Nothing to say; I'm back. Here's the last few pictures from the trip. The first ten or fifteen are from the Soviet Arcade Museum, where you can play old arcade machines from the '70s.

Last ones

So I posted a ton of new pictures, some from Tomsk and some from Moscow. I'm not really going to talk about them here; I'll do that through the captions.

As an overview of what's been going on, though, I've been enjoying my free time before I have to go check out the State Archive of the Russian Federation tomorrow. Thankfully, I didn't have any terrible bureaucratic messes to sort through here, since the visa service will just take care of everything for a fee (they didn't have an office in Tomsk). So now I'm registered, I have an apartment that I've fully paid for, and I have working internet, which is really all I could ever need.

In my spare time, then, I've been going back to some of the places that I remember being really cool two years ago. I went to Red Square and Tverskaya like I've already mentioned, and today I went to VDNKh (I'll explain, hang on) and stopped by RGGU (Russian State University for the Humanities), where I studied two years ago.

VDNKh (pronounce it Veh-Deh-Ehn-KHAH, but fast) stands for Exhibition of the Achievements of the National Economy (at least that's how I'll translate it). During Soviet times they built it to inspire awe and pride in the technological advances, productivity, and culture of the Soviet Union, with some special emphasis on the nationalities. For all its universalist communism, the Soviet Union made a very big deal about the so-called "Friendship of Peoples" between the nationalities within its borders, and at VDNKh they had separate pavilions to display the achievements of individual nations.

So imagine an enormous area of land with wide sidewalks, fountains, and lots of large buildings with majestic architecture. That was VDNKh before 1991. Since then, the place has turned into probably the best example anywhere of the communist past and the capitalist present coming into direct contact. Basically, the grounds have been partially transformed into a carnival...there are open-air shashlyk (kebab) cafes everywhere, popcorn stands, a Ferris wheel, horse rides, carnival games, and even a couple roller coasters. Honestly, it surprised me today even though I'd seen it two years ago, because the carnival has grown considerably since then.

Clearly, it makes a really interesting contrast. As you can see in some of the pictures, you've got lofty Soviet monuments next to cheap souvenir stands. I'm sure Lenin wouldn't be happy about how things have turned out, but there's nothing he can do now but watch from his statue in disgust.

Hope you enjoy the pictures.

(As a postscript, I noticed three separate instances today of policemen asking Central Asians for their documents. So much for the Friendship of Peoples.)

I was here two years ago, and I feel like I both remember everything and have forgotten everything at the same time. On the one hand, I'd sort of forgotten how big Moscow is. In terms of pure city limits, it's the 7th biggest city in the world, with more than 2 million people more than New York, so I'm not sure how I could forget that, but somehow I did. Tomsk is a respectable city, but it feels like a village in retrospect. Here there are huge buildings all over the place; even in the peaceful residential area where my apartment is, there are 25-story apartment buildings. There are restaurants and cafes everywhere, clothing stores, electronics stores, movie theaters, etc. And it really caught me by surprise.

It has gotten me really excited, though. I guess after spending most of the past two summers in Tomsk and most of the rest of my time in Chapel Hill, I've been missing big cities without even knowing it. It's fun to just walk around in central Moscow; today I went by metro to Red Square and then walked along Tverskaya (maybe Moscow's biggest street) for a couple hours. And even without actually doing anything per se, it was exciting. I'm sure this effect will wear off, but for now I'm having fun just by being here.

At the same time, like I said, some things are very familiar. The metro brings back memories, of course, and makes me again wish that Houston had something like that. I remember some other places specifically, too; important ones like Lenin's tomb, of course, but also stupid ones. Today on Tverskaya I saw a Rostik's, which is KFC but renamed for some reason, and I got tempted by the prospect of fast food and went in. Once inside, I realized suddenly that I'd been to Rostik's once two years ago, and it was that exact one. So it's all coming back to me, I guess.

