A day in Russia...
-get up at 7 :30 ; try to take a shower but discover there’s no hot water.
-rush out of the appartment at 8 :30 and try to take the elevator downstairs to get out of the building ; no matter which button you push, the elevator takes you to the 11th floor. You end up taking the stairs.
-After a 15 min walk to the metro station, you arrive ; it is closed for some reason, possibly a suicide. You take the bus to another station.
-You miss the first train because a violent Babushka shoves you aside.
-You make the second train, which has a temperature of 95 degrees. People are packed in like sardines, and no part of your body isn’t stuck to someone else’s.
-You arrive at Nevskyi Prospekt drenched in sweat only to have a pimply young police man stop you to check your documents and very sternly tell you lots of things you don’t understand.
-you arrive to class late, but luckily the profesor is late as well
-over lunch you try to buy bottled water at the store next door. It takes half an hour to get through the line. 4 People cut in front of you despite your fierce elbowing and death stares. Woman at the cashier claims she doesn’t have change for the equivalent of a one-dollar bill and makes you squirm.
-You go to afternoon class, which gets out twenty minutes late.
-You walk 9 blocks to an internet cafe, but their main system goes down immediately after you pay for one hour, so you stand waiting for 50 min while they try to fix it. Once it starts working, they refuse to give you a new hour’s worth of time at a computer, so with the remaining 10 min you try to read as many emails as possible.
-You go to a cafe for a snack. You order Blinyi with cheese, but they are out. You order salad, but they are out. You order Borsht, but they are out. You finally just order a glass of juice. After drinking it, you use the restroom at the cafe. Unfortunately, all of the following things are missing : toilet seat, toilet paper, running water, soap, paper towel, mirror.
-Since your metro station is (handily) closed from 4 :00-6 :30 every afternoon, you have to walk down packed Nevsky Prospekt to the next one. You take the metro home.
-You walk from your local metro station towards home. You can see your appartment building looming in the distance, and you walk and walk towards it along a dusty, filthy road, but the buildings and distances are so big that it seems like you’ll never actually get there.
-Having navegated the elaborate appartment security system (going through 5 doors, all with locks), you arrive home covered in sweat.
-Trying to rinse off your filthy, blistered feet, you discover that now there is no cold water, only boiling hot water, coming from the taps. Oh, and its brown.
-rush out of the appartment at 8 :30 and try to take the elevator downstairs to get out of the building ; no matter which button you push, the elevator takes you to the 11th floor. You end up taking the stairs.
-After a 15 min walk to the metro station, you arrive ; it is closed for some reason, possibly a suicide. You take the bus to another station.
-You miss the first train because a violent Babushka shoves you aside.
-You make the second train, which has a temperature of 95 degrees. People are packed in like sardines, and no part of your body isn’t stuck to someone else’s.
-You arrive at Nevskyi Prospekt drenched in sweat only to have a pimply young police man stop you to check your documents and very sternly tell you lots of things you don’t understand.
-you arrive to class late, but luckily the profesor is late as well
-over lunch you try to buy bottled water at the store next door. It takes half an hour to get through the line. 4 People cut in front of you despite your fierce elbowing and death stares. Woman at the cashier claims she doesn’t have change for the equivalent of a one-dollar bill and makes you squirm.
-You go to afternoon class, which gets out twenty minutes late.
-You walk 9 blocks to an internet cafe, but their main system goes down immediately after you pay for one hour, so you stand waiting for 50 min while they try to fix it. Once it starts working, they refuse to give you a new hour’s worth of time at a computer, so with the remaining 10 min you try to read as many emails as possible.
-You go to a cafe for a snack. You order Blinyi with cheese, but they are out. You order salad, but they are out. You order Borsht, but they are out. You finally just order a glass of juice. After drinking it, you use the restroom at the cafe. Unfortunately, all of the following things are missing : toilet seat, toilet paper, running water, soap, paper towel, mirror.
-Since your metro station is (handily) closed from 4 :00-6 :30 every afternoon, you have to walk down packed Nevsky Prospekt to the next one. You take the metro home.
-You walk from your local metro station towards home. You can see your appartment building looming in the distance, and you walk and walk towards it along a dusty, filthy road, but the buildings and distances are so big that it seems like you’ll never actually get there.
-Having navegated the elaborate appartment security system (going through 5 doors, all with locks), you arrive home covered in sweat.
-Trying to rinse off your filthy, blistered feet, you discover that now there is no cold water, only boiling hot water, coming from the taps. Oh, and its brown.
posted by Julia | 6:38 AM
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