Breakfast was much less exciting today than yesterday, and they had cherry yogurt instead of pineapple (that was weird and not all that tasty) and more blini, so everything was okay. There was also a lady with a big fur coat, bleached blond hair, and more plastic surgery than Dolly Parton to look at.
After breakfast, we packed up and headed out to a wooden architecture museum. This is basically a collection of old buildings, like a peasant house, a merchant's house, a barn, a well, a church, and some other stuff. It doesn't sound all that exciting, but it was actually pretty neat. The houses were covered in really intricate wood carvings, and thinking about how long that would have taken to do gave me a headache. This was all outside, and it was snowing just a little as we were walking around. Not wet snow like Portland, but the yucky dry snow that comes with a lot of wind.
Natasha, the trip coordinator, had arranged for the people who worked at the museum to sing us some traditional Russian songs, and then teach us traditional Russian games. This was all pretty crazy, and I'm glad that I wasn't hung over. The songs were pretty incomprehensible, and I also can't say that I particularly liked them. However, there was one song where one of the dudes blew on this horn that "called in the cows" and another dude in a wolf mask jumped out and ran around the room grabbing people. That was pretty funny. Mostly just to see people's reactions when this dude in the wolf mask grabbed their arms and shook them around a little.
Then we went outside and played village games. This involved a lot of standing in a big circle and holding hands. As all of you know, I'm not a good sport about stuff like that. However, I figured out quickly that I only had to be a good enough sport that I wouldn't be singled out, and then everything was sort of okay. I'm going to talk for a little while about these games, because they were kinda funny. The first one involved all of us holding hands in a big circle with one person in the middle. The museum people would sing a song and we'd walk around the circle until the end of the verse and then the person in the middle would do something that we all had to imitate. The person who imitated the worst had to go in the middle. So I was a good sport: I threw my hat in the air, I danced, I took my shoe off, I did a handstand, and I rolled around on the ground, and I didn't have to go in the middle.
The second game also involved holding hands in a big circle, but this time there was a girl and a guy in the middle. The chick started in the middle, and the guy outside the circle. The object of the game was for the guy to run after the girl, in and out of the circle, and catch her. This is supposed to be difficult because everybody in the circle is supposed to let the girl through, but not the guy. When the guy catches the girl, their turn is over and he has to kiss her some number of times (this ranged from 1 to 20). Really, in that game, everybody loses.
The third game that we played was a lot like London Bridge. Except with more holding hands. Two people started in the middle of the circle and made a bridge by raising their arms. They sang a song and at a certain point of the song, they'd bring their arms down and trap somebody inside, as the circle turned into a snake and had to pass underneath this bridge. The caught person would then join the bridge, and the snake of people would have to pass underneath more than once, increasing the chances of losing more people. I know this sounds really horrifically complicated, but it's not. It also involved a lot of running and ducking. While holding hands. I was just thankful that it didn't involve holding hands in people's crotches or kissing.
I'm not sure that I understood the point of the last game that we played, because I definitely did nothing the entire time. Mostly because I didn't want to kiss anybody. I'm really not about the gratuitous kissing of people I don't know or like. Anyway, the girls started with a big circle, holding hands. The guys started by squatting in a small circle in the middle. The dudes then sang a song, the gist of which was "Nobody loves me because nobody will kiss me, so I guess I'll just sit here and get drunk." The girls were supposed to leave the circle and kiss one of the guys, at which point they'd trade places. This went on for quite a while, while I contemplated how glad I was that participation in this seemed to be optional.
After game time, we walked around for a few minutes, but everybody was cold and wanted to get back on the bus and go back to somewhere warm. On the way back, we passed a railway coach that had been converted into an Orthodox Church. I was very sad that I couldn't get a picture of it. It had an onion dome coming out of the top. It was super awesome.
