a little weather pastiche..
First of all, a quick update for the last couple of days...[swirly flashback transition]
Around Thursday (I think it was) I had my hysterical joy over the snow. On a side note, Eddie's mum has flown to Barnaul from Australia and is visiting for a week and bit. Eddie is the Australian exchange student here. This is important, because it meant that on Friday, I was saved from the clutches of school and snatched away to a day of museums and gardens and tours with Eddie and his Mother. Sweet.
So yes, Friday morning I wake up, luxuriating in the fact that I'm not going to school--and I see more snow. Admittedly, just another little powdering on the roofs, but it's just lovely to see in the morning--all that white, cool light pouring in, and the Christmasy feeling of carols and trumpets and roasting chestnuts filling the room. But that was all for the day.
Saturday morning--just a bit of snow here and there. I naturally wake up at 8 when I sleep in, but Russians (I'm talking the nation here) sleep in almost indefinitely. Well, that's not true, but I've known people to sleep past 2 in the afternoon. So, during the odd hour and a half or so while I was ironing my clothes, reading Harry Potter in Russian, etc, etc, I heard the rain start. Which turned to snow. Which turned to rain, back and forth all day. Long and short of it is, I went tramping around the city in frightful weather, soaked to the bone, splashed by cars twice, and had to ford some dreadfully swamped streets. GRRRRR. Of course, it actually turned out to be lovely because I went to lunch (which lasted until about four) at the home of Eddie's host parents, where he and his mother are staying, and they lent me toasty warm clothes, and my jeans dried on the bathroom floor (which is heated.) They're lovely people. So that's Russian weather for you.
Oh, and I encountered my first "chocolate chip cookie" here. HAH! A cruel joke, friends. A cruel joke. And could someone please give Sam a kick and tell him to get writing on his blog again? I WANT MORE NAZI JOKES! Honestly...
posted by julia at 4:08 AM
18 Comments:
A day of museums, and gardens, and tours (Oh, my!) Sounds like heaven. What did you see, where did you go --do tell! Love your rendition of the first snow falls but (BUT) where are your warm clothes????? Thank goodness for heated bathroom floors but honestly, girl!! I want to see pictures of you in a warm furry (or at least knitted) hat and formidable mittens.
--Winking Marjeane
6:14 AM
JULIE SOPER!!!!! I MISS YOU!!!!!!! maggy and dumples need a major reunion!!!! yes, sam is a tween, he's 12 so he's not a teen, but mearly a tween (it makes him angry XD) so glad your'e having a great time in russia!!!! sry, I haven't been online much, so I havent' messaged you, but i WILL! love ya to bits!
-Alex
(oh, Barbara Allen is a poem I relaly like.... eh, waht can I say, I made the site a long time ago, and am jsut using it to leave comments. )
7:07 AM
Pastiche!? Well, your English vocabulary has certainly not dissipated, even if it is stolen (from French?). So glad you are not in a town where it is "always winter and never Christmas" as Mr. Beaver said; and glad you have gotten to a museum at last.
5:31 PM
And to think we agreed to my sending you vocab lists so your English would be up to snuff... the nerve!
Well, we'll all point and laugh when we scoop you up from JFK, only to discover that your spoken English has gone down the toilet. Oh how we'll laugh... *giggles*
Oh my. Did I just giggle?
Oh, and Sam, if you're reading this, I actually decided to frequent your blog. Sadly, I cannot comment on it unless I go through several miles of eBlogger red tape and register myself. Pity. (seriously, let anyone comment and I'll be a regular in a flash)
7:49 PM
hello, my dears! I saw lots of strange things in those museums (since you ask.) There were antique accordions, a gigantic stuffed albino moose, a collection of marble chips, maps of Russian prison camps that lit up, and stuffed owls. Not to go Harry Potter on everyone, but I really want a pet owl now. I know, I know--the warm clothes are on the way. Right now I own a long green scarf that I swaddle my throat and head with before my ventures into the wild, and I borrow this goofy looking white knit hat, and I'm buying a cap and mittens VERY SOON. Like, tomorrow. Probably.
ALEX! I PINE FOR YOU! (That was a Trogdor quote, quoted in the old Alex-Julie tradition of quotes that are awkward out of context.) Get me a copy of that poem--I want to read it! I miss you too! We do need a reunion! I will write you a letter in the near future!
Dear Father--but they don't celebrate Christmas here in a big way! It's awful! Post-communism, everyone focuses on the New Year. (little tear.)
Seriously, Ed, you've got a point on the spoken English thing--my accent is falling apart and it's getting weirder to speak English.
2:45 AM
Dr Zhivago move over! I don't want you to talk to anyone whose name is Omar, understand? I may have to come over to Barnaul just to keep things straightened out...
Things are strangely quiet around the halls of TAA, at least when a certain redhead isn't quizzing us all on how long his red sideburns are allowed to get (I am considering whether or not to bring a razor in tomorrow to show him how long they WON'T GET!). I am sure that they know how to take care of things like that in Russia, конечно.
Mountain Days depart after clergy tea tomorrow - Potter County will miss you, too, JS, although they will all think of you in the cold, cold land of laser tag, world domination, sausage gravy and chocolate fondue. We will also think of you and salute as The Big Green Machine rolls slowly past Dean's Gravel Pit into the sunset - aurevoir for now! Stay warm, well and wise, and BEAT ARMY!!
