Now that I'm mostly fully recovered from last weekend's adventure, I think I may be prepared to tell you about it.
Friday night Jason suggested that he, Erin and I go to a local water park early the next morning. Erin and I quickly agreed, bouncing up and down like we were ten years old again (this violent shove back in time often happens when we get together). The next morning Jason decided against going as he already had what appeared to be severe third-degree sunburns on every part of his body, so bad that for a 24 hour period I never saw him not covered in a three inch layer of aloe lotion, saying silent prayers under his breath for the torture to end. Still excited at the prospect of spending the day on water slides (which we were absolutely convinced we would be able to do for hours without getting bored) Erin and I set off for the park alone.
For reasons I still don't understand, Erin had a season pass to this place (one which had not yet been used although summer is more than half over). We quickly ran in, dropped our stuff and looked around with our mouths gaping wide open like kids at Disneyland as we pointed out all the fun water-filled adventures beckoning us from each end of the park. Eight minutes later reality hit as we made our first descent down one of the water-torture chambers, screaming bloody-murder the entire way down because although it was about 135 degrees outside (give or take 40) the water was little more than liquid ice. I think I actually cried a little as I came crashing into the pool at the bottom. At that point we both became determined to try to go the rest of the day without getting wet (oddly difficult to do at a water park).
We decided to give one safe-looking slide a whirl but accidentally got in the wrong line and didn't realize until it was too late that we had to go down this horrible death-trap which aged both of us significantly. If the next time you see me I look 23 (as opposed to 17) you'll know why. We both agreed that we were getting a little too old for water parks, and confirmed this again five minutes later as we were somehow roped into wading all the way around the 40 mile long ultra crowded ice cold "Lazy River" without tubes, trying desperately to keep strangers' nasty feet from touching our faces. During this adventure I heard Erin say no less than thirty times, "Lazy River? This is the most exercise I've had all week!" That little event brought us to laying out for about 45 minutes, after which we decided we had had enough. I had mysterious scratches all down my back by this point anyway and I was quite concerned that 30,000 people walking around barefoot on solid surfaces all day was not going to be conducive to keeping my foot disease away. Besides, Erin and I were both thoroughly convinced that we smelled like urine and were a bit anxious to wash that off in water that didn't have toddlers with swollen diapers floating around in it.
Never again.
~It Just Gets Stranger
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
The Job Hunt
Although it doesn't seem to be anywhere near time to start thinking about it, to the trained mind it's quite obvious that the applicaiton and job search process for next summer's job has arrived. The old Eli would be having violent panic attacks, usually ending in running across a rocky ice glacier barefoot with streamers singing every song from "The Sound of Music" on the backside of some seemingly incaccessible mountain. But the new long-hair-post-Moscow Eli is calm as a summer breeze. Now I know exactly what you're all thinking: "What?! Why would even the old Eli be nervous about something like this? He's so talented and intelligent. On top of that he's really good-looking and everyone is attracted to him. And he's always so successful at everything he ever puts even minimal effort into. And he's so tan and fit. And he looks like a GQ model because he's so stylish. And his ONLY flaw is his foot disease which, I might add, he has successfully contained to the bottom of one foot and maybe even beaten this summer but it's still too early to tell. And he always has dozens of super-models constantly surrounding him" etc. But the truth is, despite all of that stuff you all just thought (and I'm so blushing that you would all think that about me---how embarrassing!) this process can be quite stressful.
Part of the problem lies in my being largely unsure about what it is I want to end up doing in the legal profession. Often people ask me what kind of job I would like after law school. Usually my answer goes something like this: "Oh you know. I just want to live all over the world and travel all the time and lay out on the beach." That sounds great and all but the problem is I've yet to find any legal jobs that match that description word for word. As I'm quit sure that most people around me are aware of this fact, I usually try to throw in some kind of legal mumbo-jumbo at the end of my explanation of my professional aspirations to make it seem as though I've really thought it all through: "Of course, that beach time will have to be between my international corporate tax finance contract litigation practice." Of course I never know what any of that really means but I find that if I say that with the same look on my face as I have when I recite a Robert Frost poem, nobody really knows the difference.
So wanting to live everywhere but do nothing and everything at the same time makes the job search a bit broad and daunting. Fortunately I've lived most of my life in a tragically clueless state, leaving me to never really focus on and become fantastic at one thing but rather become slightly below mediocre at a multitude of tasks. This is reflected on my resume which is always duly noted in interviews when the interviewer becomes quite intrigued at the mere lack of any kind of theme. I usually respond by tilting my head to the side while nodding, giving a serious yet thoughtful look, and saying some inappropriately long sentence somehow using words like "well-rounded" and "variety" which are positive alternatives to "unfocussed" and "schizophrenic."
I imagine most of us feel this way to some degree. Selling yourself is a refining process. The silver-lining, I believe, is that this whole thing is forcing me to get comfortable with tactufully pointing out my strengths while identifying and eliminating the things that really seem to be holding me back. And all in all I am really excited about where my life is going to go although I don't know exactly where that is yet. Ultimately I know that it's going to go somewhere if I have anything to say about it. So it's great that I do.
~It Just Gets Stranger
Part of the problem lies in my being largely unsure about what it is I want to end up doing in the legal profession. Often people ask me what kind of job I would like after law school. Usually my answer goes something like this: "Oh you know. I just want to live all over the world and travel all the time and lay out on the beach." That sounds great and all but the problem is I've yet to find any legal jobs that match that description word for word. As I'm quit sure that most people around me are aware of this fact, I usually try to throw in some kind of legal mumbo-jumbo at the end of my explanation of my professional aspirations to make it seem as though I've really thought it all through: "Of course, that beach time will have to be between my international corporate tax finance contract litigation practice." Of course I never know what any of that really means but I find that if I say that with the same look on my face as I have when I recite a Robert Frost poem, nobody really knows the difference.
So wanting to live everywhere but do nothing and everything at the same time makes the job search a bit broad and daunting. Fortunately I've lived most of my life in a tragically clueless state, leaving me to never really focus on and become fantastic at one thing but rather become slightly below mediocre at a multitude of tasks. This is reflected on my resume which is always duly noted in interviews when the interviewer becomes quite intrigued at the mere lack of any kind of theme. I usually respond by tilting my head to the side while nodding, giving a serious yet thoughtful look, and saying some inappropriately long sentence somehow using words like "well-rounded" and "variety" which are positive alternatives to "unfocussed" and "schizophrenic."
I imagine most of us feel this way to some degree. Selling yourself is a refining process. The silver-lining, I believe, is that this whole thing is forcing me to get comfortable with tactufully pointing out my strengths while identifying and eliminating the things that really seem to be holding me back. And all in all I am really excited about where my life is going to go although I don't know exactly where that is yet. Ultimately I know that it's going to go somewhere if I have anything to say about it. So it's great that I do.
~It Just Gets Stranger
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Moved . . . for the Thousandth Time
I finally moved today. Life has been a bit hectic since getting back from Moscow. Amid all the stresses of getting back to normal life, starting a new (and utterly confusing) job and moving, I’m also in recovery from some kind of sickness I think is either Swine Flu or Tuberculosis; if not, I’m sure it’s something contagious enough that you all are at risk just reading this.
I’ve been staying in South Jordan. Quickly, it’s perfectly fine to live with your parents even though you are 25 and even though you are cornered by no less than five people at their church on Sunday saying things like, “What’s the matter with you?”, “Aren’t you ever going to get married?” and my personal favorite, “Have you turned in your mission papers yet?” It’s perfectly fine. However, in order to reduce the awkwardness when friends ask you where you are living and you have to admit the truth, I have found that there are some easy ways to make it sound much more reasonable: First, if you make it sound like you are living with their parents to help them, pathetic turns to noble immediately. The older your parents are, the easier it is to pass this one off. My parents are still pretty fit so it’s hard for me to use this but I am prepared to do so when I’m living with them again about fifteen years from now. Second, if possible, you can try to make it sound like your parents are living with you. This is difficult to do however unless you and your parents move into a new place together. The strategy I have to resort to is to replace the word “living” with “staying.” This makes the whole thing sound much less pathetic. Really any words that make the situation sound more temporary is to your benefit. I often find myself saying things like, “oh you want to meet in SLC in the morning? Let’s see . . . that should work well for me because I’m going to sleep at my parents house the night before in South Jordan.” See how much more reasonable that sounds than, “well let me check with my mom and see if that’s ok. I am living with her you know.” The only problem with this strategy is that it doesn’t last forever. Eventually people start to get suspicious—hence the move.
