First real day in Novgorod

Saturday night. What an adventure. Let me start out by saying that it all worked out in the end. But one of the Russian students who lives in our dorm, Yurri, invited us out to the rock concert. Now Yurri was supposed to work with us this summer as one of our russian buddies but ended up getting accepted to a program in the US so he will be leaving on July 10th for the US and he obviously cannot be here with us. He speaks incredible english. He actually went to high school for a year in Orange, MA through an exchange program. So he called a taxi but since it was raining the taxis were taking forever so we decided to take a bus. We get off the bus after a couple of stops and we start heading down the road toward this bar. To his defense he did tell us it was kind of an underground club. HOWEVER, we left the street and we were following him down a dirt road. Now dirt roads are not super uncommon in Russia so we are thinking ok like nbd. Until we turn into the grassy yard. Basically he was leading us to this old house with an overgrown lawn and blackout windows. Sima, Megan, and myself all looked at each other at the exact same time and had that he is going to take us into that house and murder us all feeling. BUT to our surprise we walked into the house which had a bouncer and it was actually really cool. It had a great atmosphere and it was a cool place to hang out. Definitely somewhere worth going back to---just taking a cab the whole way.

The rock concert was interesting. The actually sang a few songs in english. But the lead singer was like FEELING the moving and writhing all over the stage. Hysterical to watch so I obviously recorded it for your enjoyment. Please look at his mouth.

So Sunday...Since I missed that day we did more of the same stuff as saturday. We went and bought a month bus pass and when back to the giant 24 hour Russian BJs which we still managed to forget some things at when we went shopping. We also began our exercise regime. Megan is our work-out coordinator and we have spots around the side of our dorm that we will work out in - hopefully everyday we will see what happens once we get into the swing of things for real. Exercise for the sake of exercise is just not something they do in Russia so we get some stares and curious looks when we are doing our cardio or strength exercises with therabands but were making it work since we don't have access to a gym. Pretty uneventful day. Kind of hung out ands relaxed and got used to being here.

Today was a busy busy busy day. We got up to met at 9:30a. Getting up early is not early because it feels like the middle of the night. What does not help is that is is legit light out until after midnight and it is bright out until like 10p. Then the sun rises at 4a so its just weird.

So we visited Megan and Sima's internship sites today. Megan is going to be working at and STI (sexually transmitted infections) clinic and Sima will be working at an HIV clinic. We did that until about 12:30p and then we came back and made some eggs for lunch

and had a salad. We then got picked up at 1:30p to go sight seeing which was super fun.

We went to a monastery first. It was built in the 1000s by a man named Yarslov who the University we are working with here is named after. The monastery has been destroyed but rebuilt and remodeled since. It is so beautiful. There is one piece of original building left and there is a bowl in the center that you lean against and make a wish on and it will supposedly come true. However, while we were making said list a monk came over and spoke with us. Well since I obviously don't speak very much Russian I was clueless to what was going on.

Megan and I thought he was praying for us when in reality he was scolding us intensely about what we were wearing and what not. Sooooo interesting. We left shortly after that because we were afraid of him haha. On the right is a picture of the bell tower entrance to the monastery and below is a picture of the chapel in the corner that was just incredible.

Our next stop was a wooden architecture museum. It was just incredible buildings resembling old buildings that were common in Russia different time periods. They were all made with out nails and they were just incredible to look at. I really have no words but the picture that I am going to include in this blog is a 500 year old church and it was just an incredible building. But we did learn that the Russian iconic onion dome was originally done for acoustically reasons but now since it is so widely recognized it is just continued in the buildings today. But I am off to bed and up early tomorrow for a long day of more orientation. We are going to see my clinic and apparently going to the med school graduation haha.

With Love From Russia,

Jess

Arrival in Novgorod

After a full 24 hours of traveling we all arrived in Veliky Novgorod - commonly referred to as Novgorod. Fun Russian Fact: There are two Novgorod's in Russia - Nizhny and Veliky. Nizhny Novgorod goes by Nizhny and Veliky Novgorod goes by Novgorod.

It was a four hour ride from the St. Petersburg airport (we were told 2 to 3 so that was a shocker). We got into a van and made the journey. Megan and I slept in the most awkward positions in the van but we were in back-facing seats soooo it was ok.

We didn't do McDonald's but we did KFC. That was our first real introduction into what it is going to be like and how much Russian we didn't know and how frustrating it is going to be at times. Thank god for Sima and her Russian speaking ways or we would be very very lost.

Right before going to our apartment (it is now 11p Moscow time) we stopped at a supermarket. HOLY MOLY. It was packed and it was basically a 24 hour BJs. It was just people everywhere. I feel like we spent forever in there and all we wanted to do was get to our dorm and sleep. We spent 2,150 rubles at the grocery store. Which is not really all that much - it is weird adjusting to a scale of money that is so far off ours.

We finally got in around midnight where we were showed around and met Konstantin who is in charge of coordinating our internships this summer. We got a mini schedule about the next few days but too bad I don't remember any of it because I was pretty much a zombie.

But we unpacked and went to bed finally at 2am and woke up this morning at 11 to get ready and go out with Misha a boy from the school and run errands. We got cell phones - mine currently does not work because my sim card won't work. So Sima and Megan just can't lose me until we get it fixed tomorrow.