6:01 PM
ooooo, julie! Patiance my love..... hahahahahaha! got to love that! any way, write you later, got to do hw, gr. LOVE!!!!!!!
-ALEX
6:19 PM
Whoa--Mother of Karina, I didn't know you spoke Russian! That kanyeshna (word in russian letters, people) gave me a start! (And used like a native speaker, you should now.) Thanks very much for the TAA update! It's like a slice of home. Woo-hoo, TAA!
2:24 AM
Ha, you have a more amusing blog than my two...
It is so unfair that you get to know exchange students. they lump the whole country together here, so there are over a hundred of us. Needless to say I know noone, and the administration doesn't even want us to know each other. And I have to find sponsors for a sleepover, which I hate to do because it always makes me feel bad.
i read Anna Karenina. That is as much Russian as you get from me, but Russia sounds facinating.
Aside from the administration, I am having fun really. I am at the end of a random two week vacation, which is great. I would also say it is ungodly cold here, but with you being in Siberia and all, that seems a little silly of me.
Mach Spass-
Alyssa the Swiss kid.
2:26 AM
Neh! (I don't know where that sound came from, but what I mean is--no, not at all! It isn't that cold here!) It actually just got really cold for the first time today--it's minus 3 (Celsius, people! Celsius.) and blowing cold. We had snow the past two days, but none of it stuck because it was too warm. I'm searching for mittens at present. It's great to hear from you!
I got your e-mail and pictures, and was delighted to hear from you then, too, but to lazy to write back. And I like your blog identity. Yep--not that many exchange students around. But it's hard to get immersed in Russian anyway. I get mobbed by people trying to talk English in the hallways, and they get annoyed if I insist on Russian.
4:18 AM
Hello, world. I mysteriously can't get the posting to work (dang internet cafe) so all your news is going to come through my comments. Dang it all. Forced to comment on my own blog.
Cold today. Chicken and mushrooms for lunch. Barnaul has two smokestacks, and one of them has red stripes.
4:28 AM
If you will remember, you did learn "Barbara Allen" at TAA. I remember a certain teacher playing Pete Seeger's singing one rendition and your accusing the teacher of ruining ballads for you forever (or some such other nonsense). Ah, what we remember.
This you'll never believe. I've always loved owls, even force some to memorize "A wise old owl sat in an oak; the more she sat the less she spoke; the less she spoke, the more she learned; why aren't you like that wise old bird?" Not that I want YOU to be like that wise old bird. Can't make you what you aren't :-) thank goodness.
6:10 AM
HA, i went to the top of the Matterhorn (er, the little one, with the cable car, I completely fail at the mountain thing) and it was -4 degrees.
It is 12 or so now, and I am slightly cold.
The chocolate chip cookies in Europe suck. I have only had one and it was all hard and dry. Not good. It is a cruel joke to be in a country with walls of chocolate (which I frequent) in the grocery store and despite this clear abundance, a complete lack of nice chocolatey cookies. they do however somehow manage to shove chocolate into croissants (ha french, here they are called Gipfeli, which is something like the claw of a crab, neato).
8:25 AM
Zippy! It sounds like you're having a great time, and it's wonderful to hear from you. Switzerland sounds amazing. Oy. It got warmer in Barnaul, but I was eight hours (by car) north over the weekend, and it was -6 (Celsius) in the morning. There's some serious snow there. Fahrenheit, that's about 20 degrees. Now, that's not THAT cold (you can still go jogging and such)but it's definitely getting nippy!
All the Russians are starting to look a little grim around the eyes. A few weeks ago, when it started getting cold, my host father walked outside, narrowed his eyes, and said, "Hm. Winter soon." And then he barked, "Khvatet!" Which basically means "I HAVE HAD JUST ABOUT ENOUGH OF THIS, AND I REFUSE TO TAKE ANOTHER WINTER!" Very compact language, Russian.
4:09 AM
Darling!! I've forgotten my username so I must post as "anonymous"...oh, cruel computer systems...anyway, I want to know what was so cruel and disappointing about your first chocolate chip cookie. =)
2:50 PM
p.s. oh, this is your angie-babe
2:51 PM
Okay, so yeah, about that chocolate chip cookie. Russians do not understand the concept of chewy pastries. I suspect this is just a part of the deeply ingrained mentality of "yes, but can it survive a bitter winter cold enough to freeze the fingers off a yak, and still be in its original state?"
So their cookies are more like tea biscuits. They're excellent with tea, but they aren't cookies. And when they (cruel, cruel humor) try to make a chocolate cookie, they just have bits of chocolate stirred into the dough, so it melts and just gives you bits of chocolate dough. It's like a marble dough, but as a tea biscuit. Can you IMAGINE how I suffer here? A girl in Rotaract in America claimed that soft cookies are the best thing that every happened to Europe. Well. Outside of trees that grow toilet paper rolls, soft cookies are the best thing that didn't happen to Russia.
11:40 PM
And I have to make cookies for a rotary meeting this saturday!
I think I'll make half sugar cookies and half chocolate chips. I bought two boxes of dough at the dollar store before I left the good old (or relatively young complared to where I am now) USA.
My house will smell like coookies!!! Warm gooey cookies.
10:44 PM
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