We made it to St. Petersburg...

...and on a semi-airconditioned sleeper train (what a pleasant surprise to
have cool air in the cabins!). We had a long day-- in fact, it's the SAME
day, actually-- in getting here. The train left on time from Moscow at
12:50 am. Most of the students got a good night's sleep; I, on the other
hand, didn't sleep at all (like last time). We got into St. Petersburg at
8:45 am, but couldn't check into the hotel yet, so we had breakfast there at
9:45 and then went on am incredibly fast tour of The Hermitage museum, where
it was warm and there were crowds amd we were all starting to spoil a
little, given the last showers we all had were before 9 am yesterday. After
that, we had some free time to wander around the center of the city-- the
weather here is gorgeous! It's like fall in Texas-- cool (low 70s), low
humidity, clear skies, and a breeze. Our hotel is right on the river Neva,
though about 8 or 9 miles east of the city's center. It's kind of sitting
all by itself; there are no Metro stations, Internet cafes, or coffee shops
(all necessities) within walking distance! I am writing this at 9:45 pm
from inside am Imternet cafe in downtown St. Pete-- some of the students,
the tour director, and I walked about 2 miles or so to a Metro station just
to get to this place.

The hotel is, otherwise, nice enough. The best thing that happened to me
today was a hot shower at 5:30 pm (it took that long before we could get
checked in). But the weather is cool enough that sleeping with an open
window should be comfortable enough. And the view of the Neva River from my
window is awesome!

While we were waiting around at the other hotel last night, Stepahine,
Katie, and I bowled (Abigail watched and Justin was hanging out with some of
the other kids) in the alley (in the hotel). It was fun and we learned that
the only place you can find a couch in the hotel is in the bowling alley.
That's where you sit to put on your bowling shoes...

So, for me, it's been another 30+ hours with no sleep. And since we're
smack-dab in the middle of the White Nights, I doubt I'll be in bed before
midnight.

Tomorrow we'll either be on a bus tour that we didn't pay for ahead of time
or, if we can't pay now, our group will be setting out on our own walking
tour of the city. Monday, we have a bus tour of the city, followed by a
canal/river ride, and I think some of the kids expressed an interest in
seeing the ballet Swan Lake tomorrow night. Not me-- we're leaving the
hotel for the airport at 4 am on Tuesday, so I'm going to try to get as much
sleep as possible. Tuesday promises to be another extremely LONG day.

Everyone is fine here and having a good time. And for you parents that knew
about the nice card and enclosed gift card for me from my "Russia Kids" (as
they referred to themselves), that was an EXTREMELY UNWARRANTED, but very
touching gesture-- your kids are THE BEST and I have gotten compliments from
the other adults about them.

Talk to you again once or twice, hopefully, before we depart for home...

E.B.

Which is worse...

...at 10:30 pm-- fireworks or an incessant barking dog outside your window?
Even in a room 16 stories up, the fireworks (in celebration of yesterday's
holiday) shot off at 10:30 last night RIGHT NEXT to the hotel sounded like a
war zone (and sure were bright and colorful)! But for 15 minutes or so,
they silenced the barking puppy that hangs out near the front of the hotel.
The barking and yipping starts up at sunrise (3:30-ish) and just goes and
goes. We could have shut our windows to drown out the noise...but then we'd
have suffocated... Besides that, the guy with the accordian outside across
the street that starts up around 9 really lessens the dog's barking, anyway,
so...

