The cold: it's not just propaganda

August 31, 2008

Well, it’s the last day of August and the thermometer reads 9 degrees. For all those, like me, for whom that information means little more than “it’s not freezing and it’s a long way from boiling,” 10 degrees Celsius is 50 degrees Farenheit (which it was when I got in yesterday evening), so 9 degrees is between 47 and 48. So, it’s very cold. As I’m bundling up in long sleeves, sweater, scarf, and jacket, I’m imagining everyone back home feeling rather warm in short sleeves and flip flops. The first few days I was here were in the 80’s, so I was feeling good. It was the ideal summer temperature for me and I could be comfortable while all the Russians, Brits, and Midwesterners sweltered. For a little while there I even thought the whole “Russia is really cold” thing might even have been exaggerated in films, maybe a subtle form of Cold War propaganda or something. But it wasn’t. It is going to be cold here. Very, very cold. That’s why I’m glad that I’ll be heading south in six days. I think it is supposed to be, on average, about 20 of our degrees warmer there. One warm place here is the metro. So even though it smells funny, I always like stepping through those doors.

As I type this I am sitting in my room of the apartment I’m staying in. There is someone in the building with wireless, so I keep trying various passwords hoping I’ll somehow hit upon one that works. This is mostly just to fill my time. The odds of me hitting upon a password that a Russian would use are very small, especially since we don’t really share a language. It would be really nice if I could get it, though. Then I could sit here in relative warmth and post this. As it is, I’ll probably do it tomorrow on the way to school.

Today I’m going to meet with some of my fellow interns, and maybe a work-study person or two, to go sight-seeing. We plan on going to VDNK, which is an old Soviet amusement park. There is supposed to be a Ferris wheel there, but we were told yesterday that they’ve already stopped running it for the summer. That may be just as well as I’m not sure whether I really want to get on a piece of Soviet machinery, especially that is that old. Of course, I do so every day when I get on the metro, but oh well. I don’t know if anyone else will want to, but I may do just a bit of metro sightseeing, going around and looking at various stations. Not only is that virtually free entertainment as a lot of them are very elaborately decorated, it has the added benefit of being warm.

The whole training thing continues to go as well as could be expected. Yesterday we talked about test-prep classes. For about 5 hours. It just reinforced in me a hatred of teaching to the test. I hope I don’t get assigned one of those.