Evgenii decided that he wanted Tex-Mex for lunch, but between the Baskin Robbins escapade the day before and the fact that I'm not really much of a fan of Tex-Mex anyway (and really not so much in Russia), I decided to pass on the group excursion. So I ended up at a café with Meg and Natasha for most of the afternoon. Which was fine. The food was good, and I discovered that hot chocolate doesn't mean the same thing here as it does in the States. Surprise! When you order hot chocolate here, it comes with a spoon, and usually a water chaser. Because here, hot chocolate is something between pudding and a melted chocolate bar. It was okay—just not quite what I was expecting or wanted.
We went from there directly to dinner all together, where I had one of the nastiest salads I've ever had the misfortune to be served. I eat a lot of things here, but I still don't really like beets all that much. I don't really like peppers either, but I like beets way less. And I'm not really a big fan of mayonaise, unless it's on a turkey sandwich or in egg salad or deviled eggs. This salad was beets, apple, and mayo, garnished with a pea. I don't really like peas, either. I ate the apples, even though they were purple. And apple and mayo is one of the grossest things ever. Ew. The rest of dinner was okay, although I'm always a little weirded out by the mystery juices.
We headed back to the hotel and collected all our stuff and then headed out to the train station to catch the night train to Kazan. This was a short one—only 9 hours. We left around 9pm, meaning that we were slated to arrive in Kazan shortly after 6am. Blech. I also didn't do too badly in the bunkmate battle; in our little section we had Clark (who's pretty okay and very quiet), Laura W., and Kristin, who was really the only one who I wanted to strangle by the end. The train was so fucking hot I wanted to die. And we were in a regular car without the special bio toilet this time, so the bathroom was closed for the first hour and a half. I was dying by the time I got to take off some layers. I also didn't sleep a whole lot—it was just too hot. There were also a lot of people going by in the aisle, and Clark moved around and got up and down kind of a lot. Although it turned out okay, because by the time that the train lady woke us all up at 4:15am so that we could all have a chance to use the bathroom, I was so crabby that I didn't care if I was being rude by just putting my headphones on and ignoring everybody.
And really, at 5am, I couldn't care less how many kids Mel Gibson has.
Kristin was full of lots of little fun facts like that that she was more than happy to impart. I don't usually have a whole lot of patience of inane people, but I have even less on not much sleep. And I really couldn't make myself care about her apple juice, or the crick in her back, or that she didn't sleep well. I glared out the window for a long time.
After breakfast, we packed up and headed out to a wooden architecture museum. This is basically a collection of old buildings, like a peasant house, a merchant's house, a barn, a well, a church, and some other stuff. It doesn't sound all that exciting, but it was actually pretty neat. The houses were covered in really intricate wood carvings, and thinking about how long that would have taken to do gave me a headache. This was all outside, and it was snowing just a little as we were walking around. Not wet snow like Portland, but the yucky dry snow that comes with a lot of wind.
Natasha, the trip coordinator, had arranged for the people who worked at the museum to sing us some traditional Russian songs, and then teach us traditional Russian games. This was all pretty crazy, and I'm glad that I wasn't hung over. The songs were pretty incomprehensible, and I also can't say that I particularly liked them. However, there was one song where one of the dudes blew on this horn that "called in the cows" and another dude in a wolf mask jumped out and ran around the room grabbing people. That was pretty funny. Mostly just to see people's reactions when this dude in the wolf mask grabbed their arms and shook them around a little.
Then we went outside and played village games. This involved a lot of standing in a big circle and holding hands. As all of you know, I'm not a good sport about stuff like that. However, I figured out quickly that I only had to be a good enough sport that I wouldn't be singled out, and then everything was sort of okay. I'm going to talk for a little while about these games, because they were kinda funny. The first one involved all of us holding hands in a big circle with one person in the middle. The museum people would sing a song and we'd walk around the circle until the end of the verse and then the person in the middle would do something that we all had to imitate. The person who imitated the worst had to go in the middle. So I was a good sport: I threw my hat in the air, I danced, I took my shoe off, I did a handstand, and I rolled around on the ground, and I didn't have to go in the middle.
The second game also involved holding hands in a big circle, but this time there was a girl and a guy in the middle. The chick started in the middle, and the guy outside the circle. The object of the game was for the guy to run after the girl, in and out of the circle, and catch her. This is supposed to be difficult because everybody in the circle is supposed to let the girl through, but not the guy. When the guy catches the girl, their turn is over and he has to kiss her some number of times (this ranged from 1 to 20). Really, in that game, everybody loses.
