Friday, February 6, 2009
peterburger pie
A real life parody of Sweeney Todd has broken loose in the media here in Petersburg. Apparently two 19-yr old goth/emo kids kidnapped and killed a 16 yr old girl and cooked her up in a pie! This is horrifyingly absurd. Here's the st. petersburg times article on it. I knew those emo kids were a breed not to be messed with. These streets are dangerous.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
The amount of blogging I have to catch up on doesn't even come close to the amount of laundry that needs to be done. I'll start now- now that all my guests have finally left and I have some down time before the semester and my work takes off again....
The Banya
I am slightly embarrassed to admit that I finally had my first real banya experience only two nights ago. The Russian banya is a tradition I had only experienced vicariously through tales of other Americans abroad. I could never convince Sashen'ka to take me as she believed that the banya boils your brains. I was hosting fulbrighter David and his (American) friend was visiting from Paris and needed an education in Russian life. We recruited a group: Sasha, David, Daniel, Anna, Carrie, Olga and me and headed to soak in the culture.
The banya is the Russian sauna- you beat each other over the back with soaked birch branches and take breaks from the heat by jumping into a pool of water (or snow if you're doing it right and banya-ing out in the countryside). You do this in cycles of three- three rounds in the banya, three breaks in the cold cold water. We only had time for one troika in our group and it was so much fun! The shock of the cold water feels amazing after sitting around and sweating.
The banya cleansed all the vacation out of me, and petersburg has gotten cold, as if to say "the time has come for more serious work, to sit inside and read and write."
The Banya
I am slightly embarrassed to admit that I finally had my first real banya experience only two nights ago. The Russian banya is a tradition I had only experienced vicariously through tales of other Americans abroad. I could never convince Sashen'ka to take me as she believed that the banya boils your brains. I was hosting fulbrighter David and his (American) friend was visiting from Paris and needed an education in Russian life. We recruited a group: Sasha, David, Daniel, Anna, Carrie, Olga and me and headed to soak in the culture.
The banya is the Russian sauna- you beat each other over the back with soaked birch branches and take breaks from the heat by jumping into a pool of water (or snow if you're doing it right and banya-ing out in the countryside). You do this in cycles of three- three rounds in the banya, three breaks in the cold cold water. We only had time for one troika in our group and it was so much fun! The shock of the cold water feels amazing after sitting around and sweating.
The banya cleansed all the vacation out of me, and petersburg has gotten cold, as if to say "the time has come for more serious work, to sit inside and read and write."
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Obamica
We went to the Jewish Museum in Berlin the other day (unfortunately we got there only a couple hours before close and didn't have time to see everything) and i found this amazing Obamica.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Well, I've been quite lousy at keeping up with my blog so far in 2009 and i'm hoping to change that soon.
New Year's Eve in Petersburg was worth the early flight home. After a feast and games at Olga's house we took our party group to the streets where everyone was out- there was a girl in a Father Frost costume handing out clementines, groups of people dancing, setting off fireworks-all of petersburg was running around on Nevsky shouting "С НОВЫМ ГОДОМ!" to each other.
I posted some pictures from the night here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurichka/
and then everyone was on holiday until yesterday.
I met with Yuri a few days ago and we outlined goals for the rest of the year. He and Pyotr pulled out a bunch of printmaking journals and suggested i submit the article that I wrote to more specialized journals.
On Friday some of my fellow fulbright friends arrived: Abbie, Jason and Matt. The four of us plus Olga (five total) are heading out on a trip throough parts of Europe tomorrow. I've already been to the countries we're visiting- the netherlands, germany and czech republic- but it'll be just as exciting to go back and spend more time in these places and nothing beats wonderful travel company.
We've been having a great time together so far- seeing places like the Nabakov museuem (complete with his butterfly collection!), the Hermitage, an opera: The Magic Flute, and the Russian Museum. The opera, as it turns out, was not in the Marinskii, but the music hall of the marinsky. We were worried that we were going to be late when we got to the theatre and rushed to buy tickets without realizing that they were tickets to Swan Lake. Oh no!
Luckily, our fluent friend Olga was able to save us all. She told the lady at the ticket window that her friends don't speak Russian and that we wanted to see the magic flute. She switched our tickets and we got seats for the Magic Flute right on the stage!
so much more i want to write, but so much needs to get done today. I'll catch up soon!
New Year's Eve in Petersburg was worth the early flight home. After a feast and games at Olga's house we took our party group to the streets where everyone was out- there was a girl in a Father Frost costume handing out clementines, groups of people dancing, setting off fireworks-all of petersburg was running around on Nevsky shouting "С НОВЫМ ГОДОМ!" to each other.
I posted some pictures from the night here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurichka/
and then everyone was on holiday until yesterday.
I met with Yuri a few days ago and we outlined goals for the rest of the year. He and Pyotr pulled out a bunch of printmaking journals and suggested i submit the article that I wrote to more specialized journals.
On Friday some of my fellow fulbright friends arrived: Abbie, Jason and Matt. The four of us plus Olga (five total) are heading out on a trip throough parts of Europe tomorrow. I've already been to the countries we're visiting- the netherlands, germany and czech republic- but it'll be just as exciting to go back and spend more time in these places and nothing beats wonderful travel company.
We've been having a great time together so far- seeing places like the Nabakov museuem (complete with his butterfly collection!), the Hermitage, an opera: The Magic Flute, and the Russian Museum. The opera, as it turns out, was not in the Marinskii, but the music hall of the marinsky. We were worried that we were going to be late when we got to the theatre and rushed to buy tickets without realizing that they were tickets to Swan Lake. Oh no!
Luckily, our fluent friend Olga was able to save us all. She told the lady at the ticket window that her friends don't speak Russian and that we wanted to see the magic flute. She switched our tickets and we got seats for the Magic Flute right on the stage!
so much more i want to write, but so much needs to get done today. I'll catch up soon!
Monday, January 5, 2009
Thursday, January 1, 2009
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