Что?

Weeee hi friends.

Even though I just posted earlier, I feel like I need to say more since so much has happened in a short time. The flight was seamless – truth be told, 8 hours isn’t bad at all since I can sleep through half of it and relax the other half. I also started the book “Master and Margarita,” which everyone in Russia is obsessed with. After I got off the plane, I had to go through passport control. There was a loud group of American adults walking slowly towards the gate, so I hurried past them, glad to be able to bypass passport control under the radar with a brief Здравствуйте and Спасибо. Blah loud Americans – you are the ones who ruin our reputation.

Baggage claim went smoothly, and then I passed through the green exit gates, greeting…. No one. I looked left and right but no one was there, even though Dr. Balaban had told me Natasha would pick me up. I waited a bit, and eventually a woman a little older than me (mid 20s?) asked, “Stephanie?” “Da,” I said, and we were off.

Natasha is extremely nice and funny and we chatted in Russian through the airport to the “aeroexpress” train. The train brought us to the metro, where we got on the green line, before transferring to the orange line. As I write this, it seems as if our travel time was short… but that is not true at all. It took about three hours from getting off the plane to arriving to my apartment (granted, there were detours, and waiting for people, and getting lost, but STILL).

Alas, I am getting ahead of myself. Natasha and I were on our merry way until, abruptly, she hugged me, said goodbye, and left me alone to get on the orange line to my metro stop. Obviously I had missed that warning (we were speaking completely in Russian), so when I got on the metro myself, I did have a “HOLY SHIT” moment. No worries, it passed. Unfortunately, I didn’t entirely know how to get to my apartment. I had hastily read directions that Daniil (Airbnb person) had provided earlier in the week, but they were in Russian and scattered and difficult to decipher. I did the best I could before finally calling him to confirm I was walking in the right direction (THANKSSSSS mom and dad for the ability to call Russian numbers!)

On the way there, I ran into a man who called me “Девушка” (Miss) a few times before calling me “Stephanie,” after which I replied. (Before hearing my name, I was practicing the well-known Russian woman tactic of ignoring/head-down/don’t-reply. Sigh, Russia. Once realizing it was Dr. Balaban, we headed inside the building, where we met the Airbnb guy, Daniil. He gave me the keys and walked me around the place… it looks great. Everything is very clean and nicely furnished with hardwood floors.  We didn’t get to stay long, since Dr. Balaban wanted to take me to his house to meet his wife and kids.

We hopped in the car and drove a very short distance to his apartment. It’s very nice and I was happy that his wife and kids spoke almost no English since Dr. Balaban himself is essentially fluent (ie: with the wife and kids, we had to speak Russian!) The family is kind and welcoming, and I had the yummiest borcht ever there. Dr. Balaban outwardly told me that this was his third marriage, and therefore these weren’t his biological kids, but that doesn’t matter to me… apparently his second wife got cancer and died after 30 years of marriage… I guess it’s good to move on? He also told me that he used to be the Head/CEO figure for the institute (Institute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology) and that elections for the new year are this Monday. APPARENTLY, Putin himself reviews all the candidates and has personally and publically backed Dr. Balaban.

….

ЧТО.

Anyways. After sitting and visiting a little while with Dr. Balaban and family, he started telling me about the lab and all of these little anecdotes. For his birthday last year, instead of celebrating with cake and whatnot, Dr. Balaban instead decided to have a “Snail Day.” Let me explain. For more than 40 years, he’s been doing neuroscience research primarily on snails, so I guess he wanted to celebrate them (my interpretation) instead of himself; a good way to “avoid” getting older, if you ask me. Anyways, there were hilarious spoof videos of the lab workers and students and hilarious videos of him and his wife dancing, so we sat around a while and watched and laughed… it was adorable. They tell me that they also want ME to dance at some point sooooooo that will be interesting. (They think I can ballroom dance and I didn’t want to burst their bubble).

After chatting a while, the five of us took a drive to МГУ (Moscow University) and also past the KGB. It was fun to drive around, but I was exhausted and hadn’t even unpacked yet let alone been by myself for more than 5 minutes. So the trip was short. He insisted on finishing the drive by going to the store to buy me some yogurts and bread for breakfast the next morning, which I appreciated. At last at last, I was delivered home. I promptly got in the shower, unpacked, messaged Alec and my Mom a bit, watched some “Grey’s Anatomy”, and fell asleeeeep.

What an amazing first day.