Insert clever title relating to spending a day by myself at Baikal

I went to Listvianka, the nearest village on Baikal, today. It was very nice. I didn’t really do anything there, but then I never do anything here either, and it’s much more pleasant doing nothing while looking at a large lake and mountains than when looking at sophisticated urbanites stride about in their leather boots. And then, no one knows, when you’re not in a city, that you aren’t doing anything, and there aren’t any busy people around to make you feel guilty. So, I left Irkutsk on the marshrutka from the bus station, and even the marshrutka was superior to intra-city marshrutki, in that it wasn’t a route people take all the time so no one else knew what was going on either. Near Listvianka, about 5 of us realized that none of us had any idea when we were supposed to be getting off, so that was an amusing conversation. The driver was slightly rough-mannered but actually very helpful, so everyone ended up where they needed to be (“What? You want the Baikal Sanatorium? Of course you should get off here! What did you think? I’ll go show you where it is.” And the wealthy-looking middle-aged couple with leather Gucci bags with giraffes printed all over them hurried off.). Once I got to Listvianka I found, as I expected, that there wasn’t much to do there; you should not be imagining a cute little tourist town with shops and such, I don’t know that Russia has those, Listvianka is a few big hotels, some garish dachas of very rich Russians, and then the wooden cottages that have been there since before the village became a tourist destination. So I walked around the few streets and looked at wooden houses for a while, and got barked at by lots of dogs, and was amused when I picked out a group of people walking down the street as Americans in considerably less than a second (probably recently-retired women, no make-up, backpacks, no fur, a few with that interesting gray-hair-afro look), then found a way into the woods behind the houses and had fun climbing this large steep hill overlooking Baikal. It was challenging because of the pinecones everywhere- sort of like trying to run on one of those roller conveyor belts. I sat in the woods and hung out for a while, and then ran down the hill again and fell down a lot, then walked along the road where lots of Russian families were picnicking, complete with guitars and fur coats and tea cups. I headed back into town and bought an omul- I think I was supposed to haggle over the price, but I couldn’t bring myself to argue with $1.20 for a meal-sized fish. And I was busy being sort of taken aback by the fish-selling woman letting me taste the fish before I bought it. What would she have done with the fish had I decided I didn’t want it? Anyway, I tried to sit on the little beach and eat, but apparently that cost money, so my fish and I trekked back out of town and ate in the woods at a picnic table, which was prettier anyway and had a nice view of the lake, and I gave the omul head to a very patient stray dog. For some reason this particular omul seemed to be the most delicious fish ever in the world, and the dog seemed to agree. After that I went to the world’s tiniest grocery store, back where the dachas are and not where the hotels are, and bought a very good and very cheap ice cream bar, and then wandered around the woods for a few hours and read Paradise Lost and then went back on the marshrutka. I admit that I was rather counting down the hours to when the marshrutka would go back, and I like the idea of sitting around my myself in the woods looking at a lake slightly more than I really like doing it, but I would have been a lot more bored in Irkutsk. And it really was nice looking out at Baikal from the trees, though not nearly as the more remote places we visited on our group trip.
When I was dropped of in Irkutsk it was at the Central Market, and I looked around at the interesting fruit and things being sold for a while, and then I bought a kilogram of grapes, and then I started looking for a marshrutka home. For some reason, while it is incredibly easy to take a marshrutka to the central market, I have enormous trouble getting home from there, though I have now done it about 5 days a week for a month. Anyway, I got on a marshrutka that goes to Universitetski, where I live, and that was going in the same direction that other marshrutki go that are going to Universtitetski, but apparently this was not enough to ensure that this particular marshrutka was going in that direction. Then I figured, oh well, I have nothing else to do and I’ve never seen this part of town, and I can just take this marshrutka back the other direction. So we drove through some large segment of city filled with car shops and smoke stacks and inflatable clowns, but then instead of the result being that I turned around and went back, the result was that I got yelled at a lot by the driver and kicked out along a highway. Anyway, after a certain amount of trudging around morosely eating grapes (which by the way are incredibly good, almost black and very juicy and full of seeds that can be moodily spit out), and the taking of several more marshrutki and standing in long lines, I finally got home, fully appreciative of not having spent the day in Irkutsk. Curses upon you, marshrutka number 84.

Side note: I went to Natasha’s house for lunch yesterday, and I now believe her many statements about the stress connected with food. The meal had a definite tone of challenge, with eating of more kinds of food and the completion of more helpings praiseworthy accomplishments and the failure to do these things a source of shame. I was happy enough to enter into the spirit of competition, and it was great fun as a guest, but I can see how it would get sort of stressful after a few days. On the other hand, it was pretty much the best food ever. I had never had borscht, and I had rather thought of it as a dish to be put up with while in Russia but in general avoided, but apparently it’s extremely good. As are these meat pies of some kind that we had. At the moment I’m sort of jealous of people who are having food cooked for them, as my host mother’s oldest daughter is currently on vacation in Spain or something, so the mother is house/ small-children sitting. I am more and more aware that I am very bad at cooking. I tried to make scrambled eggs this morning, which I assumed was a very simple task, but something went rather wrong... I think they were too scrambled, or I put in too much cheese, or both. So, would someone like to explain to me how to, say, bake a potato? Or do anything else to a potato? Or rice or pasta, other than just boil it and eat it?

Sorry these posts are becoming so dull and overly narrative. I’m inordinately proud when I fill my time with something narratable.