To the muddy banks of the Wishkah

So there we were. I had picked up my friend Andy from the airport, and we went back to my temporary apartment in Seattle. Andy, Kate, and I were all together again at last. Both of them had traveled great distances to visit me: Kate from Saint Petersburg, Russia, and Andy from Albany, New York. It’s enough to make a guy blush.

It was Tuesday, May 24, for those of you keeping score at home. For lunch, we decided to check out an Asian buffet not far from the apartment. It turned out to be a winner, especially because we were there while it was closing and everything was cheaper.

After that, each of us got a CityPass so we could check out a bunch of local attractions for a low, low price. Andy and Kate had never been to Seattle, and I had barely been there before, so it would be fun for all of us. The first thing we did was go on a tour boat around Elliott Bay. The weather was great, we saw some interesting things (like Mount Rainier and a bunch of sea lions), and I learned some fun facts. It was an hour well spent.

Next, we went to Pike Place Market, which, of course, is free to visit. It was getting late in the day, so many of the vendors were packing up, but we still got to see some cool things. But after that, we lounged around in nearby Victor Steinbrueck Park and then went to a tea shop for some tea tasting. Needless to say, it was quite a tease!!

Amazon had hired a company to manage my move to Seattle, and that company had in turn hired a company to research places to live. So my consultant had set up some appointments to check out condos for rent. Andy and Kate went with me, which was good because they noticed some things that I didn’t. It’s always good to have a second set of eyes. Neither of the condos was perfect, but they each had good and bad things about them. Time was running out, and I was feeling pressured to make a decision.

Later, we met my friend Mark for dinner at a trendy restaurant that was actually pretty good. Mark is my closest friend in Seattle, so it was good to see him again. I had seen him the last time I went to Seattle, which was only a few weeks before, but still.

The next day was rainy. Andy, Kate, and I went to the Seattle Aquarium and then hurried to the Pacific Science Center to watch an IMAX movie about underwater volcanoes. Andy and Kate were really tired (maybe because of the travel?) and dozed off during the movie. I, for one, thought it was fascinating. The depths of the ocean, after all, are the last frontier on Earth and have barely been explored. But I don’t blame Andy and Kate for wanting to discover the insides of their eyelids. I wish I could fall asleep as easily as they can.

After waking up my friends, we stayed at the Pacific Science Center, which is like one of those children’s science museums with all the fun exhibits and stuff. To my surprise, there was a butterfly garden. The three of us had been to one in Florida when it was extremely cold and the butterflies were all lying around dead. This time, it was pleasantly warm (thanks to some sort of magic), and butterflies were flying around everywhere.

The next day, Thursday, was Andy’s last full day in Seattle, so I was determined to make the most of it. But Andy and Kate were both tired, so I went to some condo appointments by myself. None of the places I saw impressed me very much. Afterwards, I wandered around Pike Place Market, and I called Andy so he could meet me there. In doing so, he got a second chance to explore the place when there was more going on.

We didn’t do much for the rest of the day, and in the morning, I accompanied Andy to the train station. I even helped him with one of his bags, which I forgot to give to him before he got on the train. Luckily, there wasn’t anything too important in there.

It’s sad when you don’t know when you’re going to see someone again, but fortunately, technology can help keep people close. The world really is getting smaller: I imagine with wonder that a trip between the US and Russia would have taken weeks in the past (please forget about Alaska and Siberia for the purposes of this demonstration), and I can talk to someone in Russia like they’re right here, and I can actually be there in a matter of hours. Of course, New York State is even closer.

Anyway, after seeing Andy off, I had an appointment to check out some apartments at a complex I had visited during my first trip to Seattle. I really felt like I needed to make a decision that day because I had already been in the market for a long time, and I was about to start my new job, so I’d have much less time to devote to the search.

So, it came down to two apartments at this one complex that I liked. One was a two-bedroom, two-bathroom corner unit on the fifth floor, overlooking an intersection. The other was a one-bedroom, one-bathroom unit on the 26th floor, with all new furnishings and a 30-foot-long balcony with a view of Puget Sound and the entire Space Needle.

It was a tough decision. I wanted enough space, but the view, and the new everything, was hard to resist. I didn’t want to make price too important in my decision (that’s what I did the last time I looked for an apartment, and it didn’t turn out so great), but it wouldn’t have mattered because the prices for both were about equal. In the end, I decided to go for the smaller apartment with the great view. I rationalized my decision by telling myself that it was facing a nicer street and that the upkeep would be easier because it was smaller. And I really did want a cozy place all along.

I was kind of irrational with the decision, and I was worried that I regret it. But my decision wasn’t necessarily final yet, so I decided to think about it a bit. Fortunately, I was able to relax a bit as Kate had planned an excursion to Olympia and Aberdeen, to see places important in the history of grunge music and Nirvana in particular.

On Saturday morning, we got a ride to Olympia thanks to Craigslist and had a place to stay thanks to CouchSurfing. But we had some time to kill before we could get to our host’s place, so we went to a restaurant he had recommended: a place called Darby’s. The food was pretty standard greasy breakfast/lunch fare (I had chicken fried steak), and the decor was eclectic (e.g. a wall covered with Wizard of Oz memorabilia). The staff and the patrons were pretty eclectic as well. It reminded me of Gainesville.

The whole place reminded me of Gainesville, what with the music scene and college students roaming the streets and the secondhand clothing store/record store with a stack of voter registration forms near the counter. Our host turned out to be super nice (they always are with CouchSurfing), and he didn’t live too far from everything else, so we were able to walk everywhere. A house that Kurt Cobain had rented wasn’t far away, so we checked it out too (trying to be discreet because someone seemed to live there).

Having spent Saturday in Olympia, we set out on Sunday morning to take a bus to Kurt Cobain’s hometown of Aberdeen, Washington. It was a small city under a gray sky with strip malls, bridges, and not much else. On our host’s recommendation, we visited the Star Wars Shop, which had a section called “Kurt Cobain Memorabilia & Infocenter.” The owner of the store saw which part of the place we were more interested in but asked us to sign both guestbooks. He was a cool guy, though. He gave us directions to a park that had been dedicated to Kurt Cobain, but we had other things to do first.

After Kate got a cool pair of shoes at Ross, we walked around trying to find the bridge that Kurt is said to have slept under as a youth. We checked all the bridges we could find (there weren’t too many), until we noticed another one on the map, far away from the others. We had to go down a residential street to get there, but sure enough, we struck gold. There was the park that the guy from the Star Wars Store had told us about. The area under around the bridge was a park dedicated to Kurt.

Aberdeen is a sleepy town, but there a few other groups of Nirvana fans had found the park, which wasn’t even on our map. Together we stood underneath the bridge, watching the Wishkah River flow by. This was the bridge mentioned in the song “Something in the Way”:

Underneath the bridge, the tarp has sprung a leak
And the animals I’ve trapped have all become my pets
And I’m living off of grass and the drippings from the ceiling…

A sign had the lyrics to the song, and on the ground was a plaque with some quotations by Kurt, including a four-letter word that had been subsequently scratched out. There was also a brand-new statue of a guitar by a local artist. There were some benches where Kate wrote a couple of postcards, and that was about it. It was a small park with a lot of emotion contained inside.

