I hope to be back in Russia by the 19th of October. Surgery is scheduled for Sept. 30, which will be followed by a two week recovery period. Two weeks later than I wanted, but earlier than first suggested. Damn compromises.
In general, the past month has possibly been the worst of my life. In such a small four week period, so many things went wrong, and to such a serious degree, that by this point I feel pretty empty. You may have noticed the spartan posting.
Let’s cut to the main concern, and then as I feel up to it, I’ll fill you in on the rest.
Warning: May easily be considered too much information. Don’t read this post if you just want stuff about Russia, and nothing medical. I’ll be back and posting on Russia in a month (hopefully).
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Recently I’ve noticed that once vibrant leaves were turning yellow and falling from their host trees. My first instinct was that some strange arboreal disease had stricken St. Petersburg. Then, in a dream, I remembered reading stories in school about places where, around September and October, leaves start changing colors and falling to the ground. The trees would then appear dead for several months, and in spring, would once again sprout leaves.
When I arrived here last year, it was in November, and the trees were already barren. This year, I get to see the transition. Having spent most of my life in tropical environments, I’ve rarely been through a proper autumn. The last time was perhaps four years ago when I lived in Grenoble, France. But it was such a long time ago, and it so goes against my sense of reality, that any “memory” of falling leaves has been brought into line with the official Southern California version of autumn. Now, however, I am once again forced to confront this aberration head on. Pray for my sanity.
And by the way, it’s gotten seriously cold in the last week. Last Monday it was still pretty hot, now I’m freezing and my one sweater is barely enough to suffice. Last year everyone told me that we had a warm winter. I hope this one’s not normal.
This past weekend a bunch of us decided to stay in and make Mexican food. Admittedly, authentic Mexican food is hard to come by around here, but when I went to Germany last Christmas, I brought back around 30 packets of Mexican seasoning. With that as the base, we make “tacos” out of pita bread, cut up black olives, onions, tomatoes, and random cheese. It’s actually a pretty common meal, tastes decent.
On a sidenote, when I was home in June, my stepbrother came to visit with his wife and baby daughter. He’s spent a long time in the restaurant business, and is an excellent cook. He taught me a neat way to cut tomatoes so they look nice and clean, without all the pulp. Tried it out for the first time last night, and it worked like a charm. They looked beautiful … though I don’t think anyone cared except for me.
Here’s some pics from our little foreigner siesta:
Even in Russia, nobody likes my musical selection. Here’s Tony (Alaskan) screwing around with my iRiver, trying to find the Arabic songs (though usually people are trying to turn off the Arabic songs).
Again we have another dissatisfied customer, Lucia (Austrian) reaches for the beautiful iRiver.
Lucia teaches Tony the intracicies of counting in German.
Nusret (Tabasarani, from Dagestan) looking like a Caucasian playboy, and Danielle (a recent UCLA grad who just enrolled here in a Masters).
Grunde, the Norwegian stud.
