Serendipity

   Well, my time as a Moskvitchka has officially ended. I'm sitting here in the schoolroom at home in Apex, North Carolina, U.S.A., where I have been now for a week, and it feels...weird. Of course, it is wonderful beyond words to be with my family again - sometimes I have to just stop and let it sink in that I'm actually home. But at the same time, it is strange not to be in Moscow, and to be so far away...not just physically, but mentally as well. It rather feels like I've been rafting on a rapid-filled river for the past year - lots of noise, excitement, fast movement, and yes, a good deal of stress - and suddenly I've turned onto a lazy, slow-moving side stream - it's relaxing, warm, full of the buzz of cicadas - but my brain and heart are still pumping to the rhythm of a different flow. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to be home, and I know it was time to leave, and I was exhausted and needed a break - it's just going to take some time to adjust to life back in good old N.C.
     The last couple of weeks in Moscow were jam-packed. The second-to-last week was my last week of teaching, which meant saying goodbye to a lot of my students. Thankfully, it wasn't as emotionally charged as it might have been, since many of my classes ended in May - most of my June classes I'd only been teaching for a month, so I wasn't too close to many of my students. But I did have to say farewell to the Sorokinys and to my intermediate class. I was really pleasantly surprised, because my one trouble-student, who had complained earlier in the year that I was wasting her time, actually thanked me and said that I'd really helped her improve her English, which made me really happy. It was a bit hard to say goodbye to the administrators as well, particularly to Olga, who scared me on the first day but who turned out to be so sweet.
     Friday, which was a free day, I spent wandering around МГУ - a really neat university in a beautiful setting - built on one of the hills overlooking Moscow, so there's a really great view from the edge of the university grounds. Below the university there is a park running down to the banks of the river, so I wandered all over the grounds - except, unfortunately, through the university botanical gardens, which were closed - down through the park, and out onto the metro/pedestrian bridge crossing the river. It's cool because the bridge is actually a metro stop, all glassed in so you get a view of the river while you wait for your train.

 flowers in the grass outside МГУ

 Lomonosov and his university

 outside the botanical garden

 pretty peony on the boulevard in front of МГУ

 church near the university

 view of the city from the end of the boulevard

 the river from the metro bridge

 
     The last week I was determined to spend seeing everything I hadn't had time to see during the rest of my time in Moscow...I had quite an ambitious list, but of course I couldn't actually see everything I wanted too - just another reason that I will have to go back for a visit!
           I spent a day with Lena at ВДНХ, which was really interesting - it was sort of a mix of old Soviet-era monuments, a U.S. state fair, and a bunch of exhibition halls. It's difficult to describe the atmosphere, but it was very relaxing to just wander around and see things, and I tried plov, a rice dish with meat and vegetables and spices, and it was really good. Lena and I also walked around the butterfly exhibit in one of the halls, which was really beautiful. That night I met up with a different Lena - the Lena from my dance group - and we went to see the old circus on Tverskoy Boulevard, which was great fun - it's different from Barnum and Bailey because it is smaller and because they depend a lot more on actual tricks for entertainment instead of technology and special effects - I liked it a lot more! After the show we went for a stroll around part of the Boulevard Ring and stopped for milkshakes in the cafe next to the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall.

 walking into ВДНХ

fountain of the nations

 butterfly exhibit!!

 one intrepid venturer landed on Lena's head! :)

 my favorite

 and second-favorite

 the Ukrainian exhibition hall

     The next day I went to Mass for the last time in Russia, and then stopped to take some pictures of the flowers outside the church. I met up with dance-group Lena again that night to see Esmeralda at the Nemirovich-Danchenko theatre. It was beautiful - both the sets and the dancing, but the ending was so sad!  Afterwards we walked around some of the Boulevard Ring, stopped in a cafe for some yummy tiramisu, and chatted until almost midnight. It was wonderful.