After spending some time there, we continued down the street through the neighborhood where Kurt grew up. We found his house, which looked just as sad as all the others, and I imagined what it must have been like for him there as a child. I wondered if it was just as bleak of a place in the ’70s. I figured it probably was. It was hard to imagine that there had ever been any signs of life there. The whole neighborhood was perfectly still and quiet. It was almost creepy.

Some of the addresses we looked for didn’t exist; instead, there were empty lots. “You lookin’ for Kurt Cobain’s house?” a man shouted to us from a distance as we stood where the first house he rented was supposed to be. They tore it down, he said. Too many kids having parties in there and causing a ruckus.

It was time for a late lunch, so we went to a restaurant called Billy’s, which our host recommended to us. He had said that it wasn’t particularly good but that it was the best restaurant he had eaten at in Aberdeen. I found it to be thoroughly okay. I had a yak cheeseburger. Yak meat tastes similar to beef, and according to the menu at the restaurant, has one-sixth as much fat.

After seeing the music store where Kurt’s first guitar had come from and dropping off Kate’s postcards at the post office, we were on the bus back to Olympia. Except it was Sunday evening and the bus didn’t go all the way back, so we had to get off in an even smaller town and call for our host to pick us up. Fortunately this outcome was completely expected by everyone because we Were Prepared™.

On Monday morning, Memorial Day, our Craigslist ride picked us up again and dropped us off in Seattle.

The next day was my first day of work. I didn’t get to spend much time with Kate after that, and I didn’t take any more pictures. Thursday, June 2, was Kate’s last day in the US, and I met her for lunch. She had all her bags and was going right to the airport after that. I had confirmed my decision to take the apartment with the great view, so while we were waiting for our food, I darted across the street to start the paperwork, which had to be done that day. But, looking back, I wish I had been with her the whole time. Parting isn’t such sweet sorrow. It’s just sorrow.

Now I’m sure you’re wondering what it’s like to work at Amazon. I’m eager to tell you, and I’m eager to tell you what it’s like to work full-time at all, but more than that, I am tired. Soon, though.

Here we are now, entertain us

This past weekend, my sister and I visited Seattle so I could get a feel for the city and scope out some places to live.

It started at her apartment on Thursday, where we hung out and walked to a nearby Mexican restaurant. Even though it was Cinco de Mayo, it wasn’t crowded. Well, we were also early. It was a great experience. At my apartment, there are no restaurants within walking distance (unless you want to walk on a road bridge that has no sidewalk). In Seattle, I hope to be within walking distance of most everything.

In the wee hours of the morning, we made it to Orlando International Airport, and from there we flew west. In doing so, she lost the #1 fun fact she’s uses to describe herself: that she’s never been on an airplane. She’ll have to think of something else now! But I’d never been out west at all, so really, the trip was new for both of us.

We were flying to LA for a layover, so from the plane, we were able to see the Southwest’s mesas, mountains, and canyons in the morning sunlight. What a beautiful sight it was… And then there was LA. I thought I would feel cooler being in LA, having digested all the crap that everyone tells you about California and everything. Instead, I probably caught some sort of lung disease. As luck would have it, we had to go outside and take a bus to a different part of the airport to catch our next flight, and in doing so, we about choked on the filthy air.

Our first flight had been with Delta, but the next was with Alaska Airlines. It seemed more comfortable in a way. The plane was less well-kept, the flight attendants were older, and the pilot was more than happy to point out landmarks like Lake Tahoe as we made our way up the West Coast.

I wasn’t feeling good. I think it was the combination of a total lack of sleep (it’s relatively hard for me), some coffee I had had without sugar (never again), strange eating habits borne of being awake all night and sitting in planes for hours, and a large amount of worrying about whether I’d even like this city I’d been visiting through a computer screen for months, the city that was destined by contract to be my home.

The plane descended, and downtown Seattle appeared behind the gray clouds below. It was all there, the Space Needle and everything. That, I think, is when my attitude really started to turn around.

It was cold as we got out of the airport. It was also raining. We took the Link Light Rail from the airport to downtown. Where the other passengers saw the usual sights, I sat with wonder. I hope never to lose that sense of wonder one should have in new places. Same with being on a plane. Everyone in an airplane always seems so bored, even as it’s taking off and landing. A lot of them don’t even bother to look out the window. What a shame.

Once we made it to the right station downtown, I found the hotel Amazon had booked for me and checked in. After taking a breather, we decided to walk to the 5 Point Cafe in the nearby neighborhood of Belltown. Belltown is where I want to live, and the 5 Point, I am led to believe, is a Seattle institution. It also has chicken-fried bacon, so we would have had to check it out anyway.

It wasn’t a long walk. We could see the Space Needle from where we sat in the restaurant, so after enjoying some soul food (including the bacon, which came with biscuit gravy), we headed to Seattle’s most famous attraction. It was very windy up there, but we stayed outside long enough to get a few good pictures. I also pointed out the locations of Amazon’s new headquarters and some of the apartments we were going to be touring.

Next, we took the monorail to the Westlake Center. It’s a short ride, barely more than two minutes, but it saves some walking and is pretty fun. It goes to the Westlake Center, which is this shopping center closer to downtown. (I guess you could say it’s actually downtown, but Seattle’s neighborhoods exist only unofficially, so it can be hard to say what’s where.)

While my sister shopped there and at Nordstrom’s flagship store, I thought. I hate the cold and the rain, so Seattle sounds like an odd choice for me. But it seems like a really interesting and liveable city, and the fact that I have a lucrative job lined up there doesn’t hurt at all. It’s just… the weather. At any given time, I was wearing almost all of the clothes I had packed (including three shirts and a windbreaker), and I was still cold. It was unbelievably windy at times. If it was going to be like this all the time, I wasn’t going to like it.

The next morning, it was pretty clear out; I could see snow-capped mountains from the hotel room. The forecast called for it to be cloudy and drizzly all day with only a few “sun breaks.” Neither my sister nor I had heard the term before, and we thought it sounded pretty sad. In Florida, we have cloud breaks.

We started our day by going to a doughnut place I had heard of called Top Pot Doughnuts. It was also in Belltown, so we were able to walk there too. If you like doughnuts, you’ll love Top Pot. Their doughnuts are fantastic. I also had a cherry blossom, which is their cherry milkshake. It was good, but with the doughnuts, there was too much sweetness there, and that’s saying a lot coming from me. Everything’s good, but don’t get the cherry blossom and the doughnuts at the same time.

My destination services consultant (hired by Amazon) had made six appointments for me at apartment complexes in the area, so our next task was to visit those. Everyone we talked to was really nice, and nobody really tried to get me to sign a lease right there (which was good because the consultant said that might happen). Some buildings had only a few stories and others were very tall. Some didn’t look so good and others were very fancy. Some places impressed me more than others, so I managed to come up with a few favorites. The whole point of the trip was to do just that; I didn’t have to pick one just yet.

Between appointments, we had time to slip away to the famous Pike Place Market, where they throw the fish. For lunch, we split a Dungeness crab BLT and a salad from a nearby restaurant called Seatown. We also were able to go to the Olympic Sculpture Park, which is right on the water and is run by the Seattle Art Museum. The weather was better than forecast; it was actually sunny some of the time (but it was still pretty windy too).