We experienced the bus for the first time. It sounds like it is going to break down the whole time but that is ok---as long as it doesn't actually break down. Misha told me that my site is only one bus away - unfortunately Sima, Megan, and Lori will have to do transfer bus routes to get to their sites.

We also went shopping at the local grocery store and it was actually not too bad. It is workable and has American brands! I bought some dove soap because obviously I forgot soap.

We made it back to the dorm and are going to be going to a rock show tonight. Pretty interested to see how that turns out and what it is like. We are going with one of the Russian students who was supposed to be working with us this summer but he got an internship in Florida so he had to pull out of the program.

We just finished our first Russian meal which we made and it was super good and healthy. Sima and I may end up becoming vegetarians by the end of this trip since vegetables are the safest option and definitely the easiest to cook.

Above is Sima and Megan in our kitchen. The left is us actually cooking and Sima discussing dill and scallions with Megan. the right is our finished first dinner in Russia.

Soooo heres a tour of our apartment which is really like two bedrooms and a bathroom and separate kitchen and dining areas.

Heres the Bathroom - which is two rooms, the shower room is on the left and the toilet room on the right. This is pretty basic. Currently we have blue toilet paper

This is Megan in our bedroom - she has since this photo added her our photography to the walls and it is very pretty pictures of flowers and it definitely brightens the place up.

The beds....are interesting. It is pretty much a little bit of padding on top of a metal grate type thing. It is kind of like sleeping on the floor but when you are as tired as we were last night it was something you can just deal with. It will sure be incredible to sleep in our big american beds when we get home. We have a 3-bed room and a 2-bed room we affectionately call the 2-bed room our office it will most likely be used for a few different things but for now we are just sleeping in the three bed room with our clothes between each room and making it work. We will see how things change with time.

I will post more soon. To be honest I have no idea what we are doing tomorrow so who know what will come of that!

With Love from Russia,

Jess

Traveled by Plane now waiting to travel by land

So I have landed in St. Petersburg. The airport leaves much to be desired. It is one of those incredible things that you forget about how different the US is from the rest of the world. So

to recap the trip thus far.

SO packing was a nightmare (you could as my parents). I repacked an insane amount of times to try and make weight limits only to find out when I got to the airport that my carry-on weighed too much. So I was stuck between a rock and a hard place and decided to just check a bag. But the guy checking me in was able to sneak it in without charging me right before I boarded the plane to Paris which was pretty fantastic.

So we waited in Logan for a couple of hours - changed some money because we can change in back to US dollars for free when we return at the airport. I am now the proud holder of 14,000 rubles which is just over 500 USD. It is just going to be insane carrying around so many bills at all times because the ruble does not go that far.

So we boarded the flight. No one got to sit together - which seemed to be the theme of the flight. We were not alone in being separated from our friends on our long flight to Paris. But the plane ride was great. I didn't get to sleep at all because when I was ready to sleep a little they turned the lights up in the cabin - go figure. But I got to sit in the front of a section which was kind of nice because I was near a bathroom and a place to stand up and I had extra leg room. There was a baby next to me which I thought would be a nightmare but it wasn't too bad. The dinner was great lots of parts to it. The breakfast was ok it was still slightly frozen so it was just a muffin like thing to eat.

We arrived in Paris early despite leaving a half hour late due to the thunderstorms in Boston. We then had 3 hours to kill in CDG airport in Paris. We met a Ph.D student named Rubin who was from Brasil originally while we waited. We was at MIT doing a business in engineering program and was on his way to Israel to present in a conference. We had an interesting convo about what he was doing and what we would be doing (which really was a lack of us knowing what we were going to be doing...but thats the general theme of this trip). We then moved on to playing our own version of bananagrams which was more like less competitive version of scrabble. It kept us occupied and by no time we were boarding our flight to St. Petersburg.

This flight not as nice let me tell you. The plane had no movie screens and no nothing very no frills. But at least this time there was a seat open next to me and I was in an aisle seat. I don't remember much of the flight as I spent most of it sleeping. All I really remember is waking up at some point with food in front of me. The food.....not so great. I probably should have and could have eaten more had I need been eating in a nap-coma state. I was told it was chicken...it was fish. So biting into that was a surprise for sure.

So I am now sitting here with Sima and Megan in the St. Petersburg airport. Our driver has arrived as Lori's flight is running late. (He is concerned about the amount of luggage we have but A. We are three girls and B. We are here for 2 months of course we have a lot of stuff - see the picture of Sima with it all!). Megan made the comment earlier that she feels like Tom Hanks in the movie terminal - we can't get on a plane to go home but we can't leave the airport yet. So we are waiting. It is a smallllllllllllll airport.

We are heading to Novgorod once Lori and her family arrives. We have a 4 hour drive ahead of us. But we did find out that the kitchen is actually set up and we have a fridge. So we are going to hit the grocery store before we get there. We are also going to stop at McDonald's for dinner - our driver Eugene's suggestion.

Megan, Sima, and Eugene

It is crazy to here and read all the russian. I am recognizing words and sound and letters but it is a daunting language and we are being thrown in feet first. It is one thing to have class and talk to each other in American-ized russian. But the real thing is interesting.

My goal with the blog is to keep everyone updated on my doing and so I can look back and be like oh yeah I remember doing that. But this is all for now because Lori's flight is here and we are going to be leaving soon.

With love from Russia,

Jess