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HI.

Long time no talk. Lo siento. It has been an insanely busy week!

As you know, my family was here for a week – they came the 26^th and left the 3^rd. We all had a great time together. We went to the Tretyakovskaya Museum, State Historical Museum, Red Square, GYM, Gorky Park, Arbat Street, and they themselves also went to the Pushkin State Art Museum and to the Kremlin. And of course we all had such yummy food at great restaurants. They also got to see my apartment AND we had dinner with Balaban! It was a lovely time.

The dinner was especially great, since Balaban has so many amazing stories and we were at a really nice place that had an attached museum (there will be pictures on FB eventually). Of course it’s always fun being translator too J Balaban and I worked as a team that way, since my family speaks no Russian (minus Kristin a bit), and Olga (Balaban’s wife) speaks no English (she knows some words but not many).

We thought about getting tickets to the Bolshoi to see a ballet, but they were expensive and ultimately the seats were not very good, so we passed.

The two days I was at work that week I worked with Nastya. We did more western blotting, which was good since now I feel comfortable in it. Masha also had some samples with us, and she luckily got positive results. We, unfortunately, did not. You work and work and work and get nothing. This is science.

Two random things:

1)   Shout out to Mauri, who dances with me and who has also recently started blogging.

2)   A funny thing happened when I was working one day at lab. Masha and I were working by ourselves in the office when suddenly her phone rang. She jumped a MILE and we both started cracking up. Nothing was said, but it was a really nice moment of connection. I really like her.

What else? This post is going to be disorganized FYI. Oh. I sent an email to Nastya about something later in the week, and she replied that I had amazing grammar! I was so happy to hear that! A lot of Russians cannot write well at all, actually, I’ve heard this a lot. Even in Petersburg by the end of our program, I think most of us were able to write better than most Russians. I was very surprised to hear this, but after being here and speaking with people via email and on other social media sites, I can attest that it’s true. It makes sense. Russian has a lot of cases. For example, in English there are maybe five ways to say, “to run,” but in Russian there are at least 50 ways, depending on who’s running, if they’re running around vs. in one direction, etc.

Good thing I love grammar and organization.

On Friday morning, my family left. People from the lab (including myself) decided to go to Pushino for a shashleek party! Pushino is a town located about 2 hours outside of Moscow. Apparently it is a “science-city” (yes, they really call themselves that), and people who are scientists have historically worked there. There are many scientific institutes in bio, chem, neuro, etc. Anyways, everyone met at our lab around 10am, and an hour or so later, we were off.

Unfortunately, there was traffic and I started to feel awful (car sickness at its finest). Nastya and the others were very concerned, but I tried to assure them that this was a usual occurrence. I don’t think they believed me. Oh well. Eventually, we reached a small estate (I forget what it’s called), where a famous artist lived.  There was a cute café, houses, other small buildings, woodland, and a river/beach area. We strolled around, and eventually came to the beach, where Nastya and I sat and chatted in the sand. It was absolutely glorious. I felt very safe and happy. I was very happy she was there, since she always seemed to have my back and be there for me. What a lovely friend J

For example, at one point, when the 5 of us (in the car) met up with a few others, Sergei (one of the bosses), started teasing me about staying and doing a PhD here in Russia, and Nastya just scoffed/laughed, and said “don’t listen to him, Stephanie, come here with me.” Cutesie. I was also really happy for Peter and Masha throughout the evening also. Anyways. Where was I?

Eventually we got to Pushino. We drove through these crazy fields and ultimately had to turn around, only to park farther away, and then walk the rest of the path to the beach. It was a long process, but I didn’t mind – I was just happy to be there and on solid ground. The day was beautiful and the sun was shining.

We quickly set up camp and started to prepared food. Some people went swimming, and others just relaxed; there was wine and Kvas and toasts galore. The evening was so fun and the sunset was beautiful. So many times I thought to myself that I couldn’t believe this was my life.  

More people came and went throughout the evening. I met one person from a scientific institute in Pushino who had a student doing Fulbright research. The student was from Boston, had studied Russian for four years, and then applied for a scientific research grant and got it. It was cool to hear all of that since I, too, have thought about it.

Around 2:30am, I started to get very tired (my ears were tired too), so I went to sleep. Apparently most others stayed up all night…. Gah. And I’m supposed to be the young one! Oh well.

The next morning was lazy. I relaxed in the sand, unintentionally tanned, and daydreamed. A puppy somehow appeared, and immediately started playing with me by bringing sticks for me to throw. There were little kids who also wanted to play with the puppy, but for some reason the puppy always came back to me. It made me very happy. Around noon, I left with Sergey and others to go back to Moscow. I slept the whole way home with the windows open and sun shining. It was perfect.

The rest of the evening, I was at home, recovering still from all the wine and tequila at the party and also from the business of the week with my family. I will post more later, but I just wanted to get something out for now. Soon I’ll post again!