So sometime this afternoon, I took a break from work and piled 70% of everything I own into every small space of my car. I say 70% because I’ve slowly been taking things down to Provo over the last several days. Unfortunately I made absolutely no attempt to box anything up, fold clothes, or at least wrap valuables and for the full 45 minutes of loading I continuously mumbled to myself, “I hate this. I’m a mess. I’m never moving again.” This was much less dramatic than what I was mumbling to myself a few hours later when I was unloading the stuff and hauling it up several flights of stairs. In the end I made my usual resolve that I was going to leave everything I own except for the clothes on my back, flip-flops (plus four backup pairs when my first ones break) and 30 of my favorite alabaster pots and head off to the middle-east to pursue a Bedouin life-style. I would probably also bring some of my books and most of my other clothes because I can check two bags anyway. I might as well have some of my art shipped over too. And I would bring my bedding because I don’t know what they have over there. Of course I would bring my laptop too and a couple of lamps for lighting and some of my favorite electronics. But that’s IT! Everything else is staying.
You’ll all be relieved to know that after several hours, my life is under control and I’m relatively organized. I didn’t even lose anything in this move (as far as I can tell). I somehow didn’t even lose this horrible Wally Lamb book that I accidentally bought at an airport and have now ineffectively tried to get rid of in four different countries. And so it goes.
~It Just Gets Stranger
I’ve been staying in South Jordan. Quickly, it’s perfectly fine to live with your parents even though you are 25 and even though you are cornered by no less than five people at their church on Sunday saying things like, “What’s the matter with you?”, “Aren’t you ever going to get married?” and my personal favorite, “Have you turned in your mission papers yet?” It’s perfectly fine. However, in order to reduce the awkwardness when friends ask you where you are living and you have to admit the truth, I have found that there are some easy ways to make it sound much more reasonable: First, if you make it sound like you are living with their parents to help them, pathetic turns to noble immediately. The older your parents are, the easier it is to pass this one off. My parents are still pretty fit so it’s hard for me to use this but I am prepared to do so when I’m living with them again about fifteen years from now. Second, if possible, you can try to make it sound like your parents are living with you. This is difficult to do however unless you and your parents move into a new place together. The strategy I have to resort to is to replace the word “living” with “staying.” This makes the whole thing sound much less pathetic. Really any words that make the situation sound more temporary is to your benefit. I often find myself saying things like, “oh you want to meet in SLC in the morning? Let’s see . . . that should work well for me because I’m going to sleep at my parents house the night before in South Jordan.” See how much more reasonable that sounds than, “well let me check with my mom and see if that’s ok. I am living with her you know.” The only problem with this strategy is that it doesn’t last forever. Eventually people start to get suspicious—hence the move.
So sometime this afternoon, I took a break from work and piled 70% of everything I own into every small space of my car. I say 70% because I’ve slowly been taking things down to Provo over the last several days. Unfortunately I made absolutely no attempt to box anything up, fold clothes, or at least wrap valuables and for the full 45 minutes of loading I continuously mumbled to myself, “I hate this. I’m a mess. I’m never moving again.” This was much less dramatic than what I was mumbling to myself a few hours later when I was unloading the stuff and hauling it up several flights of stairs. In the end I made my usual resolve that I was going to leave everything I own except for the clothes on my back, flip-flops (plus four backup pairs when my first ones break) and 30 of my favorite alabaster pots and head off to the middle-east to pursue a Bedouin life-style. I would probably also bring some of my books and most of my other clothes because I can check two bags anyway. I might as well have some of my art shipped over too. And I would bring my bedding because I don’t know what they have over there. Of course I would bring my laptop too and a couple of lamps for lighting and some of my favorite electronics. But that’s IT! Everything else is staying.
You’ll all be relieved to know that after several hours, my life is under control and I’m relatively organized. I didn’t even lose anything in this move (as far as I can tell). I somehow didn’t even lose this horrible Wally Lamb book that I accidentally bought at an airport and have now ineffectively tried to get rid of in four different countries. And so it goes.
~It Just Gets Stranger
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Russia, Ukraine, and a Long Flight
Made it home. If this was a cheesy church video from the early '90's I would say something here like, "it's funny, I just got home but I sort of feel more like I just left it" as I look out the window into the rain, clearly thinking about all the good times in Russia. But the truth is, it's very sad to be back already. Of course it's great to see the family again but the return feels so premature.
This last week was an adventure for sure. One which I'll be recovering from for a while but one which I would live again in a heartbeat. Uncle Will, Krishelle, my two cousins Megan and Matthew, and two close friends of ours (through Uncle Will) Andrea and Stacee, all made the mass trek to the other side of the world to meet me in Moscow about nine days ago. We hit three cities in two countries over the next week and had the time of our lives. I'll drop some pictures on the blog later (when I collect them from the others; again--too lazy to take my own) but for now I'll just give the super short update.
Moscow was great; the group was basically functioning on adrenaline the entire time as they were severely jet-lagged but not allowed to sleep since we only had about a day and a half there and three weeks of stuff to see. It was Russia Day which complicated things greatly, leaving Red Square and the Kremlin closed the entire time they were there. Nonetheless, we were able to see a lot of amazing things and walk all around the outside of Red Square and the Kremlin before flying out to L'viv on Saturday morning from the very small and strange Vnukova airport in Moscow where one woman jumped over about twelve stations to target Andrea and ask her whether she had any eggs or cold-cuts in her bag, which we thought was odd of course.
L'viv Ukraine was fantastic! We were there for about three days and loved every minute of it. I forgot how much I love that city. I could walk up and down the old gorgeous cobble-stone streets all day. The town is completely quaint and friendly and I immediately felt at home there just as much as when I lived there for nine months five years ago. The best part of it all was getting to see and spend some time with some of my long lost friends there who I have missed every single day for the last five years. The reunion was sweet and our little farewell at the train station on our last night where several of the members came to see us off was really hard. Everybody there was pretty emotional including my entire travel group of friends and family who had just met all of these people last week.
After a long night on the train we made it to Kyiv. Everyone was getting pretty burned out by this time but we were still able to cram quite a bit in to our last couple of days there. Kyiv was gorgeous as always (in its own way) and I was able to see a few friends there as well.
The group left on Friday, a day before me, so I was able to get out and do some exploring and hang out with some friends there as well. Friday night I somehow ended up getting a really strange Thai massage from some Thai lady who only knew two English phrases that usually came in order after I answered a tearful "yes" to the first one: "You pain?" and "RELAX!!!"
The 24 hours of flying home and layovers yesterday just about did me in. A baby just the row in front of me screamed the entire nine hours of the flight from Germany to Chicago. You can only imagine how excited I was to find out that that same baby would be sitting next to me on my flight from Chicago to Salt Lake as well. But if the baby didn't stop me from catching some shut-eye on the last flight, the crazy retired extremely talkative cop sitting on the other side of me would have. He, as often happens, immediately told me everything he knows about court as soon as he found out I'm in law school, telling me no less than 30 times that I'm obviously not getting a good education because I didn't have the same list of court-room etiquette checkpoints he was taught in the academy in 1953. On a side note, this sort of thing frequently happens. About twice a month I will run into someone who finds out I'm in law school and that person will immediately remember some tiny very specific list of something law related that they learned in business law 101 freshmen year of college at Shequera Community College and the following conversation will take place:
Annoying: Oh, you're in law school?!
Me: Yes
Annoying: Ok, so then you know the five things that a witness should always know.
Me: . . .
Annoying: What are they?
Me: I don't know what you're talking about.
Annoying: (Lists the five things out in explicit detail; none of them are predicable in any way but all of them are common sense and usually just the same thing repeated five different ways like "first, never lie. Second, don't give too much information. Third, think before you speak so you don't tell too much. Forth, tell the whole story but not more than you need to. Fifth, tell the truth).
Me: Interesting
Annoying: I can't believe you've made it this far in law school and they haven't even taught you that yet.
Me: Well there is a lot to learn.
Annoying: Yeah but this is pretty basic. I don't know how you could ever be a good lawyer without knowing that.
Me: (I attempt to explain that that specific list of things in that particular order is not some kind of standard by which all attorneys must measure themselves and the whole list is completely common sense anyway).
Annoying: It may seem like common sense but you didn't know it.
Me: Yes, I had no idea that a witness should tell the truth from the stand and try to get their story out. I wish we had spent a whole semester talking about that rather than contracts so I would be so much more prepared to have this ridiculous conversation with you.
Eventually the old cop changed the subject and decided that the middle of the night on a plane when I hadn't slept for over 24 hours (and I made sure he knew this by the way) was as good a time as any to lecture me for two hours about why all homosexuals are going straight to hell and deserve to be put in prison for the rest of their lives. I, quite cranky by this point, didn't think it was the best time for me to explain to him all the ways I disagreed with just about everything he had to say. So I just rolled my eyes and turned to the window to try to catch some sleep. Which didn't work well as he still wanted to tell me all the reasons I'll never be a real man if I don't serve in the army for a while.
