From Pennsylvania to Moscow

Sunday April 24th, A few weeks ago, Josh from SRAS sent us an email regarding an excursion to a cold war bunker. I was exhausted from the day before, having gone to Vladimir, but since I didn't have class on Monday I felt that sleep wasn't important, and I could catch up on my Zzz time on Monday.  My alarm woke me up at 8:30am. I quickly dressed, and was out the door by 9:20am.  This was the first time I was traveling on the metro by myself, the funny thing was, I wasn't afraid at all. I realized that I had finally become accustomed to the way of life in Moscow.  As I look back, I see myself 2 months ago, terrified of public transportation and the idea of traveling alone. Can it be that I have developed confidence in my speaking abilities? Perhaps, it is true that I am no longer afraid of not being able to ask for help in Russian.  Or it can be that I have learned my way around Moscow, I've seen and been to a lot of different places. I switched from the red line...

Saturday, April 23rd My morning started at 6:30am, but I was wide awake and ready to go. Today we were going to visit Vladimir. For those of you who do not know much about this place here is a brief history.  It was founded in 1108 by Владимир Мономах (Vladimir Monomach). It is located Northeast from Moscow, about 180km, on the shores of the river Клязьма (Klyazma).  The golden age for Vladimir was in the 12th century when Князья Андрей Боголюбский (Prince Andrei Bogolobskii) and Всеволод Большое Гнездо (literally translates as Vsyevolod of the big nest) built churches, monasteries, and restored and decorated the city. Vladimir is really well-known for the Golden Gate, (the picture is shown to the right) which was built by Prince Bogolobskee.  It was through this gate that Princes Александр Невский (Aleksandr Hevskii) и Дмитри Донской (Dmitri Donskoi) made their entrance into Vladimir.  In the 15th century Kievan Rus separated into two different regions of power. ...

Sunday April 10th Going clothes shopping in Moscow could perhaps be one of the most hazardous activities to your wallet.  My dear friend Rachel has a very sweet Russian boyfriend with a car, and she convinced him to take us girls out shopping to a place where things are actually affordable and won't leave a gaping hole where money should be.  I have been living off of the same 3 pairs of pants and 5 shirts since I got here in February, and me being the girly girl I am, was going to die or go crazy enough to spend way too much money on new clothes pretty soon if I had to wear the same thing...again.  Oleg took us to Mega Mall, it is just south of Moscow past Юго-запада metro station, and came to pick me up at 11:30am.  It certainly was a mega mall with 280 stores, and one of the biggest Ashans I had ever seen (Not that I've seen many Ashans...but it was much bigger than the one near the university). Before we were able to commence shopping activities, Oleg was in d...

Perhaps you have read about the politics class I'm taking here in Moscow, and if not, to update you, I had to write a 10 page midterm paper on a topic of my choice.  This topic of course, would turn out to be something that interested me and be what I really want to learn from the course.  For my topic I chose to write about the layout of power among the president, the prime minister, and the Federal Assembly.  All of my information comes directly from the Russian Constitution, government websites, and wikipedia when I couldn't translate the Russian websites into English.  It wasn't a difficult paper, however I definitely feel like I have a much better idea on how the government works, which is important for everyone to learn if they plan on keeping an active part on what goes on in their society.  Without further adue, here it is, enjoy! The Distribution of Powers Within the Russian Federation           ...

Today is March 22nd, well, the 23rd now.  An hour ago I was exhausted and ready to fall asleep after a long day of museum touring and shopping for groceries, so what could have possibly got me in a mind set to all of a sudden, not be tired anymore? Before I get on with the punch line of this little story, we went, meaning Rachel, Marina, and I, to the Pushkin museum, and the other museum dedicated to Pushkin.  To my surprise the metro station we got off at was located directly in front of Christ the Savior Cathedral! So, if you are ever here in Moscow and want to take the metro to the cathedral, it's the red line and station: Кропоткинская.  It brought back some nice memories of marching in a parade last May with a flag simply to big for me, baring a picture of St. George with the words "Вера и Дело" (Faith and Deeds) written underneath. I put those memories to the back of mind as we were approaching the smaller of the two museums. I was very impressed and after being t...

Tuesday March 15th, I expected more than anything else to be very relaxing.  I slept till 11am, and had lunch plans with some friends from Albany.  Bob and Pam are a very sweet older couple whom I had class with my freshmen year.  They work in the SUNY office here at МГУ in the main building.  They help students from America come over here to study.  Joe told me they were here and since September and that they would love to see me. We were trying to figure out a time and place that we could meet to catch up, and at last we figured it out.  We had a lovely lunch in the cafe downstairs, and decided that we would have to do this again sometime soon. After saying goodbye, I went to the building where I had classes to meet with the Dean so I could prolong my visa since it would expire March 24th.  It took him about 30mins to scan my passport, visa, immigration card, student ID, and other various important documents.  I sat there staring at my purse ...

Sunday March 13th The night before proved to be quite horribly loud and annoying until about 6am, so no sleep for me!  The hostel we stayed at was really nice, however, the walls were super thin, so all the sound would travel right into our room.  There were about 6 people sitting in the kitchen drinking, singing, shouting, doing typical drunk Russian things.  It sounded like they were in the room with us, and it didn't seem to matter to our hosts in the least.  Guess it's just that Russian mentality. We "woke up" at 10am, got breakfast at McDonald's and I made the mistake of buying 2 chicken caesar wraps.  You know how in the US snack wraps are really small, and you need at least two to get filled up? Well, in Russia, they are made big, and one works just fine as a meal.  The second one ended up in my purse, which I decided would work as a snack for later in the day. Our first stop was St. Isaac's Cathedral. This beautiful cathedral is now a museum op...