our first week in russia was definitely an interesting one.
august 31st - we got on our plane at the cleveland airport which was going to take us to houstan, texas where we would transfer onto singapore air and head to dme airport in moscow, russia. there isn't much to say about the plane ride. other than the fact that singapore air has very attractive flight attendants.
september 1st - we arrive in moscow an hour early. the three of us traveling to russia (me - roman, cody, and ron) ended up not traveling together. me and cody flew together and ron flew by himself. due to this fact, we ended up waiting for ron for three hours in an airport we don't know in russia sitting on a heater with all of our bags around us. thankfully we met a man there who said he worked for the u.n. or some other international agency. he was very helpful and gave us lots of information to help us get through the airport.
after the three or so hours passed and we finally caught up with ron we headed to the opposite end of the airport to get our train tickets to take us from moscow to volgograd where we would be studying. that conversation with the ticket lady was definitely interesting and frustrating but she bore with us when i told her we were international students who had just arrived in russia. as soon as we had purchased our tickets for our train ride out of moscow we had to purchase tickets for the aeroexpress train to take us from the airport to the actual city of moscow. the ride was only a half hour long but it was an experience in and of itself. due to our itinerary we did not have to explore the city so this was the only view of moscow we were going to get. to sum it up, it looked "rough".
the first breathe you take at the train station is an intimidating one. all of russia has this grit about it that we are not used to. but that grit is something that just makes the country all the more appealing to us young american students. we had to get directions to our train so we asked the first security we saw. there was a lot of difficulty communicating with him. he was an older gentleman and he didn't seem to have too much patience for three young international students who stumble through his language. eventually though, we just moved on pretending like we knew what to do and asked another security who was further down the station. turns out we had been standing in front of our train with the sign lit up in russian saying "volgograd" for about ten minutes. we had about ten more minutes before they started boarding the train so we took our time walking over to our train car #10 and had a cigarette.
boarding the train was a bit challenging with all of our bulky luggage but we managed. and of course, the first thing we said to the stewardess is that we are students from america. telling her this really helped us out on our 21 hour train ride. she would occasionally check up on us and she took her time talking to us so that we would understand her and she also bore with our russian.
there isn't much to say about the long, long train ride. the terrain was very bland. the few small towns we did travel through were places that we all agreed we did not want to visit because they intimidated us so much. i did spot a group of six or so boys playing basketball way off in the distance. me and ron talked with a man in the smoking section who was very interesting. he told us he was a fisherman who had just come back after being away for about seven months. he also told us that when he was younger he studied at a university not too far away from volgograd where there were lots of international students that he studied with.
we finally arrived in volgograd where a man named sul was waiting for us along with another student that had actually been on the train with us three cars behind us. at first we were a little worried because of all the "scary stories" everybody had been telling us about russia back home. sul led us to a van that was going to take us to the dormitories. the driver was this intimidating older russian man with a rising sun pattern tattoo on the back of his hand. the ride to the dorm took a good forty minutes. we had finally arrived to our home for the next year.
sul led me, cody, ron and the german sergej to our floor in the dorm. i was the first to be introduced to my roommate, dima. who happens to be the student leader of our dorm from what i was able to gather. well, dima is a very loud, energetic, boisterous individual who sings at a cafe called the "indiana" to earn money. cody's roommate, aleksey, is very quiet and reserved. ron lives in a block (two rooms connected by a small common room for shoes) with sul and sergej.
we were given about an hour and a half to get ourselves situated and unpacked. then dima led all of us to "lenta" a super market within spitting distance from the dorm. whats the first thing we buy here? food? general living supplies? phones? no. lots and lots and lots of alcohol. a lot of it. this gentlemen, is russian hospitality. dima and the other russians showed us an amazing time. we went until the very wee hours of the morning. was the nearly forty hours of traveling to get here worth it? darn skippy it was. at the university for only three hours and we had made at least ten new friends who we most likely won't forget for a very long time.
among sul, sergej, and dima we met a few other people that evening. shtephi (steph) and shtephani (stephani) two girls from austria who are going to be studying with us. there was igor, a very animated and friendly russian. anna who is igor's lady and german. polina, the friendliest blonde girl from france.