The third game that we played was a lot like London Bridge. Except with more holding hands. Two people started in the middle of the circle and made a bridge by raising their arms. They sang a song and at a certain point of the song, they'd bring their arms down and trap somebody inside, as the circle turned into a snake and had to pass underneath this bridge. The caught person would then join the bridge, and the snake of people would have to pass underneath more than once, increasing the chances of losing more people. I know this sounds really horrifically complicated, but it's not. It also involved a lot of running and ducking. While holding hands. I was just thankful that it didn't involve holding hands in people's crotches or kissing.
I'm not sure that I understood the point of the last game that we played, because I definitely did nothing the entire time. Mostly because I didn't want to kiss anybody. I'm really not about the gratuitous kissing of people I don't know or like. Anyway, the girls started with a big circle, holding hands. The guys started by squatting in a small circle in the middle. The dudes then sang a song, the gist of which was "Nobody loves me because nobody will kiss me, so I guess I'll just sit here and get drunk." The girls were supposed to leave the circle and kiss one of the guys, at which point they'd trade places. This went on for quite a while, while I contemplated how glad I was that participation in this seemed to be optional.
After game time, we walked around for a few minutes, but everybody was cold and wanted to get back on the bus and go back to somewhere warm. On the way back, we passed a railway coach that had been converted into an Orthodox Church. I was very sad that I couldn't get a picture of it. It had an onion dome coming out of the top. It was super awesome.
Evgenii decided that he wanted Tex-Mex for lunch, but between the Baskin Robbins escapade the day before and the fact that I'm not really much of a fan of Tex-Mex anyway (and really not so much in Russia), I decided to pass on the group excursion. So I ended up at a café with Meg and Natasha for most of the afternoon. Which was fine. The food was good, and I discovered that hot chocolate doesn't mean the same thing here as it does in the States. Surprise! When you order hot chocolate here, it comes with a spoon, and usually a water chaser. Because here, hot chocolate is something between pudding and a melted chocolate bar. It was okay—just not quite what I was expecting or wanted.
We went from there directly to dinner all together, where I had one of the nastiest salads I've ever had the misfortune to be served. I eat a lot of things here, but I still don't really like beets all that much. I don't really like peppers either, but I like beets way less. And I'm not really a big fan of mayonaise, unless it's on a turkey sandwich or in egg salad or deviled eggs. This salad was beets, apple, and mayo, garnished with a pea. I don't really like peas, either. I ate the apples, even though they were purple. And apple and mayo is one of the grossest things ever. Ew. The rest of dinner was okay, although I'm always a little weirded out by the mystery juices.
We headed back to the hotel and collected all our stuff and then headed out to the train station to catch the night train to Kazan. This was a short one—only 9 hours. We left around 9pm, meaning that we were slated to arrive in Kazan shortly after 6am. Blech. I also didn't do too badly in the bunkmate battle; in our little section we had Clark (who's pretty okay and very quiet), Laura W., and Kristin, who was really the only one who I wanted to strangle by the end. The train was so fucking hot I wanted to die. And we were in a regular car without the special bio toilet this time, so the bathroom was closed for the first hour and a half. I was dying by the time I got to take off some layers. I also didn't sleep a whole lot—it was just too hot. There were also a lot of people going by in the aisle, and Clark moved around and got up and down kind of a lot. Although it turned out okay, because by the time that the train lady woke us all up at 4:15am so that we could all have a chance to use the bathroom, I was so crabby that I didn't care if I was being rude by just putting my headphones on and ignoring everybody.
And really, at 5am, I couldn't care less how many kids Mel Gibson has.
Kristin was full of lots of little fun facts like that that she was more than happy to impart. I don't usually have a whole lot of patience of inane people, but I have even less on not much sleep. And I really couldn't make myself care about her apple juice, or the crick in her back, or that she didn't sleep well. I glared out the window for a long time.
posted by hillary at 3:17 AM
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