Russian Remedies

I fear that my last post may have sounded a little bit discouraged, and so today, I wanted to start off by saying it was a good day, as was yesterday.  Despite being sick (darn colds) and the weather being cold and rainy, the days were enjoyable.  They have only been getting better, which is encouraging, and I am starting to feel myself adjust to being here, which is a relief (there was a point where I wasn’t sure that was going to happen).

Before I mentioned that I was sick.  (Just a simple head cold.  Nothing too serious, not to worry.)  But Tanya noticed this morning that I was not well, and tonight she started in on making things better and trying to rid my system of the sickness.  It started off with ginger and honey, which I was completely ok with.  I like ginger.  It tastes good.  She gave me a whole bowl of honey, sliced up ginger, and put it in a pot with some tea and told me I had to drink a lot.  Not a problem, seeing as I’ve been drinking about five times the amount of tea that a normal person drinks.  [Also, a little side note on said tea, which I’m drinking as I write this, it tastes like I’m drinking a ginger snap.  Pretty tasty.]  The next thing she brought out was garlic.  A gigantic clove.  This scared me.  I should mention that I’m not a huge fan of garlic.  I do eat it (it’s great with pasta and other foods), but not in huge doses and especially not by itself.  I was slightly scared that the next words out of her mouth would tell me to put the clove in my mouth and chew.  The mere thought of doing this makes me gag.  Thank god she went back to the kitchen and came back with toast.  Relief rushed over me as she told me to simply rub the garlic on the toast and then eat the toast.  The entire time I did this, she was talking about how good garlic was for you and how you should eat it every day.  I didn’t say a thing…I just chewed and was thankful that it was bread and not just garlic that I was chewing on.  I also don’t foresee myself forgetting the word for garlic any time soon…

Being sick has also made me realize how awesome fresh country air is.  Walking through the city in the cold-ish air feels good, but it doesn’t really feel clean, if that makes sense.  In my opinion, Yaroslavl is definitely way cleaner than Moscow.  We were only in Moscow for two days, but on our way from the airport to the hotel, you could see and feel the smog and pollution.  (At least in the part we were driving through…I’m sure that the entire city was not like that.)  A few weeks before I left the states, I was talking with a friend about the pros and cons of living in a city and the air factor came into play.  It really is a fantastic thing to be able to step out your back door and step into fresh, clean air!

Yaroslavl is actually quite a clean city, especially since last year, when the city held celebrations for its 1000^th birthday.  (I hear the city was cleaned up quite a bit for that milestone.)  When I walk to university in the morning, I always pass people sweeping the sidewalks.  Everywhere.  I think they might be the equivalent of our village or state workers, or they may just be the people who own the businesses.  I’m not quite sure.  But, none the less, the sidewalks are mud and leaf free for at least the first part of the day.

While I don’t think it was quite as cold as at home, today was actually quite chilly here, too.  Yesterday I was able to see my breath in the air when I left for university, and today I was smart enough to bring a pair of gloves to wear.  I am thankful for my walk in the morning, though, because it gives me the chance to warm up, so that by the time I reach the university, I am no longer cold.  But I know that it is only going to get colder from here on out.

Last Friday, however, the weather was quite nice and a few of the other students and I found ourselves at the Planetarium across the street from the university.  We watched a show about the constellations and the creation of the planets (the kind of show that every Planetarium has).  It wasn’t that hard to understand what was going on and it was kind of relaxing to just look up at the starry ceiling.  And seeing as I have seen programs similar to this one in the past (and seeing as I paid attention during middle school science class), I knew what was going on.  Fun fact: they are celebrating the 50^th Anniversary of Kosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in space this year.  (I think the exact date was earlier in the Spring, but I’m not sure.)

The Planetarium.

Billboard celebrating Yuri Gagarin.

While we were there, a wedding party came in (I’m assuming to take pictures in the museum).  It was actually the second wedding party that we had seen that day.  Earlier in the day, we also saw one right outside of the university, although I’m not entirely certain of why they were there.  There is one thing I’ve noticed about Russian weddings….they happen any time of day, any day of the week.  I passed a wedding procession of cars on my way back to my apartment at like 3:30pm on a Thursday afternoon.  Now, I’ve only been to a handful of weddings, but they have all been on the weekend, whether it be a Friday night or a Saturday afternoon.  We were at the Planetarium around 5pm on Friday.