When it Rains, It Pours...
This week was an interesting one. It's been raining on and off for several days and, according to one of our Russian colleagues, SPB has a climate "just like your American city, Sydney" (we knew she meant Seattle).
On the bright side, a whole lot of things are going right. We had a great series of meetings, and a whole list of ways we can contribute to the community. The JDC staff have proactively approached the local organizations to find useful roles for us. This is really fantastic, as it means that we won't have to scrounge for opportunities and can hit the ground running. We also got our new, spacious office at the YESOD building, which is about a 20-minute walk or 30-minute Metro ride from us. The office has two computers, which should prevent us from our regular wrangling over our one computer. Unfortunately, they are both operated by Windows in Russian, so we have some learning to do. Lastly, we got our kitchen totally re-stocked and kashered thanks to a day-long trip to SPB's Ikea. It's great to live in a civilized, modern city that has wireless Internet and Ikea!
On the list of stuff that has been challenging: our computer is about dead. I think there is a fatal flaw in the physical hard drive, but what do I know? This after sinking an additional $200 into buying more RAM for the stupid thing. We should have just spent the $500 and gotten a new one! Good thing everything is backed up--it's sad when 2.5 years is a long life for a computer. This blog post is coming from my PDA--it's not easy hand-writing every letter, but it gives me something to do while I run yet another diagnostic test. Also challenging? Our apartment is filled with mosquitos and flies--it feels like a small airport with the amount of bugs coming in and going out each day. Alyson has no problem sleeping through it, but I feel every bug bite and there is one fly in particular that likes to land in my ear in the middle of thу night.
A few observations beforу I go:
- In Russia, it is common to see people walking around with open beers on the streets. Sometimes you'll see ten or twenty people, each chugging their own beers. Around noon yesterday, we were walking down the street and some guy was stumbling home drunk. We're not sure if he had gotten drunk that morning, or whether this was left over from a LONG night the previous night.
- Although Russia has great things like Ikea and wireless internet cafes for us to use for free, there is still a lingering sense of uncertainty when walking on the streets late at night (it's probably related to the observation above!). Every time we get home, and our big locked door shuts behind us, I breathe a sigh of relief. I'm not sure that this feeling will ever go away while we're here, but it's not something I'm slowly getting accustomed to.
- So far, the best deal we've found in Russia is ice cream. You can get a cone on the street for five rubles, or roughly 20 cents. At McDonald's, that same cone is 7 rubles...still a good deal! For food, they have Blinis (which are basically just crepes filled with your choice of vegetables, cheese, meat, caviar, etc) available all over the place. There is even a chain of "Blin-Donald's" (I'm not making this up) that sells Blini Value Meals. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction!
On the bright side, a whole lot of things are going right. We had a great series of meetings, and a whole list of ways we can contribute to the community. The JDC staff have proactively approached the local organizations to find useful roles for us. This is really fantastic, as it means that we won't have to scrounge for opportunities and can hit the ground running. We also got our new, spacious office at the YESOD building, which is about a 20-minute walk or 30-minute Metro ride from us. The office has two computers, which should prevent us from our regular wrangling over our one computer. Unfortunately, they are both operated by Windows in Russian, so we have some learning to do. Lastly, we got our kitchen totally re-stocked and kashered thanks to a day-long trip to SPB's Ikea. It's great to live in a civilized, modern city that has wireless Internet and Ikea!
On the list of stuff that has been challenging: our computer is about dead. I think there is a fatal flaw in the physical hard drive, but what do I know? This after sinking an additional $200 into buying more RAM for the stupid thing. We should have just spent the $500 and gotten a new one! Good thing everything is backed up--it's sad when 2.5 years is a long life for a computer. This blog post is coming from my PDA--it's not easy hand-writing every letter, but it gives me something to do while I run yet another diagnostic test. Also challenging? Our apartment is filled with mosquitos and flies--it feels like a small airport with the amount of bugs coming in and going out each day. Alyson has no problem sleeping through it, but I feel every bug bite and there is one fly in particular that likes to land in my ear in the middle of thу night.
A few observations beforу I go:
- In Russia, it is common to see people walking around with open beers on the streets. Sometimes you'll see ten or twenty people, each chugging their own beers. Around noon yesterday, we were walking down the street and some guy was stumbling home drunk. We're not sure if he had gotten drunk that morning, or whether this was left over from a LONG night the previous night.
- Although Russia has great things like Ikea and wireless internet cafes for us to use for free, there is still a lingering sense of uncertainty when walking on the streets late at night (it's probably related to the observation above!). Every time we get home, and our big locked door shuts behind us, I breathe a sigh of relief. I'm not sure that this feeling will ever go away while we're here, but it's not something I'm slowly getting accustomed to.
- So far, the best deal we've found in Russia is ice cream. You can get a cone on the street for five rubles, or roughly 20 cents. At McDonald's, that same cone is 7 rubles...still a good deal! For food, they have Blinis (which are basically just crepes filled with your choice of vegetables, cheese, meat, caviar, etc) available all over the place. There is even a chain of "Blin-Donald's" (I'm not making this up) that sells Blini Value Meals. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction!
posted by Matt Fieldman at 10:19 AM
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