I'm pretty jet-lagged now so I think I'll try to jump back into bed. I hope everyone is doing well!
~It Just Gets Stranger
This last week was an adventure for sure. One which I'll be recovering from for a while but one which I would live again in a heartbeat. Uncle Will, Krishelle, my two cousins Megan and Matthew, and two close friends of ours (through Uncle Will) Andrea and Stacee, all made the mass trek to the other side of the world to meet me in Moscow about nine days ago. We hit three cities in two countries over the next week and had the time of our lives. I'll drop some pictures on the blog later (when I collect them from the others; again--too lazy to take my own) but for now I'll just give the super short update.
Moscow was great; the group was basically functioning on adrenaline the entire time as they were severely jet-lagged but not allowed to sleep since we only had about a day and a half there and three weeks of stuff to see. It was Russia Day which complicated things greatly, leaving Red Square and the Kremlin closed the entire time they were there. Nonetheless, we were able to see a lot of amazing things and walk all around the outside of Red Square and the Kremlin before flying out to L'viv on Saturday morning from the very small and strange Vnukova airport in Moscow where one woman jumped over about twelve stations to target Andrea and ask her whether she had any eggs or cold-cuts in her bag, which we thought was odd of course.
L'viv Ukraine was fantastic! We were there for about three days and loved every minute of it. I forgot how much I love that city. I could walk up and down the old gorgeous cobble-stone streets all day. The town is completely quaint and friendly and I immediately felt at home there just as much as when I lived there for nine months five years ago. The best part of it all was getting to see and spend some time with some of my long lost friends there who I have missed every single day for the last five years. The reunion was sweet and our little farewell at the train station on our last night where several of the members came to see us off was really hard. Everybody there was pretty emotional including my entire travel group of friends and family who had just met all of these people last week.
After a long night on the train we made it to Kyiv. Everyone was getting pretty burned out by this time but we were still able to cram quite a bit in to our last couple of days there. Kyiv was gorgeous as always (in its own way) and I was able to see a few friends there as well.
The group left on Friday, a day before me, so I was able to get out and do some exploring and hang out with some friends there as well. Friday night I somehow ended up getting a really strange Thai massage from some Thai lady who only knew two English phrases that usually came in order after I answered a tearful "yes" to the first one: "You pain?" and "RELAX!!!"
The 24 hours of flying home and layovers yesterday just about did me in. A baby just the row in front of me screamed the entire nine hours of the flight from Germany to Chicago. You can only imagine how excited I was to find out that that same baby would be sitting next to me on my flight from Chicago to Salt Lake as well. But if the baby didn't stop me from catching some shut-eye on the last flight, the crazy retired extremely talkative cop sitting on the other side of me would have. He, as often happens, immediately told me everything he knows about court as soon as he found out I'm in law school, telling me no less than 30 times that I'm obviously not getting a good education because I didn't have the same list of court-room etiquette checkpoints he was taught in the academy in 1953. On a side note, this sort of thing frequently happens. About twice a month I will run into someone who finds out I'm in law school and that person will immediately remember some tiny very specific list of something law related that they learned in business law 101 freshmen year of college at Shequera Community College and the following conversation will take place:
Annoying: Oh, you're in law school?!
Me: Yes
Annoying: Ok, so then you know the five things that a witness should always know.
Me: . . .
Annoying: What are they?
Me: I don't know what you're talking about.
Annoying: (Lists the five things out in explicit detail; none of them are predicable in any way but all of them are common sense and usually just the same thing repeated five different ways like "first, never lie. Second, don't give too much information. Third, think before you speak so you don't tell too much. Forth, tell the whole story but not more than you need to. Fifth, tell the truth).
Me: Interesting
Annoying: I can't believe you've made it this far in law school and they haven't even taught you that yet.
Me: Well there is a lot to learn.
Annoying: Yeah but this is pretty basic. I don't know how you could ever be a good lawyer without knowing that.
Me: (I attempt to explain that that specific list of things in that particular order is not some kind of standard by which all attorneys must measure themselves and the whole list is completely common sense anyway).
Annoying: It may seem like common sense but you didn't know it.
Me: Yes, I had no idea that a witness should tell the truth from the stand and try to get their story out. I wish we had spent a whole semester talking about that rather than contracts so I would be so much more prepared to have this ridiculous conversation with you.
Eventually the old cop changed the subject and decided that the middle of the night on a plane when I hadn't slept for over 24 hours (and I made sure he knew this by the way) was as good a time as any to lecture me for two hours about why all homosexuals are going straight to hell and deserve to be put in prison for the rest of their lives. I, quite cranky by this point, didn't think it was the best time for me to explain to him all the ways I disagreed with just about everything he had to say. So I just rolled my eyes and turned to the window to try to catch some sleep. Which didn't work well as he still wanted to tell me all the reasons I'll never be a real man if I don't serve in the army for a while.
I'm pretty jet-lagged now so I think I'll try to jump back into bed. I hope everyone is doing well!
~It Just Gets Stranger
Thursday, June 11, 2009
St. Petersburg
On Monday at lunch the following conversation took place between Kimberly and myself:
Eli: Darn, it's too bad I never made it to St. Petersburg.
Kimberly: Shoot. That is too bad.
Eli: I really want some vafly.
Kimberly: We can't have vafly today because it's not vafly Vednesday yet.
Eli: No!
Kimberly: We should totally go to St. Petersburg tonight.
Eli: Yeah. What? What about our jobs?
Kimberly: ah . . .
Eli: O.k.
Three hours later we were traveling to three very frustrating train stations in a frantic daze to try to buy last minute, reasonably priced tickets. We waited in lines for hours on end only to get yelled at and told that the tickets we just located online didn't actually exist until we finally got to the last of the train stations around 10:00PM and got to the window of a bob with a moustache who we lovingly refer to now as "Olga Voksal" as we never did get her real name. Olga Voksal helped us like a champ and even made sure we understood our itinerary before we left. I would have jumped over the counter and proposed to her on the spot had there not been bullet proof glass between us. The moustache might have been enough as well.
So we did the communal train thing with about 12,000,000 other people and kept ourselves entertained for quite a while trying to figure out how the heck to maneuver ourselves correctly to fit in the top bunks. Eight hours later we arrived in a cold and rainy St. Pete's where we took a bus tour of the city, went to multiple churches, stood in line at the Hermatage for about an hour and half, walked around the Hermitage/Winter Palace for a couple of hours (mostly because it was so huge that we couldn't figure out how the heck to get out; we still think there were entire wings of the palace we didn't even get close to---it was absolutely gorgeous as well), took a cold but beautiful boat cruise down the rivers, and ate at every food place we could find in the whole city. Our train left again that night after 1:00AM. It didn't feel that late however because of White Nights--we never did see it get dark.
The city was absolutely gorgeous and worth a trip all by itself. I will definitely go back (and hopefully when it's warm) and spend days there.
Don't have too much time to write now; I've got to go pick up the travel group at the airport in a bit but I just wanted to get these pictures out.
For those of you who have followed this blog for a while, I just got word that Great Grandma Whittle died yesterday. I got to see her one last time before I came to Moscow for her 102nd birthday and was happy to see that she was doing very well at that time. I'm sorry I will just miss the funeral. I'm going to miss her very much.
Love you all-
Colorful buildings along the river cruise
River Cruise
River Cruise
River Cruise
Tired, Cold, and Wet but Happy on the River Cruise
Choir Singing for Petro's Birthday
Choir
In the Hermitage/Winter Palace
Hermitage/Winter Palace
Hermitage/Winter Palace
Hermitage/Winter Palace
Hermitage/Winter Palace
Hermitage/Winter Palace
Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood (looks like St. Basil's on the outside)
Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood
Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood
Giant Church
Beautiful White Church with and Unhelpful Bob Inside Who would not Help us Buy Something
Clastrophobic on the Top Bunk on the Train
~It Just Gets Stranger
Eli: Darn, it's too bad I never made it to St. Petersburg.
Kimberly: Shoot. That is too bad.
Eli: I really want some vafly.
Kimberly: We can't have vafly today because it's not vafly Vednesday yet.
Eli: No!
Kimberly: We should totally go to St. Petersburg tonight.
Eli: Yeah. What? What about our jobs?
Kimberly: ah . . .
Eli: O.k.
