Bye Rudolph and Movie

When you are abroad goodbyes are probably the worst things ever. You know, more or less, that you will never see the person again. It is just a terrible experience.

So Rudolph left. He is probably the best Swiss 70 (something) year old retired music teacher that has ever existed. He is like the sweetest person ever. He he just too adorable. There is nothing better than talking about music in Russian. At least I know all my instruments!

So obviously we had a goodbye party for him. Everyone got together after class and went to a Russian restaurant. It was quite delicious. You can get a whole salad bar for 250 rubles. That is what 7 dollar? Freaking fantastic. We all just cracked jokes. Eel Pun (I love butchering Asian names) tried aspic. Flipped out. Was quite entertaining to watch. Neither one of us knew what it was, obviously I know by now not to try anything that I don't know. I was safe! He was intrigued by the gelliness to it. If no one know what Aspic is, it is a soup where you put in bones and meat and let the bones settle so that the water from the soup can solidify into like a gel like substance. Quite disgusting if you ask me. So for the rest of the night, that was the joke. They even have fish aspic. who knew? very salty apparently.

After dinner Rudolph paid for everyone's dessert. No joke. There were like 20 people there. How fantastic. Then everyone said bye and I walked with him to the metro. Of course you can have like a whole conversation about your life going down the escalators in St. Pete. Rudolph and I chatted a little. Told me I was like his daughter (don't know if he meant a daughter or like-in personality- to his actually daughter) regardless I almost cried. Then I said bye to him and got upset. one more month and that is me, saying goodbye to the best Taiwanese every! how sad.

Saturday was boring so on to Sunday. I saw the 2012 in Russian. Yeah I have been waiting to see this movie for like a year. And the first time I see it, I see it in Russian. The worst part, understood every minute of it. Not persay conversational wise, but it was SOOOO cliche that I actually caught on to everything that was happening. It probably is better in Russian just for that reason, keep the cliche down to a min. Special effects were good, dubbing was AMAZING!, everything I could of asked for and more. So Jessica and I decided to wake up early to see the movie. Russian movie theaters work like this: the morning movies are cheapest and it gets progressively more expensive towards the end of the day. So at 10 am tickets are 40 rubles and at 8pm tickets are 300 rubles. Yeah, its that much of a difference. Also you get assigned seats. Who ever heard of that concept. I am forced into watching a movie in one particular spot. So not cool! The movie theater only fit 82 people too (yes I counted). When we went, I think it was 11:15, the tickets were 150 rubles. Not to bad. the popcorn was 180 rubles. HILARIOUS, that is the only way to describe it. Good popcorn, but should it be more than the movie, I think not.

After the movie Jessica and I decided to walk around. I wanted to finally go to the Ethnography Museum, but forgot where it was. We got lost, and finally decided to give up. Of course when we had a new plan of action, we found it. Damn St. Pete for being so god damn big. Jessica wanted to go all the way to some far off place to see a football (soccer) stadium. Apparently this stadium is made out of mud and is so close to the water that is isn't inhabitable. Half of the year the ground is frozen over. Poor thing, sounds like Russian construction at its finest though. So we get there, its getting dark (will discuss that later) and we find out they are actually rebuilding the stadium. ooops, time to sleep. hahahaha.


Yes, lets talk about weather in Russia. First off, it is quite warm for this time of the year. It is still in the plus side of the Celsius scale. Every day it is between 3 and 5 degrees Celsius (Moscow is between 6 and 10). Quite disgustingly warm. I put away my winter coat. I wore it for a whole week and found it to be too warm. I am still in a nice light jacket. Also, my days are getting soooo short. How short? well it gets light (no sun) around 10am and gets dark around 3pm. Yep. Talk about me wanting to sleep constantly. I am going to come home and my brain is not going to first comprehend the warmth and sun and then not comprehend the long days. days can be longer than 6 hours? really?

Random things that have been going on:

1) host father says that the scary homeless people by the metro work for the Mafia. Don't know if i believe that, but that is quite interesting to hear. I think it is just some random thing he has been fed his whole life. If it is true, hmmm, weird. According to him, it makes quite a revenue too. Definitely don't believe that.

2) If anyone didn't hear, there was a terrorist attack on a train going from St. Pete to Moscow. a bomb under the train blew up, 26 people died. Pretty horrendous. Kinda scares me. It was an upper class train, went from St. Pete to Moscow in 4 hours instead of the usual 9, but still. You sometimes forget people hate eachother, and just get wrapped up in other things. I kinda don't feel safe, I mean I am obviously safe, but still scary scary.

3)everything can be explained by Hofstede's 5 dimensions of cultural differences. For those that don't know (and I believe none of you do know) these dimensions are: Uncertainty avoidance, Power Distance, Masculinity vs. Femininity, individual vs collectivism, and long term orientation. So from these 5 dimensions (establish in the '60s), you can infer everything. I mean marketing is explained by these forces, as well as internationalization of companies and even accounting. Yes, government regulations are explained by Hofstede's 5 dimensions. If you having picked up on it by now, I am completely against these forces. They were created in the '60s before the fall of the Soviet Union, the collapse of the Berlin Wall, 9/11, etc. And Russia still believes that all these forces and how each countries ranks within the forces are correct. Hmmmm. I have every force memorized along with Porter's 5 forces of competition and Dunning's OLI Paradigm. Did I mention that Russia loves theories.

4) I can now say that I know everything about Thailand. For the past week my host father has been showing me all his videos from every visit to Thailand. He has about 3 tapes per trip. It is so cute, he films everything. He filmed the bedroom, showed me the toilet and his fascination with fans on the ceiling (tehehehe), he showed me the pretty elevator in his hotel and every car ride. I felt like I was in Thailand. Nothing like filming nothingness while in a car for 20 minutes. He also loves 7-11. If anyone didn't know, they apparently have 7-11s in Thailand. Interesting! It is priceless, but I love the interaction. I get annoyed when I am actually going through it, but when I look back at it I am like wow that was fun. I get to practice my Russian while hearing about my host father's experience.

5)My Russian is still terrible, horrendous, a sorry excuse for anything, but I am constantly talking. I think it is the best way to actually get something accomplished. No one starts out being correct when learning a language. Of course Jessica is already being told that she has perfect grammar and she has only been studying the language for 1 year 10 months. Makes me want to cry, but push myself more. Of course my actual accent sucks. I am really only talking to Asian people all day. I get most of my studying done with them, and learn new things. I think I can comprehend an Asian speaking Russian more than a Russian speaking Russian. sad.

that is all for know. Love you all!