We had to check out of the hotel at 9 am-- even though it's now 4:30 pm and
I'm writing this from the Internet cafe inside the hotel-- because we're
leaving for St. Petersburg on the night (sleeper) train at 1 am. For most
of the day today, we were at the Sergeiv Posad monastery (with a lunch break
at, dare I write this, McDonald's; a Russian McDonald's is in itself a
cultural experience). Now we're temporarily homeless (really only roomless)
until we get to St. Petersburg. We have dinner here at the hotel at 7 pm,
followed by 3 and half hours of hang time before the bus takes us to the
train station. The train will arrive in St. Pete at about 8 or 8:30, and
we'll take a bus to the hotel, then immediately go for a bus tour of the
city. Based on my last (and first and only, really) experience with the
Moscow-St. Pete sleeper train, I'll be up for a good 30+ hours before I can
truly crash in the hotel tomorrow night. The sleeper cars have cabins for 4
persons each with VERY little ventilation and submarine-sized bunks. On top
of the cramped quarters, we'll have to stow our honkin'-big suitcases in
there with us... But, as I told my students, it's another cultural thing
that they have to do while they're here to get the bragging rights. I'm
sure that, like everything else, it'll make for some good stories upon
return home!

So all is well for this small American group from Texas in Russia, marrooned
for the time as we may be...

Talk to you again from St. Petersburg! (Where DUSHNO will likely no longer
be the Word of the Day!)

Poka!

E.B.

When we got to Red Square this morning...

...it was closed! Really. For a World War II commemoration.

We left the hotel this morning early with the Houston group (the other two
groups are kind of stand-off-ish; in fact, the one from South Carolina is
all adults) and Metro-ed to Red Square and were met by oodles of cops and
soldiers-- after I spoke with one of the policemen, we changed course, got
back on a train and went to the huge children's store Detskiy Mir to look
around and then to the Arbat (big touristy shopping boulevard), where we
wandered from one end to the other, stopping for an hour or so for lunch at
the Hard Rock Cafe (not my personal choice or preference-- too many loud and
obnoxious Americans and English-speaking waitstaff--but, sometimes you just
have to go along with the majority) where I had a $10 BLT...

While on the Arbat, Justin (my sole male student) was targeted by a
picpocket who bumped him and checked his back pocket-- fortunately for him
(not the pickpocket), his pockets were empty (as they were supposed to be).
We tell the kids, boys especially, to carry money, passport, etc. in their
front pockets. Just another cultural experience for the group!

After the Arbat, we returned to the hotel for a short break (I took a cold
shower-- remember, DUSHNO), we hit the outdoor shopping area adjacent to the
hotel to look around. Some of the kids bought a gift or two and we got
caught in a small thundershower while there. Most of the students aren't
too enamored with the food selections presented at our free meals, but other
than that, things seem to be moving along.

Tomorrow we have to check out of the hotel by 9 am., then we'll be
travelling to Sergeev Posad
(http://www.avrora.biz/golden_ring/city/14.html), which will be an all day
trip. We'll be on the bus to the train station to go to St. Petrersburg at
10:30 pm; the train leaves at 1 am and gets into St. Pete at 8:30.

So, guess that's it for now...

Poka from Moscow!

E.B.

The Cathedral of the Archangel Michael

I meant to mention this in the DUSHNO email...

While we were inside the Kremlin yesterday, we visited this church-- inside
there are remains (coffins/sarcophagi) of past tsars and grand dukes back to
the mid-1300s. While we were there, there were four guys dressed sort of
like priests or priests-to-be (but were neither) inside who are part of a
choir that sang for us a capella. The song was very beautiful, very moving,
especially given the accoustics. The were "selling" a CD of their
Orthodox-style choir music for a donation, so I got one (to play during
exams at school, just to haunt my students). It was really an experience to
be in the churches were tsars were baptized, coronated, and laid to rest--
in three different churches that open to Cathedral Square in the middle of
the Kremlin. I wish I'd had more time to really look around more, but we
were on a tight schedule, so, given the time constraint, I think we saw a
lot. If you'd like to see a little more about this part of our visit to
Russia, there is encapsulated, easy-to-digest info about it on this web
page: http://www.geographia.com/russia/moscow02.htm

And a footnote to yesterday's visit to Red Square: One of my students,
Stephanie, who is African-American, got more than a little attention as we
were taking pictures on Red Square! Stephanie, who is a very pretty young
lady, was asked by two guys if they could have their picture taken with her.
And another guy who was just taking pictures in general, surreptitiously
snapped one of her. I guess we must have looked a little strange to them (I
in my MHS Russian Club t-shirt walking along with 5 teenagers, 4 girls and 1
boy). Inasmuch as Stephanie may be a novelty to them (this happened with a
professor from UT in 2004 who REALLY suprised the natives as an
African-American woman who is conversant in Russian!), I really want to tell
the next rubbernecker that she not only knows a little Russian, but she
could also whoop 'em in chess!... Stephanie is a rated player, for those of
you who don't know).