Three hours later we were traveling to three very frustrating train stations in a frantic daze to try to buy last minute, reasonably priced tickets. We waited in lines for hours on end only to get yelled at and told that the tickets we just located online didn't actually exist until we finally got to the last of the train stations around 10:00PM and got to the window of a bob with a moustache who we lovingly refer to now as "Olga Voksal" as we never did get her real name. Olga Voksal helped us like a champ and even made sure we understood our itinerary before we left. I would have jumped over the counter and proposed to her on the spot had there not been bullet proof glass between us. The moustache might have been enough as well.
So we did the communal train thing with about 12,000,000 other people and kept ourselves entertained for quite a while trying to figure out how the heck to maneuver ourselves correctly to fit in the top bunks. Eight hours later we arrived in a cold and rainy St. Pete's where we took a bus tour of the city, went to multiple churches, stood in line at the Hermatage for about an hour and half, walked around the Hermitage/Winter Palace for a couple of hours (mostly because it was so huge that we couldn't figure out how the heck to get out; we still think there were entire wings of the palace we didn't even get close to---it was absolutely gorgeous as well), took a cold but beautiful boat cruise down the rivers, and ate at every food place we could find in the whole city. Our train left again that night after 1:00AM. It didn't feel that late however because of White Nights--we never did see it get dark.
The city was absolutely gorgeous and worth a trip all by itself. I will definitely go back (and hopefully when it's warm) and spend days there.
Don't have too much time to write now; I've got to go pick up the travel group at the airport in a bit but I just wanted to get these pictures out.
For those of you who have followed this blog for a while, I just got word that Great Grandma Whittle died yesterday. I got to see her one last time before I came to Moscow for her 102nd birthday and was happy to see that she was doing very well at that time. I'm sorry I will just miss the funeral. I'm going to miss her very much.
Love you all-
Some building
Colorful buildings along the river cruise
River Cruise
River Cruise
River Cruise
Tired, Cold, and Wet but Happy on the River Cruise
Choir Singing for Petro's Birthday
Choir
In the Hermitage/Winter Palace
Hermitage/Winter Palace
Hermitage/Winter Palace
Hermitage/Winter Palace
Hermitage/Winter Palace
Hermitage/Winter Palace
Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood (looks like St. Basil's on the outside)
Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood
Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood
Giant Church
Beautiful White Church with and Unhelpful Bob Inside Who would not Help us Buy Something
Clastrophobic on the Top Bunk on the Train
~It Just Gets StrangerMonday, June 8, 2009
Top 10 Worst Foods I've Had in Moscow
10- Jelly Chocolate Cookie in the Banya: I know, I ate something in the banya. I formally apologize to all of you who I may have offended by my doing so. Normally I would never put something in my mouth that has even flown 50,000 miles over a banya, but I had lost the ability to make good decisions while in there. The cookie tasted exactly like a fat sweaty Russian man covered in chocolate and jelly with maybe a little more sugar.
9- Variety Pizza: I was darn hungry so I stopped by a pizza place that only advertised three things: “Fish pizza,” “Meat filled rolls,” and “Variety Pizza.” Foolishly thinking that variety pizza sounded like the safest bet, I ordered a slice. It was handed out to me on a napkin, which it was stuck to as the crust on the bottom was little more than soggy dough. The top was piled with what looked like chopped up everything found in some drawer in the back. The only topping I identified with 100% accuracy was corn which was cold and looked like leftovers from Egypt’s 7 years of bumper crops during Joseph’s time. And yes, I did just start spontaneously singing every song from “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat.”
8- Rock Bread: The bread itself wasn’t bad, although it did have enough oil in it that the moment it was walked into the room my face immediately broke out into a severe case of acne, bad enough to send me all the way back to Ms. Rideout’s 7th grade health class on a day when we talked about our changing bodies. Part way through this bread I felt something hard in my mouth. Spitting it out I discovered it was black and about the size of a pebble. I’m going to call it a rock because that freaks me out much less than anything else it may have been.
7- Potato Roll from Crap Cafeteria: A coworker of mine took me to Crap Cafeteria on my first week in Moscow. For reasons I’ll never be able to justify, I returned several times afterwards for lunch. Crap Cafeteria is dark enough that you can’t see the food very well and nothing is labeled so you basically have to take chances and guess every time. On my first visit I experienced the potato roll which was a soggy piece of bread stuffed with what looked like some slosh scooped out of the bottom of a dumpster with a ladle at a fast-food place called “Shakey’s” just off the highway about an hour south of Manti in a town that got its name from the Bible and still builds bomb shelters.
6- Roll Stuffed with Cabbage: A bob at the orphanage made these for us over the weekend as a thank you for our service. At least that’s what she claims. I didn’t know what it was when I bit into it. Then I saw it. What looked like rotten cabbage scooped up by the same ladle found at Shakey’s in number 7 was spewing out of the center of this thing as though the roll was barfing (which was sort of like foreshadowing, I suppose). Then the smell hit me. My eyes started watering so badly that I felt the government would have been in its right to quarantine the entire village until New Years when everyone could drown away the memory with several liters of vodka.
5- Russian-Shvarma: Angry looking men sit in thousand degree telephone booth sized rooms cutting “meat” off of a rotating mass of something that looks red and layered, then stuff the shavings into a tortilla along with an array of sauces and vegetables that I never knew existed. The Shvarma isn’t bad, as long as you don’t think about what could possibly be in it, until you get to the last few bites where all the sauces have run to the bottom and leave what looks like a red swamp wrapped in soggy tortilla. I always leave feeling badly about myself.
4- Dacha Fish: The family I live with (who I absolutely LOVE) is much braver than I am about a lot of things. Besides going to the banya on a regular basis and relishing in all sorts of odd practices you find there, they occasionally bring home food that I think I used to have nightmares about as a child. One such occasion was about 3 weeks ago when they had a dacha fish that a friend had given to them (a dacha is a small farm out in a little village). I still don’t understand exactly how it was prepared but there was some sort of a vague explanation involving a box, string, power, and fire. We started ripping into it with our bare fingers. It tasted like a fire log that had been used to slaughter an entire community of sick deep sea creatures. I can still smell it on me.
3- Fish Egg Roll: Call it what you want, it’s still fish eggs. I didn’t realize what I was eating until I bit into it and felt the slimy little balls roll all over my tongue and burst open. I swear I heard baby screams. I immediately spit with such force that they took a few teeth out with them and landed somewhere near Rostov. I then, although having just exited the metro and not yet performed my traditional bathing in hand-sanitizer, scraped my tongue with my bare fingernails while bouncing up and down in an absolute daze. When I finally came to I was laying across a bob’s lap in a dark alley telling stories about the army while she stroked my hair. I’m so traumatized that this even exists that I somehow remembered the word for it although I hadn’t used or heard it in four years when Kimberly read it aloud several weeks ago immediately making me a little light-headed. “Ikra”; you just got the chills.
2- Orange Juice Liver from Crap Cafeteria: As previously mentioned, I couldn’t tell what it was because it was too dark inside. What I now imagine was liver looked like pregnant worms soaked in a runny orange colored juice that tasted like a tangerine, salt, and all the moisture squeezed out of the Sharma meat from number 5. It was served cold (although not intentionally) over mashed potatoes. I just shuttered.
1-Goloptsy from crap cafeteria: The only food ever placed in front of me that actually caused my life to flash before my eyes. Goloptsy are tender cabbage rolls filled with rice and meat and sometimes cooked with a touch of tomato paste and garlic. They have been one of my favorite Russian/Ukrainian foods. So naturally I ordered two at crap cafeteria the LAST(!!!) time we were there and plopped myself down at the nearest sticky table. It was difficult to cut through it but I made it somehow. I got the cold goloptsy into my mouth and for one brief moment I no longer knew where I was or what I was doing. My heart started racing and I lost control of all four of my limbs as I instinctively went into panic mode. It was as though my brain completely rebooted with no warning. Then the smell hit me. If some Mormon candle making company only made two kinds of scented candles, the first being “Crap Cafeteria Goloptsy” and the second “Airport Bathroom During Mass Layovers Due to Influenza Outbreak” and I had to buy one, I would choose the latter. Kimberly then went to take a bite. About the time the goloptsy got to mouth level, she shrieked a little and dropped the fork. Then we noticed the bright red meat oozing out of the middle. I swear I saw something move inside. We covered it with a thin napkin, speed-walked out shuttering, and didn’t eat again for 24 straight hours. Acia still gets upset when we talk about it.
~It Just Gets Stranger
9- Variety Pizza: I was darn hungry so I stopped by a pizza place that only advertised three things: “Fish pizza,” “Meat filled rolls,” and “Variety Pizza.” Foolishly thinking that variety pizza sounded like the safest bet, I ordered a slice. It was handed out to me on a napkin, which it was stuck to as the crust on the bottom was little more than soggy dough. The top was piled with what looked like chopped up everything found in some drawer in the back. The only topping I identified with 100% accuracy was corn which was cold and looked like leftovers from Egypt’s 7 years of bumper crops during Joseph’s time. And yes, I did just start spontaneously singing every song from “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat.”