the party concluded our first night at vgsu.
august 31st - we got on our plane at the cleveland airport which was going to take us to houstan, texas where we would transfer onto singapore air and head to dme airport in moscow, russia. there isn't much to say about the plane ride. other than the fact that singapore air has very attractive flight attendants.
september 1st - we arrive in moscow an hour early. the three of us traveling to russia (me - roman, cody, and ron) ended up not traveling together. me and cody flew together and ron flew by himself. due to this fact, we ended up waiting for ron for three hours in an airport we don't know in russia sitting on a heater with all of our bags around us. thankfully we met a man there who said he worked for the u.n. or some other international agency. he was very helpful and gave us lots of information to help us get through the airport.
after the three or so hours passed and we finally caught up with ron we headed to the opposite end of the airport to get our train tickets to take us from moscow to volgograd where we would be studying. that conversation with the ticket lady was definitely interesting and frustrating but she bore with us when i told her we were international students who had just arrived in russia. as soon as we had purchased our tickets for our train ride out of moscow we had to purchase tickets for the aeroexpress train to take us from the airport to the actual city of moscow. the ride was only a half hour long but it was an experience in and of itself. due to our itinerary we did not have to explore the city so this was the only view of moscow we were going to get. to sum it up, it looked "rough".
the first breathe you take at the train station is an intimidating one. all of russia has this grit about it that we are not used to. but that grit is something that just makes the country all the more appealing to us young american students. we had to get directions to our train so we asked the first security we saw. there was a lot of difficulty communicating with him. he was an older gentleman and he didn't seem to have too much patience for three young international students who stumble through his language. eventually though, we just moved on pretending like we knew what to do and asked another security who was further down the station. turns out we had been standing in front of our train with the sign lit up in russian saying "volgograd" for about ten minutes. we had about ten more minutes before they started boarding the train so we took our time walking over to our train car #10 and had a cigarette.
boarding the train was a bit challenging with all of our bulky luggage but we managed. and of course, the first thing we said to the stewardess is that we are students from america. telling her this really helped us out on our 21 hour train ride. she would occasionally check up on us and she took her time talking to us so that we would understand her and she also bore with our russian.
there isn't much to say about the long, long train ride. the terrain was very bland. the few small towns we did travel through were places that we all agreed we did not want to visit because they intimidated us so much. i did spot a group of six or so boys playing basketball way off in the distance. me and ron talked with a man in the smoking section who was very interesting. he told us he was a fisherman who had just come back after being away for about seven months. he also told us that when he was younger he studied at a university not too far away from volgograd where there were lots of international students that he studied with.
we finally arrived in volgograd where a man named sul was waiting for us along with another student that had actually been on the train with us three cars behind us. at first we were a little worried because of all the "scary stories" everybody had been telling us about russia back home. sul led us to a van that was going to take us to the dormitories. the driver was this intimidating older russian man with a rising sun pattern tattoo on the back of his hand. the ride to the dorm took a good forty minutes. we had finally arrived to our home for the next year.
sul led me, cody, ron and the german sergej to our floor in the dorm. i was the first to be introduced to my roommate, dima. who happens to be the student leader of our dorm from what i was able to gather. well, dima is a very loud, energetic, boisterous individual who sings at a cafe called the "indiana" to earn money. cody's roommate, aleksey, is very quiet and reserved. ron lives in a block (two rooms connected by a small common room for shoes) with sul and sergej.
we were given about an hour and a half to get ourselves situated and unpacked. then dima led all of us to "lenta" a super market within spitting distance from the dorm. whats the first thing we buy here? food? general living supplies? phones? no. lots and lots and lots of alcohol. a lot of it. this gentlemen, is russian hospitality. dima and the other russians showed us an amazing time. we went until the very wee hours of the morning. was the nearly forty hours of traveling to get here worth it? darn skippy it was. at the university for only three hours and we had made at least ten new friends who we most likely won't forget for a very long time.
among sul, sergej, and dima we met a few other people that evening. shtephi (steph) and shtephani (stephani) two girls from austria who are going to be studying with us. there was igor, a very animated and friendly russian. anna who is igor's lady and german. polina, the friendliest blonde girl from france.
the party concluded our first night at vgsu.
