My last day on this fantastic trip. It is now 4:35 in the morning on the 9th of January. I have decided not to sleep tonight as I wanted to finish this blog. And I still need to pack for my noon flight.
This study abroad semester has been a rewarding experience for me. I learned a lot inside the classroom in the realm of mathematics, and even music through piano lessons. I learned a new language, though I’m not at all fluent in it yet. I learned about the Russian culture and made some good Russian friends. Excursions to other parts of Europe have given me more friends and great experiences in each city I visited. I got to listen to many different languages and often tried to learn a few words here and there.
Outside the classroom, I learned a few things about myself: I like languages. I like the way they sound, the way each language compares to another. I learned that I can spend long periods of time only having conversations with myself. I adapt to my living environment and situation pretty well. That said, when the opportunity presents itself to take a shower, I grab that shower.
I learned a lot about the world opinion of the United States. I learned that it is common to complain about US foreign policies and its failures, while at the same time blame us for anything that goes wrong in the world, and say that it’s America’s responsibility to fix everything, regardless if whether we caused it or not. Granted there are definitely many people who don’t think this way. However, this idea was still very prominent in my trip. I also learned, that I am honored to be an American.
Finally, I learned that even though my writing proficiency greatly improves after midnight (I knew this from high school), my thinking ability severely drops around 4 am. So instead of writing much more, I’m going to share either a favorite photo, one that conveys a striking memory, or both from each entry.
Russia is definitely ready for a Nuclear fallout. These steep escalators go hundreds of feet underground all over the metro. To feel how steep they are, the lights on the left are standing vertical. When we looked at the advertisements on the side, they match the angle of the tunnel so I felt vertigo. Also, the tunnel is made out of metal. Yea, these guys are legit.I said they were fun. Top row left to right and on down we have Natalie. Lenny & Mike Weiss. Will, David, John. Austin, Bill, Caleb, Mike Donatz.A random station in between the dacha station and Moscow.Vorobiyovy Gory Station, over the River.Reminds me of that famous photo of the men sitting on the metal beam of the Chrysler Building under construction. Not quite as cool though.These kids know what’s important. They don’t care about getting their slick clothes dirty, only about the ball on the field.Oh KAKA there he is! Adeel didn’t even notice. That dude was super sly in the previous photos, sneaking up like that. Nah just kidding he’s one of us. He’s Bill, and he’s pretty chill. Plays soccer too, and cooks good foo’.We entered the palace and walked into this round room with the white grand piano in it. After sitting down (most of us anyway), our tourguide gave the intro talk. This is a photo of almost all of us in the program. The only people not in it are the people sitting in seats number 2, 3, 4, starting from the left. The girls in those seats are the Russians who help us out in the program, and Nikolai, a french student here.Looking out past the distant ship, trying to catch a glimpse of Finland, I wondered what Peter thought when he decided to build his fortress and Palace here. No not really, but it seemed like a good caption.My favorite photo from St. Isaac’s. I was awestruck by the inside of this building and St. Isaac’s Cupola.In the words of Adeel Khan, paraphrasing Kanye West, “This photo is one of the best photos of all time.”As we walked out into the grassland to see the Church of Pokrov-on-Nerl I stopped to take this photo. I think it’s one of my favorite photos of Russia so far.So this picture pretty much sums up our entire trip. If you don’t know him already, Chris Horvat is a man of many talents, including (obviously) modeling. The moment captured here is locally referred to as “The Precious” here in Russia.I got out my honey to show it off, and then got some on my gloves. So then I proceeded to clean the honey off of them. It worked.Monkey Bars! Lenny and I got to climb on them. There was a repeating song that quickly became annoying coming through speakers. A video of dudes climbing on the bars accompanied the speakers. So we figured it was alright if we climbed on them as well.Proof that we were thereThe timpanist’s sheet music.This girl kept jumping to the fresh snow to make snow angels.Perhaps the coolest looking building in the fog in Moscow, the gold up top supposedly solar panels, according to one of the Russians with us.Communists! We dared not get any closer as we didn’t want to get hurt.After walking all the way back to Kreshatik we decided to walk along its sidewalk for a bit before heading to an inexpensive cafe. While this is the sidewalk it doubles as a parking lot for cars. Yes, I was almost hit by this suv, but it was going pretty slow.My favorite photo of the dayFrom the riverwatchmen’s point of view. I took this shot over 10 times, experimenting with the focus and shutter exposure time. I was surprised at how much I learned about my camera. Anyway, I was finally satisfied by this one.A Russian woman begging at the edge of Red Square.Looking down on lower Old Town. This sight was my favorite in the whole city. I acquired a background for my computer of a Swiss skyline wishing that I could see something that resembled it and now I have. The tallest church tower belongs to St. Olaf’s. To my disappointment, all the doors were locked both days we tried to enter.Turns out it was colder this morning than on Tuesday evening. It did feel a bit chilly out on the hill.The bridge from the tower to the entrance on the other side of what might have once been a moat gave me this view of one last incredible Moscow sunset.Meat fondue with Marcel’s family. Jamie is very photogenic once she gets over her shyness.Natalia on the left with Jamie, Luca checking out their fun. Désirée in the middle, Lidya in front in pink, and Bea to the right.There was even a soccer field hidden away in the forest/meadow combination that spanned the hill.Stadt Park Metro Station. Very pretty actually.Mendelssohn Bartholdy Park.Right up front.The walls of the processional way from the city of Babylon.The first chessmaster in the world. And he was Czech. Apparently, his rival and him would publish books about the other one saying the other one couldn’t play chess and this went back and forth.A delicious dessert we all shared. Apple strudel and a sweet dumpling thing.Looking down at Lower Bern from the Parliament Building.