As for my setup, I'm living in an apartment that's pretty much the exact opposite of the one I had in Tomsk. The other apartment was modern, sparse, had recently been renovated, and had a very spacious and well-lit, if empty, main room. The man I rented it from certainly never lives there; he just owns it and rents it. This apartment, on the other hand, is home to a family of three, as far as I can tell, and is about the same size as the last one in overall area. It's divided into more rooms, though, and feels very lived-in; there's homey wallpaper, rugs, little trinkets and books all over the place, etc. It's very cozy, in a good way. At the same time, it has some typically Russian quirks. For example, the woman who lives here told me to only turn the cold water on when I need it, and otherwise turn it off (I mean the cold water to the whole apartment, turn it completely on and off). She said it's because it's very expensive otherwise, which seems to be due to a problem with the toilet; it runs a steady trickle of water constantly into the bowl when the water's on. As a result, if I want to go to the bathroom, I turn the water on, do my business, wait for enough water to accumulate, flush the toilet, and then turn the water off. But that's just Russia.

This post is probably already too long for one day's attention span, so I'll talk more about what I've seen and done so far later. I'll also post pictures later (I won't have my laptop's internet working until tomorrow anyway). До завтра!

It's been far too long since I updated, and I suppose I can still post despite Arden's return.

Happy late Fourth of July to everyone, also. As you'd expect, there were no fireworks in Tomsk, but the Americans who are on the language program I was on last year went to the White Lake in Tomsk to hang out and celebrate, so I joined them. This "White Lake" is more like a very large pond in Tomsk, around which are little food stands, benches, shops, etc. You can rent a paddleboat and float around on the lake if you want, but it was kind of hot yesterday, so it wouldn't have been very pleasant. But it was nice to relax and talk to other Americans (although we spoke in Russian the whole time!). I don't really like setting off fireworks anyway, so this watered-down Fourth was fine with me.

Other than that, I'm busy procrastinating on cleaning up my apartment. I leave on Tuesday morning (you know, that still makes me think of that little store on Gessner), and let's just say I have a lot of cleaning to do. Work-wise, all I'm doing on Monday is getting all my copies from the archives and filling out the paperwork required for that. I'm not sure if I have enough info, or if what I have is good enough, but there's nothing that can be done about it now. We'll see what there is in Moscow.

I also have some more pictures, but I'm stupid and forgot to bring my camera with me today, so it'll have to wait a little longer. More interesting pictures will come once I'm in Moscow, anyway. I'm looking forward to it, and I'm glad I have the guide Arden gave me (thank you) because the last time I was there I mainly just followed program leaders or people who knew more Russian than me. So this time maybe I can go specifically to the places I remember being really interesting, and to places I didn't visit two years ago.

I'll keep you posted.

many many apologies to everybody for being so lame and not really updating often or very much, but things have been absolutely crazy busy here. last week was just a long string of class sleep class sleep with occasional attempts at seeing paris, and this weekend was fete de la musique. the fete is a european (though initially french) holiday on the 21st of june (this year - it is just on the summer solstice. the french started it as a way to have something to do on the longest day of the year so people weren't bored and stir-crazy. how awesome is that?). it involves music pretty much everywhere. i have some pretty entertaining pictures of some guys we watched for a while while listening to some techno music on a random street, among other things. i will post pictures and some more updates about what's been going on in our classes and outside of them when i don't have to leave for said classes in 20 minutes.

au revoir!

On Sunday I went to the soccer game between Tom' (Tomsk) and Amkar (Perm', which is in the Urals). It was a kind of cloudy, drizzly, ugly day, but I was pretty surprised to see a lot of people show up. In fact, I underestimated the amount of time it would take me to buy a ticket, and I was still in a very long line 5 minutes before the game was supposed to start. Luckily for me, some people came up and asked if I was alone, and when I said yes, they gave me a spare ticket they had for free. So that was pretty nice; even though the tickets are only 6 dollars or so, it saved me a good amount of wait time.

I got to my seat and the game started a few minutes later, after a bizarre full-length song-advertisement from RosGosStrakh (Russian State Insurance). Going into the game, Tomsk was 13th or so in the 20-team Russian Premiere League, and Amkar was 19th. And for the entire first half, it looked like Amkar really deserved that spot. Tomsk controlled the ball, stayed on the attack, and really should have scored several times, but at halftime they led only 1-0.

Nonetheless, based on the way the first half went, the crowd was pretty confident going into the second half. There were a couple guys behind me who I listened to over the course of the game, and they talked about the game as well as about WWII history, politics, and plenty of other things. The second half gave me the opportunity to hear some Russian cursing from them, as Amkar scored twice and really looked much better than Tomsk to come away with a 2-1 win. I guess it's a pretty devastating loss for Tomsk; they had to have expected a win at home over such a bottom-feeder in the league, but no luck. So everyone was fairly quiet leaving the stadium, and I went home quickly before it started to rain harder.

