Русская Школа--Ruskaya Shkola--Russian School

    Yesterday and today I had my first days of Russian school. It could not be more different than school in the US. In some ways, it is way more formal, but in others, it is less
. We call our teachers by their first name, and then patronomic name. (In russia everyone has a patronomic name, which is their father's name with a suffix at the end). Example: the director of my school is named  Светлана (Svetlana), and her father is named Андрей (Andrei), so I would call her: Светлана Андревна (Svetlana Andreevna)
        At the beginning of every class, you stand until the teacher tells you to sit down. In my school, the kids don't raise their hands, the teacher either addreses them directly, or just asks a question, and anyone who knows the answer calls it out. Also, there is a lot of talking during class, I can't understand if the kids are talking about the lesson or other things, but the teachers appear not to care. It isn't bad to have your phone on during school in Russia (at least my school), lots of kids keep their phones on and on top of their desks, and sometimes even text during class (this though I'm pretty sure isn't allowed, because it is usually done under a desk or textbook.
         A big difference between my school in Russia and my school in the US is that in Russia every single class is... a class. There is no study hall or assembly or community block or anything like that... There is just Algebra, Biology, Russian history, etc. I have about 15 different classes, and 6 every day. School starts at 8 and ends at 2:30. It is very close to my house, so Laura and I walk---which reminds me... My school has kids from age like 6-18 all in the same school. So between classes (we have 15 minutes between each class) you walk by little kids in the hallway, it is strange to get used to. Another thing that takes getting used to is lunch, we don't have a lunch period, we just eat lunch in the 15 minutes passing time between the 4th and 5th lesson.
      The students at my school are very nice. We have a hard time communicating, because they don't speak a lot of English, and I don't speak a lot of Russian, but we try. They are asking me lots of questions about my school in the US and life in the US.
     I am in 10th class, which is the equivalent of being an junior in the US, so the kids in my class are all 16 and 17. This is hard, because not only do I not understand the material because its in Russian, I don't understand it because I've never taken pre-calculus or trigonomitry, so I have no idea what sin and cos mean... I do however know how to say sin and cosine in Russian: sinus and cosinus if you were wondering...

Okay, thats all for now
пака! (bye bye)
Also check out my facebook... I posted lots of photos.

Also please know that I am reading all of your emails, and I'm sorry if I don't respond right away, I don't have a lot of time. 

First few days....

I am finally here! Yay Russia.
    I am having such a great time. My family is incredibly nice. None of them speak english except for my older sister Dasha, but they are all really nice and funny. My little sister Laura talks to me endlessly in Russian even though I can hardly understand any of it. Speaking of Russian, I'm have learned a lot of it and I've only been here a day.
    So what has happened since I last wrote: I went to an orientation in NYC, and then flew here. The plane ride was long and I didn't really sleep a whole lot, but when I got to Moscow (and through customs) I actually wasn't tired. Something about being in an exciting new place seems to wake you up, even when you've gone like 24 hours without sleeping. In Moscow an AFS voulenteer picked me up. He didn't speak english, and I didn't speak Russian, but he was an exchange student in Costa Rica, so we spoke spanish together. Who would have thought my Spanish would be useful in Russia? We had a few hours in Moscow before my train to Nizhny Novgorod so we went on the metro (crazy fancy and pretty) and saw the Red Square, which is also really cool. It was freezing that day.
    Then I got on the train for almost five hours to go from Moscow to my city (Nizhny Novgorod). Russian trains are cool because they have different compartments that you can sit in. When I got to the train station my mom and sister Dasha were waiting for me. Dasha is twenty and speaks very good english.... the rest of my family, doesn't really speak english, but they still talk to me, and I do a lot of smiling. I do understand some things though. My sister Laura loves to talk to me in Russian, I have learned so many words because she keeps pointing at things, telling me what they are, and then quizzing me a few minutes later. She is adorable. She keeps coming up to me and hugging me and saying 'ya tebya lublyou' which means I love you. I taught her a few words in english. Now she loves to say "Hello, my name is Laura. I am sausage." I told her that that doesn't make a lot of sense, but she says it anyway.
    Today we drove for like an hour to a small village called Tarasiha. It is really beautiful. The roads are legitamately covered in ice, like they are ice, you can't see the road. You also can't really drive on them, so we were walking a lot, but I kept falling, which Dasha thought was very funny. This was how I learned how to say 'astarozhnaya' (be careful). My grandparents are named Lyouda and Alexei. They are really nice. I also met my aunt, Anna, who is really funny. She has two kids David (7) and Palina (2). Palina is adorable. David reminds me a lot of my brother daniel, he has a lot of energy. I taught him how to say 'no' in english, and he then proceeded to follow me around the house saying 'no no no no no no no'.
   Now let me talk about the food. It is DELICIOUS. Like wow. Last night for dinner I had borscht (yum) and salad (it was red though, not sure what was in it, it was also delicious). Today for lunch I had palmeni, and potatoes. Palmeni are like dumplings, they are also really good. My russian grandmother also made a cake with apples and chocolate (called Sharlotka) which was also delicious.
    Now let me talk about tea. Russians drink it constantly. I have had 5 cups of tea today, and Dasha just asked if I wanted more.
    Now let me talk about my house, it is an apartment on the second floor of a building, and really really close to my school. There is a kitchen/living room, my parents bedroom, a bathroom, and another bedroom where Dasha, Laura and I all sleep. It is like a huge slumberparty... every night. Its fun though. Last night Laura told me lots of stories in Russian taht I didn't understand before we went to bed. She would tell a whole story and then say 'tee ne ponimala' (you didn't understand me) and laugh. We also have a dog name Richi.

