I had some major culture shock last night, I guess. Oh man. And it didn't get any better when I got up this morning either. But one thing at a time. Last night I went to a going-away party for one of my tutor's friends. I was tired and nervous and not really feeling all that into meeting and interacting with a bunch of new people in Russian. I didn't want to drink, and I didn't want to get high (which I'm technically not even supposed to be anywhere near), so I sat in the corner and listened and drank tea. I met this Russian-American girl who was really drunk and really wanted to be friends. Which was sort of unfortunate because it was loud and I was tired, and I could only understand about every 10th or 15th word. Then Lena peaced out early and left me in the care of the incomprehensible Russian-American. It ended up okay when she switched to English when we left the party. She had moved to St. Petersburg six months earlier and had lots of good tips about how not to get mugged or harassed, such as "don't dress like a whore and go out on the street at night by yourself." Anyway, when I asked her about the dogs, she said that the dogs were fine--it's the people that you have to watch out for. Great. Thanks.
So I went to bed last night telling myself that everything would be better in the morning, because it usually is. But I woke up and was unexpectedly all by myself in the apartment, and I started to bawl. When I calmed down a little bit, I tried to call Rob, but the phone card didn't work. Which resulted in another round of frustrated tears and a 10am call to Meg: "I'mhavingacrappytimeandIwanttocallhomebutIcan'tbecauseIcan'tgetthephonecardtoworkwanhwanhwanh." She was pretty cool about it and told me to just go out and buy another phone card. Which I did, and then I figured out why my other phone card hadn't been working. Russian phones have the peculiarity of being both rotary and tone dialing, and are automatically set to be rotary dialers. If you have to enter a pin code, you have to press the star key to toggle to tone dial. It said all of this on the Russian phone card (in English). But anyway, I was able to make my very important calls to people who probably don't miss me as much as I miss them.
This afternoon, I tried to take my computer with me to use wifi and post some pictures and all these rants to a blog. But when I got to the internet bar, wifi wasn't working. Maybe in an hour and a half, they said. I didn't want to wait, so I paid for a half-hour on the public computer and dicked around a little bit. So everybody will just have to wait for updates and pictures and all that other fun stuff.
School again tomorrow. Blech.
So I went to bed last night telling myself that everything would be better in the morning, because it usually is. But I woke up and was unexpectedly all by myself in the apartment, and I started to bawl. When I calmed down a little bit, I tried to call Rob, but the phone card didn't work. Which resulted in another round of frustrated tears and a 10am call to Meg: "I'mhavingacrappytimeandIwanttocallhomebutIcan'tbecauseIcan'tgetthephonecardtoworkwanhwanhwanh." She was pretty cool about it and told me to just go out and buy another phone card. Which I did, and then I figured out why my other phone card hadn't been working. Russian phones have the peculiarity of being both rotary and tone dialing, and are automatically set to be rotary dialers. If you have to enter a pin code, you have to press the star key to toggle to tone dial. It said all of this on the Russian phone card (in English). But anyway, I was able to make my very important calls to people who probably don't miss me as much as I miss them.
This afternoon, I tried to take my computer with me to use wifi and post some pictures and all these rants to a blog. But when I got to the internet bar, wifi wasn't working. Maybe in an hour and a half, they said. I didn't want to wait, so I paid for a half-hour on the public computer and dicked around a little bit. So everybody will just have to wait for updates and pictures and all that other fun stuff.
School again tomorrow. Blech.
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