I've got some pictures, only a few, but I'll post them here in an album with some others that I've taken since the last time I posted any pictures.

Soccer and others

not much time right now, so i'll post about what all has been going on a little later. but for now, here are some pictures. the first bunch, until the picture of the castle, are from thursday and friday in paris. the rest are from our weekend trip to the loire valley to look at some chateaux.

enjoy!

Paris and Loire

Since I wasn't able to work in the archive until the end of last week, I watched a decent amount of TV in the afternoons when I would otherwise have been working, and most of the time, I watched the sports channel. Russian TV (at least with regard to sports) seems to have a different commercial system than in the US; they don't have TV timeouts or anything like that during their sporting events, so there aren't really commercial breaks. They make up for that with very long commercial breaks at halftime or in other natural breaks. It's a nicer system for the viewer, and probably less profitable for the broadcaster.

Anyway, they also seem to have a much more limited variety of commercials, such that this video of one commercial break probably shows 70% of the commercials I've seen on this channel since I got here. Some of them are kind of amusing, so I thought I'd let you guys have a look. Despite the number of times I've seen them, I still have trouble with the language on a few, so I guess it goes to show how much I still have to learn. Subtitles after the link. You'll probably also have to turn your sound up quite a bit.


Commercials


Commercial 1: Beeline (mobile telephone provider)

You get an SMS, and you're already smiling. Then you impatiently wait for another. And with each new message, you feel his presence more and more. Now that an SMS costs only 1 kopeka (about 1/30th of a cent), how easy it is to always be close by! Learn more and sign up at 06 505. Beeline. Live on the bright side.


Commercial 2: LG Arena (cell phone)

The new LG Arena. The arena of your possibilities.


Commercial 3: McDonald's (my favorite of the bunch!)

"Do you want to know why our sandwiches are so good? Come with me. Good taste starts with quality ingredients. For our sandwiches we take only 100% beef, [something i can't understand], salt and pepper. That's where that special taste comes from (literally "is born")." "Here's your Big Mac." "How's the Big Mac?" *thumbs up* "We make hamburgers and we make them well."


Commercial 4: Orbit gum

"Look, Zitya(?)...the Southern Cross." "You're so smart...Kolya." "Kolya?! I'm Junior(?)!" Snow-white Orbit, [something about how it'll make you have a great smile]. "Kolya...(I'm really not sure what he's saying here, but the idea's obviously that the smile has made him ok with this situation) . Snow-white Orbit: a blinding smile and defense against cavities.


Commercial 5: Megaphone (another mobile telephone provider)

A special offer from Megaphone. A USB modem with the USB Modem Plus plan, at great prices starting at 1190 rubles (~40 dollars). The USB Modem Plus plan is a USB modem service at a special rate. The USB modem works effectively on many 3G networks, like with current mobile network connections. USB Modem Plus -- the speed and freedom of mobile Internet. Megaphone -- the future depends on you. (I've always thought that was a ridiculous slogan, personally)


Now local commercials...


Commercial 6 (Bosch Center):

The company store, Bosch Center. The greatest selection of electrical instruments, garden tools (not really "tools", but power stuff, like lawnmowers and such), and a new level of service. At 26 Herzen St., at the crossing of Herzen and Krasnoarmeiskaya (Red Army St.).


Sort-of-Commercial 7:

Wanted: A trained enthusiast in the field of welding. Higher education. Pay starting at 30,000 rubles (presumably per month, that's about $1000).


Commercial 8 (Instrument Market):

Modern technology for forest, park and garden. (This part is frustrating because I have no idea what any of the words are, except that one of them is lawnmower, and the rest are obviously similar things, so I guess you get the idea). The shopping center "Instrument Market" on Irkutskii Trakt, telephone 65-15-70.