Anyway. I think that, with Alex' (one of my students) disk reader, I may be
able to get a picture or two out soon... So stay tuned!

Poka!

E.B.

Doooooosh-na!

Your Russian word for the day is DUSHNO (pronounced DOOSH-nah) and it means
stuffy, as in hot and humid and little air circulation... That's what the
weather has been like. Partly cloudy, but hazy and DUSHNO. We were
sweating like you wouldn't believe yesterday and the rooms are kind of warm,
so a cool/cold shower feels pretty good. It actually rained here last night
for about 15 minutes.

I got a knock on the door at 10:30 pm and there were my students, back from
the circus safe and sound. I still don't know how I got left behind
(however, there was an apology note from our tour director slipped under my
door that I found this morning)-- I guess if I'm the only one to get
misplaced or lost here, that's better than a student (the rule still holds,
though-- as long as I come back with at least four of them, this trip will
have been a success!)...

We're going to wander today... More later.

Poka!

E.B.

Eventful Day

Today I was up at 3:45 am (after finally getting to bed and to sleep just
before midnight-- damn jet-lag!) and decided to just say the heck with it
and took a shower and wandered down to the 24-hour cafe. Actually, the sun
was up when I was awakened by the sound of yipping dogs just before 4 am.
That and the heat in my hotel room (no a/c and just one skinny little window
that I had open as wide as possible) made for a less-than-perfect first
night for us all, though most of the students got some sleep.

We took a bus tour (IT had great a/c) of Moscow, stopping for pictures at a
few places along the way before going into the Kremlin. I didn't get in
when I was here 2 years ago, so it was a pretty interesting experience for
me. The students enjoyed it, too. We took some pictures there and in Red
Square, so sooner or later I'll send some along. These computers don't seem
to support my camera's microdisk without a cable I didn't bring, so...

The students got their Metro (subway) wings this afternoon when we returned
from Red Square to our hotel by metro-- it took a little longer than it
needed to because I wasn't sure of our exit (we ended up two stops too far,
but made it back okay); they got a good dose of the tepid metro cars, crowds
in the stations, and tricky card reader machines (on the entrance
turnstiles).

Oddly enough, though, I'm here in the hotel alone at 7 pm. We all had
dinner and were supposed to leave for the circus at 5:30; I ducked out to a
little store in the lobby and when I returned, they all had left. I guess
they must have used the Metro, as the bus was nowhere to be found. (I
wonder if they even know I'm missing?)

In any event, I won't be alone for long, as my friend Aleksei here in Moscow
is going to drop by for a visit...

More later!

E.B.

It takes a long time...

...to get to The Other Side of the World. It's presently 10:30 in Moscow as
I write this (and still light outside) and 1:30 pm Texas time. I have been
up now for almost 34 hours straight-- We (5 students and I) left Dallas at 3
pm on the 19th... 9 hours to Frankfurt, 3 hour wait, then 3 hours to Moscow.
We landed at Moscow Sheremetevo Airport at 4:15 pm local time and waited
for the last group (of four, from Houston) for more than three hours in the
airport! Then an hour ride to our hotel near the popular and uber-touristy
Ismailovskiy Park on the northeast side of the city.

Our tour director (in Russia) is a twenty-something young lady named Gillian
who teaches English in Poland and has a most distracting Scottish brogue. I
haven't met the remaining two group leaders, but the guy leading the Houston
group is a retired Marine Corps captain who teaches social studies. He's an
interesting character who has a dream of one day cashing in on the lack of
self-service laundry mats in Russia. He's been to Russia once or twice, so
he's familiar with the layout, but doesn't speak the language.