After the last appointment, I was tired of seeing apartments. We had a little bit of time left to go to the Experience Music Project, a music museum near the Space Needle. We met up with my friend Mark to check it out.

Mark is quite a bit like me. We’re both left-handed; we both use the Dvorak keyboard. We both enrolled in the University of Florida, majoring in computer science and minoring in business administration. We were both in the honors program and both lived in Hume Hall. We both got jobs in the Dean of Students Office and were both officers in the Esperanto Club and Students for Free Culture. And then we both got hired by tech companies in the Seattle area and moved or are moving there. Actually, he’s a year older than I am, so I followed him into many of those things, but it’s just a coincidence that we’ll be living near each other in the same city after we’ve both graduated.

Anyway, we checked out the Nirvana exhibit at the Experience Music Project. I learned a lot about Nirvana, and it was cool to see all their broken guitars and stuff. I’m sure nobody expected them to end up in a museum someday. Seattle seems to be pretty proud of the fact that it was the musical capital of the world for a few years.

After that, the three of us moseyed to Amazon’s headquarters in the South Lake Union neighborhood. If I hadn’t known where it was, I wouldn’t have found it. There don’t seem to be any markings of any kind; just some big, new buildings with yellow accents and a courtyard in between with some tables. I’m going to be working there. I still can’t really get a grip on the thought.

Mark had to get going, but we asked him to recommend a place for dinner. He told us about a restaurant called Etta’s where they had good seafood. We followed his directions and found that it was right next to the restaurant where we had lunch. After dinner, we went back to Pike Place Market, where my sister, who is Starbucks’ #1 fan, visited the first Starbucks. After that, we went to a candy store and got some sweets. There’s always room for candy.

(no jurdon there isn’t thats how you get fat)

From there, we walked through the heart of downtown, all the way to Pioneer Square and back. On the way, a drunk and/or homeless guy started talking to us and wouldn’t leave us alone even though we weren’t really responding to him. We got rid of him by walking into the first place we passed, which happened to be a shop. The shopkeeper was closing up shop, but I explained our situation. She was nice and talked about how the police cracks down on homelessness whenever Seattle plays host to a big event.

This is an issue I’ve grappled with before, but I’ll probably have to confront it much more often now. How does one deal with homeless people respectfully? Our society does so much to make them miserable, but I realize that they’re people and that they deserve to be treated as such. I don’t necessarily want to talk to them all the time—I don’t necessarily want to talk to anyone all the time—but I want to do a little bit to help them out without sustaining their bad habits, even if it’s just giving them a $5 gift card for Denny’s or something. On the other hand, I don’t want anyone to grow dependent on me. I also would want to be sure they’re actually homeless and not just out collecting cash for fun. It’s a tough situation.

Anyway, I was exhausted after a big day, and I was sad that it was almost over, but I was excited that I’d be going back soon.

On Sunday morning, we went to Top Pot again, and then we were off to the airport. This time we had a layover in Minneapolis, so we got to see some different scenery on the way there, including the Rocky Mountains (which the Alaska Airlines pilot duly pointed out). Then we flew back to Orlando and made it back to Gainesville. It was a lot of traveling, but we did a lot while we were in Seattle.

I’ll be back there in less than two weeks, this time for good. I’ll be moving into corporate housing at first, and that’s when the more serious apartment search will begin. I guess if I can stay warm, everything will be fine.

Recently, I was interviewed over the phone about my involvement in Where’s George? by a journalism student at Arizona State University. He talked to several other people, but I was the one who got the Quote At The End That Summarizes Everything. Nice! Here’s the article.

Come as you are

Well, I graduated. I actually have a college degree. What happens now?

Well, since I got a job at Amazon in Seattle, they’re going to help me move out there. I’ve done extensive research into Seattle apartments (I’m just looking to rent right now), and a Destination Services Consultant hired by Amazon has provided me with apartment recommendations based on my suggestions and preferences. My next step is a preliminary visit to Seattle to check out the apartments that seem most promising and to try to get a feel for the city.

I’ve never been to Seattle at all, or even on the West Coast. (whut jardon how have u never been two the west cost?????)

Wait. Stop right there. I’ll tell you.

My first out-of-state trip I can remember was to northern Georgia, circa 1994. My family drove to Pennsylvania and Ohio to visit relatives in the summer of 1999. We went on a cruise to Cozumel, Mexico, in 2000, and we took a road trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains later that year. Then we went on a cruise to the Bahamas in 2002 and spent some time in North Carolina and Tennessee in 2004. Also in 2004, I went to Pennsylvania and Ohio again with my dad, and in 2007, my family went on a cruise to the Cayman Islands and Jamaica. In 2009, I traveled to the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Monaco, Italy, Vatican City, Croatia, Austria, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium. And just a few months ago, I was in Russia. Problem?

For the curious, the westernmost place I’ve been to is Cozumel, Mexico, which, to give you an idea, is close to the easternmost point in Mexico. The southernmost place I’ve been to is Ocho Rios, Jamaica, and the northernmost and easternmost is Pudozh, Russia, which is farther north than Anchorage, Alaska, those Canadian provinces that are arranged neatly in a row, and the southernmost point in Greenland, and farther east than all of Israel and I got tired of looking at the map to find other places. So I think I win. I mean, it’s not a game at all. Fine.

Ah, all that time I spent finding links and stuff is time I could have spent packing. So I’ll be brief.

This post is about going to Seattle. My sister is going with me. We’ll be arriving tomorrow afternoon and leaving on Sunday. I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures if it doesn’t rain all over my camera. (And yeah, I’ll bring an umbrella. And boots.)

My Destination Services Consultant is making appointments, so we’ll work around the schedule she gives us. It should leave us enough time to do all the touristy things like checking out the Space Needle, Pike Place Market, and whatever else we decide we want to do. It would even be nice just to chill out at one of Seattle’s many parks and even enjoy the view of Puget Sound.

Okay, time to get packing. Follow me on Twitter to get INSTANT UPDATES from my trip if I feel like writing them!

Another one of those lists: Top 10 Bizarre Cases of Mass Hysteria, as determined by someone who knows how to rank bizarreness. (Via The Presurfer)

Return from Russia

I’m writing about events that have transpired almost four months ago now, so of course, I’ve forgotten some details. Fortunately, Kate has helped me get things straight this time.

One thing I forgot to mention last time is that after taking a tour of Pudozh, Kate and I visited her grandmother. I really don’t know how I forgot this. I wasn’t hungry at all, but her grandmother had made bliny (“pancakes,” but actually more like crepes) for Kate and me to eat. They were delicious, and I didn’t want to seem rude, so while Kate and her grandmother talked about things, I ate… and ate, and ate, and ate. Later, I was throwing up from having eaten too much. When will I learn?

We spent a lot of time inside, when we weren’t sleeping, we were watching movies: Darwin’s Nightmare, The Lionshare, The Phantom of the Opera, Forrest Gump, and maybe others.