There. That was a rough summary of my trip in a few pictures. It was a blast. The ups, the downs, and everything in between. I’m glad I did it and would definitely like to do it again.
I want to thank everyone who read, looked, and listened (or at least one of those) to my journal and to thank you especially for your patience in often waiting for a delayed update. Your comments and continued support (even if it was simply ghost support) were appreciated.
When I’m not sleeping on the plane, I will be listening to the following song, thinking about returning home. And even though I won’t be on a train, I’d like to imagine I were. And even if I can’t do that, this song gives me a wonderful sense of returning home. My parents are worried I don’t want to come home; I think this song expresses more than I could ever say in words regarding my feelings about home.
My last day in Mother Russia. The last Russian morning I would see; the last egg sandwich I would eat fried on a Russian stove; the last time I would wake up with a small back ache from my Russian bed. Today was Kremlin time. I hoped it wasn’t randomly closed, a common occurrence with things in Russia. Grabbing my iPod for the metro ride, I plugged in my earphones and enjoyed the ride. Peter Luts’s “What A Feeling” began bumping through my monitors, and what a feeling indeed: a beautiful day and I was about to go see the Moscow Kremlin. I like to save the best for last; although, this “putting-off” could have been caused by the mentality of how when a person lives in a place for a long time, they sometimes forget to visit the wonders nearby and instead travel far away to see others as there’s always later. But today there’s not later.
I’ve included the track “What A Feeling” here because it is a great song and it’s pretty much how I felt after my finals ended and how I felt riding the metro to the Kremlin.
I’ll map it out for you:
1:00 – preview of the melodic riff. This is where I try to grab the riff with my mind like a rope and let the riff control my consciousness. (You have until 2:28). This is Phase 1.
2:28 – Floating Melody no drums, multiphonic singing creating harmonies. I call it Phase 2.
3:43 – When everything plays at once. Love the riff phasing in and out, hypnotic. Phase 3.
4:28 – A break before the final return.
4:58 – Phase 3 modified. Little change in riff.
5:42 – Beginning of the fadeout, chillax time. Kind of like the cooldown after a workout (cooldown phase).
But one can’t jump to these parts without listening to the previous ones or else the effect is nullified. The way the bass and treble mix together create a very pleasing synthesis. I wonder if MBE would consider music a drug.
Back to Moscow.
I made it to the Kremlin and bought my student ticket. Once inside I made my way to Cathedral Square. There were about 6 cathedrals in a 300m radius. It was amazing.
To the left, we have Ivan the Great’s Bell Tower Complex. Inside, they had an exhibition with artifacts from old Russia.The Assumption Cathedral. I think this cathedral is the most beautiful out of them all. I really like the cobblestone look. A man from Virginia was nice enough to take a photo of me after I took his family’s photo.The towers in the background are from the Terem palace and churches. I wasn’t able to get much closer to these.The Church of Laying our Lady’s Holy Robe. This was a quaint church with a traditional interior that I had seen in the other Russian churches.Looking back across the square at Archangel Cathedral.
At about this time my feet started to freeze and so I spaced out my visits to the inside of each cathedral. They were all very pretty and my favorite inside was definitely the Assumption Cathedral. It was the most open and it had 5 copulas.
