Inner, Inner City, Inner City Pressure

The second day I got back, I went with my roommate and some of his friends and old students downtown to go hang out. One of the students, Alex, I had met before. I remember him because he was this tall, skinny goth kid with long hair that was wearing leather pants. He's kind of an odd duck. Anyway, we were walking and we heard some music and saw a crowd of people. Oh, it sounds like hip-hop, he said to me. I asked him if he was going to show me some dance moves. He said he might, as he had been studying hip-hop dancing for a while now. I thought it was a joke...

We walked down to the crowd and it was a promotion for Puma and they were inviting people to sign up to participate in dance battles. The group convinced Alex to sign up. He signed up. This is when I realized that he really had been studying hip-hop dancing. He got his chance to dance and proceeded to fling his freakishly long arms and legs at a high rate of speed (presumably to impress the audience). We stayed and watched for a bit and saw some pretty talented amateurs. But then the dance crew rolled up (see picture above). They were fantastic but it's hard to take Slavs break dancing seriously (especially when they're doing their poses and flashing their signs). Bizarre.

Speaking of urban promotions, at the supermarket I go to (Ideya) they always have these weird things going on. You know how in the US beer advertisements usually aren't aiming for "classy"? The same is true here. I walked in to my Ideya and there is this girl standing just inside the door in a skimpy soccer uniform. Her job was to recite a spiel about this beer every time a male customer walked in. You just can't get away with stuff like that in America (and probably quite rightly).

IA

Well, I'm back in St. Petersburg. It's nice to be back and settled in somewhere. I got back on Friday and started work on Monday. I'm really looking forward to this school year for a few reasons. First, there's the new school building that we signed a five year lease on. It's a great building; it used to be an Estonian Orthodox Church built for the merchant families of the Baltic countries who lived in that part of the city (which is near the port), and St. John of Kronstadt was there to dedicate it at it's opening. So, it's now returned to it's original purpose of ministering to foreigners living in St. Petersburg. Also, the school has a great faculty this year. There's always a lot of changes, but this year it happened to work out pretty well in that we've had more comings than goings.

But we've also had a bit of sad week. One of our Korean students drowned in the Neva River last Monday. He was supposed to be one of our 11th graders; the kids have been great, though. Many of them went with the family to the airport as they went back to Korea, and two of the students organized a memorial that the whole International Academy community ended up attending. I'm continually impressed with the students I have here and I recognize how blessed I am by them.

Anna Akhmatova

All has been looted, betrayed, sold;

black death's wing flashed ahead.

-Anna Akhmatova, "Looted" (1921)

Since I've been back in the US for the summer, a lot of people have asked me, "So, why Russia?" It's a fair question. Why, indeed? I've given a variety of answers: the intrigue the "Evil Empire" has to a Reagan baby who saw the end of the Cold War, a fascination with Russian literature, a good experience teaching English there in '07, a desire to do something different, a ministry that had a need I was able to meet, the merits of Russian women, the lack of enforcement of open container laws... the list is endless. Today, I'm going to add another one: Anna Akhmatova. Pretty dark stuff, huh?

Planes, Trains, and Ladas

My grand project of this last week was to create a Wes Anderson soundtrack. I thought I'd share it with y'all. In place of Mark Mothersbaugh instrumentals, I followed Anderson's lead and replaced them with some local flavor (for Anderson it was India in Darjeeling Limited; for me it was Soviet folk-pop, hence, the title Planes, Trains, and Ladas).

1. "Straight to Hell" - The Clash

2. "Bumazhny Soldat" - Bulat Okudzhava

3. "Ballrooms of Mars" - T.Rex

4. "Six O'Clock" - Ringo Starr

5. "Nu vot, Ischezla drozh' v Rukakh" - Vladimir Vysotsky

6. "Cry Baby Cry" - The Beatles

7. "I Am the Cosmos" - Chris Bell

8. "Who Loves the Sun" - Velvet Underground

9. "Akh, Nadya, Nadenka" - Bulat Okudzhava

10. "Solitude" - Billie Holiday

11. "So Long, Marianne" - Leonard Cohen

12. "Moonlight Mile" - The Rolling Stones

13. "Sidonie" - Brigitte Bardot

14. "Open House" - Lou Reed & John Cale

15. "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" - The Ramones

16. "Polnochny Trolleybus" - Bulat Okudzhava

17. "A Long Way from Home" - The Kinks

18. "Moskva-Odessa" - Vladimir Vysotsky

19. "4th Time Around" - Bob Dylan

20. "Don't Let Me Wait Too Long" - George Harrison

21. "If I'm on the Late Side" - The Faces

There you go, you have the music, so now you (or Wes Anderson) provide the storyline.