So maybe these give you a slice of life in Tomsk. Or maybe they bore you like American commercials. In the end, they're really not very different from ones at home. I guess the reason I'm so amused by that McDonald's commercial is because it actually *is* very different from the commercials we're used to, probably because we can't help laughing at the idea that McDonald's makes quality hamburgers, but not to worry, Russian TV has some "I'm lovin' it" style commercials that are meant to appeal to "the youth", as well. There's one where a DJ is in the club, looking kind of uninspired, but then he sees a guy eating a Big Mac and puts on an awesome techno song about how good Big Macs are. So it's too bad that one wasn't in this clip, except that I hate it and wouldn't be able to understand the words in the rap anyway.

i know it's been almost a week, but things have been moving non-stop pretty much since last i wrote. the only downtime i had was when i slept, and it was not really very much time.

thursday:

we went to class. and to a classical viola/accordian concert put on by the language program we're in at the sorbonne. it was pretty fantastic.

friday:

we had language class in the morning (like always) and then took a walking tour of areas that exemplified haussmannization of Paris. Haussmann was a man appointed by napoleon III during the second republic to modernize paris. he made a lot of the large cut-through streets that are very much useful today (at the expense of many houses and lower-income areas, like the one that used to exist between the louvre and the tuileries) and had apartments built along these streets. the buildings were all very similar - there were pretty hardcore regulations about distance from the curb (which still exits), height of the building, and style restrictions dealing with the maximum amount a building could protrude, above street level, into the space of the road (balconies and such). all the architecture is almost identical, as was the mode of the time (mid 19th century).

friday night most of the kids on our program just hung out, which was nice. after some solid afternoons of work, a break felt really good. we walked down to la rue mouffetard, which i mentioned previously, where all the students go in the evenings, and had a beer. unlike the crappy bears i've tasted at home, this one was actually enjoyable, though i assume it pales to belgian beers.

saturday morning:

leah and i, along with four of the other girls who were going to brussels, woke up around five and left the foyer at six. our train left at 6.55. it was one of the bullet trains, so we got to brussels about 8.30.

this is where our adventure began, and i don't even know where to start. the people in brussels are all fantastic - after getting used to the mannerisms of parisians (which many people find... snobbish or rude, i guess), it was kind of nice to talk to people who never really switched into english like the parisians do when they realize you're not fluent. they were hugely helpful - we had trouble finding the hostel, as the streets in brussels are a bajillion times more convoluted than those of paris. we asked a woman if she knew where the street we were looking for was and she responds: "ah, l'hostel? vennez" which means we were to follow her. she went out of her way to take us there. so, a good first impression. we left our stuff in lockers at the hostel and ventured out.

the city itself is magnificent. the grand place, which there are pictures of, is beautiful, if a bit touristy. the buildings are old, the waffles are good, the chocolate is fantastic. very fabulous, very european. as in paris, you'd walk down the street and just sort of come across ridiculous things like statues in parking lots or a church down an alley. it still hasn't gotten old.

we waited around in the grand place (fyi, place rhymes with glass) for the other girls. abbey, who only went to brussels for the day, had come with us to the hostel while the others went in search of their hotel. we waited for quite some time and apparently they were late, looked briefly for us, decided we'd left and went to go eat. which ended up being fine - eating, or really, doing anything in large groups is kind of difficult and a hassle in europe. we met a bike tour guide who tried to get us to go on his tour because he only had one person signed up for 9am (usually they apparently have to turn people away. he thought it was weird). we didn't want to pay 22euro and leah doesn't remember how to ride a bike, but he invited us to listen to him talk about the grand place for free anyway. it was really cool and we learned a lot. apparently, there are only two things you need to remember about belgium: it is a kingdom, and it is the capital of europe (we assumed he was just being silly).

we ended up going and getting waffles and ran into the other girls, who were leaving. the waffles were great (there are pictures), and we were starving. then we wandered around some more and came across all sorts of awesome things. we also went to the comic book museum. brussels is apparently the world capital of comics, so that was pretty cool. we walked through the cathedral as well. pretty much, we walked everywhere.

we ran into allen, who is on our program too, and his girlfriend and we all went to get dinner together. i didn't try the mussels and fries, which brussels is famous for, though leah and allen did and loved it. i had pretty delicious spaghetti. dessert was maybe the most fantastic waffle i've ever had.

then we went to delirium (cafe), a bar serving over 2500 different beers. we sampled a few, and they were all good, except one that tasted strangely like wine. it was completely not sketchy, i guess because, for the most part, everybody there was a tourist. i think the belgians go out on other nights, and the tour guide had said most people's favorite bar had burned down a few weeks ago. anyway, that was cool, except my clothes were kind of bar-smelling after that.