This hotel is full of English-speakers, which detracts from the overall
ambience of the country we're in (but it has its advantages, too,
particularly for our students).

Tomorrow the bus leaves at 10 and we are off to The Kremlin (going inside, I
hear), which takes us to Red Square, of course, then off to the circus
(somewhere)... If I can send pics, I will. If not, I'll post them after I
get home on the 27th.

So all is well in Mother Russia tonight.

More tomorrow, hopefully...

Poka, ya'll!

E.B.

Tomorrow I leave for Moscow...

...on a 9-day whirlwind tour of Moscow and St. Petersburg as a teacher-sponsor of 5 students. I hope to be able to post email updates here. We will be meeting up with 3 other school groups in Moscow, another from Texas and two from other states...

Stay tuned.

Midnight Express

It's been some time since I blogged... As I looked over the August 8 posting, I realized that a school year has come and gone already. So much water under the bridge in the last 10 months! In less than two weeks I'll be on my second journey to Moscow; it's even harder to believe that 2 years has flown by since I my first trip to Russia in the summer of 2004.

But it's just past midnight and I'm too tired to ponder what might be next.

Maybe I'll wait another 10 months...

Maybe not.

Summer's gone already...

... and I'm now knee-deep in in-service week stuff as our faculty gears up for the new school year and 2,600 kids next Monday. Here I sit at my desk in my classroom wondering where the time has gone over the last 2 or 3 months and observing the peace and tranquility of my 29 empty desks (it's like the calm before a storm)...

If I hadn't recorded some of my thoughts and experiences in this blog, I would have sworn that my trip to Minnesota was really only a dream...

Tunak Tunak Tun

Tunak Tunak Tun is the name of the catchy tune chosen as the Concordia Language Villages International Day (see my 7/9 Pickle On A Stick post) song. All the kids from various villages could do the dance that Indian singer Daler Mendhi does in his video, which you can see here (it's a RealAudio file):

http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~mrdarius/music/tunak.ram

Here are the original lyrics in Punjabi and English:

http://lyrical.nl/song/26240/25771+25769+25770

Also, there is a Lesnoe Ozero webpage with pictures from this summer's programs at:

http://clvweb.cord.edu/russian/vergas/index.htm

Okay. Now THIS may be my last post from Minnesota...

Winding Down

Well, Lesnoe Ozero is coming to a close in a few days. On Saturday morning I'll be on a bus with kids going to Minneapolis to fly home. (However, it's not entirely over with yet! Today is "Imperial Russia Day," replete with a time-authentic social caste system and visits by Peter I, Catherine the Great, and Aleksander II, and tomorrow is Soviet Day, replete with as much Communist Partying as can possibly be fit into one day: opression, shortages, lines, pay toilets, strict deportment in the classroom, and maybe even an exile or two to a gulag or defection to the West.)

It has been an interesting experiment for me, to "camp" with a bunch of teenagers and young counselors. I've really enjoyed my time teaching Russian here, but my sleep deficit is red-lining and everything tastes like bug spray. The kids have been a pleasure to live with, really (however, I would never want to return to that age of angst, hormones, and social winds that constantly change direction!).

Once I'm back home, I may find it odd to not get up and sing the Russian national anthem before breakfast, as is the custom here, or to pour my first cup of coffee in front of the watchful eyes of a burunduk (chipmunk) or to not hear the soul-stabbing cry of a loon from somewhere out on the lake as the sun comes up. (Speaking of loons, I never could get a picture of one-- they're always too far away. They're an odd sort-- and aptly named, yes-- and I often see just one, sitting solo on the lake beyond the reach of my camera lens. This morning I saw one that looked like it was out there waiting for something... It drifted quietly, then let out a cry, then sat quietly again. Every so often a pair, male and female, will appear, but from my observations, the loon population seems to be made up mostly of solitary males.)

