Random thoughts

These are all things I meant to post like a week ago, but then I was busy and in a chainsaw fight and I didn't really feel like I could talk about nothing when I just returned from the Siberian edition of The Shining.

So I had this really bizarre dream the other night. I was with a bunch of other people, and everyone had to have this brain surgery, but I REALLY didn't want to. I guess it would have no effect on anyone but me, and I was forced into it. Someone knocked me out and they did this surgery and it was this slow process where I lose my mind. I woke up before I lost my mind, thank God, but what does this say about me? or about RUSSIA?!

I bought a pair of boots. I love them. They have fur. Nadya said she assumed I was not a member of Greenpeace (is that how you spell it? I don't know, because I'm not IN THE GROUP). We laughed about it. Unfortunately I couldn't go off on my tirade about PETA people in Russian. I actually tried in an essay at the beginning of language school and failed miserably. (That was my "social problem". That there are PETA people in existence. Sad, that all the other social problems I couldn't even BEGIN to talk about...but I know how to say "animal" and "love" and "importance", and with some other words I could describe how ridiculous the entire organization is). The funny thing is, when I was buying boots I was looking for some that I could wear at home and in Russia (therefore I did not buy anything with heels, which actually made the process much easier, since 85% of all women's boots have heels). I also figured that I wanted fur, which narrowed it down even more, making this a fairly simply process. However, I'm not sure how successful I'm going to be when I try to wear fur boots at Middlebury (oh the irony! I wanted something I could wear in America as well! ha). Although I guess if someone confronts me about it I can then go off on my PETA hatred speech.

Eddie and Lyonya and Anya came over after that, and we sat in the kitchen and drank tea and ate lots of cookies and talked for like, 2 hours. Every time Karrina sat on my lap Eddie asked me if she was going to become my new pair of boots. He is so evil. But then we walked around Irkutsk for awhile and it was all very nice. I don't see Lyonya and Anya enough and it makes me sad.

We bought our train tickets to Mongolia!! Wow, I leave in like, 2 days. I'm really excited though, except our tickets were SO expensive! $90! I realize in the states that would not be THAT much, but this is Russia. Everyone said they were supposed to be, like, $40. And that's only there, not back. I guess I can't really complain because we're staying in this really upscale hostel for $5 a day with free internet, breakfast, and washing machines. Also Ivan has a friend of a cousin who wants to give us a free tour around Ulaanbaatar. Then we're going to the Gobi Desert. In, like, less than a week I will be riding around Mongolia by means of camel. Yes, you're jealous. And on the train we have an actual bed and a table and a compartment, not just a seat like on the Amtrak trains I take. But still, I'm in RUSSIA, things like this are supposed to be cheap.

Okay, let's talk about food again. Russians have like 8 million variations on the meat/dough pocket. Let's make a list:
Pilmeni: very small, sort of like totellini. You boil this meat/dough pocket.
Pozi: Also boiled, but with a hole in the top, and bigger.
Something that starts with an M: Also like Pozi, but a little flatter with a covered top. Also boiled.
Pirashki: smaller, oval sized meat/dough pocket, fried.
Something that starts with a b: like pirashki, but a small hole in the top, circular, and flat.
Cheburek: semicircle, flat, meat/dough pocket, deep fried.

This list goes on and on and on, but you would think you could only do SO MUCH with a ball of meat and some dough. The funny thing is that they SWEAR these are completely different foods with completely different tastes. I guess I can understand the difference in taste if it's fried or boiled, but seriously? When the shape is different (as in, oval vs. circle)? Puh-lease.

Let's talk about ridiculous ringtones. First of all, Russian men seem to have a very strange concept of masculinity. For example, a man purse and very fashionable, pointy, elf-like shoes are completely acceptable. Chocolate is not. Anyway, so I'm riding on the Marshrutka and I hear "Hollaback Girl" by Gwen Stefani. I had hoped this atrocity had not escaped the United States borders, but evidently it had. I figure it's the cell phone of this cleary very fashionable and hip devushka (girl) sitting across from me. And then this like 45 year old, slightly balding man next to HER pulls out his ringing cell phone. Like, what middle aged man has a Gwen Stefani ringtone?

So, we know how my host mother freaks out about everything, for example, if I'm out on the streets at night after dark (have I talked about this situation before? Not that it's a big problem now, but I'm sure it's going to put some severe restrictions on my clubbing/nightlife when I return from Mongolia). She sent me off to the train station in the 40 degree rain in a full length winter coat and snowboots. She freaks out if I'm not wearing a hat. And yet when I told her about the chainsaw story, she was completely unfazed. It was like "oh, right, yea, the chainsaw, and then what? Was it cold there? Did you guys have snow?". Like, WHAT?! This is completely ridiculous.

Also, I came back last night and had dinner, and then sat down to do homework. I'm sitting on the couch and Mama Olya brings me this plate of grapes and pears. I thank her, and then she asks me why I didn't take any myself, and goes on this tangent about how I need to be taking it myself and not by shy and I should always be eating fruit. I reply that I didn't because we just ate dinner. She and Nadya look at each other, then look at me, and she says "Fruit isn't food."

WHAT?! EXCUSE ME?!

"You could say that if I handed you a plate of cutlets."

Wow.