St. Basils Cathedral

 . "Hi. My name is Laura. I am sausage" 

My cousin Palina! I want to steal her!

 David, Palina (cousins) and Laura (my sister)

Me and Palina

 My lunch. Cake (sharlotka), pickles, potatoes, and palmeni (dumplings, you can't see them here but they were good)

 Dasha. Not a great picture. She is very pretty and very nice. 

Well that is all. I am having a great time here. I love and miss you guys!!! Email me: lindsaysaligman@gmail.com 

Goodbyes

So... I'm going to New York tomorrow morning for our orientation.
                 I've finished my schoolwork, packed my suitcase, and said goodbye to my friends (by far the hardest of the three).

I think it has finally hit me that I'm not going to see all of these people for a whole five months. I keep telling myself to calm down, that it really isn't forever, but (and maybe this is because I said a lot of hard goodbyes today) I can't help but feel a little sad.

To everyone in the states: Thanks for making my life so amazing. I'm not trying to be cheesy or sentimental there... Just honest. I am going to miss you all.

So... tomorrow I'm off to New York for orientation, Thursday I get on the plane, and by Friday night I'll be 4906 miles from where I am right now, with my new family in Russia.

Despite the sadness of saying goodbye, I've got to admit, this is pretty exciting.

Host Family!

After much waiting, I finally know where I will be going in Russia and who I will be living with!

I will be living in Nizhny Novgorod, which is the 5th largest city in Russia, and is about 250 miles (410km) north-east of Moscow. I am also going to school there. After some significant google-searching I've come up with a picture of my future school: СОШ № 118

I'm liking the color scheme...

Now for my family: my mom is named Inna, and my dad is named Vladislav. I have two host sisters named Darya (22) and Laura (9).  I don't know if Darya lives with them or not. Also I don't have an email for them, so I guess I'll have to write an old fashioned postal letter (which will only arrive about 5 days before I do).

Exciting, right?

Russian Language

               Since July, I have been learning Russian, or as the russians call it 'Russian Language'... One of the hardest parts about it, is that handwritten Russian is almost completely different from typewritten Russian. Handwritten Russian, which is almost always in cursive, consists of letters that pretty much all look the same when they are strung together--at least to me. So, I was looking up examples of handwritten Russian to practice reading it, and found this incredibly funny picture.

The bottom says 'Strong nation will conquer even in Language'.  This cracks me up because it is so... Russian. 

I was having this conversation with a friend the other day: There is something that seems to distinguish Russian people in a way that adjectives can't really do. Every country has its stereotypes*: Spanish people love to party, French people are very fashionable etc... With Russia, there isn't really a stereotypical adjective that I can think of, though there is definitely a certain quality that I've seen in almost every Russian person I've met.  They all seem very: Russian. 

There really is no other way to put it. It'll be interesting if this holds true upon my going there.

*Please be aware that these ARE stereotypes that may or may not be based on truth. They are not in any circumstance to be taken as the truth. 

20 Days

In 21 days I will be in Russia.

In 121 days I will still be in Russia. 

Isn't that crazy?

    To be honest, I don't think that it has really hit me that I am leaving. I also don't think I fully grasp how hard of an experience this is going to be. Whenever I have talked to people that have been on exchanges, they say it is one of the best times of their lives, but they also say it is one of the hardest. I get that on a mental level: being in a new culture, country, being attacked by a language you don't speak etc, but I don't think I've fully grasped it emotionally. 

Another matter that has been distressing almost everyone I know from my mother to from my elementary school art teacher (seriously), is that I don't have a host family yet. At first, I was pretty calm about it, but now I'm starting to get agitated too. Let me put you in my shoes:

Imagine that for 5 months and 3 days, you are going to live with a family you have never met. Imagine you don't know who they are, or where they live... Alarming right?