On Thursday the 4-week credit students get finals, then we grade and do paperwork furiously before all the computers are shut down for packing on Thursday evening. Friday is clean-up day and then we're done, for the most part, until the program officially closes on Saturday morning, which I and a handful of kids will have to miss because we have to catch the early (7:30 a.m.) bus (the start of a long day: 5 hours to the airport via the Japanese Village, 2 hours to wait for a flight, and then 2.5 hours in the air) .

So, this could be my last post from Lake Trowbridge (aka the Black Sea). More, perhaps, once I've turned the corner and found my way home. Thanks for tuning in to my blog (which I may keep alive for awhile longer) and letting me share my summer camp experiences with you!

For the time being, Прощай! и С Богом! (Farewell! and May God be with you!)

That deer-in-the-headlights look...

Beware of any Russian-speaking kid brandishing a plastic sabre and wearing a dishtowel for a turban!

There is a 13-year old kid here named Misha, who is a 4-week credit student, and whose first language, purportedly, is Russian. I suspect his first language is chess (or "shakhmaty")...

Below is a picture of me playing him (he's dressed for a part in a camp activity) for the first time during "cultural hour" (he nuked me in just a few moves!). Actually, he was playing me and another villager simultaneously. I've played him maybe a dozen times and beaten him only twice...

He's a nice young man-- very bright, very personable, and very mature for his age. He and I have a tradition now during the 9-10 p.m. study hour. If he's done with his homework and I'm not helping students, he thrashes me in a game of chess (most of the time). I don't mind, really. It's entertaining to play him and I get some native Russian out of it!

Tomorrow starts our last week here at Lesnoe Ozero!

Пока!

Maslenitsa

Today we are celebrating the end-of-winter holiday of Maslenitsa ("Pancake Week"), which is happens the week before Lent. For dinner, we'll be having the traditional Russian "blini" (pancakes), which can be meat-, fruit-, or vegetable-filled. It is a festival similar to Mardi Gras. More here, if you're interested. And tonight we'll "burn the Baba" (an effigy of an old woman which represents Winter) to welcome Spring!

Today, also, we finally have sunshine and a temperature of 70-75 degrees. It's been really chilly and rainy here since last Sunday...

Below are a couple more pictures, one of me with my advanced-beginner students and the other of my "family" at the lunch table (minus me, of course; the red sign says Dostoevskys in Russian).

That's it for now...

Poka!

Brrr...

On Sunday, the weather here was wonderful-- warm, sunny, dry, slight breeze. Monday morning the rain and a front came through and last night the temperature dropped to 50. Tonight it is supposed to go down to 48. The ONLY positive to this is that there is little to no bug activity...

Today we had an auction for counselor services-- and I was the auctioneer, barking in Russian. I didn't have a gavel, but I DID have a hammer and a big cast iron pot to bang on. It was fun, but now I'm slightly hoarse...

We did a little shuffling around of the students, based on demonstrated skill levels and I inherited two young ladies from France. It's interesting to hear Russian spoken with a French accent. All in all, classes are going well. We're into the second "semester" now... Final exams in 10 days!

Not much else to report on. I'll try to get some more pictures posted soon.

Poka!

Слава Флоту!

Today is Russian Navy Day. A year ago today I was in St. Petersburg, home of the Russian Navy for a bit of the Navy Day celebration. Actually, we left St. Petersburg for Moscow that day... I remember it (and the train ride back to Moscow) like it was yesterday...

Conquering Earth may look easy on paper...

Yesterday was a long day. After the tweekers left, we boarded a school bus with the 4-week high schoolers for an excursion into Detroit Lakes. Our first stop was a Super Wal-Mart-- you'd have thought those kids had never seen one before! Then we were dropped of at the mall (I use that term loosely) for the afternoon to wander, see a movie, eat, etc.