then me, leah, allen and his girlfriend went to a discotheque and danced to less-than-recent american dance music, which was a lot of fun. we all walked back to our hostel after that for some sleep. the hostel was pretty fantastic. it's in a building that van gough used to live in, and was very clean and seemed recently renovated. that and free breakfast made for a pretty sweet deal - it only cost us 20euro apiece.

sunday:

we had to be out of the hostel by 10am (with the exception of our bags, which we put in lockers for the day - for free), so we checked out and jumped on the metro towards the atomium. the atomium is this huge atom-shaped building that was built for the world fair of 1958, which was in brussels. that was pretty fantastic. the pictures and captions pretty much say it all. except that i dropped ice cream on myself.

after the atomium we headed back to the grand place to shop around a little (we didn't end up buying anything, though). we ran into the tour guide again, and he told us about the free concert in the main park that evening and said we should go. we then went to the magrite museum only to be disappointed that they had sold out for the day. then we wandered around some of the other museum areas and ended up another park the guide had told us had free music all afternoon. we listened to this pretty interesting band for a while and then continued towards the big park. the guide had said to take the metro, but we ended up walking because we were still in awe of everything (and it was downhill and didn't take too long). we passed a lot of eu buildings, and a lot of closed stores. in europe, it is way harder to get things than it is in the US. stores are closed on sundays, and until the late morning, and are only open until early evening. tant pis (too bad). speaking of pis, we also saw the manneken pis saturday, which is a statue of a little boy peeing that is, for some reason, famous.

the festival in the park was amazing. we had some indian food and gelato for dinner and just wandered around and people watched. we sat in the grass and listened to some of the free concert, but then it started raining so we headed back towards the hostel.

we got back there early so we had a last beer, talked to some canadians and a guy from kentucky, and headed towards the train station. our train pulled out at 10.35, we got back to the foyer in paris around midnight and went to sleep.

some other random things we saw in brussels:

- a street performer singing american classic rock and some other random songs (like la bamba). he didn't know sweet caroline, but we stayed for a little while to listen. leah danced with a portuguese guy in the street.
- there were lots of weddings. we saw two brides arrive at the town hall while we waited saturday morning to meet up with the others.
- along with the weddings, there were lots of bachelor/bachelorette parties. the guys would dress the groom up in drag and parade him (loudly) around in the middle of the day, and the brides would dress up and wander around with their friends.
- a belgian woman on the subway said that belgian people think english is really pretty
- many belgians speak three languages: flemish, the language of flanders (north belgium), french, the language of wallonia (south belgium), and english (a vehicular language - socially it can be tense between the northerners and southerners, so in places like brussels, the capital, they generally speak english as well to keep tensions down and to avoid the risk of insulting somebody). we generally spoke french while there.

all in all, it was a fantastic trip, and worth the general exhaustion afterward.

last night we went to see the french ballet in the paris opera house. it was based on proust's novel, so it pertained to our seminar. it was magnificent, but more about that later. if you've gotten to this point in the post, you've read enough.


click the picture to see the pictures from the rest of last week and brussels! click the first picture after the jump to start viewing.

the first thing there is a video of our friend danielle performing part of a sketch from snl while we waited for the accordion/viola concert. i didn't put the slideshow here - you can just click through them in the album, and then you'll have larger pictures and the captions.

Paris and Bruxelles 6.8

Alright, let's see if this works. If it does, I might even add captions (without which this album probably won't make any sense).

arden abroad

I've neglected this blog for a while because I've been waiting for this whole registration episode to end so I can write about it with a proper conclusion. Наконец-то (finally), after a week and a half or so, everything's settled and I can actually get to work on my research.

So, backing up for those of you aren't aware of what's been going on, when you go to Russia you're supposed to register yourself in the city or region where you live. I knew that much, but as far as I was aware, the only practical reason you needed to do that was because police might demand it of you if they suspected that you were an illegal immigrant, either to Russia or to their particular city. So when I moved in, I asked my landlord if he knew how or where I was supposed to register (since my visa service, without a regional office in Tomsk, recommended getting help from him). He didn't know, and said that he thought it was only important for people in Moscow or St. Petersburg or for people who look Central Asian or Caucasian (as in, from the Caucasus). That fit with what I thought, so I left it at that.

When I went to the archive to work, everything went fine at first, but when I left on the second day they informed me that I needed to register and that I wasn't supposed to do anything at the archive until I had done so. They told me where the migration office was, and I went there. Unfortunately, it was closed (this was a Thursday at 6 pm or so) and didn't have any more visiting hours until Monday. So I waited until then.

