I know that recent posts have not been particularly uplifting, and I apologize for that, but I'm hoping that today marks the low point of the trip, and that things start looking up from here. While today was not overtly horrible, a few salient points marked this being the nadir of my enthusiasm to be here.
The day dawned, once again, cold, wet, and windy. I had managed to get to bed around midnight, but as usual, my roommate's alarm went off at 6:30 so she could get up and talk with her boyfriend... as if she hadn't done so until 11:30 at night, too. I squeezed in another hour's worth of drowsing, but since it gets light at 4:30am, sleep was elusive. After a long, damp bus ride to school, the room where class was held was overly warm, and I literally fell asleep with my eyes open a time or two.
I made it through class, somehow, and went home to do grocery shopping and laundry, both of which went well. I found the frozen section in the local supermarket, and while our oven doesn't work (figures), it is possible to fry the heck out of chicken tenders, fish fillets and fries on the stovetop. So food-wise, I'm doing ok. I sat down to write out postcards, determined to actually mail said things while I'm in the country in question for once (my usual habit is to get the postcards wherever I am, then mail them once I get home). Despite my best intentions, however, when I pulled out my iPod to get people's addresses, I got an error on the screen and it froze.
After trying everything I could to revive my now useless hunk of electronics, I finally accepted the inevitable and reset it to factory settings. What does this mean? It means that all of my contacts, all of my addresses, and all of the music that has been keeping me sane throughout this trip... are gone. And since my laptop isn't big enough or fast enough to have held all of that as a backup, I am without 90% of my music until I get back to Colorado.
Earlier today, my (Russian) phone had rung- an almost unheard-of experience- and when I picked it up, a massive outpouring of Russian came through without so much as an "Allo?" to prepare me for it. After some confusion, I'd figured out that it was the repair guy who finally (after 2 weeks of doing heavens-knows-what) is getting around to wiring our apartment for internet. Right as my iPod kicked it, he knocked at the door and proceeded to drill a hole in the wall through which to run ethernet lines. Since Russian walls are solid material (i.e. not stud walls and sheetrock), this consisted of using a massive drill and a- no joke- 3 foot long drill bit. The noise it made would be a good place to start in attempts to wake the dead, and did nothing to help my attitude, nor did the pile of extremely offensive-smelling dust he left all over our freshly-cleaned floors (we finally got a cleaning lady, again, after 2 weeks).
What's more is that we can't even use the internet until we pay for it, which has to be done at school, and everything we've heard from people who do have theirs is that it's not much more reliable than the wireless I've been stealing. So once again, I find myself sitting at the Coffee House, listening to crappy music and eating ice cream in an attempt to salvage some part of today. I would really, really like to see the sun tomorrow and not have to fight for every scrap of beauty and efficiency. Here's hoping.
The day dawned, once again, cold, wet, and windy. I had managed to get to bed around midnight, but as usual, my roommate's alarm went off at 6:30 so she could get up and talk with her boyfriend... as if she hadn't done so until 11:30 at night, too. I squeezed in another hour's worth of drowsing, but since it gets light at 4:30am, sleep was elusive. After a long, damp bus ride to school, the room where class was held was overly warm, and I literally fell asleep with my eyes open a time or two.
I made it through class, somehow, and went home to do grocery shopping and laundry, both of which went well. I found the frozen section in the local supermarket, and while our oven doesn't work (figures), it is possible to fry the heck out of chicken tenders, fish fillets and fries on the stovetop. So food-wise, I'm doing ok. I sat down to write out postcards, determined to actually mail said things while I'm in the country in question for once (my usual habit is to get the postcards wherever I am, then mail them once I get home). Despite my best intentions, however, when I pulled out my iPod to get people's addresses, I got an error on the screen and it froze.
 |
| aka: I hate you. |
After trying everything I could to revive my now useless hunk of electronics, I finally accepted the inevitable and reset it to factory settings. What does this mean? It means that all of my contacts, all of my addresses, and all of the music that has been keeping me sane throughout this trip... are gone. And since my laptop isn't big enough or fast enough to have held all of that as a backup, I am without 90% of my music until I get back to Colorado.
Earlier today, my (Russian) phone had rung- an almost unheard-of experience- and when I picked it up, a massive outpouring of Russian came through without so much as an "Allo?" to prepare me for it. After some confusion, I'd figured out that it was the repair guy who finally (after 2 weeks of doing heavens-knows-what) is getting around to wiring our apartment for internet. Right as my iPod kicked it, he knocked at the door and proceeded to drill a hole in the wall through which to run ethernet lines. Since Russian walls are solid material (i.e. not stud walls and sheetrock), this consisted of using a massive drill and a- no joke- 3 foot long drill bit. The noise it made would be a good place to start in attempts to wake the dead, and did nothing to help my attitude, nor did the pile of extremely offensive-smelling dust he left all over our freshly-cleaned floors (we finally got a cleaning lady, again, after 2 weeks).
What's more is that we can't even use the internet until we pay for it, which has to be done at school, and everything we've heard from people who do have theirs is that it's not much more reliable than the wireless I've been stealing. So once again, I find myself sitting at the Coffee House, listening to crappy music and eating ice cream in an attempt to salvage some part of today. I would really, really like to see the sun tomorrow and not have to fight for every scrap of beauty and efficiency. Here's hoping.
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