bad idea.  But it was okay because when we got there her father was drunk too, and had a big old thick mustache which I coldn't help but admire.  I forgot it was New Years and if anybody wasn't drunk it was because....well there was no reason for anybody not to be drunk.  This is Russia folks.  People drink.  So me and her father had a merry time.  He knew about 5 completely scattered English words and he spoke those to me all throughout the night, no matter what the topic of conversation was.  He was also extremely pleased to offer me an Israeli cigarette.  It was like a Japanese tea ceremony when he gave it to me.  This is Russia folks.  People smoke.  So then I woke up the next morning with a bad headache (caused by what I dont know) and found that my girlfriend had gone to work (when she works its for a 24 hr period) and I was in charge of babysitting her sick child all day and night.  Happy New Years Dave!

All of Russia shuts down for the first 10 days of January.  I'm guessing to give everyone enough time to recuperate.  Nobody works, nobody goes to school, everybody just freezes their ass off in the streets with a constant alcoholic beverage in their heavily-mittened hands.  My roommates were all gone, I had the place to myself, and the internet was down for the whole week.  Hell on earth?  Yes.  The antichrist is here and he's unplugging everyones internet.  By the way Russian landlords are not efficient people.  Just had to get that off my chest.  Actually everytime we go to pay rent we have to give it to this strange bald man who is either in a bathrobe or in head-to-toe leather biker gear.  It's genuinely scary.  Then we have to call 5 or 6 times the next week to remind him to turn on the internet.  The antichrist is here and he's dressed in bathrobes or head-to-toe leather biker gear.  And he has no hair.  And speaks Russian.  And is our landlord.  My God.

But now its back to work teaching classes.  The weather has improved a little but you never know what the next day will bring.  It'll either be just plain cold or....the worst snow in over 130 years.  One of those two.  When I told my classes I was in Los Angeles for a week everyone was shocked to hear that I was a little disappointed that it was about 60 degrees.  Most Russians would sell their next of kin into slavery for constant 60 degree weather.  They are also always interested in the types of questions I get and the attitudes Americans have about Russia.  Most Russians think that Americans think that there are vodka-drinking bears walking down the main streets of Russian cities.  Which I for one, wish was true.  I tell them that except for almost everything, America and Russia are a lot alike.  Just people dealing with their problems the best way they know how.  The difference being Russians just have so many more problems.  The main one being they live in Russia.  But come on I make it sound worse than it actually is.  Weird as it may sound I kinda like it here.  (Usually) Friendly, sad, deep, hospitable, no-nonsense people with a history of alcoholism who like to eat, drink, innertube down mountains, wear dark clothes, play strange musical instruments and go on vacation.  Russia.  Crystal Clear.

Til next time.