Q: What will you do when you get back to the states?

I know you're expecting that here is where I will mope over what I've lost, but there's been entirely too much of that lately, so I will limit myself to delights and whatever gripes don't involve a solid 25 hours of traveling.

When Danielle was helping me carry my FIVE bags downstairs to find a taxi to take me to the airport express train to take me to Sheremetevo (whew), we were stymied by our broken door. Then a typical Russian man (all in black, sunglasses, cell phone attached to belt, briefcase) came barrelling through it, and he asked us where we were going. He offered me a ride to Vodny; when he learned that I was actually going to Savelovskii Vokzal, he offered me a ride there instead. I'd already popped half a xanax, Danielle had the number of the militsia, and I had a 70 pound suitcase. So off we went.

This was one final test of my conversational Russian before I leave, and I have to say, I rocked. Vlad and I talked about work, our respective salaries, traffic in our cities, green spaces, and fencing. It's a measure of my cultural adjustment that when he told me that my suitcase was "just impossible for a girl to take on the metro," I agreed -- and completely meant it. When we got to the vokzal, Vlad and the militsia officer had an argument about parking his car there, and he insisted that my bags were too heavy to park elsewhere. Finally, when I offered to pay him a little, he shrugged it off and insisted that it was all in the spirit of international friendship.

What followed was the usual airport maze, a 10 hour flight to New York, then a 5 hour layover. I know you don't care about that. Actually, there's probably only one question you have.

Q: What was the first thing you ate when you got back to America, Ebeth?

A: A turkey sandwich. It was terrible, I'm sure, but I really enjoyed it. This was followed by a Frosty and french fries.

Q: A Frosty? I thought you only liked Russian morozhenoe!

A: I'm on some kind of campaign to eat everything in sight for the first 24 hours.

So what do I have to show for my time in Russia?

- some research

- Russian that's good enough to carry on a general conversation

- insatiable hunger for ice cream and Milka bars

- a dead computer

- a serious grudge against the established media

- new appreciation for hot showers and public parks

And what do you have to show for my time in Russia? Let's test your skills.

Go ahead.

poll by twiigs.com

Day 1.5

Everyone:

1. Dima Bilan looks grosser than ever, maybe even grosser than you thought possible. The life-sized billboards of him certainly caught me by surprise. [If you don't know who he is, google image search, then thank your lucky stars you're not seeing what I am.]

2. I appear to look like I know what I'm doing. In approximately six hours on the street (to be fair, about two hours of that consisted of my loitering creepily in metro stations), four people have approached me to ask me something. Probably something legitimate, although I can't be sure. Possibly they all wanted information about how to get somewhere, maybe they asked what time it was, they might even have inquired about where I got my awesome shoes. But the point is, I have NO IDEA what they wanted, which leads me to number three.

3. I haven't the slightest idea what I'm doing here. I mean, I can use the metro, but that may be the end of my abilities. Make change? Nope. Light a gas burner from a match? Maybe one time out of ten. Use my cell phone? Absolutely not. This makes me somewhat hesitant to charge ahead with my interviews/carrying on a normal conversation with a Russian.


On the plus side:


Our kitchen is larger than mine at home.














My room is fantastic and contains...












a statuette of Ferdowsi!

















Our entryway: to the left the exterior set of doors, to the right Danielle's room. Straight ahead: Ten Thousand Persian Proverbs, General Linguistics, Means of Connection of the Signifier and Signified in Modern Tajik Literary Language, and so forth.