The Patriarch’s PalaceThe Tsar Cannon. This beast is huge. Some American walked by and said, “This thing is so impractical.” I laughed at him and silently remarked, “maybe, but it sure would hurt to get hit by a cannon ball that big.”The Senate Building across the square. The cannon points to this building.The Tsar Bell. Apparently, Tsar means big, maybe.The path to the ‘Secret Gardens’ was blocked so I couldn’t go to them. Not that they were secret anyway. They were on the map.One of these is the Tsar Tower. These towers overlook Red Square. The map showed the leftmost tower was the Tsar tower but that didn’t make much sense as everything else with the Tsar title was larger than normal.The Clock Tower, to the left of the other three towers above.On the other side of the Kremlin stood the Arsenal, with cannons lining the outside.Tower on the opposite side of Red Square that I walked underneath to exit the Kremlin quarters.One last look back into the Kremlin before leaving.The bridge from the tower to the entrance on the other side of what might have once been a moat gave me this view of one last incredible Moscow sunset.
I took the metro to Old Arbat where I stopped one last time to pick up some last minute gifts. Luckily, I was able to find some. And I noticed the wall that everyone writes on, as stated by our Russian Language teachers:
Kino – a band representing the culture and ideology of Russians in my generation.
I headed home listening to the metro’s warning that the next station was mine for the last time:
I figured Mongolia, or Maggie’s deserved to be here. This was the first store I visited in Moscow. Ira took me at 530 in the morning when I first arrived at the dorm. It’s just down the block. I remember this walk seeming so far away and being totally lost walking with her. And now, it seems right next to our dorm and I could walk there in my sleep. The store is really called Magnolia, and the word to the right is “produkti,” literally meaning products. This word is still the most common word we’ve found that uses the least amount of Roman letter rules. And because of that, I’ve memorized the look of this word so that it’s the fastest word I can read in Russian.Ira met me one last time for ice cream at the cafe near my dorm to say goodbye. She was the girl who escorted me from the airport and into the taxi and helped me out that first night in Moscow.
I spent the rest of the night packing for a few hours as I hadn’t really done much yet. Then Lenny and I feasted on a last Russian dinner together. Then the Russians started coming by to say goodbye and we partied for a bit. Tanya Timofeeva took this next photo and she didn’t mind not being in it as she went on a lot of excursions with me, and I have photos with her too.
Everyone saying goodbye as the gentleman next to me, Lenny, and the man in blue on the right, Austin, were about to leave as it was close to 230 am, their departure time. We have me, Lenny, Katya (R), Yuliya (R), Karrina (R), Will, Kyreel (R), Austin, and down in front the gangsta from Philly: Chris; nah, he talks big but couldn’t hurt a fly, but a mosquito yes.
I would like to take this time right now to state my least favorite thing about Russia, in fact my most disliked thing:
Avatar, possibly the greatest film of our time, I don’t know I haven’t seen it yet because of this->, is DUBBED in every single possible theatre in Moscow. Not one theatre, not even the English speaking theatre is playing it in English with Russian subtitles. I mean come on, who wants to watch a dubbed film anyway; it’s horrible. I would much rather read subtitles and see the mouths move to the actual words. This is possibly Russia’s biggest fail, and my most disliked aspect of Russia. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, let me explain.
Avatar is James Cameron’s Sci-Fi Epic that cost over $300 million to make and has been on his mind since his success with Titanic, the last film he directed. It stars Sam Worthington, a talented actor who has picked up many new roles after stealing the show from Christian Bale in Terminator Salvation. But as pictures say a thousand words, so a video must equal the integral over a time domain where the function is defined as the amount of pictures combined to create a frame (a continuous function no doubt), here is the trailer, which I watch everyday, sometimes more than once. I think I’m going to watch it again: www.avatarmovie.com. And honestly, the least we could do is support this film enough so that it surpasses the lame excuse for a film written by some lady about a girl and a vampire and a werewolf and something about not wanting to kill her centered about the time in between daylight and darkness that for some reason, must have been a fluke, won some sort of box office award it definitely did not deserve.
Anyway, to contrast this,
“These are a few of my favorite things…” dum dadada dumdumdum dum da da dum dum.
Russia was fascinating. Moscow a never ending mystery to explore. I could have stayed there for over 2 years and still not seen everything I would like to see. This means that I will definitely have to go back. Even if I do not participate in the math program again, which was challenging and helped me as a mathematician, I would like to return to Moscow. I would especially like to see towns outside Moscow: northern Russia, and as far east as Vladivostok. The experience was extremely rewarding and I’m very glad I decided to do such a thing.
But now, I’m off to Switzerland to spend Christmas with the Bosshards where I will continue to post my experiences there and afterward Berlin and other places.
On a side note, it was interesting spending my first day there with only 1 hour sleep on the plane staying up my last night in Moscow. I almost didn’t make it, drifting off around dinner time with Desiree having to prod me to wake me up.
