Greetings from Moscow folks! We just finished our first day of the ETA teacher training seminar. So far it has been very helpful, especially since last week I learned that the last Fulbrighter here had over 100 students which they ultimately split into two groups of 50+. That, as you might imagine, is quite the challenge and it has been very helpful to be able to discuss with other people about strategies, and especially with the woman teaching the training course who is incredibly knowledgeable and experienced.
In the spare time, my wonderful roommate L----- and I have been exploring Moscow. L----- is a wonderful girl from Texas who will be headed to the
Barnaul in the Altai Krai region very near the junction of Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and China. She has already told me some horror stories of the two weeks she has spent previously in a Siberian winter, and they seem to make me more and more glad that I will
not be there. Birds frozen to trees, watching the wind rip the skin off of your hands...that kind of stuff. She had never been to Moscow before, and I have only been once for a 4 day whirlwind school trip that was so jam packed with sight seeing and cultural learning that to be honest, mostly all I really remember is being tired. And
hot. Moscow is much nicer in the fall when it is not 100 degrees outside. It has been very nice to walk around at our own pace, and I've been able to see some things that I didn't get to see last time, and I've also re-seen some things that L----- wanted to see and which I had a fuzzy memory of.
Looking back in time a little bit though, the end of last week saw some very favorable adjustments in my Pushchino situation - namely, the addition of 2 new wonderful friends. Four if you count the canines. As I was starting to finally get things together to the point of having free time, I decided that I would search out the town and see what options there were from Pushchino. In typical Pushchino form, L----- told me not to worry, she would call to find out. She made at least 4 calls. I'm pretty sure she is best buddies with everyone there, though in a town that has a diameter of a 20 minute walk, I guess its not that hard. What she came up with was that there might be some ballroom dancing somewhere sometime, but all was vague (getting used to this) but there was a class tonight at the local gym of "Восточный Танец" aka "Eastern Dance." Intrigued, I inquired about details and committed myself to going. Chinese dance? What other sorts of "eastern" dances are there? Turns out, I had inadvertently signed myself up for belly dancing.
What does a Russian belly dance class look like? Probably fairly similar to any community class in the States though I have never been to one. There were women of all ages there. I think I was the youngest, but the oldest was at least 60, and there were all sorts of women in between. As Russia cannot escape its role as the ballet capital of the world, even belly dancing started out with a full barre, down to the
frappes and
grande battements. How it possibly warmed up my belly I will never know, but it felt good anyway after having not danced for a few months. Joining me on the younger end of the age spectrum were two graduate students I had been introduced to on the street a few days earlier, V----- and A-----, and after the class we had the chance to become better acquainted. Which, in Russia, means that they invited me to their apartment to eat endless amounts of watermelon and talk for the next 3 hours. Also, I got to meet V-----'s two beautiful award winning dogs who inaugurated my mop by drooling all over my floor. But lest you think that it is a bad thing, consider how much I miss my puppy back home. V---- is going to be entering the younger dog in 3 different dog shows while I am here, and I'm very hopeful that I can make it to one!
And to prove that I'm not making this all up, here are a few pictures from Moscow:
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| The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. Built in the 1800's to commemorate the win of 1812, it did not survive long into the next century. Stalin blew it up and planned to build a Palace of Soviets, but that never quite happened, so Moscow citizens enjoyed a very large swimming pool on the site for many years. This church standing today was rebuilt in only 2 years. Having gone inside, this is an incredible feat. The level of detail inside and the extent of the frescos is amazing. |
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| Also, this Cathedral is huge. This is one of the 3 back doors. |
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| Obligatory. This adornes one of the metro stations. |
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| The metro stations are all pieces of architectural art. Above is Komsomolskaya station. |
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| This was my favorite metro station: Mayakovskaya. Maybe it was the simple design, or maybe that it was just very long and very empty. I did not learn until later today though, that one of the stations that we visited on our self-lead metro tour houses the longest escalator on the planet. I think I will need to return to experience that one. |
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| Also obligatory |
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| The cool thing about Moscow is that old and new architecture appear mixed together on every street. I'm sorry I have no idea which church this is, but I found the tiles on the supporting domes fascinating. |
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| Also, breaking news. Moscow Hosts Life Size Candy Land Tournaments in its Real Life Candy Castle. (from the Journal of Things I Made Up) |
