Orientation

So.

Orientation was today. It was pretty long. Unlike the program, I'll try to keep it to the relevant information.

Hmmm, relevant. Ok: hitchhiking is cheap, easy, and practiced by everyone. Drivers cruise around looking for a few extra bucks, so if you stick your hand out it's basically guaranteed that someone will stop to negotiate fare. How cool is that?

Oh, yeah. I'll be living with a woman of unspecified age, apparently nowhere near any of the other participants. That's ok; mostly we're all scattered. There will, as expected, be a lot of language and culture classes, but there will also be three weeks of seminars in English with Russian students at the university. There are also going to be concerts, performances, plays, etc. 2-3 times a week, plus more (sometimes optional) stuff on the weekend, including a certain amount of the touristy stuff. The excursion at the end will apparently be a cruise up towards the north of Russia, which is apparently beautiful territory--if disappointingly not Moscow. I'm actually excited now--something which does, admittedly, tend to come more with imminence than anything else for me.

Also, there was a bunch of other stuff: a (probably obligatory) speech by someone from the Department of State, a bunch of background on culture (in a very abstract way) and politics, some (very little) information from other students who have visited Russia, a career panel, and an ok lunch. The career panel was essentially a pitch for the Fulbright Scholars program and the US Foreign Service, which sounds interesting but is probably depressingly governmental. Oh well.

Phone cards are reasonably priced in St. Petersburg, I'm told, so let me know if I ought to give you a call--and let me know when, too. The time difference is kind of a lot.

Lots of flying tomorrow. And lots of flying the next day, too.



Edit: Some people from the Russian Consulate also came to talk to us. They told us about things like the way the media shapes the way the US is perceived in Russia and vice versa. Then someone asked them what they thought of Putin, and we all had a good laugh.

A couple of the professors started studying Russia in the early 80s. Apparently studying in Russia was a very different business then--something about being followed around by men in suits.

Time to pack up and go.