8- Rock Bread: The bread itself wasn’t bad, although it did have enough oil in it that the moment it was walked into the room my face immediately broke out into a severe case of acne, bad enough to send me all the way back to Ms. Rideout’s 7th grade health class on a day when we talked about our changing bodies. Part way through this bread I felt something hard in my mouth. Spitting it out I discovered it was black and about the size of a pebble. I’m going to call it a rock because that freaks me out much less than anything else it may have been.
7- Potato Roll from Crap Cafeteria: A coworker of mine took me to Crap Cafeteria on my first week in Moscow. For reasons I’ll never be able to justify, I returned several times afterwards for lunch. Crap Cafeteria is dark enough that you can’t see the food very well and nothing is labeled so you basically have to take chances and guess every time. On my first visit I experienced the potato roll which was a soggy piece of bread stuffed with what looked like some slosh scooped out of the bottom of a dumpster with a ladle at a fast-food place called “Shakey’s” just off the highway about an hour south of Manti in a town that got its name from the Bible and still builds bomb shelters.
6- Roll Stuffed with Cabbage: A bob at the orphanage made these for us over the weekend as a thank you for our service. At least that’s what she claims. I didn’t know what it was when I bit into it. Then I saw it. What looked like rotten cabbage scooped up by the same ladle found at Shakey’s in number 7 was spewing out of the center of this thing as though the roll was barfing (which was sort of like foreshadowing, I suppose). Then the smell hit me. My eyes started watering so badly that I felt the government would have been in its right to quarantine the entire village until New Years when everyone could drown away the memory with several liters of vodka.
5- Russian-Shvarma: Angry looking men sit in thousand degree telephone booth sized rooms cutting “meat” off of a rotating mass of something that looks red and layered, then stuff the shavings into a tortilla along with an array of sauces and vegetables that I never knew existed. The Shvarma isn’t bad, as long as you don’t think about what could possibly be in it, until you get to the last few bites where all the sauces have run to the bottom and leave what looks like a red swamp wrapped in soggy tortilla. I always leave feeling badly about myself.
4- Dacha Fish: The family I live with (who I absolutely LOVE) is much braver than I am about a lot of things. Besides going to the banya on a regular basis and relishing in all sorts of odd practices you find there, they occasionally bring home food that I think I used to have nightmares about as a child. One such occasion was about 3 weeks ago when they had a dacha fish that a friend had given to them (a dacha is a small farm out in a little village). I still don’t understand exactly how it was prepared but there was some sort of a vague explanation involving a box, string, power, and fire. We started ripping into it with our bare fingers. It tasted like a fire log that had been used to slaughter an entire community of sick deep sea creatures. I can still smell it on me.
3- Fish Egg Roll: Call it what you want, it’s still fish eggs. I didn’t realize what I was eating until I bit into it and felt the slimy little balls roll all over my tongue and burst open. I swear I heard baby screams. I immediately spit with such force that they took a few teeth out with them and landed somewhere near Rostov. I then, although having just exited the metro and not yet performed my traditional bathing in hand-sanitizer, scraped my tongue with my bare fingernails while bouncing up and down in an absolute daze. When I finally came to I was laying across a bob’s lap in a dark alley telling stories about the army while she stroked my hair. I’m so traumatized that this even exists that I somehow remembered the word for it although I hadn’t used or heard it in four years when Kimberly read it aloud several weeks ago immediately making me a little light-headed. “Ikra”; you just got the chills.
2- Orange Juice Liver from Crap Cafeteria: As previously mentioned, I couldn’t tell what it was because it was too dark inside. What I now imagine was liver looked like pregnant worms soaked in a runny orange colored juice that tasted like a tangerine, salt, and all the moisture squeezed out of the Sharma meat from number 5. It was served cold (although not intentionally) over mashed potatoes. I just shuttered.
1-Goloptsy from crap cafeteria: The only food ever placed in front of me that actually caused my life to flash before my eyes. Goloptsy are tender cabbage rolls filled with rice and meat and sometimes cooked with a touch of tomato paste and garlic. They have been one of my favorite Russian/Ukrainian foods. So naturally I ordered two at crap cafeteria the LAST(!!!) time we were there and plopped myself down at the nearest sticky table. It was difficult to cut through it but I made it somehow. I got the cold goloptsy into my mouth and for one brief moment I no longer knew where I was or what I was doing. My heart started racing and I lost control of all four of my limbs as I instinctively went into panic mode. It was as though my brain completely rebooted with no warning. Then the smell hit me. If some Mormon candle making company only made two kinds of scented candles, the first being “Crap Cafeteria Goloptsy” and the second “Airport Bathroom During Mass Layovers Due to Influenza Outbreak” and I had to buy one, I would choose the latter. Kimberly then went to take a bite. About the time the goloptsy got to mouth level, she shrieked a little and dropped the fork. Then we noticed the bright red meat oozing out of the middle. I swear I saw something move inside. We covered it with a thin napkin, speed-walked out shuttering, and didn’t eat again for 24 straight hours. Acia still gets upset when we talk about it.
~It Just Gets Stranger
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Orphans
Whenever Krishelle, Uncle Will and I travel anywhere (mostly thanks to Bridgette) we constantly sing the "Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut; McDonalds, McDonalds" song and we get really excited if we can spot all three places at once in whichever freaky third world country we're in. So, naturally, for the last few days from opposite ends of the world, and in preparation for the crew to make their trek east, we've been singing the song non-stop but replacing "McDonalds" with "Mc-banya" among other things. I think our most recent Russified version of the song is "Russian Fried Chicken and a Vodka Hut; Mc-Banya, Mc-Banya." As I type now, I'm laughing about this as though it's the first time I've heard it. I don't know why I just shared that with you. I've had little sleep this week.
Yesterday morning some friends and I got up bright and early and left Moscow for a large orphanage about an hour or so outside of the city. This wasn't the first Eastern European orphanage I've been to but it was by far the largest, having about 140 children of almost all ages and genders. To make it more interesting and sad this was an orphanage for children with special needs, or, as we were told by the friend that brought us there in a strong Russian accent, "psychologically disturbed kids." This seemed be a big range of problems. Some of the kids seemed relatively stable and others were completely out of it and most were somewhere in between. It was difficult to really get a great sense of this however as most of the children seemed heavily sedated and walked around looking like zombies. The building was huge and a couple of hundred years old. DHL was sponsoring a service project (I believe they go out there every few weeks) so my friends and I went to help. We helped put together playground equipment for a while outside where we were bitten by no less than 5 billion mosquitoes; as I type, 2 pints of my blood are hovering somewhere in a forest in western Russia. Hopefully it ends up in a blood bank eventually. After a while we went in and played with the kids who were so cute and sweet. One 5 year old boy kept coming over to give me hugs. I just wanted to take him home with me. All in all it was a really good experience for us to go out there. As always it was so heartbreaking to see so many kids with little chance for a better life. But I'm thankful that there are people out there willing to go to these places and donate time and money to make them a little better and sometimes going as far as adopting children from all over the world who need to be rescued.
I'm having a really hard time right now as this Moscow experience starts to wrap up. In the interest of not giving the wrong impression I must preface the next few thoughts by saying that I really miss my family and friends in the states and I am so excited to see everyone again. I love my life in Provo and I love what I'm doing there now. That said, I really don't want to leave Moscow right now. I have never felt so comfortable before. I feel like I fit in better here than anywhere I've ever been. I've made so many great friends. I love the city and I love the international branch I go to. I love the office I'm working in and the people I get to be with every day there. There's just something about this place that really fits me and I've never felt so content before. The only thing missing is all of you out there reading. That's the hard thing about moving around to different countries around the world; everywhere you go you leave a huge piece of yourself there and it makes it so that everywhere you go, you feel like something is missing. I suppose this is just something I'm going to have to learn to deal with.
Work has been busy and interesting as always. Church exploring has remained exciting and borsht eating has been fantastic as ever. I'm looking forward to seeing my travel group here in just a few days. Hopefully it will warm up by then. The last 2 days have been rainy and really cold, an extreme change from last week when I layed out on the beach for about three days and roasted in the hot hot sun. C'est la vie.
