universal phenomena + photos

Last night I attended a rehearsal of the MSU Chamber Orchestra!! I got a phone call Monday night from a guy named Sasha who spoke decent English. He said Dima had called him and told him I wanted to join, and gave me directions to a place not far from the main building and said to show up around 7:15 Tuesday night.

I did, and it was fantastic.

They're an authentic Baroque chamber group, and last night there were about 6 violins, 3 violas including myself, 1 cello, and a singer. Since MSU doesn't have a music department, this is kind of the few random students who play a stringed instrument but aren't at a conservatory. Man, music is fantastic, and even though they have different words for "up bow" and "down bow" and "don't take this repeat" and "start at measure 67," it worked pretty dang well. Then at break, it became a game in which everyone drank tea and interrogated the newcomer American (me). In Russian. Which was, quite frankly, terrific, because I'm actually somewhat capable of talking about myself in Russian. Things like "I am from Washington State and go to school in California," "I have played viola since fifth grade," "I am studying physics but still want to play in an orchestra," "I like astronomy and want to become an astronaut." It was a bit of a brain strain, but experiences like that are honestly what I CAME to Russia for!!

I also met a girl named Julia who plays viola. She's 18 and in her 2nd year at some Moscow Art institute. She spoke about the same amount of English as I do Russian, though recently she'd been studying German so it threw her off a bit. And she is awesome! Exactly the kind of person I was hoping to eventually meet. And so I discovered my first universal phenomenon - violists. We're everywhere, yet we're unique in our love of the viola, and we're awesome.

So, that will keep me busy on Tuesdays and Fridays (yes, Fridays) from 7:15ish until 10pmish. (sidenote: here is one instance where I *love* the "ish" on timeframes.) I had to tune my viola a half step down since they're so authentic and Baroque, and I may have to use a Baroque bow and acquire gut strings. We'll see. It's only been one rehearsal, and I don't exactly speak the language.

Today I discovered another universal phenomenon at lunch in the cafeteria in the physics building: physics majors. They had stacked a bunch of empty plastic bottles into a huge tower in the middle of a table:

I don't know what it is about little things like that, but I love it. Another instance from last week - someone spectacularly dropped their tray in the large cafeteria in the main building, and everyone applauded. People are great sometimes.

The latest: we may be moving Saturday. Yeah. With that, here is a picture of the building we're currently living in:

There are 22 floors, and if you count from the top (22) down to 10, my window is the one you can see on the farthest left hand side.

Tonight Laura, Jenna and I ventured out to find an Indian restaurant, and we succeeded! We had Samosas, and I got Chicken Tikka Masala with one of those mango yogurt drinks. We should've ordered family style, but live and learn. It was in a building called Sputnik Hotel, near a huge tribute to Yuri Gagarin. Pretty sweet. Here's Laura with me at the restaurant:

And Jenna with me outside the building the restaurant was in (note "Sputnik" at the top in cyrillic):

After dinner, we headed back to the dorm but first stopped at a convenience store to get some delicious pistachio ice cream. Excellent decision if I may say so.

While I'm in picture mode...here's one I managed to get inside a trolleybus (I spend at least an hour of my life each day in one of these, and usually they are packed with people):

And this was taken near the art gallery we went to on Sunday:

Here's Jeff sitting in a random chair:

Tomorrow is March, which is odd. It means I will have less internet access - I only purchased 1000 MB since we are probably (hopefully?) moving this weekend. It means I had to get a new metro pass and Irina is supposed to give us new bus passes. It means I may begin to hear from summer programs. It means spring had dang well better show up sometime, though I'm kind of dreading the transition from winter to spring since it will be slushy and gross. So it goes.