Five Weeks

Today, Friday, Sept. 30, marks five weeks of living in Russia. Wow, that’s pretty cool. I really can’t believe that I have been here for five weeks. Thinking back, it seems like I’ve done so much, but I have really only just begun. In two weeks, I will be in St. Petersburg for a good 8 days. That will be amazing. It’s not only Petersburg, I also get to do a day in Novgorod and one other provincial town, plus it’s a week off from classes.

I have been to Ryazan, Moscow, and all over Vladimir and the surrounding country side. I think I’ve been to like 20 museums and a lot of churches. I seem to have gotten the schedule down for the Catholic Church here in Vladimir, and I got 2 days in a row of daily Mass going (hooray!). Things are going pretty well with the Church here. Mass is interesting in Russia, and I can at least sing along with the music now. I’ve also meet a couple of Germans living here. They’re not Catholic (yet), but they go to Mass and are active in the Catholic community. Anyways, the girl, Liza, let me know about a weekly get together every Friday after daily Mass. I would have gone today, but I couldn’t find her after Mass, and didn’t really know where I was supposed to go or what I was supposed to do. Oh well, there is always next week. By the way, Thursday we did a kind of Mass and evening prayer combo, which was a little hard to follow, but I was very excited about saying evening prayer in Russian, it was cool.

My home life is really great. I talk with my Babushka a lot, although ever since we got the TV for the kitchen, meal conversations have been a bit less. Either way, I finally fell comfortable here. I also definitely feel at home ion Vladimir. It was so weird coming back from Moscow and getting to Vladimir and being like “yup there’s the movie theater, there’s the Golden Gates, and oh they finally finished paving that sidewalk.” You know. Basically, Moscow was all new and unknown, and Vladimir was … I don’t know. And the buses and trolleys, no problem.

Classes are well “eh”. I don’t know, it’s kinda like being back in high school. I am at school from 9 to 2:30, lunch at twelve, and my classes are all chosen for me. I got used to looking forward to my classes in college, because I chose them, I wanted to go to them, and most of the time I enjoyed them. Here, it’s hard, asking complex questions in Russian is not easy, and the classes are boring and a bit slow (although I really do need the practice). Nevertheless, I suppose I am learning, so I can’t complain too much.

I am curious as to where I will be in another month. I can only hope that I will start thinking in Russian soon, which will be so cool. I think I can guess that my language skills have probably double in my time here so far. They weren’t very good to begin with, so don’t think that that is too impressive, Wait, actually you should think that that is extremely impressive, Yes assume that I am awesome. Anyways, if they double again in another month, I’d be pretty happy.

Well, that’s a long post on where I am at after 5 weeks.