On Monday the woman I spoke to rather gruffly informed me that I was late in registering, that there would be a fine, and that I couldn't register myself without my принимающая сторона present (basically, a Russian citizen who's taking responsibility for my presence). I thought based on my conversation there that the archive could serve that function, since that's why I came and that's where I'd be working. I went back to the archive and asked them to fill out part of the form that the migration office worker had given me. The director and a worker filled it out with the worker's personal information, and I went back to the migration office, where they informed me that the принимающая сторона had to actually be present. I went back to the archive, but by that time, the worker whose information I'd used had left and wouldn't be back until the next day.

The next day, I arrived at the archive in the morning but the worker I needed wasn't there. Instead, when I asked a different worker about it, he talked to the director and then told me that the archive couldn't help me with this; I needed to talk to the person who rented me my apartment. Frustrated, I called him, but he didn't have any time until the next day (Wednesday).

So on Wednesday, I met him and we went to register me, but the office apparently doesn't accept visitors on Wednesdays, so we had to wait until today (Thursday) at 2 pm.

It's kind of circular logic, but I guess I'm glad I had to have a Russian with me for the process because it would have taken much longer and been more frustrating for everyone involved if I'd been alone. The migration people told me that I had to go to the regional migration office to pay my fine (as opposed to the provincial office we were in), so we went there. They, in turn, sent me to a sort of police station, where they took my fingerprints and sent me back to the regional office. There, I filled out a long series of forms while my landlord took my money to a nearby bank to pay my fine for late registration (I'm not sure why you can't just pay the fine at the office, though I'm not complaining, since in the end I only had to pay the minimum -- about 60 dollars). Finally, they gave me a form certifying that I'd paid my fine, and we returned to the provincial office.

There, we filled out another form and brought it to a worker. She made some very minor corrections and told me to fill out another copy (they're very serious about the details of their forms in Russia). Finally, we did that, and she gave me my registration papers. My landlord left, and I went to the archive to tell the director that I was registered (though I didn't really have time to do any work today, since it was already 4:30 or so).

Are you still alive and reading after all that? If you skimmed or skipped ahead to this point, I don't blame you; I wish I could have done the same. In the end, though, I guess I learned a lot about the Russian bureaucracy, about registering myself in Russia, and really, about functioning in the world as an independent adult. It's easy enough to be adult in the sense of being 21 and living away from your family, but university life is a far cry from really living independently and having to solve all your own problems by yourself. So it's been an interesting experience for me personally, and I guess even if my research amounts to nothing, I'll have learned something by coming here.

In other news, after Arden scolded me for eating fried eggs all the time, I went to the grocery store (called Food City) and tried to broaden my diet. I finally caved and bought the cheapest pot and set of knives I could find (since all I had before was a skillet-thing), and I bought all kinds of other exciting food (like potatoes! and chicken!) that I'm going to try to figure out how to cook, so wish me luck on that front.

Anyway, I guess I can actually get going on my research, finally. Now I don't have to worry about any organizational issues...until I go to Moscow in a month. But I'm not going to think about that for now.

hey all, again! quick update - leah and i are having internet problems in our room, but i promise to update more when we get that figured out.

you can also check out her blog, which is interesting and she has been more detailed than i have. we are both in the same class so her updates have been fairly relevant.

[leah's blog]

also, kevin is doing well, i spoke briefly with him earlier. he's been working out some registration issues but should be back in the archives tomorrow. he hasn't been doing much else, it seems, except for making fried eggs, which i have encouraged him not to do for every meal, and he said today he bought other things to eat, which is good.

as far as other things go, i purchased some french short stories our language professor at the sorbonne recommended us, so it should be nice to read things that aren't 75 pages of analysis of court life at versailles (not that it isn't interesting - our culture/lit class is actually very interesting, if it is a bit long. three hours a day is a little intense).

