It's the Little Things in Life...

     Little things like books, and snowflakes, and figuring out how to fold out your futon bed. This hasn't been the best of weeks, but little things like those make it better. I had a lovely weekend last week - one of my classes on Saturday cancelled, so I had an almost three-day weekend, since I only had one class on Saturday. Teya (one of the other teachers at the Mitino school) and I went on a search for an English-language bookstore. She has a great sense of humor and we get along really well, so even though it took the usual hour on the metro to get to the center it didn't feel like an hour at all. We got off the metro and headed for the "Moskva" bookstore. She appreciates literature as much as I do, though, so we both had to pause at Pushkin Square to get a picture with the Russian Shakespeare.

     Since Teya hadn't eaten lunch yet, we both decided to stop in at the Pushkin Cafe before we headed to the bookstore. Talk about posh! I knew it was expensive before going in, but it was ridiculous! I paid five dollars for a chocolate ice-cream, and instead of trying to describe it I'm just going to post a picture so you can compare the size of the spoon to the size of the scoop...and I promise it's not a giant spoon - it's just normal-sized. So it was a rip-off, but it was so tastefully done and we sort of knew what we were doing going in to eat there that we could just laugh at it. Besides, it was a neat experience to try just once.

 Like I said...POSH

 

After eating, we ventured back onto the street to find the bookstore. I placed my confidence in Teya since I'm terrible with directions, but it tuns out she's worse than I am - I was the one who figured out we were walking away from the bookstore rather than towards it! But find it we eventually did - there was a strange layout because the store was long but narrow, so you had to dive into these little corners to find each kind of book. The English section was smaller than we'd expected, and once I actually started looking at the books I realized how ridiculous it felt to buy an English book when I'm here trying to improve my Russian. So I browsed through the Russian sections for a while, but I didn't want to buy any classics because our flat came with a bunch of Russian literature in the cabinet in my room. I felt a bit disappointed - I didn't want to have made the trek and not actually have bought anything, but I didn't want to buy something just because I felt obliged to do it, either. But then, just as we were walking out of the store, we stumbled upon the music and ballet books. I found the memoirs of Matilde Kshessinskaya! This was really exciting for me, because I like to collect the memoirs of famous Russian ballerinas - it's so interesting to learn about who they were as people. But it's difficult to find them online, especially if they haven't been translated into English. So that was my special treat for the day - I'm saving it to read once I've gotten a bit better at Russian.

     At the moment I've finished reading the Harry Potter books that were lying around our flat and am working on 451 по фаренгейту - Farenheit 451. This is proving a lot harder than Harry Potter - I think I'm going to need to read it twice through, because I know I'm missing a lot of details! But then, it's a strange enough book to try to read in English, so it might not have been the best choice. Today, though, I'm being blissfully lazy and reading my good old Lord of the Rings. There is so much more savour in reading a book in your native language - you can understand all the nuances of language that you lose when you're reading in a language you're not fluent in.
     I also bought winter clothes this weekend. The temperatures, which had been hovering around freezing, suddenly plummeted to -10 on the weekend. I had been putting off buying boots and a hat and gloves and long underwear...but there is nothing like 20 degrees Farenheit to make you realize that winter in Moscow is going to be COLD! So after church on Sunday I took the metro to Ashan, a huge supermarket at the Strogino stop. And when I say huge, I mean HUGE. Picture a Kroger and a Target put together, with an organizational system in which vandals are allowed to run amok through the store and pick up and drop things wherever they want as they please every morning before the store opens. I managed to find what I wanted - a bargain pair of boots, gloves, hat, and woollen hose. Of course, the boots turned out to a bit more of a bargain than I planned - the metal triangles for the laces were not soldered together, but were simply bent into triangles, so as soon as I tried them on at home and pulled the laces tight the triangles simply pulled apart. So I spent the rest of the day sewing loops to put the laces through instead... I haven't actually tried them outside yet, so I hope nothing else catastrophic happens when I do...
     Anyway, I had a good weekend, but the week proved to be a hard one. Even with the long weekend, I was completely exhausted, both physically and mentally, and I was feeling really stressed for a couple of different reasons. Part of it was that I've been realizing the impossibility of trying to work full-time and dance full-time - physically and mentally I just don't have the strength for it. So I've decided to try to find a place where I can dance part-time - I think I will enjoy that much more than tearing myself apart trying to dance and teach every minute of every day. Also, my family has had some stress at home, and it's hard not being there with them.
     But praying has brought me a lot of peace - isn't it great how God is always there - and like I said, little things have been making life bright. Little things such as...SNOW!!! It finally snowed here for real a couple of days ago! It's all melted now, but it was really beautiful a couple of days ago. I know I looked like a complete idiot walking through the park - I kept craning my neck to look up at the snowflakes, and big slushy flakes kept falling down my neck inside my scarf. I was more excited about it than my six-year-old student - when I pointed out the window and said, "Look, it's snowing!" thinking she would be really excited and we could take that opportunity to learn some winter weather words, she looked and said calmly, "snoooo-wing," then went back to coloring her butterfly. I guess if you've had snowy winters the previous five years of your life it's not such a big deal. Piffle - right now in my naivete I feel as if I'll always be excited by snow! I suppose in the course of this winter we'll see.

 SNOW!!!

     I also figured out how to open my futon bed, which was supremely exciting. I tried the first night I arrived, but I couldn't figure out how to do it, so I've just been sleeping on one side of it. It's not uncomfortable, but it is a bit cramped. So finally last night I decided I was going to find out how to do it. It's too bad I couldn't get it on film, because I'm pretty sure it looked like a Charlie Chaplin episode. First I opened it out by accident - I was really excited - I'd done it! Then I started to wonder if I could close it again, since I wasn't sure how I'd opened it in the first place. So I lifted up one half of it, and then it locked in perpendicular position again, but somehow the sitting part and the back part had flipped, so now instead of a couch facing out into the room it was a couch facing the wall. Then I couldn't get it to flip back again - for a while it was looking as if I'd have to climb over the couch back to get to the seat part so that I could sleep - it was worse than before! Finally, I managed to get it to flip back again so it was facing out, and after about ten more minutes of heaving, huffing, and puffing, I managed to get it to open again. Which was a lot of trouble to go to at 1 in the morning, but it was worth it to be able to flop back luxuriantly and fling my arms and legs out without  a) hitting the couch back or b) falling over the edge and onto the floor. I slept sooo well last night!
     Today, I've done absolutely nothing - well, okay, I did go on a cleaning spree around the flat and I baked banana bread, which turned out deliciously if I do say so myself. But it has been so nice not to have to go anywhere or do anything. However, I'm planning a sight-seeing expedition for Sunday after mass - I haven't decided just where I'm going yet, but maybe the Tretyakov Gallery. For now, I think I'm going to sign off and go make dinner. I hope everyone has a good weekend!