On New Year’s Eve, Kate and I took it easy. I slept most of the day. In the evening, Kate’s parents and sister went out to ring in the New Year with Kate’s grandmother, so Kate and I had the place to ourselves. A relatively large table had been put out in the living room, and there was a tree in the corner. It looked just like a Christmas tree. We watched TV for a while. On one channel, a Russian movie called The Irony of Fate was playing. Kate told me that it’s always shown on Russian TV on New Year’s. Another channel was showing clips of New Year celebrations from earlier time zones.

After what seemed like forever, it was finally midnight. As we watched the fireworks in Moscow on TV, we ate the traditional New Year’s food of salad Olivier and exchanged gifts. Kate gave me a Girl Talk t-shirt and a card in a commemorative envelope from Soviet times. Then I called my parents and made a point of letting to know that I was talking to them from the future.

I spent the next day looking forward to my school’s last football game during my time as a student. In his final game, Urban Meyer was going to coach the Florida Gators in the Outback Bowl against Penn State. Since I turn to the Internet for all my problems, I figured I’d try to stream a Gainesville radio station that would be broadcasting the game. Kate suggested instead that I try to find the TV broadcast being streamed. I struck gold. Since the game was televised nationally, I found a sketchy website that was streaming a feed of ABC.

So, for four hours, I watched the game. I tried to explain American football to Kate, but I didn’t do a very good job, so I would just tell her when something good happened and when something bad happened. The Gators had suffered several last-second losses during the season, and in the final minutes, with the Gators up 30-24, Penn State was rallying to pull another one on them. Fortunately, an interception led to a touchdown and a victory for Florida.

The next day, January 2, was my last day. Kate made her famous chicken salad, but with the proper ingredients this time. It was just as delicious as it had been before, in my opinion. I packed away what Kate affectionately called Clothes Mountain and finished drinking the cans of Coke I had bought at the local store.

After kissing Kate goodbye, I took my coat off the rack for the last time and said goodbye to her mother and sister. Kate had bought me a bus ticket back to St. Petersburg, so her dad drove me to the bus stop. I thanked him for his hospitality and told him I hoped to see him again soon. And then, once again, I was on my own.

I somehow managed to understand from a woman on the bus that I was sitting in her seat. Other than that, nobody bothered me. This time, I actually read instead of doing nothing. It was more interesting, but I plowed through most of the reading material I had, leaving little for the flight home.

I had made arrangements to stay with a CouchSurfer, so in the morning, once I had arrived back at the bus station in St. Petersburg, I took the subway to the station closest to him. I had some time to kill, so I got a hot coffee at McDonald’s. I only drink hot coffee when I’m trying to wake myself up. (I guess a lot of people do that, actually, but I only use it in case of emergencies like staying awake all night.) The cashier tricked me into also buying a cherry pie, which was delicious. That’s what you call bittersweet right there.

Soon, the CouchSurfer came and took me to his place, where I slept away the afternoon. In the evening, he and his girlfriend made a pizza that reminded me a lot of the pizzas my parents make. We chatted a bit, and after I told them about my plans, they called various cab companies asking about rates and then arranged for the cheapest one to pick me up later. Then we took a walk with some of their friends down to Nevsky Prospect, and I got to see many of the sights I had seen before. We went to a cafe and had tea and some more food.

Later, we got back to my host’s apartment, and the taxi came for me. Soon, I was back at Pulkovo Airport, where I had gotten my first taste of Russia two weeks earlier. It was as dreary as ever, especially so late in the night or early in the morning, whichever it was. Once again, I’d have a layover in Frankfurt, and it was humorously easy to find where I had to go since I think the only other departing flight for hours was a single one to Munich.

In the waiting area or whatever it’s called before you get on the plane (give me a break, I still consider myself a novice traveler), I noticed that there seemed to be a lot of old Americans who were in a tour group or something. On the plane, an old guy and his wife sat next to me. It was snowing outside, and he noticed that I was taking pictures of snowflakes on the window. He spoke up.

“The weather’s not going to be like that in Munich, is it?”

I just about died for a second, but he caught his mistake. “Sorry, Frankfurt.” Oh, old people.

At Frankfurt, I had to go through security to get on to my next flight, and I tried to see if I could get away with going through the metal detector without taking off my boots. It didn’t work, so I had to take them off and try again. And then I had to put them back on, which took forever because they were boots and I hadn’t broken them in yet. When I finally got up, I realized some members of the Bundespolizei were standing right there, and because hours of continuous travel had made me look even more like a crazed loner than usual, they sent me over that way for extra searching. Two or three guys went through all the stuff in my carry-on bag, asking me what this or that was. And then they let me go.

I waited around for hours and hours. It was January 4, the day before my classes were due to start, and it looked like I wasn’t going to miss them. Finally, after a long flight that seemed much longer because I had the worst seat on the plane (near the back, in the middle of the middle row, facing a wall), I was back in the good old USA.

There, a customs agent thought I was suspicious because of the way I handed him my passport. (Because the sleeve of my sweater had caught something, and because I was very tired, my arm moved slowly). “Are you nervous why are you nervous?” he said in a way that is calculated to make people more nervous. I didn’t take the bait, though, because I wasn’t a terrorist or anything. I explained how I had been traveling a lot, and he asked me about my studies and my travels. We talked about the bowl game, and he said he was a Penn State fan. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned the illegal TV-streaming website. Oops.

Finally, I was reunited with my family, who had been waiting patiently outside. Because all this talk about the Outback Bowl had made me hungry for Outback Steakhouse, we went there for dinner. I ate a huge burger that I threw up later. When will I learn?

When I got back to my apartment, I was too tired to unpack my bags. But I did open one, just to make sure that the most precious cargo was safe. And it was.

The Bird of Happiness was intact.

Painting the red town

It was late December, and I was staying with Kate at her parents’ place in a Russian town called Pudozh.

For (Western) Christmas, her parents had given me a box of chocolates, which itself was very kind of them to do. But that wasn’t all: They gave me a wooden figurine of a bird made by local artisans. The bird’s wings were outstretched as if in flight, and it had a little hole in its back so you could hang it from the ceiling. It was called the Bird of Happiness.

Having spent a few whole days inside, Kate and I went out, and I got to see the town. First, her dad took us to the cultural house and the music school, which shared a building not far from where we were. Kate’s father played the accordion and the balalaika and was well known in town because of his association with the cultural house.

A woman gave us a tour of the facility. In what turned out to be the beginning of a trend, the tour was given entirely in Russian, so Kate translated some of what was said. It was actually a fairly small place, and what I remember the most was seeing the classrooms filled with students’ artwork: paintings, figurines, and the like. Kate commented on how it had changed since she had taken lessons there.

Soon, the tour was over, and we were outside. And it was at night. In the interior of Russia. In December.

I’m playing to your preconceived notions, of course. People are uniformly incredulous when they find out I went to Russia for winter break, and I try to tell them that it wasn’t that bad, but no one will have any of it. Saint Petersburg was fine: I was outside for hours at a time. Pudozh, I’ll admit, was colder. At night, maybe unbearably so. But it was a town, so there were buildings and things where you could go inside and be perfectly warm. Sometimes, at Kate’s parents’, it even got too hot inside, and we had to open the windows. The owners of the building would just turn the radiators on or whatever and leave them on all winter, so that’s what you’d do if it got too hot.