~It Just Gets Stranger
Yesterday morning some friends and I got up bright and early and left Moscow for a large orphanage about an hour or so outside of the city. This wasn't the first Eastern European orphanage I've been to but it was by far the largest, having about 140 children of almost all ages and genders. To make it more interesting and sad this was an orphanage for children with special needs, or, as we were told by the friend that brought us there in a strong Russian accent, "psychologically disturbed kids." This seemed be a big range of problems. Some of the kids seemed relatively stable and others were completely out of it and most were somewhere in between. It was difficult to really get a great sense of this however as most of the children seemed heavily sedated and walked around looking like zombies. The building was huge and a couple of hundred years old. DHL was sponsoring a service project (I believe they go out there every few weeks) so my friends and I went to help. We helped put together playground equipment for a while outside where we were bitten by no less than 5 billion mosquitoes; as I type, 2 pints of my blood are hovering somewhere in a forest in western Russia. Hopefully it ends up in a blood bank eventually. After a while we went in and played with the kids who were so cute and sweet. One 5 year old boy kept coming over to give me hugs. I just wanted to take him home with me. All in all it was a really good experience for us to go out there. As always it was so heartbreaking to see so many kids with little chance for a better life. But I'm thankful that there are people out there willing to go to these places and donate time and money to make them a little better and sometimes going as far as adopting children from all over the world who need to be rescued.
I'm having a really hard time right now as this Moscow experience starts to wrap up. In the interest of not giving the wrong impression I must preface the next few thoughts by saying that I really miss my family and friends in the states and I am so excited to see everyone again. I love my life in Provo and I love what I'm doing there now. That said, I really don't want to leave Moscow right now. I have never felt so comfortable before. I feel like I fit in better here than anywhere I've ever been. I've made so many great friends. I love the city and I love the international branch I go to. I love the office I'm working in and the people I get to be with every day there. There's just something about this place that really fits me and I've never felt so content before. The only thing missing is all of you out there reading. That's the hard thing about moving around to different countries around the world; everywhere you go you leave a huge piece of yourself there and it makes it so that everywhere you go, you feel like something is missing. I suppose this is just something I'm going to have to learn to deal with.
Work has been busy and interesting as always. Church exploring has remained exciting and borsht eating has been fantastic as ever. I'm looking forward to seeing my travel group here in just a few days. Hopefully it will warm up by then. The last 2 days have been rainy and really cold, an extreme change from last week when I layed out on the beach for about three days and roasted in the hot hot sun. C'est la vie.
~It Just Gets Stranger
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Loving Moscow
I'm going to make this quick because it's later than I thought it was but I wanted to get an update out and post some pictures. I haven't been paying attention to the time lately so when I was walking home tonight (again through the most wonderful forest) I thought it was much earlier because it was still dusk out. Well it turns out it was after midnight. Apparently it stays light at least until midnight now and the sun comes up sometime before 4:30AM because that's when I wake up in a panic every morning thinking it's noon because the sun is planted firmly in the sky already. I love it.
President Uchtdorf and Elder Anderson came to Moscow on Monday and had a fantastic meeting here with the members. I sang in the Russian choir and got to sit up on the stage just right next to them. The members here in Moscow were so excited to have them come and their talks were so interesting and inspirational for the members here. Some neat things happened while they were in town. I would like to write more about one experience now but I don't think I'll do it justice because I'm so tired so I would rather wait. Just know it's a really neat story and feel warm and fuzzy about it.
Other than that this week has been another great week of touring and working. I went to one of the most beautiful services at my favorite Orthodox church the other day. My friend Jaclyn and I also got completely soaked in a terrible rain storm last night while trying to find a monastery. At least it hasn't been cold.
My Russian is all of the sudden getting a lot better this week. Don't get me wrong; I aint foolin' anyone into thinking I'm a native speaker but I'm communicating pretty well lately. It's like I just all of the sudden had this breakthrough. I've noticed that the guys in my office have stopped speaking English to me now which I take as a sign that they think my Russian has improved as they used to only speak English to me except for one who is from Ukraine and speaks only Ukrainian to me. But it's really nice; for the first time I feel fully confident and justified in calling myself tri-lingual without having to say "but" afterwards. I so wish I could stay the rest of the summer and keep working on it.
My friends and I had tickets to go to St. Pete's tomorrow but they could no longer go and I thought about just going alone but decided against it worrying that I would just spend the whole day lost and tired and without someone to laugh about it with. I'm kind of bummed about it but I've recently discovered some new things in Moscow that I would like some extra time for and I plan to return to Russia many many times for the rest of my life so there will be other opportunities. Fortunately we were able to get our money back on the tickets.
Ok I'll cut it off here. I'm safe and happy and having the time of my life. Would love to hear from you all wherever you are!
Church of St. Nicholai of the Weavers. My FAVORITE church!!! Gorgeous inside and out!
Weavers church again.
Weavers Church.
Weavers Church.
Me and Dennis celebrating "Vafly Venesday." A day where I run around the office and make everyone eat a ton of vafly!
Me getting caught eating Vafly even though it's not Vafly Venesday. A BIG no no.
Crappy street band. 
I'm sitting in there in the middle listening to the street band.
St. Basil's looking amazing at night!!!
St. Basil's again. And the Kremlin to the right.
Lunch and Vafly for the day at the area office.
President Uchtdorf greeting the members.
Onion domes under construction.
Moscow State University: the biggest building I have ever seen. One of Stalin's "7 sisters."
Moscow.
One of Stalin's 7 Sisters.
~It Just Gets Stranger
President Uchtdorf and Elder Anderson came to Moscow on Monday and had a fantastic meeting here with the members. I sang in the Russian choir and got to sit up on the stage just right next to them. The members here in Moscow were so excited to have them come and their talks were so interesting and inspirational for the members here. Some neat things happened while they were in town. I would like to write more about one experience now but I don't think I'll do it justice because I'm so tired so I would rather wait. Just know it's a really neat story and feel warm and fuzzy about it.
Other than that this week has been another great week of touring and working. I went to one of the most beautiful services at my favorite Orthodox church the other day. My friend Jaclyn and I also got completely soaked in a terrible rain storm last night while trying to find a monastery. At least it hasn't been cold.
My Russian is all of the sudden getting a lot better this week. Don't get me wrong; I aint foolin' anyone into thinking I'm a native speaker but I'm communicating pretty well lately. It's like I just all of the sudden had this breakthrough. I've noticed that the guys in my office have stopped speaking English to me now which I take as a sign that they think my Russian has improved as they used to only speak English to me except for one who is from Ukraine and speaks only Ukrainian to me. But it's really nice; for the first time I feel fully confident and justified in calling myself tri-lingual without having to say "but" afterwards. I so wish I could stay the rest of the summer and keep working on it.
My friends and I had tickets to go to St. Pete's tomorrow but they could no longer go and I thought about just going alone but decided against it worrying that I would just spend the whole day lost and tired and without someone to laugh about it with. I'm kind of bummed about it but I've recently discovered some new things in Moscow that I would like some extra time for and I plan to return to Russia many many times for the rest of my life so there will be other opportunities. Fortunately we were able to get our money back on the tickets.
Ok I'll cut it off here. I'm safe and happy and having the time of my life. Would love to hear from you all wherever you are!
Singing in the area office for a farewell for two general authorities that are leaving soon.
Church of St. Nicholai of the Weavers. My FAVORITE church!!! Gorgeous inside and out!
Weavers church again.
Weavers Church.
Weavers Church.
Me and Dennis celebrating "Vafly Venesday." A day where I run around the office and make everyone eat a ton of vafly!Me getting caught eating Vafly even though it's not Vafly Venesday. A BIG no no.
Crappy street band. 
I'm sitting in there in the middle listening to the street band.
St. Basil's looking amazing at night!!!
St. Basil's again. And the Kremlin to the right.
Lunch and Vafly for the day at the area office.
President Uchtdorf greeting the members.
Onion domes under construction.
Moscow State University: the biggest building I have ever seen. One of Stalin's "7 sisters."
Moscow.
One of Stalin's 7 Sisters.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
The Russian Banya
Another fantastic week in Moscow has come and gone. This week I explored more churches. I ate some goloptsy that made me almost vomit. I went to a concert on Red Square that was well-attended and extremely weird. I walked about 10,000 miles. I wandered through a forest late one night and made friends with a saxophone player named Oleg. I ate 30 kilos of vafly. I hung out at the beach and got severely sun-burned. I worked. I translated documents. I read contracts. I sat in interesting meetings regarding more visa and property issues. I sang in a choir. And I went to a Russian banya . . .
The banya was something I decided I needed to experience sometime around Wednesday and I was pleased that my friend Kimberly did as well as I wasn't sure I was going to be able to find anyone else to go. As it turned out we actually coerced 4 others to come along as well (all Americans that are here doing study abroad programs or other internships), one who panicked and bailed about 12 seconds after we walked into the building Saturday morning. We researched it. We found the best one. We talked about it. We asked dozens of Russians about it. But nothing could have prepared us.
