Something that I am finding rather frustrating about my experiences so far.... is that I really want certain people to be here to share it with me.

There are times when I go out exploring by myself, and each time I see many new things- not see as in a site, landmark, monument, etc... but the kind of things you can't find listed in a tourist phamphlet. The sort of things that I can't even begin to explain in a blabbering blog post. The way people act, the way places make you feel, the way different things touch you or just puzzle you because they are so different than anything you have experienced.

When I lived in Switzerland for a short time I changed and grew a lot without realizing it. I returned home a very different person. Travelling does that almost inevitably, I'm sure anyone has experienced it. But it's difficult to predict how much you are affected, until long after the experience. It is only months after Switzerland that I am able to really understand the experiences I had and the changes that followed.

So when I think of what to write in this blog, I feel like I'm robbing myself and friends that are reading because I am unable to accurately explain what each event really means.



Yesterday, Saturday, is the one day of the week that Vas and have all to ourselves to do whatever we choose with it. Neither of us have any responsibility on Saturday... so we usually end up just trying to enjoy the freedom. We relaxed all day and then tried to go see a movie. The listings were wrong so we decided to visit the Starbuck's on Stary Arbat. Stary Arbat is a pedestrian street that is one of the best places for a tourist to visit. There are lots of shops, good restaurants, artists upon artists wasting their talent on simple portrait sketches for dollars, musicians busking, street vendors upon street vendors all selling the same Russian souvenirs and Soviet Union knock-offs.

After the sun goes down, the street transforms into an entirely new world that neither of us had ever experienced. All of the vendors and artists had broken down their sets and tourists had retreated to their hotels. In their place were carnival games, crews of angsty Russian teenagers, the more talented musicians drawing large crowds dancing, the most extreme cases of drunk in public you can imagine upon other strange spectacles. People find peculiar ways to make a few bucks here. As we walked down the street we saw different people who had brought rabbits, displayed them upon cardboard posts with signs that said "Photo: 20 rubles" So for a dollar you could have your picture taken with a rabbit. And people were actually doing this. It's legal for anyone to ride horses in the city (you can't even have a horse in my hometown of some 12,000 residents... but this is a city of 10.5 million) and a teenage girl was taking her horse around the drunk-crowded street. One guy had a bottle with little tiny baby turtles in it and somehow was making money from it. I've seen people selling kittens here before. This was a moment where I really wanted someone in particular with me. Having certain people in certain situations can really make them into something entirely different. I would have done anything to have my friend Chris there.



Afterwards Vas and I did something so typically Russian.

We ate and had drinks at a Hard Rock Cafe. I had never been to one and we didn't feel like taking a taxi to another restaurant.



In the short time I've been here, I've had "first times" like this that I could have had easily done in the States, but just never got around to doing.

For instance, last week I gambled for the first time.

It was April 1st, Fool's Day, and I went to an event with one of Vas' colleagues. It was a big celebrity chess tournament that is held annually on April 1st at a French hotel and casino. My "date" is a well known businessman/politician who won last year's tournament. He introduced me to all of the Russian bigwigs and I enjoyed the free champagne and fresh fruit. I had my picture taken with a producer, director, musician, poet, the great hockey goalie and current president of the Russian Ice Hockey Federation Vladislav Tretiak. All of the players received giftbags from the hotel which included some playing chips. So while my friend played I hit the Roulette table and won a wopping $10.

I'm sure if I understood the games a little bit better I would have enjoyed myself, but I didn't quite get the whole gambling fever thing. It's probably better that way anyways.



Something I dislike and at the same time like about Moscow...

women are very, very different. In general, they are very feminine and to me, can look provocative. The make-up is always heavy, the clothing ensemble is always over the top (I would say gaudy but they would probably call me dull) the boots always very high-heeled and overall very suggestive.

Aside from my tattoos I think that I present myself rather conservatively. For the most part I stay away from anything too short or too low, I wear minimal make-up and jewelry and don't try to show off anything... be it money or my body...

so men don't notice me as much. Which I think of as a blessing. Being approached by strange men makes me extremely uncomfortable even if they are harmless. I should find it flattering, but instead the whole situation makes me embarassed. So being a sort of plain jane American girl here works for my favor.

In Europe last summer I was approached by men regularly (not for anything special about me, that's just culture.) I don't think that I was dressed any differently, but I think that Moscovite men are use to a different kind of woman.

The other evening I was waiting for my friend outside of a restaurant at another pedestrian street that's populated by the young and trendy with a little bit more money to spend- so a safe place, I think. And I was approached by a young Russian, presentable looking man. He asked me where one can get ice-cream around here (which is hilariously typical of Russians because they LOVE their ice-cream. Even in below freezing, blizzard-like weather they stop at a street kiosk to satisfy their cravings). He continued to ask me further questions... he invited me for a walk and to see a photo exhibition with him the following day, etc. I made sure to show him that I was not interested and to tell him that I was happily in a relationship. He was relentless, however. About 10 minutes went by and he finally gave up, said goodbye, shook my hand, kissed me on the cheek and pulled the creepiest move. He sniffed me. It was a move straight out of Saturday Night Live. He sniffed up my shoulder, neck, to my hair and lightly groaned. Ugh it was so filthy! I pushed his shoulder and he took off. I looked around for a group of his friends laughing as if they had just dared him to do it, but I didn't see any.

So those creepy guys you see in those "far fetched" SNL or MAD TV skits... they actually do exist.

A friend told me a statistic that Russian women spend 17% of their income on make-up. This is strange to me because Russia is known for it's beautiful women. To me, money in general seems to be used differently here. Well, I should rephrase that. I think that my family and many of my close friends are very careful with their money, they don't put a lot of it towards the smaller material things. So my view is probably different than many Americans. I've been raised to spend money in certain ways that is entirely different than what I have seen from the average Moscovite. I predict that if I had been raised here, I would not be so different. After thinking it through, and talking about it with a couple of people, I realized that there is nothing wrong at all with this difference. It has been almost 2 decades since the fall of the Soviet Union. With the new era of a market economy people for the first time have money to spend and products to spend the money on. People that are my age are the first generation to have this financial freedom. So who wouldn't take advantage of the opportunity... the opportunity to buy stuff while you're in the metro stations, riding the metro, walking across the street, walking in the tunnels underneath the streets, in the open markets, boutiques, or shopping malls the size of Cornelius (my hometown in North Carolina).

To quickly revert back to the beginning,
I'm beginning to miss people back home a little bit more. I constantly catch myself thinking about what this person would think of this situation or that situation... I catch myself making up the conversation we would have in my head.. then I just catch myself missing the sound of their voice or their little mannerisms.
But I'm okay with missing everyone. I think that this is one of the most important adventures of my life, and I am happier than I have ever been going through it, especially with Vas. I know that you have to give (up) a little to gain a little (/a lot). But everything that I am doing and seeing and learning is more than I could ever have expected from life and I welcome all of the good with the bad.
As this is truly the happiest I have been in my life, it really is the greatest challenge I have faced yet.

And although this is a lesson we have all learned many times before and has been solidified into all of our minds since childhood, a great doctor on a great t.v. show called Scrubs told me this morning,

"nothing that's worth it comes easily"