 flowers outside the church

    Monday I went to Red Square and walked around inside the Historical Museum and St. Basil's - which is as beautiful on the inside as it is on the outside! It's not one church, but actually a number of little churches, all decorated with paint, tile, and gold - it looks small from the outside but it actually takes quite a while to wander through! From the Red Square I walked down the river - along the "Sophie Embankment"!- to get to the Cathedral of Christ the Redeemer. It is so interesting to walk inside Russian Orthodox Churches - so different from old Catholic churches, but at the same time I feel like those two faiths are so close to each other. Anyway, the church was gorgeous - in the shape a cross with a huge domed ceiling in the center and an elaborate altar - again, full of gilt, paintings of saints, and marble. But I think I liked the downstairs section better - it was quieter, and the lights were dim, so the candles flickering before the icons seemed very bright. And it was neat because my patron saint, Tatiana, is recognized by both the Catholic and the Russian Orthodox church, so I found her in an icon showing many different saints. After I left the cathedral I walked along a part of the Boulevard Ring to the old Arbat. I was on a book-hunt - one thing I really wanted to bring back was some books so I could keep up my Russian. There are lots of used book stalls on the Arbat, and the fates were with me - I found Anna Karenina and an old copy of the Silmarillion for less than 100 rubles each!

 beautiful church near the Red Square

 strangely Petersburg-ish part of Moscow

 walking along the Kremlin Wall

 British Embassy across the river

 I (unintentionally) matched St. Basil's!

 approaching the Cathedral of Christ the Redeemer

 crossing the bridge

 looking back towards the Kremlin

I can't take a level picture to save my life...

     Tuesday I mustered up my failing energy and made a trip to the Pushkin Museum, but it was short-lived: I barely made it through the rooms on the first floor before I realized that I was too exhausted to take in any more artwork! But the trip was not without its triumphs - the museum charges Russians 200 rubles for entry, but foreigners are charged 600 - luckily, my accent was good enough to fool the ticket lady, so I got in for the Russian price! Ha! And I stopped off at another bookstore and picked up the Chronicles of Narnia, the Inkheart Trilogy, and a Russian-Italian dictionary and Italian grammar workbook. I want to learn Italian next, but for a while I was afraid that if I learned Italian I would forget Russian, like I did with my high school French when I started studying Russian in college. But I'm hoping that if I learn Italian in Russian, then I won't forget anything - except maybe English! :)

 roses outside the Pushkin Museum

 Pushkin Museum!

    The last two days I didn't do much of anything except pack - it's really hard moving yourself out of an apartment by yourself! And I was so nervous because I just knew my bags would be overweight, even though I was carrying all of my books and my laptop in my carry-on. I was blessed, though, because my bags were just at the limit, so I didn't have to pay any extra! And even though I know my carry-on was way over the limit with all those books, I think it looked so innocent since it was a backpack that it passed muster. The trip home was fairly uneventful, although I had to make some really close connections! And it was so good to see my family waiting at the gate. For the past two weeks I've been luxuriating in just being  home, enjoying seeing my family, and making plans to see friends.
     When I look back, this entire trip at first glance seems to have been strangely serendipitous from start to finish. My initially being locked out of my flat led to my meeting the neighbors who turned out to be such wonderful friends; although my flatmates were constantly changing I never ended up with anyone awful; though I heard horror stories about other Language Link branches my school and administrators were wonderful; I never had any truly terrible students, and I seemed to get only students I could handle; my co-workers became some of my best friends and led me to make some other really good friends; the first dance studio I went to turned out to lead me to the wonderful dance group I spent such good times with and where I made more close friends, the Catholic church closest to my flat turned out to have such inspiring Masses and sermons and was such a good place to spend time with God; and my family and friends both in the U.S. and in Russia were so supportive and helped me to have so many good memories of my time there. And, of course, the chance suggestion of my dentist to start a blog turned into something so fun for me to write! Of course, so many lucky happenstances make it clear: it wasn't really serendipity at all, but rather God's blessing. I am so incredibly blessed, in my friends, family, and the experiences I had in Russia.
    As for what's next, well, there are any number of things I have before me! - dancing, learning Italian, PT school, learning to sail, hiking the Appalachian Trail, visiting with friends, seeing more of the world... the list goes on! But all of that will have to wait for another blog, because those are different adventures, and they would need a different title! For now, my ten months as a Moskvitchka have come to a close.

Almost Home...

