Privyet from Moscow!
Don’t worry, that title is not literal. I landed safely in Moscow early Friday morning.
Stepping off that plane, I couldn’t be more excited. I was breathing Russian air! Hearing Russian words! Seeing Russian people! I was a bit surprised then, at how “normal” everything seemed. Where was that culture shock? I figured, well, maybe an airport is just an airport, and a city just a city, even in Cyrillic. So far everything does seem pretty comfortable, but every once in a while I crash into something that makes me feel, well, shocked!
The first time I really felt that I was in Russia was when I was walking around a park near my apartment on my first day and I heard little kids speaking in Russian. For some reason knowing that these kids knew more of the language than I did really humbled me!
Sometimes I feel like I crash and burn a thousand little times a day, as I try to communicate with my lovely host mother, Alla, in my broken Russian. She patiently listens and helps me spell out words I don’t know into Google translate, but I feel terrible for all the things I know she is trying to say to me that I don’t understand!
However, I’m already amazed by how concepts I struggled with in the classroom make sense in real life. For example, the direction/navigation unit was one of my worst in class last year, but after Alla gave me directions and I consulted Yandex (Russia’s Google), I had an epiphany and I have found everything I needed so far! (I’m no expert though… I got lost and was late for my first class!).
The crash course is going well so far, minus a couple bumps and bruises. There is so much I can’t share in a short blog post, but some topics coming up are: the Cyrillic alphabet, food, architecture, the tourist spots, money, getting to know Alla, and much more!
Увидимся! Oo-vee-deem-sya! See ya!