Anyway, we were outside. Nearby was a grocery store, so we went inside to buy a few things. We passed by the vodka section, the sheer breadth of which would make many of my cohorts’ eyes glaze over with excitement. Elsewhere was an equally large selection of tea. Russians drink lots of tea, and I don’t know why more people aren’t aware of that. Maybe it’s because a lot of peoples around the world drink tea, and vodka is more of Russia’s own thing. Besides, it’s easier to make fun of the British for that because they can understand our taunts.

I got a couple of cans of Coke at the store. You can take Jordon out of America, but you can’t take America out of Jordon. Actually, it’s funny. I never have as huge of a craving for a hamburger as I do when I’m in a foreign country bereft of ham-, cheese- and all other burgers. But really, I looked at the can and was able to read that one of the first ingredients was sugar, so naturally, I wanted to check it out.

Then we were back outside. An electronic sign in a store window said it was -21 ºC, or -6 ºF. A large tree was decorated with colored lights for New Year’s Day, which was only a few days away. My camera couldn’t handle the cold, and I couldn’t blame it.

For dinner we went to a cafe that was located in the local hotel, so I guess it was mostly for whatever tourists might be there. The cafe was called White Nights, referring to the northern summer days that last so long that it actually stops getting dark for a while. I had some coffee to warm myself up. Kate and I tried each other’s food. On a wall near our table was a colorful photograph of some tropical island beach, which must have been put up by someone with a sense of humor.

The next day, we took a taxi to the city museum on Karl Marx Street. We had a tour guide take us through the museum. Again, I only was only able to receive the gist of what was being said, but I could see the artifacts. It started with the ancient history of the Pudozh area and progressed to tsarist days with traditional farm equipment and clothing. There were a couple of rooms dedicated to World War II, with military jackets, something that looked like an air raid siren, and newspaper headlines from pivotal days during the war.

In the museum’s guestbook, I wrote a brief message in English, which nobody could probably read, but I thought it would be a nice gesture. In my haste the only actual Russian I was able to write was “США” so they would know where I was from.

After the museum, Kate’s dad came to drive us and a tour guide around the city. At one of the first stops, we got out, and I saw a pack of Soyuz-Apollo brand cigarettes on the ground. I had never heard of the brand, and I was amused by the name. It probably caught my eye because “Apollo” was actually written in the Latin alphabet while everything else was Cyrillic. It must be odd seeing two different alphabets everywhere, especially on the Internet, where most URLs are (probably) still in an alphabet that’s foreign to many people. In some advertisement somewhere I saw a URL ending in “.ру”, which I quickly realized was a Russian translation of “.ru”, as in “Русский” (Russian).

We walked to the war memorial, which had the names of the local dead written out, and even a few graves. Then we went to one of the old Orthodox churches, which was being renovated for future use. At first it seemed totally abandoned inside, but then I noticed that two men were up on some scaffolding, doing some work near the ceiling. Kate, or maybe the tour guide, told them that I was an American, so one of the guys told me to say hi to Obama for him. Outside the church was a tiny cemetery covered with a thick layer of snow.

The following day was December 30. Kate had to make a routine visit to the local hospital. The building was crowded and looked like it was falling apart. It wasn’t until we were seated outside the doctor’s office that I realized that this was probably the absolute worst place I could possibly be as a warm-blooded foreign tourist who hadn’t gotten any recommended vaccinations. I became worried. I reduced my breathing to shallow breaths as if that would help at all. There really was nothing I could do. Needless to say, I ended up fine, but I wouldn’t put myself in that situation again.

Next we went to Kate’s school. Even though I was in another country where I didn’t speak the language, the heady feeling of wandering around a school during a school day transcends international boundaries.

Kate wanted to meet her English teacher, so we made our way to the English classroom. It was decorated with New Year decorations and informational posters about the UK and the English alphabet. Kate had told me that I’d be speaking to the class, but there were no students there. It was the last day of school, and they had been let out early. So just the teacher was there. It was good to talk to another English speaker.

I had brought a few photos of my American life, which I showed her. I mentioned how my family had recently moved, and she asked if it was common for American families to move. Other than that, she didn’t seem particularly interested in my pictures or me, but was fascinated by the hundreds of photos from Kates’ trips to the US. We must have been there for a couple of hours. It made sense, though. They already knew each other well and could chat in their own native tongue.

Later, we had dinner at another restaurant that was part of a hotel. In case you’re wondering, we got there (and to a lot of the other places) by taxi. It was pretty cool that we could get around so easily and cheaply; it’s not a service I would expect a small town to have, but there you go.

The next day was December 31, a big day in Russia.

It’s unfortunately been a long time since all of this happened, so this post is probably full of errors that Kate can point out. I’ll be glad to fix them as soon as I can.

Home is where the heart is

If I was tired, I didn’t notice. Kate opened the door and came in. I had never seen her wear winter clothes before. I kissed her. Against all odds, there happened to be a few other people there in Vytegra’s tiny bus station, but I didn’t care if they saw.

I followed her back out into the bitter cold, where her father’s car was parked. He helped me put my bags in the trunk. Kate and I sat in the back seat, she on the left, I on the right. We stopped at a gas station to use the restroom and then, in the car, had a small breakfast with some hot tea. And then we headed to Pudozh.

The sun rose slowly, casting a blue light on the broad, endless road with nothing on it but snow and a single car. Everywhere, tall evergreens with snowy branches flanked the road as if to see what all the commotion was about.

Finally, we reached the outskirts of a town. It was Pudozh, Kate’s hometown. After making the trip to Orlando, stopping in Germany, spending a few days in Saint Petersburg, and enduring sleepless night on a bus, I had finally reached my destination.

Pudozh is a small city that seemed to have a lot of apartment buildings. Soviet-looking ones, of course. We stopped at one and got out of the car. Up on the 5th floor (the Russians number their floors the same way we do) was Kate’s family’s apartment.

The two doors (for warmth, I assume) opened to a short hallway. On the right was the living room, and on the left was something like a den, which was where Kate was staying. In the back was a perpendicular hallway with a bathroom, a water closet (what I would actually call the bathroom even though it technically isn’t one [unless you take baths in your toilet]), a small kitchen, and, presumably, Kate’s parents’ room.

Now I could relax for a while. Kate and I got on to our own schedule. Her parents would come and go, and we would sleep when we wanted and stay up when we wanted. We might sleep for hours and hours and hours and then stay up just as long. I’ve never done anything like it. When we were awake, we would watch movies or do our own Internet things. Or we would play with the cat, Buzik. Most of the time, we were in Kate’s room.

We would go to the kitchen to eat. Kate often ate little pieces of bread with meat and cheese on top of them—like tiny open-faced sandwiches. We would have leftovers from the last meal her mother had made. The food was simple: chicken and rice, things like that. But it was real, and you could taste it. Kate’s father brought in some raw milk. I can’t really describe how it tasted: kind of grassy? But it was good.

And then there was tea. We Americans make fun of the British for loving their tea so much, but lots of other people live on it. Kate had a relatively enormous appetite for tea when she visited me (and teased me at first for not knowing how to make it [haha, get it? teased???]), and now I could see that in her country, it was totally normal.