I went with a couple of kids to see War of the Worlds and left the theater with more than a few questions, such as... Why do the aliens in most contemporary science fiction movies run around naked, without so much as an intergalactic fig leaf on (maybe intelligence and modesty don't go hand-in-hand)? Perhaps we're not the smartest carbon-based life forms in the universe, but when we travel into space, we hermetically seal ourselves in spacesuits for protection from any cosmic cooties. And if you're so smart that you can pre-stage an attack on a planet by burying your newfangled death-ray tripod gizmos underground for who knows how long, wouldn't you also be smart enough to figure out that there might be some microorganisms in the same place that might kill you in the end (seems like an awful waste of time and space)? Spielberg did an okay job with special effects and there were a few pockets of suspense, but WHERE DID THESE ALIENS COME FROM? What was the point of the meaty red root-y/vine-y growths (were they just needlessly killing people or were those tripod thingies also huge human mulchers?) And why give the aliens such procyonine qualities (in one scene, two or three aliens are in a basement looking for a trash can to tip over-- okay, not really, but that's the impression I got-- when one of them sees a bicycle hanging on the wall, spins one of the tires, then jumps back startled)? Why make them smart enough to get here, but not smart enough to figure out a bicycle wheel (that scene reminded me of those simple aliens in Mel Gibson's Signs-- you know, the ones that never bothered to test the water, so to speak, and were brainy enough to fly millions of miles across the universe to a cornfield in Smalltown, America-- naked, of course-- but weren't brainy enough to know that a baseball bat could be used as a weapon and that turning the door handle will let you out of a kitchen pantry)? When the aliens eventually discover-- if they haven't already-- what we've done to them on the big screen, will they giggle at our stupidity or be offended enough to anhilate us with their death ray? And, when they DO get here, surely they will have their handy-dandy pocket-sized universal translators with them SO WE CAN TALK TO THEM!

Well. I didn't mean to rant so long about that movie... I guess it was worth the $5 I paid to see it.

And, speaking of movies, after we stopped at a laundromat for a couple of hours, we returned to camp at about 9 p.m. and let the students watch a movie in English. Sadly, it was Anchor Man. Sadly, I had to sit through it. That is one of THE dumbest movies ever made-- however, it's humor at a high school level, so it the kids enjoyed it. Will Farrell can be a funny guy sometimes, but, honestly, after Anchor Man and Elf, I wonder how he can sleep at night...

Today at noon I'm off for 24 hours... Woo-hoo! I'm going to wander Detroit Lakes and sleep. Then sleep some more...

That's it for this installment.

Poka for now!

P.S. By the way, I noticed that there are three barber shops on the main street that runs through little Detroit Lakes... Sort of an oddly inproportionate number, don't you think?

Novgorod is breaking up...

This morning we say goodbye to our two-weekers (or tweekers in camp parlance). On Monday we will receive a shipment of new tweekers, though these will be older kids, near in age to the 4-week credit kids I teach. And after theses tweekers go today, our cabin is closing down and we're all moving to available cabins closer to the main area of camp. Below is a picture taken of me and Zhenya (the other cabin counselor, kneeling center) in Novgorod with the 10 young men we've been living with for the last 2 weeks in close quarters. Zhenya and I are splitting up and taking 5 each to new cabins (I'm going to Minsk).

So, Monday we receive new kids and begin the second semester of the "year."

This weekend, though, we all get 24 hours off. I'll be spending it in the sleepy little summer town of Detroit Lakes (famous, at least, for its two laundromats)...

More later...

Poka!

A year ago, give or take a day...

Today in one of my classes, I was passing around some realia I brought along (rubles, MGU student ID, metro tickets, etc.) for "show and tell" and as I looked at the dates on some of the tickets, it's hard for me to believe that a year ago tomorrow I was in the Tretyakovskaya Art Gallery in Moscow and one year ago Sunday I was in the Russian Navy Museum in St. Petersburg!

Well, even though I'm almost halfway through 4 weeks of Russian, it's still kind of strange to be in the middle of the woods in Minnesota. Where will I be this time next year?

Alas, another slow blog day...

Poka!

It's bacon!

Slow blog day, but an interesting observation... Nothing gets kids out of bed and to breakfast on time like the smell of bacon wafting from the kitchen. It was all they could talk about this morning! Go figure...

Poka!