Bananas Galore

My Russian family is home from the dacha! I think my host mom was happy to see me and liked the present I brought her from Valaam. They brought pounds and pounds of mushrooms back. She changed my sheets and let me wash my clothes, so I am content. I also no longer have to microwave cold meals everyday. Considering the fact I have never had a microwave, I am especially happy about this turn of events. Every time I used it I was terrified that I was going to blow up the whole apartment!

I had the funniest conversation with my host brother, Grisha, today. He walked in wearing a Yankees cap, and I told him they were my favorite team (turns out he doesn’t like any team, just loves baseball in general). I tried explaining to him for about ten minutes that my great-great-great-great grandfather’s cousin invented baseball, but he just looked really confused and shrugged and nodded a lot (I wasn’t about to explain that now it is considered just a “legend” because who believes that anyways? Not me!). This was frustrating because if I was able to explain it successfully I think he would have found it very interesting. I then gave him postcards of the Baseball Hall of Fame and told him that it was located in my town. He found that much more exciting. At least I tried.

Over these past few weeks, I have found my interactions in public fascinating. Sometimes, people will come up to me and ask me directions in broken English. More frequently, however, they will address me as “devushka” and ask directions in rapid Russian. I am flattered that they think I am a local, but I feel sorry for them for picking me to ask for directions. I am often with my friend Tanya who lives a few minutes away from me and is a heritage speaker. Whenever I am with her, we are addressed in Russian. But today I went by myself to чайная ложка to get my weekly dose of Lox and Cream Cheese and before I opened my mouth, the waiter said “one minute please” and handed me an English menu. How can I look local to some and so foreign to others?

In other news, my classes at the university are fascinating, but the work is extremely tedious. It will take me hours to do homework that is meant to take fifteen minutes. Each class is 1 ½ hours long and to pay active attention to every Russian word for such a long period of time is challenging and discouraging. If I zone out for a second, I am lost for the next ten minutes (often I am confused anyways). I really don’t have a lot of challenging homework, but it takes me SO long to complete what I have. Right now, I feel like my Russian has gotten worse. I am horribly confused with grammar because I am not used to their style of teaching, and their examples are terribly unclear. I find myself often resorting back to my poorly-scribbled notes from last year, which are much easier to understand. I think it will get better with time. This week was already better than the last. 

On my way back from class today, I found this wonderful Russian gem. 

A banana vending machine. No joke. It only sells bananas. It is also refrigerated at a temperature of 12.5 degrees Celsius. I have never been a banana fan, but this machine made me want to give them a second chance. Here are a few of banana animations on the side of the machine. 

I had to take a picture because I knew no one would believe me! Russia never ceases to amaze me.