a few random things that you might find interesting;
- our dormish room here is very cute and is nicer than the dorms at school, if a bit smaller, except without decent internet
- the toilet paper here at the foyer is pink?
- french people really like to sleep late, so nothing opens early except a few brasseries
- i love fromageries
- french parks are fantastic, and it's pretty cool that you can just pick up and take a subway to study at the tuileries
- lots of people are affectionate in public
- the french do like to speak english and generally only are rude if you come off as a dumb tourist (which happens sometimes)
- the gilbert joseph, equivalent of our barnes and noble, is fantastic
- our residence is uphill from the seine
- you can see the eiffel tower, and pretty much all of paris, from the terrace on the roof of this building, so we drink wine, eat dinner, and watch the lights of the eiffel tower sparkle
- everybody loves mcdonalds?

also, things are all set, and leah and i and others will be in brussels from saturday morning to sunday night! and i won't forget my camera, like i did when we went to versailles yesterday (so no pictures of that, sorry).

off to homework! bon soir, mes amis

bonjour tout le monde! this is difficile à écrire because the keys are all moved around. punctuation is the worst. paris continues to be lots of fun. classes started monday and they are both really enjoyable. from 9h to 11h we have our language class, and i, along with five others from our program, are in niveau avancée, or advanced, the second highest level (the highest being superieur). it's really great and i will probably write more when i use my computer and the a's, w's and m's are in the right place.

leah and i (and others) are going to brussels for the weekend, so that should be lots of fun. yesterday we all went to versailles; also fun. today we don't have our culture class so i was going to go down to the seine and do some reading and maybe some shopping.

i should go now, actually, so i will update more later, and maybe more pictures. also, comments should be working properly now, so comment away!

i don't even know where to start. paris is absolutely amazing - the food, the people, the buildings, everything. the only thing that's not so great are the prices. things are a little expensive, but really only because the dollar is only worth a little more than half of a euro and tax is included in the price for everything.

friday, our second day, we had two different sessions of orientation with dr. costello, the program coordinator, and our placement test. the only other thing we did that day was go to a bar on mouffetard, a street here in the latin quarter (or for the paris-savvy, the 5e arrondissement). it's where all the student bars and hang-outs are, and all the kids just mill around in the street. everything's pretty laid back and it was really nice. six of us went, and we got wine or kir to celebrate leah's birthday.

i guess i should give a little more context for where we are. paris is divided into 20 arrondissements, or neighborhoods. we are in the fifth, which is also known as the latin quarter, and it's where all the universities and publishing companies are. there's a long history of education and general learning here.

today, we walked the grand axe, which is a straight line of awesome sites from l'arc de triomphe to the louvre that you can see all the way down (as you'll see in the following pictures). it was a long way to walk from there all the way back to the area we reside in, but it was such a beautiful day and everything here is just really amazing.

yesterday we all took a charter bus to part of normandy. we spent the morning in rouen, where joan d'arc was burned at the stake, and giverny, the small (and very beautiful and cute) town where monet spent the last few decades of his life. rouen was really fun and, though part of it was a little touristy, was a lot less stressful than paris. though paris is great, it is much more urban - obviously. everybody wears neutrals and dark colors, so our bright-colored american fashion is kind of not mode here right now. it's fine, i planned for that and didn't bring very many bright things, but it's still a little strange. in rouen people wore colors though. we went to the hermes in rouen, and their scarves are so beautiful... too bad buying one would eat up half of my money.

our classes start tomorrow. the fourteen of us - ten girls, four guys - will find out which level language class we're placed in. that class will be from 9h to 11h every weekday. we have our culture class, called paris as spectacle and taught by dr. costello, from 14h to 16h (that's two to four) four out of five weekdays.

we're thinking of going to normandy next weekend, which would be great because the sixth is the anniversary of d-day. it's just a train-ride away (yay efficient, inexpensive public transit!), and hostels aren't very expensive if you can find a room. more on that later, most likely.

and now, 193 pictures. i apologize for the speed at which the pictures switch, i can't control it. i took the captions off of this slideshow because it scrolls too fast to read them anyway, but if you'd like a little more info you can follow the link below to the picasa web album and check them out there.

[web album, paris 5.31]

hello from paris! it's pretty fantastic here. right now it's about 6h50 (six fifty in the morning), and we all woke up because we all went to bed pretty early last night after a full day, which was after a full day and half a day on a plane. all that was pretty fun. we met our professor for our culture class, paris as spectacle. his name is dr. costello and he seems pretty fantastic. our graduate assistant seems kind of obnoxious, but it has only been a day.

today we pretty much just have orientation and a placement test for our language class, but there'll be a boat ride on the seine tonight!

the pictures is a view from our hotel room. we'll move into the hostel (which is for people attending the universities only) in a few days. french professors, university workers, and students were all on strike for about four months, so their classes and finals have been extended into the end of june, as the strike just ended ten days ago. leah is currently rooming with a french girl, but she will be moved out by june 1st and then i'll move in with her.

we have a pretty full day today, tomorrow we go to giverny (monet's home) for the whole day, but on sunday we have a day off. you can expect more then!

