First week

Hello friends...it's been a long, intense first week, in Washington, Frankfurt and now in Kazan. We had a three-day orientation in Washington, and then we flew to Frankfurt and had a long layover there. We had a great day wandering around the city, and flew to Kazan that night.
Kazan is a beautiful city with a lot of history. Known as Russia's Third Capital, it is the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan. There are lots of beautiful statues, lakes, and parks, and the Kazan Kremlin is amazing, with Orthodox cathedrals and Muslim mosques standing side by side.
My host family has been wonderful. They're inifinitely hospitable and very patient with my primitive Russian. I can understand a lot of what I hear at home, but speaking is very challenging for me...sometimes I'll get halfway through a sentence only to remember that I don't know the verb I need, and sometimes the grammar totally deserts me and I feel completely lost. I'm used to being really talkative, even verbose, so it's been hard for me. But I've been learning a lot, in class and out of class.
Our Russian classes here at the university are a lot like my Russian classes in high school, minus the constant threats of death-by-defenestration. We learn new vocabulary, read short dialogues, and talk about our days, asking how to say whatever we're trying to say, and always getting good answers. Our teacher is really nice and patient with us, and has a great sense of humor. Usually we have class for three hours in the morning, have lunch at the cafe "Trali-Vali," and then go on excursions into the city in the afternoon. Yesterday, our group of Americans, along with some Russian friends, went to see "Inglorious Bastards" in Russian. I didn't understand most of the dialogue...people talked really fast for a long time and then shot each other. Tarantino is Tarantino, no matter what the language. After the movie, we practiced our presentation for September 1st, the beginning of the Russian school year. We're going to perform our rendition of the "Soldja Boy" dance for the Russian university students.We did a preview performance in the main university square for our Russian friends and whoever else was passing by.
Living in another culture with another language is one giant challenge for me. But living in a city, after spending 15 years in Conway, MA, has been just as hard. I miss being outside all the time. I feel out of place in my ratty thrift-store clothes in a city where people dress to kill. The other day I got totally lost trying to take the bus home, and I wandered around for an hour and a half asking every babushka I could find. People were very nice to me, and very good about giving directions, but I only understood about half of what they were saying. Eventually I got back on the bus and asked the bus conductor, the bus driver, and random people on the bus several times how to get to my stop. They were all very patient and kind, and I found my way home. So, for those of you who think of Russia as a cold, bleak, inhospitable place, I urge you to get lost in a strange city and discover a culture of people who care about each other's well-being, even if they don't smile at strangers on the street.
More blogging soon,
Lysander