revenge of the public transportation

We’ve had a whole unit in conversation practice class on transportation. The first day of the unit, we spent a good amount of time discussing the relative plusses and minuses of public and private transportation, and which type (as a whole) we prefer.

Now, I am through and through a child of the suburbs, and we just don’t do public transportation. Even if we did, I might still prefer private. I have many reasons for this, and I made them clear. I don’t like the way public transport smells; I’m not a huge fan of being surrounded by strangers at the times of day when I’m most tired; I really don’t want to constantly watch the zippers of my coat pockets to make sure that nobody’s hand has found its way inside.

I think that Public Transport heard me whining. It said to Itself, “We will make Katie pay. No—better still, we will pay her. Because you know, she already pays us regularly.” I have seen such maniacal yet devious planning in the minds of very few entities throughout my life as I have in that of Public Transport (hi Andrew).

So Saturday, after a lovely (gross, rainy, cold) day of romping about the city seeing some of the достопримечательности (tourist sights), my tutor and I planned to go to this traveling exhibit on the Romanov dynasty (so, basically, the greater part of the history of imperial Russia). That was the plan. This is what happened.

• 6:40pm: arrive at metro Nevsky Prospect. Walk through to the green line. Ride two stops while listening to Schnittke. Epic.
• 7:00pm: walk from metro to nearby Subway, where tutor and her friend have been eating.
• 7:10pm: arrive at bus stop where we will wait for a marshrutka to take us to Lenekspo, where the exhibit is.
• 7:15pm: get on marshrutka. Almost get killed by un-announced-ly closing doors. Pay fare.
• 7:30pm: arrive at Lenekspo.
• 7:35pm: arrive at exhibit. Am turned away because the place closes in 90 minutes and the line is too long to add anybody else. Am secretly glad because my feet hurt.
• 7:40pm: arrive at new bus stop.
• 7:50pm: get on trolleybus that looks right. Pay fare.

Now the rest of the story doesn’t really matter, because it only involves more public transportation misinformation (you mean you aren’t running your whole route tonight? awesome) and more metro. This, the trolleybus, is the part where it gets interesting.

I didn’t have exact change for the trolleybus (25 rubles). I gave the conductor a 50 ruble bill, expecting him to hand me somebody else’s recently-paid fare, which would make sense. There are a lot of different ways you can easily make 25 rubles, from a 20-ruble bill and a 5 coin, or two 10 coins and a 5, etc.

No.

That would be way too simple. Way too accommodating.

Instead, the conductor reached into his pocket and pulled out a stack of coins like I hadn’t seen since I repaid a $2 debt to my dad with 195 pennies and a nickel (true story). I, astounded, accepted the pile and went back to my seat. I decided to believe that it was 25ish rubles. There were too many coins for it to be otherwise.

Later I counted. It came to 29 rubles, mostly in 1-ruble and 50-kopeck coins, with a few 2s thrown in (100 kopecks = 1 ruble). So, this is equivalent to me paying for a $1 item with a $2 bill and being repaid with 25 nickels. Yes, I came out 25 cents richer for it, but isn’t it a little inconvenient? And what exactly am I supposed to do with all of those nickels? Most people don’t like you to buy things in their stores with nickels.

Maybe I’ll buy my next trolleybus ride with it.

culture shock

People keep using that phrase. I do not think it means what they think it means.

No, but seriously… It’s different than I expected. You hear a lot about adjusting to different foods, different ways of dressing, different ways of talking, different necessary polite sayings. I was mostly prepared for those things, then, and they didn’t feel all that shocking to me. (Of course, maybe it’s because I’m pretty ill-adjusted to my own culture’s social norms.)

I’ve been here almost three weeks now. Some things that really surprise or irritate my fellow students don’t bother me at all, but here are some of the things that have been sort of “shocking” to me:

