Pravda -- nepravda

As I and everyone who knows me expected, I haven't written to this blog. The hope of once a week was wishful thinking (a fact I understood), but I had hoped to make it here at least once a month. Looks like once a semester is going to be the average.

I'm writing this, not from Russia, but from the Hrebinka's home in Washington, DC. I flew back into the States a few days ago and have been readjusting to the time change. I noticed that people had written to this blog, so I'd like to steal your attention for a few of the highlights of my trip so far.

There are three reasons that I haven't written to this blog; only two are excuses. For the first month in Russia I was hitting the sack at 9 PM on average. The time change, combined with the infamous ecological conditions, rolled together with living and learning a new language, fused with eating much less (i.e. normally) and walking everywhere resulted in a general and consistent state of exhaustion. And I wasn't alone; every student in the program experienced the rapid aging effect of starting life in Moscow.

Excuse number one out of the way. Number two, and thus far my only complaint concerning my living conditions in Moscow: Internet access is not ubiquitous or assumed. I live in one of the most southern areas of Moscow (the area is called "South-West"), about 45 minutes from the center of the city. My host-mother has dial-up, which she uses for checking her email, and thus spends all of $15 every three months for Internet access, not to mention the connection is in her bedroom; I don't ask to use it. There is one Internet cafe near my house, pay-per-minute. Because our university in Moscow (International University in Moscow) is under renovation, we are not supplied Internet access. My best option remains the free Internet access that the company Golden Wifi broadcasts at a handful of the city's largest McDonald's.

McDonald's in Russia and, as I've been informed, anywhere outside the U.S., are worlds above the sticky-seated grease factories that litter American cityscapes. The McDonald's at the metro station Pushkinskaya (named after Pushkin) in Moscow is two and a half stories tall. Inside, there is a cafe and at least three separate styles of seating areas with chairs, couches, bar-stools, as well as flat-screen television sets on the walls. McDonald's employees constantly scout the tables for trash and finished meals, rushing over to take trays and empty food containers out of the customer's way. And ice cream cones cost 30 cents.

The third reason, and only non-excuse, is that I've been living. I've not been a tourist, an investigator of post-Soviet Russia, an activist, an evangelist of American democracy; I've been living the same student life in Moscow that I've been living in Washington, DC. I take classes most of the week, I teach, I go to church, and I spend some time with friends. Even up to the present, when people ask me about my trip so far, I have very little to talk about. Knowing from the outset that I'd be living in Russia no less than 9 months, I immediately settled down, found a comfortable niche, and began working from there. That being said, there are a few interesting and telling stories. You've read the first days in Moscow and the McDonald's rant today; look forward to the stories worth telling on this blog in the near future. For the time being, I'm in the land of ubiquitous Internet access.