     I can't believe it's so close now...two and a half weeks and I'll be on a plane heading back to the States. It doesn't seem like 10 months can really be almost over... I'm so ready to see my family, though. For most of the time I've been here, I haven't allowed myself to anticipate going home - I wanted to enjoy my time in Russia and I also knew that thinking about it too much in advance beforehand would make time just drag. But now that it's so close I can allow myself the luxury of thinking about it, and I'm getting so excited!!!
     I'm also realizing that there's a lot in Moscow that I will really miss - especially the people. I've been so lucky to meet so many wonderful people here, and it will be hard to say goodbye to all of them. The city as  a whole I think I won't miss as much - I mean, it's a fascinating place, and it has some beautiful museums, churches, theatres - and it has some of the best ballet on the face of the planet!!! - but I figured out a while ago that it's not my place, not the spot where I want to spend most of my life. But I'm very glad I could spend almost a year here.
    I was right in my last blog, though, when I talked about the last bit of time flying by - even though I'm ready to go home, there are so many little ends to tie up before I can leave Russia! There are still some places I want to see, some friends I need to meet up with at least one more time, and of course paperwork to fill out for finishing my job at Language Link. The last couple of weeks have been nice because my work schedule did get a lot lighter, and I've been able to spend more time resting, relaxing, and doing things with friends. Three weeks ago I went walking with some friends from my dance group in Gorkiy Park - seeing it with friends was the perfect way to do it - there were so many people there when we went that it wouldn't have been a good place to just wander by yourself - it's not exactly peaceful. But when you have someone to chat with it's perfect. I especially liked the fountain displays, where the water was lit up in different colors and jumped up and down in time with music. And Lena and Lucy and I had great fun taking pictures of ballet poses in front of different fountains, etc.

 fountains at Gorky

     That Monday we got together again to go and see Русалочка - The Little Mermaid ballet at the Nemirovich-Danchenko theatre. It was a really last-minute thing - they only got the tickets that day - so we ended up in really awful seats all the way on one side of the theatre - so we could literally only see half the stage, and for some reason the choreographer set all the most important plot moments upstage right, so we didn't see any of those! But it was a fascinating ballet, with fascinating choreography. I didn't like the music all that much, but I really admired how the mer-kingdom was brought to life - it was elegant and beautiful and really made you feel underwater, without any of those plastic floppy Ariel-style tails that you see all too often in mermaid productions.
Here is a link to a San Francisco Ballet production of it - I've attached the whole thing, but you can skim through and get an idea... Little Mermaid Ballet

    I also had a chance to visit the Theatrical Museum named for Bahrushin. It's housed in a beautiful old building, with thick oak doors and stained-glass windows like in a cathedral. They don't have a huge amount of stuff, but there is a floor dedicated to Chalyapin, the famous opera singer, with lots of old programs and costumes, and they also had some really old programs from ballets, and probably most special of all, Taglioni's ballet slippers. She was the first person to dance on pointe, so seeing her shoes is like seeing Babe Ruth's baseball bat or something. They also had some cool ballet costumes and even some choreographer's notes, which I really enjoyed looking at since I knew the choreography: it was Gerdt's notations for Paquita, and the page was open to an illustration of a diagonal of ballerinas in first arabesque, which I knew immediately as being from the pas de deux in Paquita because I've danced it twice! So that was really neat. Also, maybe because it was a small museum and not frequented by tourists, everyone was really friendly and eager to be helpful, and tickets were really cheap. It made for a neat day.

 Chaliapin's costume from the opera Boris Godunov

 sleeve detail

 set design for Boris Godunov

 portrait of Tamara Karsavina

 theatrical calendar, 1909-1910

 set design for La Bayadere

 fan from the 1700s

 "Repertoire of the Public Theatre on the Red Square" 1702-1707

 poster for La Sylphide at the Bolshoi Theatre in 1841

 poster for Giselle at the Bolshoi Theatre in the 1800s; for the ballerina playing Giselle it was her premiere performance

 Taglioni's pointe shoes

 no padding inside, just a stiffened box (!)