We made tea after almost every meal and often between meals. I’m not a big fan of your plain old black tea—I think it’s bitter and isn’t improved by sugar or milk—but I managed to pick out one that I liked. It was Greenfield Creamy Rooibos, a British import. Kate, however, told me that it wasn’t technically a tea, so there you go.

My second day at Kate’s was December 25. I woke up sometime in the afternoon—outsleeping even Kate, I think—and her parents presented me with a box of Cadbury chocolates as a Christmas gift. It was very nice of them to give me something on that day, especially since Orthodox Christmas is on January 7 and most Russians aren’t religious anyway.

After a few days of staying inside, Kate and I got ready to go out so I could see Pudozh.

Do svidaniya, Saint Petersburg

After wandering around by myself in Saint Petersburg, Russia, I had a busy day. It was one of those days where you don’t have time to stop and take any pictures. Yeah, that kind of day. It was December 23, but I’m showing my age. The age of the story, I mean. Whatever.

I could barely say anything in Russian, so fortunately, Kate was helping me every step of the way as I trekked toward her parents’ apartment in the distant little city of Pudozh. Today was the soonest day I could take a bus there from Saint Petersburg… hopefully. She had checked the availability of bus tickets online, and although there wasn’t a direct route that night, there was one that would take me to Vytegra, a city about an hour away, and her father could pick me up from there. I just had to go to the station and buy the ticket.

As you would probably guess if you’re older than I am, relatively few people in Russia speak English, so this was going to be a challenge. It was more than just pointing at food behind a glass and saying “please.” I had to ask for a ticket to a specific city at a specific time. Kate had told me exactly what to say, and I wrote it next to a map I had drawn showing how to get to the bus station.

So, after a late start to the day, I set off. I think I hadn’t even eaten anything, but it didn’t matter. I really didn’t want to go all the way to the station, in the snow, just to be told in a foreign language that I would have to wait even longer to get to Kate.

I guess I get used to new surroundings easily because I didn’t have much trouble finding the bus station. I only had to take familiar routes to get there, although it was farther from the main road than I was expecting; that did throw me a little bit. But after what must have been an hour, I was at the station. I found the sign with the ticket symbol on it (the poor tourists who visit the US and have to confront signs that are only in English!) and made my way to the ticket desk.

“Вы говорите по-английски?” I tried to say to a middle-aged woman at the only available ticket desk. She indicated that I should try the next desk over. I asked the woman at the next desk the same question, but she couldn’t speak English either. Either that or they didn’t want to admit it. During my travels in Europe, I met plenty of people who said they couldn’t speak English even though their English was passable. (I wrote “there” instead of “their” and almost missed it. Note to self: practice English.)

I went back to the first clerk and, in the most pathetic display I’ve ever put on for a stranger, tried to pronounce the sentence I had written. I was only a few words in when she handed me a pen and paper through the little slot thing in the window. I listed the details that Kate had given me: the destination, the time, and that day’s date (all in Russian, of course). And a question mark. I handed her the paper.

She wrote on it and returned it to me. To my relief, she had written an amount of money, and not a terribly large one. I had been told that transportation was cheap in Russia, and I was pleased to find out that it actually was the case. Now I could go back to my host, relax for a little while, maybe finally have something to eat, and then I could be off to the station.

After burning off my last few hours at my host’s place, I got my stuff together, thanked him for his hospitality, and set off. Not for the bus station, but for another part of town where Kate’s friend Vitya could meet me. He was going to give me one of her cameras so I could give it to her, and he agreed to help me take my stuff to the bus station.

He was a little late, but there wasn’t really anything he could do about it because he was taking an exam, so I spent some time dragging my suitcase through the snow, looking at the shops, and trying not to cause trouble or even get anyone’s attention. Such is the reality of life when you find yourself loitering in a country where you don’t speak the language and they don’t speak yours. What if the police confronted me for no reason, as I had heard they sometimes do? I’d just be able to say “I don’t speak Russian.”

Finally, I met Vitya. I was cold and I could go for some food, so we went to a cafe nearby. It was actually a chain, and one that I think he didn’t particularly like, but my bus was going to be leaving soon, so there wasn’t much time to choose another place. We got to know each other a little bit over some delicious coffee (which I guess wasn’t as good as some other places’) and Russian food.

Now we really didn’t have any time to spare, so we hit the subway and made it toward the bus station. By the time we got off the subway we were nearly running; we were that close to missing it. I was hurrying, dragging a suitcase through slush, well behind someone who wasn’t dragging anything and was used to the slush.

We somehow managed to make it to the station a couple of minutes before the bus was about to leave. Vitya gave me Kate’s camera and wished me all the best. And now I was on a bus full of people who didn’t speak English.

The bus ride was a long one… was it 8, 10, 12 hours? Something like that. I lost track after a while. It was incredibly dark, and the roads were unlike anything I’d ever seen or felt. Several people I had met told me the Russian proverb, “Russia has two problems: fools and roads.” It was bumpy the whole way, and there was rarely anything to see except for trees. Occasionally we would pass through a tiny hamlet consisting of little more than a sign, and sometimes we would even come to an intersection and turn. All I could do was sit and watch and wait, thinking about the one who was waiting for me. I didn’t sleep.

It was still dark but well into the next morning, December 24, when the bus finally reached Vytegra. The layers of clothes that had kept me warm in Saint Petersburg did nothing for me here. I hurried into the tiny building that was the bus station. A few minutes later, I got a text and saw a familiar figure in the window walking toward the entrance.

All by myself

It was December 22, and I was CouchSurfing in St. Petersburg, Russia. My host had four other CouchSurfers over, and today they were all leaving. And since my host was busy studying for exams, I could go out by myself.

It may sound weird, but it didn’t occur to me till I was on the plane that I was going to a foreign country by myself. A year and a half ago, when I set off for Europe, the idea was unthinkable: I flew there with three friends and wanted at least to stick with Andy as much as possible. But now I remember that over the course of the summer, it happened that I was spending less and less time with him and more time traveling by myself. In fact, I completed the last leg of the trip alone. So I guess I actually was mentally prepared for this.

One thing I wasn’t quite as prepared for was the sheer amount of clothes you have to wear when it’s all snowy outside. Going outside quickly becomes an ordeal. Over my regular clothes, I wore at least one extra shirt, a sweater, a jacket, a scarf, gloves, and a hat, not to mention socks and boots I had gotten just for the trip.

So it took me a little while to make my way out that day, and when I finally did, I was hungry. Kate had recommended some good places to eat. I picked the one that was closest to the place where I was staying. It was a buffet-style restaurant facing Uprising Square. After barely managing to communicate with the people who worked there, I sat and ate, humiliated, hoping no one would try to talk to me. Right there I said to myself that I’d never again go to a country where I couldn’t speak the language. We’ll see how long that lasts.

I kept going down Nevsky Prospect, or however I’m choosing to transliterate it today, and the thoroughfare already seemed familiar to me after yesterday’s romp around the city. I made sure to look out for large icicles, one of the many safety and/or health hazards I had been warned about before leaving on my trip. The sidewalks, of course, were also icy. The day before, I had almost slipped a few times, and I had a hard time sleeping that night because I kept imagining myself walking, walking, walking… and slipping.

