As my father is (inordinately) fond of pointing out, there is nothing in life that you learn that does not come in handy at some point down the road. Yesterday was an excellent example of that, in a myriad of ways. Monday night was insanely hot, and I decided (at 3 am as I finally started to drift off to sleep) that I was only going to go in for the second half of Russian classes yesterday, if my sinuses had cleared up by then. They're not 100% healed, but I felt like I'd been a slacker for long enough, so off I went to school.
Well, off to try to go to school anyway. When I reached the elevators, the button was already lit, but no one was around. Odd, since they're usually fairly fast. After a while, however, it became apparent that the elevators were simply not working, so I had to find stairs. Russia, of course, does not bother with such niceties as "Emergency Exit" signs or "Stairs are this way" placards or anything like that. I put my "let's keep trying things until something works" skills to use, and found the stairs after a bit of searching. You had to go through the room where you dump garbage, out onto the balcony behind the building, and back into the building on the other side of the balcony, through a door that looked like it had last been used back when the Romanovs were still in power.
Descending nine flights of horror-movie-quality stairs, I found out that the fire alarm is going off on the first floor (which may have explained the random, hurried knock on the door at 7 am... glad it wasn't a real fire!), which is why the elevators weren't working. Shrugging that off as typically Russian, I walked outside and was halfway to the bus station before I realized that the reason things were fuzzy and brighter than normal is because I'd left my glasses back in the apartment. Having no desire to trudge back up said nine flights of stairs, however, I called upon my ability to extrapolate reality from fuzzy perception (as explained in this post, and backed up by 12 years of refusing to get glasses), and made it to class in one piece and on time.
The classroom was sweltering, despite the fact that I was wearing short sleeves and shorts, so I decided to go for a walk and get some shopping done after class was over, despite being relatively unable to see. I found out that photographic memory works even when one's vision isn't the best, and made it across to the mainland and into a shop that I'd wanted to check out before, then down once again to Dom Knigi (I'm a book nerd, what can I say) where I was able to practice my Russian in learning that they didn't stock more videos of a series I want. Oh well. Despite having been in the 90s for the last few days (and nights), clouds had rolled in, dropping the temperature by 15 degrees when I left the store. Providence smiled on me, however, and just as I was passing a bus stop, the one line that goes that far into the city from my island pulled up, and I was able to jump aboard.
Once home, I found out that the laundry place is closed until the fourth of August, something that would have required some inventive dressing on my part as the days passed. Back when I was working the Virginia Ren Faire, though, one of the "peasant" jobs that a friend and I had to do daily was washing clothes in the river. While I'm not too keen on the thought of washing clothes in the Neva after it's passed through St Pete's, I was able to shove a rag in the bathtub drain (heaven forbid they give us a stopper or anything like that), and wash my clothes that way. There are already lines hanging in the kitchen, since Russia isn't big on using dryers, so I opened all the windows and hung everything up.
While I didn't get everything done yesterday that I wanted to, mostly due to lack of clear vision, I still felt pretty accomplished. There's less than a week left in this insane country, but I have clean clothes, I feel more confident in my ability to navigate, even half-blind, and to communicate my wishes and actually understand what is said. I'm not saying that I have any deeper appreciation for the blunt, almost rude manner of speaking that's prevalent in this country, but at least I can function. Five more days til I can return to normality!
Update: As I finished writing this, it became apparent that they've turned off our hot water. Keep an eye on the newspapers, I may be there if this doesn't change.
Well, off to try to go to school anyway. When I reached the elevators, the button was already lit, but no one was around. Odd, since they're usually fairly fast. After a while, however, it became apparent that the elevators were simply not working, so I had to find stairs. Russia, of course, does not bother with such niceties as "Emergency Exit" signs or "Stairs are this way" placards or anything like that. I put my "let's keep trying things until something works" skills to use, and found the stairs after a bit of searching. You had to go through the room where you dump garbage, out onto the balcony behind the building, and back into the building on the other side of the balcony, through a door that looked like it had last been used back when the Romanovs were still in power.
 |
| Not creepy AT ALL... |
Descending nine flights of horror-movie-quality stairs, I found out that the fire alarm is going off on the first floor (which may have explained the random, hurried knock on the door at 7 am... glad it wasn't a real fire!), which is why the elevators weren't working. Shrugging that off as typically Russian, I walked outside and was halfway to the bus station before I realized that the reason things were fuzzy and brighter than normal is because I'd left my glasses back in the apartment. Having no desire to trudge back up said nine flights of stairs, however, I called upon my ability to extrapolate reality from fuzzy perception (as explained in this post, and backed up by 12 years of refusing to get glasses), and made it to class in one piece and on time.
The classroom was sweltering, despite the fact that I was wearing short sleeves and shorts, so I decided to go for a walk and get some shopping done after class was over, despite being relatively unable to see. I found out that photographic memory works even when one's vision isn't the best, and made it across to the mainland and into a shop that I'd wanted to check out before, then down once again to Dom Knigi (I'm a book nerd, what can I say) where I was able to practice my Russian in learning that they didn't stock more videos of a series I want. Oh well. Despite having been in the 90s for the last few days (and nights), clouds had rolled in, dropping the temperature by 15 degrees when I left the store. Providence smiled on me, however, and just as I was passing a bus stop, the one line that goes that far into the city from my island pulled up, and I was able to jump aboard.
Once home, I found out that the laundry place is closed until the fourth of August, something that would have required some inventive dressing on my part as the days passed. Back when I was working the Virginia Ren Faire, though, one of the "peasant" jobs that a friend and I had to do daily was washing clothes in the river. While I'm not too keen on the thought of washing clothes in the Neva after it's passed through St Pete's, I was able to shove a rag in the bathtub drain (heaven forbid they give us a stopper or anything like that), and wash my clothes that way. There are already lines hanging in the kitchen, since Russia isn't big on using dryers, so I opened all the windows and hung everything up.
While I didn't get everything done yesterday that I wanted to, mostly due to lack of clear vision, I still felt pretty accomplished. There's less than a week left in this insane country, but I have clean clothes, I feel more confident in my ability to navigate, even half-blind, and to communicate my wishes and actually understand what is said. I'm not saying that I have any deeper appreciation for the blunt, almost rude manner of speaking that's prevalent in this country, but at least I can function. Five more days til I can return to normality!
Update: As I finished writing this, it became apparent that they've turned off our hot water. Keep an eye on the newspapers, I may be there if this doesn't change.
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