 Gerdt's notations for Paquita

 neat old wooden house close to the museum

     Anyway, that was a lot of fun, and then I had a couple of days of work. Many of my students have left for the summer, so I have an interesting mix of new and old students that I'm teaching, and my schedule changes a lot - but for now I have three-and-a-half-day weekends, which I'm really enjoying. Two weeks ago I fulfilled another of my life's goals - I saw the Bolshoi Ballet. And it was wonderful - it made me want to stay in Russia for another year and just do nothing but watch ballet the whole time! I think it was an early birthday present from God - which maybe sounds silly, but I'll explain. I'd bought the tickets two and a half months ago - they sell out really fast - and at the time all I knew was that they would be performing Chopiniana/Les Sylphides and then there would be various divertissement. For some reason I thought that that would be Balanchine choreography, so I was more excited about Chopiniana than the second part. Teya, who came with me, was running late getting to the theatre, so we only went in about five minutes before the performance started, and we didn't have time to see a program or anything. Chopiniana was lovely, and it put me in such a good mood that at the first intermission I was ready to watch just about anything and applaud. Teya was craning her neck to read the program of the man sitting next to her, and I asked her what would be next. "Mmmm...something from Don Quixote...and Sleeping Beauty...ummmm..."
    Of course that made me excited - it meant that we wouldn't see Balanchine; we'd see classical pieces instead. The curtain went up with the slaves' pas de deux from Le Corsaire, and then after that a really familiar music started playing and the lights went up on the gypsy solo from Don Quixote, which is so special for me - I originally saw it on youtube several years ago and liked it so much that I sent it to my dance teacher, just because I wanted her to see it too. I was really surprised when she asked me if I wanted to learn it, but of course I said yes! Still today it's my favorite piece that I've performed, because it was the first time that I really truly became my character onstage. So it was so wonderful to see it performed again at the Bolshoi Ballet, from the company where I'd first seen it. Here is the link to the performance I saw on youtube a few years ago - Yuliana Malkhasyants, probably one of the greatest character dancers alive - yuliana malkhasyants gypsy dance And can you believe we don't have dance like this in the U.S.?!?!
     The evening just kept getting better from there. After the Diana and Acteon pas de deux from Esmeralda, Svetlana Lunkina and Denis Savin performed an excerpt from the ballet Chroma. Svetlana Lunkina is a prima ballerina at the Bolshoi, and it was so amazing to actually see her dance in person instead of on youtube! The music of the wedding pas de deux from The Sleeping Beauty started to play after that, and the stars had just cleared from my eyes after seeing Lunkina when Evgenia Obraztsova came onstage, another ballerina that I've dreamed about seeing in person for years. And of course she was beautiful, and after that there was another character dance, the Drum Dance from La Bayadere, and at that point I was so happy I was pretty much high on ballet. And just to finish it off, after the second intermission there was a performance of Carmen - I'd seen it for the first time in St. Petersburg and really liked it, but the girl playing Carmen there was premiering and she seemed nervous onstage, whereas this time Galina Stepanenko performed, and she is much older and more experienced and was the perfect saucy, flirtatious, freedom-loving Carmen. Her Jose was also very good, and overall it was just a wonderful performance.
     Teya and I went walking around outside the theatre afterwards, and we tried to take some artsy pictures - but Teya is not the most patient person so most of the pictures she took ended up blurred or crazy - but of course she insists it was the camera's fault. :)

 inside the theatre - the New Stage, not the renovated one - still haven't seen that yet!

 cool staircase

 at the top of the cool staircase

 evening in Moscow

 Teya trying to take a picture...

 theoretically it was supposed to be a picture of me...

 finally got it, more or less

 Carmen on the steps of the Bolshoi

 foreigners complain about the long winters in Moscow, but I'd never heard anyone talk about how long and wonderful the summer nights are - practically like the white nights in St. Petersburg: this photo was taken at 10:30 p.m.!