We got to the banya and paid our fee, thinking "well this will be a nice day at the sauna." We were handed bundles of branches from pine trees and sent into the men's and women's locker rooms. Scott, Bryan, and I were the only Americans in attendance at the banya that day out of about 15 or 20.
The changing room was an odd mix between a smelly high school locker room, a bar, a lounge, and a bathroom. And it really did feel as wonderful as that all sounds. We were instructed to take off all of our clothes and wrap ourselves in horrid brown sheets and proceed into the next room, which was a giant hall with oddly placed faucets and drains every few feet. Not quite sure what we were supposed to do in there, we walked around, royally freaked out, until an old nude man came into the room and screamed "it's ready!!!" Seconds later 15 or so naked Russian men came running into the room like someone had just announced that free borsht was being given out to the first 5 customers and we were hurled in river of nakedness into the next room which was small, dark, and absolutely wreaked of something I have never smelled and do not feel I can adequately describe with any words that exist in the English language. If such words do exist, I imagine they are really long and contain multiple 4-letter profanities. This room had what looked like a deep double-wide Mormon baptismal font just to the left of a wooden door that we were all crowded around now.
The door was then opened and the crowed QUICKLY pushed on in to a small dark room that had four or five steps up to a wooden deck of some kind, which we then climbed (all except for Bryan who couldn't get himself to go up to the top). We reached the top step and it was at that moment that I no longer knew whether I was on Earth or in Hell. All 523,261 of my pores instinctively and immediately seemed to scream as they burst open wide enough for a 1998 Russian Lada to drive through (and probably break down on the way) and emitted enough liquid to sustain a small well-less village for days. I swear I heard what sounded like a bucket of water being dumped at my feet as every drop of fluid I've had to drink since 1984 was violently projected from my sweat-glands. Scott immediately turned to me and mouthed, looking more tortured than anyone I have ever seen, "I CAN'T BREATH!" We both dropped to the floor where it was only about 178 degrees as opposed to 180. Lying on our backs now in the intense heat, it was very clear why everyone was naked and as we went into survival mode for the next 2 hours all standards of modesty we had been taught at mutual throughout the '90s went sprinting out the window (figuratively speaking of course; there was no window in sight or I likely would have jumped through it at this point).
Lying on our backs now with our hands over our faces to keep the heat from melting our eyes, we started wondering how long we were obligated to stay there. The door was shut and it didn't seem like it was ok to leave. Just then a man who must have the WORST job in the ENTIRE world stood up with a giant fan and started waving it VIOLENTLY at each of us, projecting the air of Hell at us, so hot that I'm quite sure it gave me third-degree-burns and killed a quarter of my few properly functioning organs. I yelped a little when this began. Several minutes later the man with the fan called time and everyone cheered, clapped, and ran out of there like the free borsht was now in the baptismal font room.
At this point we felt like we were in another dimension entirely. We, of course, were carried again by the crowed back into this room where we were thrust into the water, which sounded good until the moment we emerged and discovered that this was no ordinary water. I think it must have just been anti-freeze because I have no other way to explain how this water was not just a solid block of ice. I think they could actually hear my under-water scream, even over all the noise from everyone else. At this point, my pores shut so tightly that I'm sure I permanently lost about 45% of them. I'll have to count later.
We were then thrown back into the faucet room to shower and then into the lounge/locker/bar room again to eat, which none of us Americans were remotely interested in doing at this point. We sat in our little booth with looks of horror on our faces, wondering what was going to happen next. To our absolute dismay, we were told to go back to the Hell room with the bundle of pine tree branches we were given earlier on. We did so, mostly because we had lost the ability to think for ourselves at this point. We were then instructed to stand in the heat (which was down to just a little bit hotter than an American sauna now) and beat one another from head to toe violently with the sharp pine-needles. Now, as evidence that we really had lost it, we did so. It seemed totally acceptable at the time but now that I think about it, that whole naked pine-tree branch hitting situation was pretty strange.
We were brought back out to the faucet room where we waited again, very unsure about what was going to happen until the naked old man emerged and yelled "it's ready!!!", again prompting the naked stampede back to the Hell room door. With sheer looks of panic on our faces we realized now that we were going to have to go through another "session." Somehow it was hotter the second time. Experiencing what I now imagine to be the most inhumane method of torture known to man, we lay there again with our faces covered, yelping louder than before. I'm quite certain that if someone had asked me any old question while I was in there I would be completely justified in referring to the banya as an "interrogation method." When the fan came out, my breathing went to panic mode as my body started to shut down. As a replacement for sweat, which I no longer had, I started emitting what I think was probably bone marrow and brain juices from each of my pores. Evidently the die-hard Russian men thought this session was worse too because they were all screaming by the end. Finally I stood and dove over the naked people on the stairs for the door, blacking out along the way. Time was called right about then.
I now felt like these 2 Americans and 15 Russians, all of whom I had just met, were my very closest friends. We'll likely all be pen-pals for life. Nobody goes through something like that together without instinctively feeling a permanent and powerful bond afterwards. Remind me to add Scott, Bryan, Oleg, Oleg, Oleg, Oleg, Oleg, Oleg, Oleg, Cergei, Oleg, Oleg, Cergei, Vlad, Vlad, Vlad and Oleg to my Christmas card mailing list this December.
Then it was back to the font. Back to the faucet room. Back to the sticks. Back to the locker-room. And back to a 3rd and final Hell-session that went much like the first and second. We eventually rolled out of there and met the girls who told us that their stick-beating session also involved covering their entire bodies with honey and chocolate and then scrubbing each other from head to toe with coffee grinds. I wasn't sad to miss out on the extra adventure.
I must say that despite all the misery, we all felt fantastic afterwards and still do. I would even consider going again. Additionally, there is a .2% chance that the banya healed my foot disease. Fingers crossed.
~It Just Gets Stranger
The banya was something I decided I needed to experience sometime around Wednesday and I was pleased that my friend Kimberly did as well as I wasn't sure I was going to be able to find anyone else to go. As it turned out we actually coerced 4 others to come along as well (all Americans that are here doing study abroad programs or other internships), one who panicked and bailed about 12 seconds after we walked into the building Saturday morning. We researched it. We found the best one. We talked about it. We asked dozens of Russians about it. But nothing could have prepared us.
We got to the banya and paid our fee, thinking "well this will be a nice day at the sauna." We were handed bundles of branches from pine trees and sent into the men's and women's locker rooms. Scott, Bryan, and I were the only Americans in attendance at the banya that day out of about 15 or 20.
The changing room was an odd mix between a smelly high school locker room, a bar, a lounge, and a bathroom. And it really did feel as wonderful as that all sounds. We were instructed to take off all of our clothes and wrap ourselves in horrid brown sheets and proceed into the next room, which was a giant hall with oddly placed faucets and drains every few feet. Not quite sure what we were supposed to do in there, we walked around, royally freaked out, until an old nude man came into the room and screamed "it's ready!!!" Seconds later 15 or so naked Russian men came running into the room like someone had just announced that free borsht was being given out to the first 5 customers and we were hurled in river of nakedness into the next room which was small, dark, and absolutely wreaked of something I have never smelled and do not feel I can adequately describe with any words that exist in the English language. If such words do exist, I imagine they are really long and contain multiple 4-letter profanities. This room had what looked like a deep double-wide Mormon baptismal font just to the left of a wooden door that we were all crowded around now.
The door was then opened and the crowed QUICKLY pushed on in to a small dark room that had four or five steps up to a wooden deck of some kind, which we then climbed (all except for Bryan who couldn't get himself to go up to the top). We reached the top step and it was at that moment that I no longer knew whether I was on Earth or in Hell. All 523,261 of my pores instinctively and immediately seemed to scream as they burst open wide enough for a 1998 Russian Lada to drive through (and probably break down on the way) and emitted enough liquid to sustain a small well-less village for days. I swear I heard what sounded like a bucket of water being dumped at my feet as every drop of fluid I've had to drink since 1984 was violently projected from my sweat-glands. Scott immediately turned to me and mouthed, looking more tortured than anyone I have ever seen, "I CAN'T BREATH!" We both dropped to the floor where it was only about 178 degrees as opposed to 180. Lying on our backs now in the intense heat, it was very clear why everyone was naked and as we went into survival mode for the next 2 hours all standards of modesty we had been taught at mutual throughout the '90s went sprinting out the window (figuratively speaking of course; there was no window in sight or I likely would have jumped through it at this point).
