Welcome to Russia! You're All Going To Die!

So I’m not entirely sure when I’m going to be able to upload this. I’m just writing in Word right now. I could have paid for internet at the hotel we stayed in for orientation, but it was 600 rubles for 24 hours, and the day that I pay almost one dollar per hour so I can jack around on facebook will be the day I simply set the rest of my money on fire, because it will mean I have lost all impulse control. I thought it was annoying when Boston Logan charged me 7. Anyway,I’m really getting ahead of myself here.

So my flight to Petersburg went off without a hitch. This is a good thing because as the day progressed and the students started to arrive, I saw that more and more of them were being made the airlines’ prison-bitches. Best case scenario was that bags were lost, worst case involved Heather (the other NYU-er) and her horror story about getting stranded in London for a day, having a credit card blocked, and losing about 600 dollars because apparently European airlines have about as much regard for customer service as soccer hooligans have for public order. Anyway, I was grateful to have arrived on time and with my bags (which still included all of the belongings I left with). The CIEE people took mercy on us throughout the orientation period and did not hold us to the “you only get to speak Russian” rule, which is good because given the jetlag I was capable of remembering approximately as much Russian as is in your average Yakov Smirnoff routine. Anyway, we had dinner at the hotel that night and I got my first exposure to Russian cuisine.

Let me take this moment to point out that if you are a vegetarian, you will wish you were dead if you ever decide to come to Russia. Pretty much everything is centered around meat, especially fish. This was where I got my first exposure to herring. If you’ve never had herring before, imagine eating a rubber salt-lick. On the plus side, I don’t think I have ever eaten healthier in my life, because if you don’t grab whatever happens to be on the buffet, whether you like it or not, you will starve, no question about it. But if you’re not into fish, sour cream, or raw vegetables, life becomes difficult. I have never eaten so much greenery in my life. But man cannot live by salad alone (thank god) so I can get sustenance from the salty, salty, salty meat. The same is not true of the few vegetarians in our group. This is why vegetarianism is silly.

Moving rapidly onward, after dinner the group was dismissed to do whatever. For about half the group that meant sleeping, but you all know me. So I decided to head down to the hotel bar and see if anyone was around. Did you know that looking like a lonely alcoholic is a great way to meet people? All it takes is one to notice you’re from the same group, you strike up a conversation along the lines of “holy crap we’re in Russia” and let the good old fashioned social lubricant do the rest. Of course, this is also how you spend about 1200 rubles in the course of 4 hours, but given the number of people I met, I regret nothing.

The next day and a half was spent on orientation. The main thesis of these presentations seemed to be “Welcome to Russia: Men, the cops are going to beat you down for no reason, and kiss your stuff goodbye, because it is as good as stolen. Women, everyone here is out to Rape you, then steal your stuff too.” When you hear the sentence “We’ve even had a couple instances of guys getting roofied and subsequently arrested,” you start to question the validity of the program. It was basically “Welcome to the breeding ground of all crime and corruption ever, now go enjoy our beautiful city!” To call the messages mixed would be putting it lightly. Anyway, after scaring the shit out of us for about 36 hours, they carted us off to our homestays. That, however, is where I'm going to have to leave things for now, because this post is monstrous and I know your attention spans. Do Svidanya!