My feet are now fast and pointed away from the past.

I just booked my tickets to head back to St. Petersburg. I'm pretty excited about it. I'm flying Swiss Air (a subsidiary of Lufthansa) and I even got a pretty decent deal on it. If you're curious,  flights to St. Petersburg from California (roundtrip) usually run about $1,500. So, August 20th will see me leave for Russia and July 1st, 2010 will see me return to the US.

I've been enjoying my time off. I got really in to Wimbledon this year. I got a chance to play a little the other day; my overhand serve isn't all that dangerous, but I did manage to keep it in a few times, which was a small victory. I've also been able to play on an indoor soccer team on Friday nights and play some pickup over at the soccer park on Wednesday nights. Continuing on in my athletic endeavors, my poolball (basketball played in the pool) game has probably received the most attention this summer, considering the fact that Redding is hotter than the gates of Hell. Poolball is a little more akin to Greco-Roman wrestling than basketball, now that I think about it.

What a difference a week makes...

Life is funny: one day I was strolling down the Champs-Elysees, and then, suddenly, I was back in northern California at 4500 ft., setting chokers in the Sierra Nevadas. 

 I had a great time at Sara and Noah's wedding and I felt honored to be a part of it. I read this Homer quote a while ago that a good marriage was a source of consternation for the couple's enemies and source of joy for their friends. Sara and Noah gettin' hitched definitely brought a lot of joy to a lot of people. 

Being back has been great. I'm not really working a whole lot; every now and then I'll head up to the woods to help out if my dad needs an extra set of hand. But for the most part, I'm just relaxing and catching up with friends. I've been reading a lot as well. I've been reading quite a bit  of Cormac McCarthy; it's very American and I love it.

"Oh, Champs-Elysees"

I left St. Pete on June 1st and began to make my way back to the USA. After a quick layover at Warsaw's Chopin Airport (they played nocturnes in the plane while it was on the ground), I arrived in Paris in the early evening. I made it to my hotel with a minimum of hassle and expense (way to go Roissy-Opera bus). Unfortunately, this was the only good deal I found in Paris. The first word that comes to mind when I describe my time there is "expensive." 3 euros for .33 liter (small can) of Orangina? 8 euros for two slices of salami and a fistful of sprouts? To put in perspective how expensive it was, I was relieved to get into CDG Airport where everything was so much cheaper.

But I feel good with how I used my time there. After checking in, I went and walked around saw the gardens in front of the Louvre (just the outside, it was closed when I got there), walked along the Seine to Notre Dame, and found a bistro (which comes from the Russian word "bystro") to have my two slices of salami and fistfull of sprouts. They didn't have an English menu, but the waitress was Czech and could understand my Russian. I got up early the next morning and walked to Montmarte. I wanted to go early before all the other tourists (and people preying on tourists) were awake. So, I got to the Sacre Couer, a location in the film "Amelie," a little after 7 AM and had the place almost to myself (except for 3 Australian tourists). Afterward, I went back to the city center to wait for a friend who was supposed to meet me. While waiting, I was approached by a beggar. Speak English, she asked. Net, I said. She then explained in French mixed with English that she needed money for food and that I should give her that money. I had just taken a big bite out of croissant I had just bought. I offered her that croissant. She pushed it aside and asked for money again. I told her (in Russian) that I had no money, but if she wanted to eat, she could have my croissant. She ended up taking my croissant. 

My friend never did make it; he ended up catching a later train to Paris, so he didn't make it into the city until evening. So, I went to the Musee D'orsay for the afternoon. There was a bit of a line to get in, but it moved pretty quick. I was privileged enough to be in line behind a stereotypical group of ugly Americans; complete mooks. But, I was very pleased once I got in the museum. I give it a thumbs up. I then walked back to the coutyard of the Louvre to meet my friend, as this was our secondary meeting place. I walked the whole time I was there because I was too afraid to ride a bike in traffic and the Parisian Metro looked very complicated and was very expensive. Anyway, my friend didn't make it to that meeting either, so I strolled down the Champs-Elysees toward the Arc de Triumph. I then hung a left and headed towards the Eiffel Tower. Once I arrived there, I had accomplished all of the sightseeing I had planned and began the long, long walk back to my hotel. Along the way I passed a statue of Lafayette; I got a kick out of that.