    So that was the perfect way to start my birthday week - it was also nice because Russia's Independence Day is on June 12th, so we had Monday and Tuesday off. Monday I laid low, but Tuesday the neighbors had invited me to an all-day tennis event. It was really neat - several retired tennis stars came to play matches and to run a workshop for kids. Bjorn Borg was there, and Martina Hingis, Goran Ivanisevic, Mansur Bahrami, and Elena Dementieva. If you're a tennis fan, you will know who these people are. If you're like me, you'll have no idea - but take my word for it, apparently it was big deal that they were there. And it was fun - but the weather gods were against us. Timur's workshop in the morning was interrupted by a thunderstorm that lasted about an hour, so we all waited under a shelter until 2:00, when the matches between the pros were supposed to start. Unfortunately, it was an open court, so we were at the mercy of the weather. And we got everything except snow and tornadoes. After about an hour, huge dark blue clouds began rolling in, and then the rain started pouring down and everyone deserted the court. We went to stand under the shelter to wait for it to stop, and we ended up waiting for four hours. When the clouds finally rolled away, over half of the spectators had left, but the pros got out there and gamely played on the damp court for the hard-core fans who were left. Liliya, Timur and I gained some minor fame from the event - our picture made it onto the Legends of Tennis website - of course, technically it's not a picture of us, nor is it the most flattering in the world, but hey, you don't get a chance to make Russian tennis news every day. Famous! :)

 balloon flag!!!

 releasing the balloon flag - note the seemingly innocent clouds covering half the sky

 not so innocent clouds after all...

 Elena Dimentieva

 Dimentieva playing Martina Hingis

 big storm...

     After that I had two days of work before my birthday weekend. I had invited the neighbors over for dinner, and I was determined to make them something really nice - they've had me over for dinner at least five times while I've been here, but I hadn't had them over once. So I bought about three tons of food from the store and late Friday night I set to baking a cake. It was recipe I'd never used before, and unfortunately when I greased the pan I forgot to flour it, so when I took the cake out of the oven and tried to pop it out onto a plate, it popped out in pieces. But I refused to be discouraged - it was only 10:00, so the night was young, and I had a secret weapon - my mom's chocolate icing recipe. Those of you who've been reading this blog regularly might remember my last attempt to make my mom's icing, when I bought cornstarch instead of powdered sugar. But this time I had all the right ingredients, and when prepared correctly my mom's frosting comes out like glue - I knew I could use it fasten the cake back together again. Unfortunately - and I still don't know what I did wrong - my icing came out like thick soup - there was no way it would hold the cake together. At that point it was 11:30, and I was flustered and frustrated. So I called Mom on skype and begged for advice, and in the end it all worked out - I used about half the icing to glue all the pieces together and then shoved it in  the fridge for half and hour to solidify it, then covered up the cracks with the leftover icing. It even came out looking fairly rectangular by the end, in a three-year-old cook kind of way.

Thankfully, the Portuguese steak and potatoes came out better, and my neighbors really enjoyed everything. Their two-year-old, Diana, particularly enjoyed the cake. When she had eaten most of it off her plate with her teaspoon, she got up from the table and decided she wanted to take the plate full of cake crumbs with her. Her mom deterred her, and then we started talking again. Diana toddled around for a while, then suddenly rushed up to the table, grabbed the plate, and ran off down the hall with it. And of course, she runs like a two-year-old, so the cake crumbs went flying everywhere. But it was so hilarious all we could do was laugh. After the neighbors had left I got on skype with the family and had a nice long chat, so overall it was a good birthday.
     The school celebration was rather funny though, as there are very few people working there now and the administrators had forgotten it was my birthday. Usually, it's customary for the person whose birthday it is to bring sweets and fruit and drinks to celebrate, so I'd made cookies and brought grapes and juice. When I went up to the front desk to ask when there would be a short break for everyone so we could chat together, Lena just looked at me blankly for a few seconds and then gasped, "Oh, right, it's your birthday!!" As soon as I'd left the room I heard her on the phone with Zoya whispering about how "It's Hannah's birthday today and can you buy something on your way?" The funny part was that Zoya then came in with a little gift and presented it to me with a short speech and everything, just as though she had remembered all along. But it's the thought that counts, and it was sweet of them to try and make it special for me.
     Another thing that made my birthday really really special was the fact that two of my really close friends that I met here, Jenny and Andrey, got married. They are in America now, and I hope they won't mind my posting a photo of them; it's just so exciting to see what they've been working and praying for for so long come about.

    And as for me, I'm tying up loose ends and counting the days; I'll be home soon! Of course, that will be one more thing I'll miss - writing this blog! But for two-and-a-half more weeks, I can still enjoy writing it, so this Moskvitchka, is signing off, but only for now.