1. bathrooms. Public restrooms are almost always co-ed. It’s very weird. I have, in America, come out of a stall to see someone male in the room, but it has almost always been someone under the age of three. I haven’t gotten used to this yet.
2. low grocery prices. I can get a yogurt for the equivalent of 20 cents, a banana for 15, and six liters of water for 80. My first solo grocery-shopping trip was absurdly economical. $10 for 2 weeks’ worth of water and snacks!
3. high grocery prices. Okay, so you’re telling me I can buy a full loaf of bread for less than a dollar, and 100g of almonds are going to cost me three? And a small hot chocolate is six? This is ridiculous.
4. smoke. I’m pretty sure my clothes and everything else I own smell like cigarettes. Because everyone smokes, and they smoke everywhere. I almost don’t smell it anymore, except when it gets in my hair.
5. door etiquette. Basically, knocking is not a thing. Also, strong locks are not a thing. This has led to several instances in the more-acceptably-co-ed restrooms (i.e. there’s one single room for the whole café/restaurant/church), where I do my best to lock the door, and some overly confident man-type just yanks the door open on me. Whoops. As Caroline says, “supes awks.”
6. teachers. Most of my professors are of the babushka variety*. They find it no strange thing to tell me that I, in fact, should be wearing a turtleneck sweater, that the reason I’m always hungry is because I’m cold, and that I need to make sure my classmate doesn’t drink too much on the weekends. They also tend not to call me by the name I gave them (Katya), but rather by whatever affectionate/diminutive variants they think up (Katka, Katyusha, Katyenka, etc).
7. cashiers. In America, the customer is always right. In Russia, if the cashier does not approve of your order or your method of payment, he/she will tell you. And will send you back to the menu where you can choose something better. (Which is okay; I’ve saved some money thanks to them.)
8. sorry. I’ve mentioned this before. Russians just don’t apologize as often as Americans. Things that would immediately merit a “sorry” or “excuse me” in America (stepping on someone’s foot in the metro, getting somewhat in someone’s way on the sidewalk, walking into a store with no intention of buying anything but only to ask directions)… don’t, here.
9. outerwear. There are two sides to this coin. (1) One must always and without fail be FULLY bundled in order to walk out the door. Hat, scarf, mittens, coat, and shoes that cover the whole tops of your feet. (2) One must always and without fail be FULLY un-bundled in order to walk in the door. No shoes in the house. No hats, ever. No coats. Thankfully, scarves are usually okay.
10. bars. The first Friday, to celebrate a successful whole week in Russia, my classmates wanted to go to a bar. I tagged along to hang out, though I didn’t really want to drink (and didn’t—don’t worry Mom, I am good at saying no). I don’t know how to pinpoint what exactly was shocking about that… It was just shocking, вообще. The only time I’ve ever been in a bar before was before 5pm on a weekday.

I never said the only part of culture that’s shocking is the Russia part. There’s also a good bit of the 21^st-century-secular-West part that will take some time getting used to.

*We like to say of the one female teacher who looks about 25, “Она ещё не бабушкировала.” Alternately “Она ещё не забабушкела.” I don’t know which I like better.

Russian food

There’s a sort of joke commonly accepted among students, which is: your babushka will stuff you until you hide under the table or basically yell, “достаточно!!” I have not encountered this yet with Natasha. She has fed me very reasonable portions, and very reasonable foods. As long as I don’t watch her put the mayonnaise in the potato salad. But here are my top 10 surprises regarding Russian food (so far):

1. cheese. The definition of cheese seems very loose here. For breakfast the first day, I had to order something quickly from the dorm shop, and I went for something called “cheese with ham.” I assumed, like anyone else might, that it was in fact cheese and ham. No, it was some strangely-textured block (some white stuff that was more like a very thick Kraft single than a block of Monterey Jack), with chunks of ham sprinkled through it. Never again.
2. tea. They drink tea alllll the time. Even late at night. And it’s always caffeinated. I think I’m going to buy myself some decaf for use at the dinner table, because a mug-full at 8pm might just be too much for me to handle.
3. dairy. This shouldn’t have been a surprise. I guess I’m just surprised that all of the “you will eat 4x as much dairy as usual” warnings were actually true. They were true. It’s just so easy to eat dairy products here. Need a fast breakfast? Yogurt. Need a fast snack? Cheese. Need a fast dessert? Ice cream. Need anything, fast or slow, from a café? Slathered in mayo and/or sour cream.
4. salt on bread. Apparently it’s a thing, to sprinkle salt over your buttered bread. Who knew. It tastes pretty good. Why did I never think of this before?
5. kasha. I have no idea what is in this stuff. We eat it for breakfast every day. It’s roughly the consistency of very thick oatmeal, and there are apparently ~160 variations my host mom likes to make… again, I don’t actually know what’s in it, but I do like it a lot. It’s quite filling.
6. sushi. …Is everywhere. Walking down the street, it’s like… Coffee, Pies, Coffee, Sushi, Megaphone, Coffee, Bank, Sushi… The coffee I saw coming, but not the sushi. And it’s actually really good. And because Russians don’t like spice, most of it is actually edible for me, which is nice.
7. soup. I knew borscht was a thing, but I’ve not had that too often since coming here. What I have had is lots of other kinds of soup. For, like, a lot of meals. So much soup. At least once a day, if not more. It’s great, because I need to stay hydrated and warm, and this is a wonderfully decaffeinated vehicle for both liquid and warmth! Ура!!
8. sugar. Do you like three teaspoons of sugar in your mug of tea? Well, you’re not alone. So does everyone else at the table.
9. hot dogs. Anyone who knows my eating habits also knows that I really don’t much like hot dogs. I have resisted the quarter dogs at school for 5 semesters now (and still no temptation to try!), and I don’t ever eat them at home. But here, hot dogs seem to comprise most of my meat consumption. My host mom serves me about 5 slices at dinner every night. And I’m warming up to it.
10. peanuts. Anyone who knows anything at all about me knows that peanut products account for roughly 45% of my diet. Peanut butter on pretzels, peanut butter crackers, salted peanuts, honey-roasted peanuts, peanut stir-fry, peanut M&Ms, just plain peanuts… yum. But WOE IS ME: apparently peanuts are totally an American thing. I was at the biggest grocery store in my immediate vicinity today, and they didn’t have a single peanut product anywhere in the whole darned place. Except I think I saw two Snickers bars. But seriously, if I’d known, I would have packed a few large bags of peanuts for my continued sustenance.