I should stop writing such long entries.

Sunday, March 28, 2010, Day 5, 10:32 a.m. Moscow time, 2:32 a.m. Athens time

We had the daylight savings time switch here last night, so Moscow is again 8 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time in America.

Yesterday was fun, but I was too tired to stay out as long as I had wanted. Every morning I feel awake and I’m sure that I’m over the jet lag, but it’s still hanging around, I think. Inevitably, around 5 or 6 I crash, no matter how hard I try not to. So I ended up at home again—argh! But I have many weekends left to explore Moscow night life. Cool thing: our program director’s daughter has a friend who owns a club. In a few weekends, they’re having an orchestra (or some size group that plays stringed instruments—she told us in Russian, so I can’t be sure) come to play tango music. Now, I can’t tango, but that sounds awesome. So I’ll certainly be going there.

Anyway, yesterday most of our group met at Red Square. (Lyova is still sick, so Anya didn’t join us.) Lenin’s mausoleum was open, but we waited too long to go in. We had to go in groups, as you can’t take anything in with you, but the first group was turned away at the door. It was closing. But again, many more weekends to go. Mostly we just walked around that beautiful area of Moscow, taking pictures. I’m regretting now that I never got my camera fixed. I’ll have to steal everyone else’s photos. We saw a lot of beautiful buildings, but you’ve heard of that stuff—here’s something I hadn’t known about: there is a pedestrian bridge with a bunch of iron tree-type things running across it. You can hardly see the trees, though. They are covered with padlocks. Couples paint their names on the locks and attach them to the trees, especially after weddings. (I’ll find pictures someone else took and post them here, I hope.) Here, following a wedding, couples traditionally visit important sights in Moscow. I saw at least four just-married couples that I can remember, two at the lock trees.

Finally, we went to Охотный ряд (it looks strange in our letters: Okhotniy ryad), a mall, to find some food. An uninspired choice, but we were all very hungry and not excited by the prospect of wandering until we found a decently-priced place that everyone approved of. We ended up, because the food court was PACKED, in a chain Italian restaurant called Il Patio. I know, entirely unexciting. But none of us have been thrilled by Russian cuisine so far (I’ve been very happy with Anya’s cooking, but it doesn’t sound like the food my friends eat with their host families), and it was nice to get full on something relatively familiar. The poor waitress was a good sport, and we eventually ended up with all of our food. The portions were a great deal smaller than at American restaurants, which was fine. I ended up spending about $17 all told, not a big surprise. Afterwards, I got ice cream at one of the many stands in the mall. It looked so pretty, set out like gelato. It was 65 rubles for a scoop, two bucks and some change, but the scoops were very small. Not tragic, because the ice cream was rich—it was probably the best strawberry ice cream I’ve ever had. I can imagine, though, that by the time I get home, the amount of cheap food we have access to in the US will overwhelm me. (For some reason, I am already craving mac and cheese, and anything with lots of sugar.)

I’ve been bad: I speak English frequently with my host parents. I wrote them a note in Russian when I went out yesterday, and they said it was very good, that they were impressed. Haha—they put it on the fridge. But anyway, I’m so glad that Anya speaks English. I wouldn’t be able to get very close with her otherwise. We have gotten to know one another well, and when I was missing people back home last night, she listened to me talk and talk and talk. It was comforting. I like Grisha very much, too, but he isn’t home as often when I am. Oh—I found out yesterday that Lyova was born four days before my nephews.

Someone is supposed to come tomorrow to hook up the router. I can’t wait. I am unfortunately reliant on the Internet. But when I’m here for long periods of time and I end up in my room alone, it can be sort of depressing. I can only read and write for so long.

12:45 p.m. Moscow time, 4:45 a.m. Athens time

I want to clear up the remark I made about cheap, available food. It’s not that they don’t have food here. But a lot of things we’re used to—like cereal—are expensive, and the foods they have here that are like things we have in the US are often slightly different. It’s not primitive or anything at all. Surprisingly similar, really. I’ve been especially amused by the products in the shower room: Clean & Clear, Herbal Essences, Colgate. Really, the culture shock is minimal, doubly so for me because I live with young people who are pretty much like young people in the states.

One funny difference: the toilet paper in my apartment does impressively resemble, in both color and texture, the yellow napkins they used to have at McDonald’s. I have not noticed it elsewhere, though.