Interesting facts, Sept. 7

1) Apartments here do not have bathroom sinks. There is a room with a toilet in it, and, generally next to it, there is a room with bathtub in it. The bathtub serves for all handwashing-toothbrushing-facewashing needs. I haven’t really missed the sink.

2) Despite the (what seems to me as) public rudeness that I’m always whining about, in my observation, correlated with the observations of people who have been in Russia much longer than I have, Russians seem to sit very close to each other on public transportation. Even if there are 2 empty rows in the marshrutka, an entering passenger will often sit right next to the only other person in the van. Lack of sense of privacy/individuality? Need for the collective? Mere habit, when crowded transportation is the norm? Anyway, I guess it shows that they don’t actually dislike people they don’t know.

3) I didn’t realize how much this country loves documents. They are demanded at every turn, and all necessary “krugli [round] stamps.” I currently have about 8 million documents that must be carried on my person at all times.

4) Ice cream, from one of the gazillion little ice cream stands around the city, is very easy to buy. So I eat it a lot.

5) I bought some super-cool tapochki (slippers) the other day. They’re my new favorite things, aside from people who give me directions on the street. I’m wearing them right now. Not the people, the slippers.

6) I keep getting e-mails from Middlebury, now that the school year’s started- about how to reduce my environmental impact, about bookstore hours, about new sculpture plans, about fall family weekend, etc. Reminders of a parallel universe, I guess. But I would prefer that the deletion of these reminders not take up my precious internet time. I’m sort of embarrassed about how much I miss constant internet access.

7) If I could figure out how to post pictures I would.

8) Bob Dylan, via i-pod, goes interestingly with the Russian countryside.

Sept. 10

9) Camping trip was great fun, in one sense, and very frustrating, in another, because I usually had no idea what was going on. I need to do more Russian studying. And probably less blogging in English, which I know will disappoint my dedicated readership.