Luckily that's not the case for me today.
I'm headed out to make Banana Bread and square pumpkin pie (there are no pie dishes anywhere in this country! Maybe ikea, but that's a 2 hour trek there and back!)for the TWO thanksgiving dinners today. The first with a group of fellow fulbrighters at 6, then 9:30 at Bryan Billing's annualy Smolny thanksgiving mess. Last time Sam brought a bucket of KFC, we'll see if we're all that lucky this time around.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Good luck to Mom, Dad, Mark and Megan in the Turkey Trot.
Here are some bits of Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving:
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Monday, November 24, 2008
kicking it middle school style...
I met up with Vanessa today as she was getting her hair chopped off at the salon Toni and Guy. I sat down and chatted it up with her as the stylist was finishing up. This place was classy- they served an americano as I kept my americanka company during her big chop chop.
On our walk back we went hat shopping- having no hair in snowy petersburg is pretty chilly. We didn't end up finding Vanessa a hat, but we did find Freeman's Cucumber Peel off Mask at Rive Gauche!
We pampered the 6th graders inside of us by treating our faces to this cucmbery delight. I forgot how fun it is to peel this gluey stuff off your face, and how much it sucks when it's stuck in your eyebrows.
On our walk back we went hat shopping- having no hair in snowy petersburg is pretty chilly. We didn't end up finding Vanessa a hat, but we did find Freeman's Cucumber Peel off Mask at Rive Gauche!
We pampered the 6th graders inside of us by treating our faces to this cucmbery delight. I forgot how fun it is to peel this gluey stuff off your face, and how much it sucks when it's stuck in your eyebrows.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
a lazy cozy sunday
Sasha spent the night after missing her marshrutka home last night and we woke up this morning to find the windowsills covered in snow! A real storm this time- a good five inches. We went to the store to stock up on food so that we could hibernate and have a Kill Bill marathon all day. We ate: ham+cheese grilled sandwiches, mandarines, apples, gingerbread cookies covered in chocolate, fresh-baked banana bread, pretzels and tea.
I went out to try to get a webcam tonight but the computer store was already closed. I called Megan last night through Skype and it was so fun to see everyone and give Sasha a tour of our house via skype! By now all the snow has turned into dirty slush. Walking around tonight I was so happy to have my new boots. They were impenetrable! I walked straight through slush puddles and kept warm and dry. All of this for just 1000 rubles (40 bucks!) what a deal after so many days of awful rain and wet feet.
I went out to try to get a webcam tonight but the computer store was already closed. I called Megan last night through Skype and it was so fun to see everyone and give Sasha a tour of our house via skype! By now all the snow has turned into dirty slush. Walking around tonight I was so happy to have my new boots. They were impenetrable! I walked straight through slush puddles and kept warm and dry. All of this for just 1000 rubles (40 bucks!) what a deal after so many days of awful rain and wet feet.
Alarm Will Sound
Last night I went to the Alarm Will Sound concert- the ensemble played two covers of Aphex Twin songs- an electronic group. Pretty incredible show, give it a listen:
Thursday, November 20, 2008
bubbling over
Petersburg feels smaller and smaller every day. Yesterday Andre invited me to go to the Sound the Alarm concert tonight. Then, Sasha called me earlier today to invite me to the same event! I showed up and ran into Frank, Maria and another Andre I know, after having just run into Piper on the street on the walk over.
There's an American music festival going on right now featuring contemporary classical composers. The show tonight was pretty incredible- a free show at the Hermitage theater, a rather small venue with amazing acoustics. I hadn't heard of Sound the Alarm before and they blew me away. The ensemble will play again Saturday, so I might have to go.
Whenever i talk about Russia and all the time i spend here, I always explain it as a love-hate relationship. It had been an abusive one for a while now, but right now I can genuinely say that I love it here. Superstition is making me pretend to spit over my left shoulder three times now as i type this (the traditional equivalent to knocking on wood here), but these last two weeks have just come up roses and here's why:
First off, I have really amazing friends here, it's humbling to be able to develop really close genuine friendships despite language bariers, and keep those friendships going over these past few years when i've been in and out of Russia.
Also- this week has been full of so many fun things that i've been rocketing off into happy moods in spite of ever shortening dark cold and wet days. The mouse on mars concert and this sound the alarm concert were fabulous, and I've been meeting so many fun people this last week.
