Halfway there.

I realize that it’s been a while since my last post.  (Well, I guess if you consider a week a long time.  I do, since there was a time where I was posting a couple of times a week.)  But in all honesty, life has just been going on.  Nothing too out of the ordinary or spectacular has occurred, which might seem kind of boring, and that is understandable.  Sometimes I do think that, but at the same time, I think it is the perfect sign that I have finally adjusted to life in Russia.  You may have heard me mention how I was told that one day you just wake up and everything clicks and you understand everything and everything becomes great.  Well, I can’t say that everything has clicked for me, but as of late, things have certainly been looking in the right direction.  I know and am at peace with the fact that there will never be a time (at least during this trip to Russia) that I will understand everything.  But I have realized that my problem is not grammar related anymore (although there are times when it certainly is a problem, as well!), but simply that I don’t have a broad enough vocabulary.  Let’s just say that I’m working on it, but it’s a very slow process.

Now, after that slightly deep and pensive little bit, let’s move on to the good stuff. 

First off, “road beer”.  It is not uncommon to see people walking down the street drinking a bottle of beer.  Last Thursday after our extra-long culture class, we were those people.  And I must say, it was kind of strange, but still awesome.  First of all, the drinking age is eighteen here, so we were legally allowed to buy alcohol.  Also, there is no such thing as “open container laws” here.  We were walking down the street with our open bottles of beer, happily drinking them all of the way.  We passed an old man walking with his own bottle of beer, and I was so tempted to clink bottles with him as we passed, but I figured that wasn’t such a good idea and I refrained from doing so.  I kind of wish I had, though, because that would have been awesome, but maybe slightly unacceptable.

On Friday, we went to a Balalaika concert and it was fantastic!  The Balalaika is a Russian instrument that is kind of like a guitar.  The video that I posted below is the guy that we saw.  He was a fantastic performer and quite entertaining.  And he was playing so fast!!  His fingers were flying across the strings! (If you go to about 2:05 in the video, you can see this.)

Final order of business: vacation.  Thursday night, my friends Sasha and I are leaving for St. Petersburg for our mid-semester vacation.  We are spending the first five days there, seeing all of the sights and then we will spend the last three days in Moscow doing all of the touristy things that we didn’t have the time to do when we were there for orientation in September.  I am beyond excited for St. Petersburg.  It is such a beautiful city.  And with my student ID, I will be able to get into most museums and other places for free, which is actually awesome.

So, if you have any suggestions of places for me to see or things for me to do while I’m traveling, send me an email or leave me a comment.  My next post will [hopefully] be a travel update from Petersburg!