Lying on our backs now with our hands over our faces to keep the heat from melting our eyes, we started wondering how long we were obligated to stay there. The door was shut and it didn't seem like it was ok to leave. Just then a man who must have the WORST job in the ENTIRE world stood up with a giant fan and started waving it VIOLENTLY at each of us, projecting the air of Hell at us, so hot that I'm quite sure it gave me third-degree-burns and killed a quarter of my few properly functioning organs. I yelped a little when this began. Several minutes later the man with the fan called time and everyone cheered, clapped, and ran out of there like the free borsht was now in the baptismal font room.
At this point we felt like we were in another dimension entirely. We, of course, were carried again by the crowed back into this room where we were thrust into the water, which sounded good until the moment we emerged and discovered that this was no ordinary water. I think it must have just been anti-freeze because I have no other way to explain how this water was not just a solid block of ice. I think they could actually hear my under-water scream, even over all the noise from everyone else. At this point, my pores shut so tightly that I'm sure I permanently lost about 45% of them. I'll have to count later.
We were then thrown back into the faucet room to shower and then into the lounge/locker/bar room again to eat, which none of us Americans were remotely interested in doing at this point. We sat in our little booth with looks of horror on our faces, wondering what was going to happen next. To our absolute dismay, we were told to go back to the Hell room with the bundle of pine tree branches we were given earlier on. We did so, mostly because we had lost the ability to think for ourselves at this point. We were then instructed to stand in the heat (which was down to just a little bit hotter than an American sauna now) and beat one another from head to toe violently with the sharp pine-needles. Now, as evidence that we really had lost it, we did so. It seemed totally acceptable at the time but now that I think about it, that whole naked pine-tree branch hitting situation was pretty strange.
We were brought back out to the faucet room where we waited again, very unsure about what was going to happen until the naked old man emerged and yelled "it's ready!!!", again prompting the naked stampede back to the Hell room door. With sheer looks of panic on our faces we realized now that we were going to have to go through another "session." Somehow it was hotter the second time. Experiencing what I now imagine to be the most inhumane method of torture known to man, we lay there again with our faces covered, yelping louder than before. I'm quite certain that if someone had asked me any old question while I was in there I would be completely justified in referring to the banya as an "interrogation method." When the fan came out, my breathing went to panic mode as my body started to shut down. As a replacement for sweat, which I no longer had, I started emitting what I think was probably bone marrow and brain juices from each of my pores. Evidently the die-hard Russian men thought this session was worse too because they were all screaming by the end. Finally I stood and dove over the naked people on the stairs for the door, blacking out along the way. Time was called right about then.
I now felt like these 2 Americans and 15 Russians, all of whom I had just met, were my very closest friends. We'll likely all be pen-pals for life. Nobody goes through something like that together without instinctively feeling a permanent and powerful bond afterwards. Remind me to add Scott, Bryan, Oleg, Oleg, Oleg, Oleg, Oleg, Oleg, Oleg, Cergei, Oleg, Oleg, Cergei, Vlad, Vlad, Vlad and Oleg to my Christmas card mailing list this December.
Then it was back to the font. Back to the faucet room. Back to the sticks. Back to the locker-room. And back to a 3rd and final Hell-session that went much like the first and second. We eventually rolled out of there and met the girls who told us that their stick-beating session also involved covering their entire bodies with honey and chocolate and then scrubbing each other from head to toe with coffee grinds. I wasn't sad to miss out on the extra adventure.
I must say that despite all the misery, we all felt fantastic afterwards and still do. I would even consider going again. Additionally, there is a .2% chance that the banya healed my foot disease. Fingers crossed.
~It Just Gets Stranger
Friday, May 29, 2009
30 Ways You Know You've Spent Too Much Time in Eastern Europe
1. You start to say things like, “Well now that mullet doesn’t look too bad.”
2. You start referring to your grandmas as “bobs.”
3. You hug/shake hands with/practically spoon several smelly drunk strangers on the street multiple times a week without thinking anything of it.
4. You stop asking why 5,000 police officers are perfectly lined up a down the street looking mad but doing nothing because you know very well that there is no answer.
5. You know what vodka tastes like even though you’ve never had any.
6. You find yourself climbing to the front of the crowed at stores without thinking twice about whether there is supposed to be a line.
7. You get bored when a non-techno song is being played.
8. You don’t feel like your personal space has been violated when a stranger practically sits on your lap on public transport even though there are many entire rows available.
9. You have to pick a new candy store after you’ve depleted the first one of your favorite stuff over a period of a few weeks.
10. You start to speak constantly in the same voice you would use to tell a bed-time story, dramatic iambic pentameter and all.
11. You think it's perfectly reasonable to write everything down in gigantic squiggly handwriting on one-sided graph-paper.
12. You feel more secure when a sign or paper has a giant ink stamp on the bottom.
13. You stop asking if it’s a holiday every time you hear fireworks.
14. You throw away all of your shorts and start wearing tight black jeans to play sports no matter how hot and uncomfortable it gets.
15. You go shopping at the rinok for Speedos so you can hang out at the beach.
16. You start wishing endless dramatic lists of very specific blessings on everyone you encounter when a simple “goodbye” would suffice.
17. You check a thousand times a day whether you still have your passport.
18. You implicitly start to believe that sitting on the ground will make you go sterile.
19. You start eating questionable food from street vendors without using hand sanitizer first.
20. You don’t think anything tastes good unless it’s been soaked in cold oil for a few hours first.
21. You sort of start to think it’s funny when people dressed like cartoon characters on TV hit each other on the head for hours on end on every TV show on every channel.
22. You stop caring about whether or not you’ve contracted tuberculosis.
23. You think it’s perfectly reasonable to drive on the sidewalk during a traffic jam, fully expecting to cut right back into traffic half a mile down the road.
24. You don’t think twice when you see nicely dressed homeless beggars yacking away on their super fancy cell-phones.
25. You wonder at least once whether all the second hand smoke is going to kill your brain or lungs first.
26. You start to think that a fish net is perfectly acceptable clothing for any age or gender.
27. You stare at people in public who are smiling and try to figure out where they are from.
28. You stare at people in public who aren’t smiling and don’t feel awkward about it.
29. You wake up each morning fully expecting to go grocery shopping three times by the end of the day.
30. You completely forget what it feels like to get something done quickly.
~It Just Gets Stranger
2. You start referring to your grandmas as “bobs.”
3. You hug/shake hands with/practically spoon several smelly drunk strangers on the street multiple times a week without thinking anything of it.
4. You stop asking why 5,000 police officers are perfectly lined up a down the street looking mad but doing nothing because you know very well that there is no answer.
5. You know what vodka tastes like even though you’ve never had any.
6. You find yourself climbing to the front of the crowed at stores without thinking twice about whether there is supposed to be a line.
7. You get bored when a non-techno song is being played.
8. You don’t feel like your personal space has been violated when a stranger practically sits on your lap on public transport even though there are many entire rows available.
9. You have to pick a new candy store after you’ve depleted the first one of your favorite stuff over a period of a few weeks.
10. You start to speak constantly in the same voice you would use to tell a bed-time story, dramatic iambic pentameter and all.
11. You think it's perfectly reasonable to write everything down in gigantic squiggly handwriting on one-sided graph-paper.
12. You feel more secure when a sign or paper has a giant ink stamp on the bottom.
13. You stop asking if it’s a holiday every time you hear fireworks.
14. You throw away all of your shorts and start wearing tight black jeans to play sports no matter how hot and uncomfortable it gets.
15. You go shopping at the rinok for Speedos so you can hang out at the beach.
16. You start wishing endless dramatic lists of very specific blessings on everyone you encounter when a simple “goodbye” would suffice.
17. You check a thousand times a day whether you still have your passport.
18. You implicitly start to believe that sitting on the ground will make you go sterile.
19. You start eating questionable food from street vendors without using hand sanitizer first.
20. You don’t think anything tastes good unless it’s been soaked in cold oil for a few hours first.
21. You sort of start to think it’s funny when people dressed like cartoon characters on TV hit each other on the head for hours on end on every TV show on every channel.
22. You stop caring about whether or not you’ve contracted tuberculosis.
23. You think it’s perfectly reasonable to drive on the sidewalk during a traffic jam, fully expecting to cut right back into traffic half a mile down the road.
24. You don’t think twice when you see nicely dressed homeless beggars yacking away on their super fancy cell-phones.
25. You wonder at least once whether all the second hand smoke is going to kill your brain or lungs first.
26. You start to think that a fish net is perfectly acceptable clothing for any age or gender.
27. You stare at people in public who are smiling and try to figure out where they are from.
28. You stare at people in public who aren’t smiling and don’t feel awkward about it.
29. You wake up each morning fully expecting to go grocery shopping three times by the end of the day.
30. You completely forget what it feels like to get something done quickly.
~It Just Gets Stranger
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