Apprehensions

People ask me all the time why in the world I'm going to Russia, and it's not an easy question to answer. Who wants to go to a desolate, arctic tundra during the spring when you could go to Panama, or Paris? I should at least go somewhere where I can get a decent tan. Well it's a good thing I'm pale, all the time. It's strange, but I've just have always been interested in the Russian culture. Something possessed me to take the Russian language in college, and I'm doing damn good. It takes a while to get used to the Cyrillic alphabet, but once you have it down it's not difficult. Whenever we were learning about Russia in history class it just seemed so interesting. Then again, maybe I just watched the movie Anastasia too much when I was younger. Also, being the philosophy major that I am, I have a really big interest in communism. It's just so entirely different from American capitalism, and I'm frankly surprised that it didn't work for Russia. But the aftermath of communism on their culture is so crazy.

I've been doing too much stuff the past week to actually let the reality of the situation sink in, and I don't think It will happen until I actually land in Russia. I've been running around the United States like a chicken with it's head cut off. I have been to Florida to visit my mother, drove through 7 states in one day to Athens, then to Columbus, then to Dayton, back to Columbus and now I'm home. I left Florida Thursday and didn't get home until Sunday night. In the course of 4 days I've been too many places and it's been exhausting, not just physically but emotionally. I leave tomorrow from Columbus to New York then finally to Moscow. I probably won't get any sleep tonight. I've packed most of my stuff and have tried not to overpack, but you never know right? I'm excited and nervous at the same time. Excited that I'm leaving my house and to see Russian culture first hand, but nervous for obvious reasons. I totally thought I was leaving Thursday until my dad told me I'm actually leaving tomorrow. Ever since I've been super anxious about missing my flight, and have been double checking the dates everyday even though I know it says Wednesday March 28th. I'm also nervous to leave my security blanket that is Ohio. Moscow has been deemed the rudest city in the world. There's the Russian mafia, pickpockets, political disturbances that make me afraid of an uprising, and Russians aren't generally fond of gay people. My friend thinks that they'll think I'm a trendy American, but you never know. Plus I wouldn't think that my advisor would put me in a place where I would be judged like that.

I'm really sad that I'm leaving all of my friends. I've actually grown to like the people I've met at college surprisingly, and I'm sad that I have to leave them. Saying bye to all my friends was harder than I expected. These people have made a big impact on me, I'm truly going to miss them. The biggest request I have gotten from everyone is not to bring back vodka, but to not die, and believe me I'm not going to . It's just entirely surreal that I will be gone on a plane tomorrow. I'm just a girl from a small town on Ohio, that goes to a college in a town where the population is mostly made up of students and faculty from the college. I am not ready to live a big city at all. I've lived in Ohio all of my life. I can barely speak the Russian language. Where my Russian class is in terms of vocab and grammar is where my friend's German class was last year, and I've taken Russian for two years. I should been freshening up on my vocab, but I have been doing so much shit that I haven't really done anything. Then again half of me thinks/knows that no matter how much I prepare I won't be ready for Russia. The most preparation I've done is watching Bizarre Foods the St. Petersburg edition. The weirdest thing Andrew Zimmern ate were lampreys (which I would never eat in a million years) a bear steak, and a dried herring and roe sack. It actually made me really excited to experience the Russian cuisine.


I don't really know anything about my host mother yet. I know the address, the metro stops she's near, that she lives alone and that her name is Tatiyana. Of course my Russian host mother's name would be Tatiana. There's something in her description which puzzles me since it translates into 'buy the lodge'. I'm really not sure what that's supposed to mean. There's only seven people in our group that's going and we are going to be scattered all across Moscow. I know the bulk of them decently well and my professor/advisor Vera is awesome. She writes Russian detective novels and is super laid back like me. I'm nervous about having to socialize in Russia but I feel like I should do alright. I'm definitely not as awkward as I used to be. Well I guess I should do something productive like sleep so hopefully I can keep up with this, post some pretty pictures, all that good stuff. The next posts will probably be more exciting of course, I'm taking my Thor action figure with me and taking pictures of him in various places. This will be called 3-D Thor! Also, I will probably be bitching about the satchel I bought. I didn't want to get a money belt and so I got a satchel. I always swore I would never get a purse and now I have one. Well, do svedanya bitches.