Having this article due for the St. Petersburg Times this weekend really made me kick my butt into shape with the research I'm doing. I scoured the articles I'd brought with me and read throught the OT'TiSK print journal that Yuri leant me and typed up a 4 page overview of artist books in Russia from the Futurists to artists working in contemporary Petersburg. I'm really satisfied with how it turned out! i can't wait to see it in print in December. I didn't realize how much I actually missed working on my thesis until I started writing up this report. I love nerding out over a research project. Anyway, I learned Monday that I'd have to turn in any images to go along with the article on Wednesday (yesterday), so Tuesday I had to scramble around finding what I could. Tuesdays I meet with Yuri at the printmaking studio to work on my own book project, but this time we just discussed the Petersburg art scene. He gave me some Jpg's of his works to include with the article and let me photograph a bunch of books that he has on hand. The art community in St. Petersburg is really wonderful because it truly is a community. Yuri has a rich collection of hand-bound books from contemporary book-making artists which were all given to him because all these artists know each other and collaborate together. We were looking at "book object" works by Pushnitskii on his website and I said they'd be great for the article, Yuri just popped open his phone and his cell number handy. Yuri has just been a magnificent help in working on this project. From the first time I discussed it with him he has been nothing but enthusiastic and excited to talk about artist books and arrange for me to meet with everyone working in the field and always encourages me to grab books of the shelf "anything you need" he offers, to read and write away. He even assembled a light for me after Piotr refused to let us borrow his worklamp for 10 minutes so i could shoot pictures of artist books for the magazine. By assemble don't mean that he just screwed in a lightbulb, but he actually assmebled a light- hooking up wires and all!
alright, i know i'm gushing and sounding overly sentimental, but I have to overindulge in feeling so much at home here because it's been so rocky for so long. Things didn't start out so great when i was bumming around for the first month waiting for Yuri to get back in town and wondering how to work out my project. I hung out with friends a lot, i caught up on a good chunk of the TV that i missed out on over the last four years (having internet at home acts as such a vacuum sometimes) and I wondered how these next ten months would look.
also, i'm extremely thankful to have wonderful supporting parents who are willing to lend me some money via western union as I wait for my bank stuff to get sorted out. It took me three trips to Western Union before i got the money (the first time i didn't have the code i needed, the second they had just closed 15 minutes before) but if it were effortless and convenient, it wouldn't be Russia.
There's an American music festival going on right now featuring contemporary classical composers. The show tonight was pretty incredible- a free show at the Hermitage theater, a rather small venue with amazing acoustics. I hadn't heard of Sound the Alarm before and they blew me away. The ensemble will play again Saturday, so I might have to go.
Whenever i talk about Russia and all the time i spend here, I always explain it as a love-hate relationship. It had been an abusive one for a while now, but right now I can genuinely say that I love it here. Superstition is making me pretend to spit over my left shoulder three times now as i type this (the traditional equivalent to knocking on wood here), but these last two weeks have just come up roses and here's why:
First off, I have really amazing friends here, it's humbling to be able to develop really close genuine friendships despite language bariers, and keep those friendships going over these past few years when i've been in and out of Russia.
Also- this week has been full of so many fun things that i've been rocketing off into happy moods in spite of ever shortening dark cold and wet days. The mouse on mars concert and this sound the alarm concert were fabulous, and I've been meeting so many fun people this last week.
Having this article due for the St. Petersburg Times this weekend really made me kick my butt into shape with the research I'm doing. I scoured the articles I'd brought with me and read throught the OT'TiSK print journal that Yuri leant me and typed up a 4 page overview of artist books in Russia from the Futurists to artists working in contemporary Petersburg. I'm really satisfied with how it turned out! i can't wait to see it in print in December. I didn't realize how much I actually missed working on my thesis until I started writing up this report. I love nerding out over a research project. Anyway, I learned Monday that I'd have to turn in any images to go along with the article on Wednesday (yesterday), so Tuesday I had to scramble around finding what I could. Tuesdays I meet with Yuri at the printmaking studio to work on my own book project, but this time we just discussed the Petersburg art scene. He gave me some Jpg's of his works to include with the article and let me photograph a bunch of books that he has on hand. The art community in St. Petersburg is really wonderful because it truly is a community. Yuri has a rich collection of hand-bound books from contemporary book-making artists which were all given to him because all these artists know each other and collaborate together. We were looking at "book object" works by Pushnitskii on his website and I said they'd be great for the article, Yuri just popped open his phone and his cell number handy. Yuri has just been a magnificent help in working on this project. From the first time I discussed it with him he has been nothing but enthusiastic and excited to talk about artist books and arrange for me to meet with everyone working in the field and always encourages me to grab books of the shelf "anything you need" he offers, to read and write away. He even assembled a light for me after Piotr refused to let us borrow his worklamp for 10 minutes so i could shoot pictures of artist books for the magazine. By assemble don't mean that he just screwed in a lightbulb, but he actually assmebled a light- hooking up wires and all!
alright, i know i'm gushing and sounding overly sentimental, but I have to overindulge in feeling so much at home here because it's been so rocky for so long. Things didn't start out so great when i was bumming around for the first month waiting for Yuri to get back in town and wondering how to work out my project. I hung out with friends a lot, i caught up on a good chunk of the TV that i missed out on over the last four years (having internet at home acts as such a vacuum sometimes) and I wondered how these next ten months would look.
also, i'm extremely thankful to have wonderful supporting parents who are willing to lend me some money via western union as I wait for my bank stuff to get sorted out. It took me three trips to Western Union before i got the money (the first time i didn't have the code i needed, the second they had just closed 15 minutes before) but if it were effortless and convenient, it wouldn't be Russia.
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