Now, to gain traction, I was twisting my legs a little more than usual as my feet touched the ground. I probably looked pretty ridiculous, but it kept me from slipping. But all that twisting made my left knee start to hurt. Quickly. In fact, it kept bothering me for weeks afterward, especially walking up stairs, and I was convinced that I was now the lifetime owner of a bum knee.

I’m fine now, but anyway, that’s not the point. I was walking down Nevsky, and since I was by myself, I was able to stop and take a look at some of St. Petersburg’s many frozen canals. From one bridge is a fantastic view of the Church of the Savior on Blood:

Finally, I got to my destination: the Winter Palace, the main residence of the State Hermitage Museum, one of the finest museums in the world, probably.

I love art museums, and since I was out by myself, nobody could stop me from spending as much time there as I wanted.

I made my way to the entrance, and at the ticket desk, I was somehow able to express my desire for a student ticket: “Один… университет”. Then, after checking my coat, I spent a few hours walking around, trying to cover as much as I could. About halfway through, I became exhausted, but I knew I knew I had to keep going since it was a rare opportunity to see some fantastic artwork.

Much of the museum was dedicated to classic art, or whatever they call the old stuff. A lot of famous artists were represented. There were a lot of works by Rubens, a sculpture by Michelangelo, and even a painting by Leonardo. On the higher floors were works by more recent artists like Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet, and Matisse. I was pleasantly surprised to see Matisse’s Red Room there. And the building itself, having once been a palace, was also a work of art. Some of the rooms were enormous, and one of them even had the imperial throne.

By the time I got out, I was tired and hungry and sore and it was dark, and I faced the daunting task of walking all the way back to my host’s apartment. I did it the same way I had come: one step at a time. (It was either that or try to take public transportation, and for that I might have had to… talk to people.)

Although I was extremely worn out, I decided to visit so-called John Lennon Street, tucked away in a courtyard near Uprising Square.

It was the perfect ending to a perfect day.

Tour de Peterburg

I went to Russia during winter break. That was a few months ago. I was in Russia a few months ago.

Yeah, I can’t believe it either.

Last time I talked about the trip, I was just about to go off with a couple of fellow CouchSurfers and explore St. Petersburg for the first time. So I’ll continue from there.

The other CouchSurfers, a European couple who were treating themselves to a whirlwind tour of Russia, led the way. We got out of the subway station and appeared near the river Neva, which was frozen except for a narrow channel where ships could presumably pass through if they really wanted to. Across the river we could see the cupola of St. Isaac’s Cathedral. It was only the early afternoon, but the sun was already low enough that it cast an orange tinge over half the sky.

We went to a nearby palace that had been converted to a museum. Apparently St. Petersburg is full of former palaces that are now museums. This one had been owned by a nobleman, and it was filled with period furniture and artwork. We had to put slippers over our shoes so as not to rough up the old wooden floors. It was very quiet in the museum; there were hardly any other guests besides us three. But in almost every room there was an attendant seated quietly, never speaking. More semi-useless (and probably miserable) jobs.

After the museum, we walked around some more. It had only been an hour or so, but the sun seemed like it was hanging just as low in the sky. We walked across a bridge that spanned the Neva, and from the other bank, we could see…

…ice fishers! Is that what they’re called when they’re ice fishing? It is now!

I started to get cold. I mean, really cold. I had brought my gloves, but I wasn’t wearing them. I was borrowing them from my dad, who said they were “Florida gloves,” not really made for people who are out in extremely cold temperatures for long periods of time. They were a little small for me, and they made it harder for me to take pictures. Eventually, I decided to wear them lest my hands freeze off.

Next, we entered the Peter and Paul Fortress, the oldest structure in St. Petersburg, built on an island in the Neva. It wasn’t incredibly late (or so I thought), but still, everything inside the fortress was pretty much closed. We did have a look at this beautiful church, though:

But we didn’t go inside. I think there was a service going on.

I was seriously getting pretty cold, but I managed to stick it out. It was slowly getting darker and darker. Now we were out of the fortress, and we were getting close to a ship that my travel companions for the day had wanted to see. It looked like a pretty modern battleship, and yes, I plead almost total ignorance of St. Petersburg’s tourist attractions because I didn’t and still don’t know what it was. All I knew was that it was closed by the time we got there, so we walked on.

The other CouchSurfers I was staying with (our host had overbooked his place) were out making their own travel arrangements, and they were hoping to see a performance of The Nutcracker that evening. Since it was getting to be that evening, the three of us decided to join them, so we made our way to where the theater was supposed to be. On the way, we passed the beautiful Church of the Savior on Blood, which (to the untrained Western eye) is strikingly similar to St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow:

We wanted to go inside, but it, too, had just closed. Are you noticing a pattern here?

It was getting to be showtime, and we still didn’t know exactly where the theater was. Well, we found the area where all the theaters were, so it was just a matter of finding the right one. Although, I have to say, some of the wrong ones looked intriguing: one of them, judging by the poster displayed outside, was staging a production of Oliver! In Russian. Fancy that!

My companions were able to ask passersby where the theater was, which was good because if I had been out by myself, I certainly would have gotten lost forever and I’d still be there looking for that theater. In my defense, I have now learned to say “Where is the theater?” in Russian, along with many other useful phrases such as “I don’t know where I am,” “Smoking is not allowed here,” and “Doctor, I think I have the flu” (none of which, I’m glad to say, I learned out of necessity).

We eventually found the theater and met up with the other CouchSurfers inside. The theater was very ornate and very old, and I could imagine the czar going there for a performance a hundred years ago (although he probably didn’t, I don’t really know). Anyway, it was Christmastime in Russia, so what better way to experience Russian culture than to watch a performance of The Nutcracker in its original language? Actually, I quickly remembered that The Nutcracker has no words, but still: the Russians are masters and mistresses (mostly mistresses, I guess) of ballet, so leave it to them to stage one of their countrymen’s most famous and beloved works.

I had seen The Nutcracker before, when I was in fourth grade or something like that, but I didn’t really remember the details. Act I was mostly unfamiliar, although it did have the rat king and all that stuff. Act II, though, was like watching a greatest-hits compilation of ballet. Almost every musical piece was instantly and intimately familiar. I guarantee you would probably be pretty familiar with the music in Act II of The Nutcracker.

And so, the show ended on a very good—I daresay splendid—note. After that, it was late and we were all hungry, so we went down to Nevsky Prospekt, the main drag, to find a restaurant. We ended up going to this place called Planet Sushi, which turned out to also be an Italian restaurant called Il Patio. As we enjoyed our Japanese and/or Italian food (I ordered a piece of lasagna), we chatted and laughed. We were five strangers in a strange land, each from a different country (if you count California is a separate country from the rest of the US), each with our own story and our own plans, all together trying to make sense of the cold, snowy world around us.

The Californian dude and the Welsh woman were a couple. The German guy and the Polish girl were a couple. And Jordon made five.

But I wasn’t meant to be alone. I had traveled thousands of miles to this frozen land so I, too, could experience true happiness. And now it was only a few days and a bus ride away.

