Well, I suppose like the most boring of stories, I ought to start this at the beginning. Medias res would have been better, but what can you do? OK, The trip starts with a number of... hiccoughs, shall we say.
First we have orientation, which essentially consists of three days of reminders not to go wandering down allies drunk in the middle of the night. As well as a series of visits from REDACTED governmental agency, who told us in no uncertain terms to not speak to any Russian, lest they be spies who are trying to recruit us in to foreign service. Also if we, God forbid, make friends with anyone while abroad, we must remember their names and contact information and report them later, again lest they be spies attempting to recruit us in to the seedy underworld... of learning foreign languages. Apparently. The immediately following section of orientation was entitled "Speaking to Russians". The irony was lost on very few.
After three days in DC, we depart for the airport and the Motherland beyond. And then the real problems begin. It was supposed to be a simple flight. DC to Frankfort. Frankfort to Moscow. Best laid plans of mice and men i tak dalee.
There were rumors about a strike by the Lufthansa flight crews within the week of our departure. As we were leaving DC we heard that the strike was scheduled for approximately 6 hours after our departure time from Frankfort. And when we arrived in Frankfort, we learned that the strike was premature. (also, on my flight from DC to Germany, my little television imbedded in the back of the seat in front of me didn't work. So I spent 11 hours glimpsing the videos of the persons in front of me, and inventing dialog for each of the films myself. Did you know that the Hunger Games is about a junior archery champion who is half bird or something, and meets the bartender from Cheers, who then becomes her coach, so she can make it to the olympics? Neither did I.) The following hours of delirium and sleeping on pseudo-marble floors did not bode well for our survival or sanity. We shifted from gate to gate. And from terminal to terminal. Needless to say after almost 24 hours of no real sleep many Tanzenparties occurred. And what eventually resulted was that five of us (out of 15) headed out on a plane bound for Moscow a 17 hours after arriving in Frankfort. Those left behind, much like a series of crappy books by the same name, were sent to hotel limbo until more flights could be found. And as that turns out, is they spend something like 5 hours in the hotel before having to return to the airport to begin the process of waiting and moving all over again.
The "lucky ones", those of us who ended up on the flight, arrived in Moscow to learn that, of course, our luggage had been lost. Three hours of waiting in a line, (not dissimilar from Sorokin's "the Queue") we began to fill out forms (again the most natural thing one can do in Russia) and the result was that at some point in the next few weeks (or months) we would receive our missing checked baggage. We 5 then proceeded to collect our few meager remaining possessions and filed in to a bus meant for 16 to take us to the dorms for the next few days until we met our host families.
A short aside, when we check in at the DC airport, Lufthansa was kind enough to check more than one bag for no additional charge, and several in the group took advantage of this deceptively useful service. "Why should we lug extra things around if Lufthansa will do it for us?" some of them may have thought at the time. What foolish fools to have been fooled so foolishly. The result of this was that several people not only did not have their checked baggage, they also lacked carry-ons with emergency supplies of clothes, meds, soap, clothes, shampoo, clothes, or clothes.
Immediately after finally departing from the airport, we had a brief tour of Moscow at 6 in the morning, for which not a soul of the 5 of us were conscious. And ta-da ta-da, a thousand times ta-da, we arrived at the dormitory of our future university. There were not enough open rooms, so the three males who survived the Gamut of Frankfort had to split a two person room. This resulted in one of our new kin sleeping on the dormitory floor. Allow me to let that just sink in. After 36 hours or so, this poor bastard had to sleep on the floor too. Rest assured friends, the one to take the hit was a much hardier man than I.
3 hours after arriving, we were awakened for a meeting. The scowls on our faces were palpable. I can honestly say I don't remember much more about that day. But Either way, we had finally arrived in Moscow.
Over the course of the next 24 hours or so the rest of the Moscow and Vladimir groups trickled in to Russia on various flights in various forms of disarray.
Three days later my bags finally arrived and I could finally change out of my jeans, who were rather world-weary at this point. One of the First Five did not receive his baggage until almost a week after that (he is also one of the people who had checked his carry-on (for convenience)). Eventually we all had all of our clothing and miscellanea.
Perhaps three days after our unceremonious arrival, each of us had a host family come to the lobby and the dorm and spirit us away to our new host-homes.
I live a mere 3 metro stops from the university on in a two bedroom apartment with a woman who teaches at MGU in the Biology Department. Let's call her Sophia (does this name have significance in my narrative for all you literary minded people thinking of Dostoyevskian prostitutes? No, no it does not. It was just the first name mentioned on trashy Russian television that i heard while writing this. ) for lack of a better name that isn't her real name.
My room is actually quite spacious. A bed, a large closet, an enormous hard-wood desk, and so on. Sophia does, like all hozaijki, think that as an American student if I touch any appliances, I will utterly destroy them. Therefore I am not allowed to do my own laundry. Nor use the stove or microwave. I have been told on a number of occasions (by her) that I shouldn't do there things anyway, because they are woman's work. Also, after I eat I was told I am not to wash the dishes because 1, it is not man's work, and 2, my hands are two large for the sink, and I would probably break everything anyway. Sophia gave me a small umbrella for the rain, on which I found a small tear, so naturally, I wanted to fix said hole, I went to fetch my small sewing kit only to have the umbrella secreted away and repaired before I had a chance to fix it myself.
Breakfasts with Sophia consist of 150 grams of bread, then yoghurt, and a banana all to be washed down with a still boiling cup of tea. And all of that must be entirely consumed within 14 minutes of sitting down. Dinners at home are a salad of cucumbers, tomatoes, cabbage, and peppers and a main dish of some enormous amount of rice, beans, grekha, or what have you and some kind of meat (sometimes of indeterminate origin. Really no complaints on my home food other than the enormous volume which I am expected to eat every meal. There are certainly much worse ways things could have turned out.
As long as I make my bed when I get up every morning, keep the floor of my room clear of debris, and call when I am not going to be home for dinner, there are very few problems.
Oh... except for the mushrooms. I arrived home from classes one day to find the entire apartment literally covered in mushrooms on drying racks. The smell was overwhelming. "It is a healthy smell, breath in deeply and you will like it," said Sophia. Imagine if you will the sink, floor, and shower of the bathroom willed with mushroom stank. now imagine trying to brush your teeth in the morning, the minty freshness mingling in your nostrils with the putrid fungal essence. A combination that will result in gagging. Also, if you see above, the shower was filled with them too, which resulted in me not being able to bath for almost a week. Luckily in Russia that is not really all that out of the ordinary. Also luckily, Sophia explained to me today that mushroom season is already over. And Slovo Bogu for that.
Classes at the Moscow International University are Grammar, Phonetics, Economic Geography, History, Film, Speech, Literature, Mass Media, and Dance. More on those later.
Rumor is that it takes something like three weeks to acclimate oneself to a new environment. At 3.5 weeks in, I feel like Moscow and I have finally come to an accord. This city is dirty, loud, and angry, but I'm still very glad that I'm here.
Updates will be periodic. Moreover they will be when I am not overwhelmed by other work, winter, mutant attacks, or any such ilk of those.