So I accidentally slept late and didn't go to the archive until after the lunch break. It didn't really turn out to be a problem, which is both good and bad, I guess.

The archive is in a relatively unassuming building on Karl Marx street (which, for UNC people, I'd describe as the Rosemary St. to Lenin Blvd's Franklin). Inside it looked like a lot of other Russian buildings, with a front security gate and poor lighting. I talked to the woman at the security desk, who gave me a pass and told me to talk to the director, who told me to fill out a form. I did that, she signed it, and then I had to bring the form to the reading room to sign in.

The reading room was much smaller than I'd expected; it had six desks for visitors and one for the archive worker, who was extremely helpful. I think it's at these points that clothing/shaving/hygiene really comes into play; since I was dressed decently, I think she saw me as "cute confused foreigner" rather than "creepy foreigner". I had to fill out a couple more forms, and then she handed me the archive guide and said I was ready to go.

I'm very glad I came here first rather than Moscow, because just the process of doing archival work is so intimidating right now that I certainly don't need the bustle of the central archives to add to my bewilderment. The archive guide is a 1000 pg. or so book that lists all the fondy (subjects, kind of) and describes what they have. You look at that book, decide what fondy interest you, and the archive worker gives you sub-guides for those. From there, you can see all the collections within that fond. You then get a form and fill it up with the numbers of the collections you want to request; the archive workers then pull them out and let you look through them. That process, however, takes a few days when the archive is crowded, like it was today. So I really didn't spend much time there today, since there was nothing for me to do after filing a request form.

The trick is, there's just so much in the archive that it's hard for me right now to even conceive of looking through everything that could be useful...so I'm going to have to just budget my time well to make sure I can look at all the different sources that might help me. Just the papers of the local soviet from 1941-1945 take up thousands and thousands of pages, and I also need to look at regional soviets, individual factories, letters/memoirs if I can find them, banks, etc. So it's going to be tricky; I just hope I can adjust on the fly well enough to get everything I need to write a good paper.

And don't worry -- I won't be writing about archival work in the future unless it's of general interest, but I figured that this stuff might be interesting since most people never have and never will work in an archive. Speaking for myself, it was interesting because I always had this vague conception of archives as a place where people do research, but I couldn't really imagine how exactly it worked. So now I know.

So in my mind, it's been the same day since Wednesday when I woke up before leaving Houston, and now it's 7 pm local time on Friday here in Tomsk. I got some sleep on the planes, so that's how I'm alive, but I'm not going to have trouble sleeping tonight.

It's also been a very...strange day. Even though I was only there for four hours, Moscow was half-stressful, half-hard-to-stay-awake, and I was pretty much homeless here in Tomsk from 6 am until noon or so.

The first reminder that Russia is a weird place came when it started snowing at 7:30 am, and continued off and on until 11 or so (though none of it stuck). Furthermore, I found that the guy I thought I'd be renting an apartment from apparently disappeared, leaving his phone number to some pharmacy. So I spent the morning in a cafe periodically calling real estate agents until I found out that the waitress had a friend who worked at a real estate place, and through her friend I found an apartment.

Not that that was easy, either. They waited a while to tell me that there'd be a pretty substantial finder's fee, and only after some heavy bargaining did the price come down to something reasonable (but still annoying). So only after all that could I actually sit down and relax in my apartment and watch Game 1 of the Cavs-Magic series with Russian commentary. It was a very appropriate end to my day (except for being at the internet cafe now) in that it was just like the rest of my trip here so far: strange, cool and kind of off-putting, but at least I learned some new words.

just a note - instead of making a new url and blog for every trip i take (a la arden in iceland), i've set up this one for all present and future travel/blogging adventures.

so look for pictures and stories from my upcoming trip to paris for a month (i'll try to post for more than three days, i promise) as well as potential, though probably infrequent, updates from kevin on his research extravaganza in russia.

check back soon! i leave may 27 - less than a week!