The second world

On the night of December 20, I had landed in St. Petersburg, Russia, after flying from Orlando via Frankfurt, Germany. Pulkovo International Airport was to be my first impression of Russia.

After stepping off the plane, I noticed a strong contrast right away: Orlando’s airport is huge and sprawling. Frankfurt’s is sleek and modern. Pulkovo smells like a bowling alley.

Okay, maybe I’m being a bit harsh, but the international terminal clearly hadn’t changed much since Soviet times. Everything was squarish and poorly lit. There were old terrazzo floors and wood trim around the windows. If it didn’t smell exactly like a bowling alley, it looked like it should.

I went through one of the passport control lanes, where an unsmiling woman accepted my paperwork and let me go on. After waiting at the sad little baggage claim—my flight seemed to be the only one that had arrived recently—I headed toward the exit, where Kate’s friend Volodya was waiting for me. We went outside to the parking lot—it was cold—and then into his car. Volodya gave me a Russian cell phone so I could stay in touch with Kate, and I gave him a map and the address of the place where I would be CouchSurfing for the next few days.

He started his car—a small Japanese sedan—and we set off. I probably didn’t blink as I sought to see as much as I could in this strange new country. Literally the first thing I saw was what appeared to be a Coca-Cola bottling plant. The second thing was a BP gas station entirely like the ones in the United States, right down to the Wild Bean Cafe convenience store. I wondered if my plane from Germany had flown in the wrong direction.

We drove down broad avenues. They had snow and ice on them, so I couldn’t tell if the lanes were marked, and I don’t think the other drivers on the road could tell either. As we approached the heart of St. Petersburg, we drove through the biggest roundabout I’ve ever seen. It had a colossal war memorial in the middle of it, with huge statues of soldiers and/or working people and the dates 1941-1945.

A lot of the buildings looked like they were about a hundred years old. They looked kind of like they were in that classic turn-of-the-century Paris style, if you know what I’m talking about. We passed by the apartment building where, according to Volodya, Kate had lived until recently. It looked like all of the others, but it seemed special to me. If she hadn’t broken her leg, I might have stayed with her there.

At last, we made it to a quiet street called Soviet Street, which had become one-way due to all the snow-covered cars parked on either side of it.

I’m given to understand that things in Russia are relatively expensive and that the postal service is unreliable. For those reasons, Kate had given me the money to buy her and her friends and family certain clothes and electronics. I gave Volodya a Kindle and a BlackBerry from my suitcase, and then we figured out where the entrance to my host’s apartment was. I thanked him for taking the time to chauffeur me around, and then I went ahead inside, hoping for a nice, warm bed to sleep in.

My arrival had taken my host by surprise. He was a young guy, a little younger than I. His English was very good, and he had traveled the US extensively. He said he had been asleep. Everyone had been asleep, he said. I didn’t know how many people he lived with, but I soon found out that he had accidentally overbooked his place. There were four other CouchSurfers there at the moment, and they were also asleep. Also living in the apartment were his brother, his mom, and his cat and dog.

I had been wanting to sleep, but we ended up chatting for a while about things like the differences between Russia and the US. He was also studying computer science and had a bunch of exams in the coming days. One of the other CouchSurfers, a German who was also about my age, came and joined in on the conversation. He had spent a year as an exchange student in Kansas and had traveled the US even more extensively than my host. These guys put me to shame, but at least I’ve been to Monaco.

Finally, we decided it was time to go to bed. I would be sleeping in the same room as my new German friend and the young Polish woman with which he was traveling. I had found out that they were students in Germany and they were just making a quick trip to Moscow and St. Petersburg. They were on the futon, and I got to sleep on a chair that folded out into a bed. I had never seen anything like it, which surprised my host. We Americans tend not to settle for less than a futon, I think. But I managed.

I woke up fairly early, according to my watch that I had bought for and only previously worn on my trip to Europe because I didn’t use my own cell phone there either except for one time when I needed to and I tried to use it and it didn’t work even though AT&T said it was supposed to. I lay there for a while, still not believing that I was in Russia. Fortunately, I was about to believe it.

Everyone else got off to a slow start that day too, so we decided to go out to lunch: my host, his brother, and we, the five CouchSurfers. I met the other two as we were getting ready to leave. They were a tanned Welshwoman who had that acerbic wit that is innate to all Britons and a tall Californian dude with long hair. They were at the end of a long journey. They had met each other while they were teaching English in South Korea, and they were slowly making their way westward from there, having gone through Siberia. They were hoping to make it to the young woman’s home in Wales by Christmas, which was only a few days away.

The seven of us walked a few blocks away to a cafe. We drank honey-sweetened beer, and I tried borscht at my host’s suggestion. I guess it’s made with beets, although I’d never had beets, so I didn’t know what they tasted like. It didn’t taste funky or anything. It was served with a dollop of sour cream that you’re supposed to mix into the soup. I thought that was kind of weird since I associate sour cream with Mexican food, but it worked well.

After lunch, we split up. Our host had to study, and the Welsh/Californian couple had to a bus station to get bus tickets. That left me with the German/Polish couple. We made our way to the nearest subway station, which was pretty close by. Unlike probably all of the subway systems I’ve been on, the St. Petersburg subway still accepts tokens. I got a few from my new German friend, and I promised to pay him back, but all I had were some large bills I had just taken out of an ATM.

The St. Petersburg subway is one of the deepest in the world. Some of the stations require a swift but several-minute-long escalator ride to get down to the platforms. I don’t think I had ever been in such an old escalator before. The steps weren’t the interlocking metal kind you see on every Otis and Montgomery in the USA. Instead, they were just steps, and I think they had wood on them also. They seemed a bit rickety, but nothing happened.

My host had mentioned that Russia was very much stuck in its old, inefficient Soviet ways. He gave the subway stations as an example. Instead of having a security camera at the foot of the elevator, they have an attendant who watches everyone. Sure enough, at the foot of that really long escalator was a woman in a small booth, just sitting there and watching. I guess there are advantages to having an actual person there, but it seems like an anachronism from a time when it was believed that everyone should be given a job, even if it was a really boring or useless one.

At this point in the story I haven’t even really seen or done anything yet, but I’ve tried to relate what my impressions were. Since I’m getting tired, I’m going to close out this post with another observation.

Since there was a process of “denazification” in Germany after World War II, it’s tempting for a young American like myself to assume that after the fall of our other great enemy of the twentieth century, some sort of “desovietification” must have happened. I didn’t have to be in Russia for very long, and you didn’t have to read very much about my visit, to become sure that this wasn’t the case. (and duh jordan the circumstaces were completely different germany was decimated and conquered by the allys after the biggest war man kind had ever seen but the soviet onion colapsed during peacetime mainly due to social and ecomonic forces from within!!!11)

Sure, St. Petersburg had changed its name back from Leningrad, but that was about it as far as I could tell. I noticed that the surrounding region was still called Leningrad, that there were still statues of Lenin around, and that there were plenty of streets and other public places called Soviet this or Revolution that. While Americans may look back on the Soviet Union with resentment or disgust, to Russians it seems like it was just a cool idea that sadly didn’t work out in the end. After all, it did make them the (second) most powerful nation on earth.

And now, today’s link: Awful Library Books. (Via The Presurfer)