Things That Really Aren’t Surprising Anymore

April 16, 2010 at 2:08 pm (Uncategorized)

On the drive back from the city Myrom, in the middle of nowhere, I saw a boy paddling across a pond on a broken door.

On the same drive, we saw, at the very least, thirty bonfires outside people’s houses.  People were throwing their things into these fires.  We continued to see them throughout the weekend, all over the place.  When I asked a Russian friend why they were doing this, he replied, “Oh people burn the grass, so that new grass can grow better.”

While walking to school, I saw a naked man taking a steam bath in an open pipe near my school.

It has been over sixty degrees for the past two weeks.  Russians are still dressing as though it is ten degrees.

In the past two weeks I have seen not one, not two, but four machine guns out in the open.  One of the guys who had one was an average Joe.  Sun’s out, guns out boys.

When I won a game of hangman with the word “Medvedev,” my teacher told Erin and Jeff that they should physically beat me.

We are all slowly losing our English.  Innocent sentences such as, “I feel gross today” have been warped to “I feel myself grossly today.”  To be fair, that would be the literal translation for how you would say that in Russian.  It has also gotten extremely hard to write in one language.  Oftentimes I combine letters from both languages, and then honestly can’t figure out which language I was going for.

When we were reviewing directional verbs, I realized that I was relating each verb to Frodo’s journey in Lord of the Rings.

My grammar teacher told me today, “I don’t like you today because you seem sad.”

One hundred percent see-through shirts are acceptable.  Women may as well wear lace curtains.

There is a show on TV called, “Let’s Get Married.”  A man or woman goes on the show and meets with three bachelors or bachelorettes.  At the end, the man or woman chooses one of three.  They get married.

There is another show on TV that is a skewed version of “Wheel of Fortune.”  The show involves very little spelling, and the guests all sing to the host.  We haven’t figured out what the point of the show is yet, but most of the prizes are things like onions, and the contestants seem ecstatic to win them.

Many Russians wear T-shirts with English writing on them.  Many Russians have no idea what these T-shirts mean.  I will not list examples, because they are all very inappropriate.

Russians all wear USSR paraphanalia.  I see so many shirts, belt buckles, and such with “CCCP” stamped across them, which is the Russian spelling for USSR.

My Russian friend told us that Moscow was very safe during the Soviet Union.  He also told us that Vladimir was “like a mini Soviet Union.”  We have no idea what he was talking about.

When the Polish plane crash happened this weekend, I was watching the news with my host family.  I asked my host mom lots of questions about it because I wanted to know details about it.  Her response to all of my questions was, “It’s because of the War.”  What the WHAT are you talking about?

Speaking of which, EVERYTHING is about “The War” here.  “The War” is WWII.  Russians will all tell you that they were immensely important in the war, and America helped too.  Everyone else put in an inadequate effort.