providing the opportunity for me to come to St Petersburg and make so
many fantastic friends. Due to the nature of the program I am placed
in a position of great trust with the people we meet, and I am allowed
to be as hyper and active as I choose to be. It is entirly due to
Jean's inviting me on these excursions that I am here now and able to
share with you my experiences. I hope I don't screw anything up for
Jean in the future with my wild antics here now :-). Oh and sorry to
say but to protect the innocent, many antics are not included in my
public posts. If you do not already have the password for my private
posts... Sorry.
With only a week in St P I decided not to share my return trip with
everyone in the program this year. I was afraid of doing too Many
things and missing out on quality time with great people like Onya and
Kolya. As it turns out this was a wise choice. I am spread pretty
thin as it is and running on fumes pretty much 24 hours a day.
Showers, time alone, changes of clothing are a luxury for me now. The
rest of the post here occured within a 24 hour period (except the part
about juggling fire from a chain in the snow at night. That happened a
few hours outside the time block. Feel free to skip to the end if you
are intrigued by this teaser, but you will be missing out)
My day started the night before with a message from two friends that
they wanted to take me out on Saturday. These two particular friends
are Polina and Olya, I told them I was going to be in St P only a day
before I arrived. I must admit I am a bit surprised at their
enthusiasm of hanging out with me. But I guess that's because I get to
hang out with me all time so it seems so normal to me. I am very happy
they do want to hang because I have had some awesome times. And yes
I'm getting to that. I met Olya in the metro and we headed together to
meet Polina. Did I mention, Olya does not know English? Well at first
she said that, but actually she does quiet well conversing with me now.
Polina has a car and picked us up at the metro. Actually the same
McDonalds we went to with the discovery group and deaf Russians just a
few weeks ago. Feels good to be in familiar places. From there we
headed to the store and bought food, snacks, and wine. Other than
"sledding" I had no idea what we would be doing. Oh and Polina brought
a friend Dina as well. I am amazed at the calibar of people we work
with through discovery. For example Polina is an aid and rescue worker
for the Red Cross, and Olya is a surgical nurse at the hospital. Sorry
I have no idea what Dina does, so let's just say she is a doctor :-).
Well at least sledding I knew I would be safe.
We drove for about an hour and arrived at this Awesome park. Tons of
snow and hills. We had to pay to get in but the girls lied and said I
was Russian and got me a super discount. I think it was like $.20 or
something to get in. Polina had a tube and we rented another. After
throwing each other in the snow several times. We attached the two
tube and rode down as a quad.
At one point during the day a woman was injured and laying on the
ground with her 4-6 son trying to stand guard over her and stop the
people in tubes from continuously barreling into her. I saw this from
a far and saw as he realized he was just getting beaten up and people
were still hurting his mom. He began to cry. By this time people
started to realize the woman was not hurt, but injured. I ran down to
the boy and pulled him out of harms way then stood guard over the mom.
I was physically redirecting the tubbers as they came racing down the
path, I would catch them bodily and change their course just enough to
not hit the lady. Olya and Polina started to care for the woman. A few
other people saw what was happening uphill and they, thankfully, were
about to stop the steady steam of people tubbing down.
The lady ended up being fine. It was an old back injury acting up and
she just needed to be flat for a few minutes. Her son was also fine
and off playing with some other boys by the time we left. The whole
scene took less than 2 minutes from start to finish. I am reminded in
my emergency training of the need to act. So often we see things wrong
in the world and assume someone else will take care of it. In 2
minutes, a lot can happen.
We continued Tubbing down the slopes into the frozen river for several
hours, stopping every so often to push each other into the large,
deep, and very cold snow drifts. Again I wimped out with the cold.
Everytime that stuff touched my face it was a cocophany of pain
dancing on every nerve cell. My cohorts however spent 5 minutes
burried face down in the snow, to proove it was not so bad. They win,
I loose.
I still had no idea what else they had in store for me. As a great man
once told me "relax and just let traveling happen", thanks Matt :-).
They drove me to the Finnish gulf and we built a small fire on the
frozen marsh. With this we (meaning they, because I was too cold to
function usefully at this point) threw some fresh fruit, spices, and
wine into a kettle for some mulled spiced wine.
My three friend were concerened that I would hate them for the
experience and the cold. I'm not sure I ever clearly communicates with
them just how much fun I was having. I guess it's difficult to believe
a bloke when he can only stammer out a bleak да through uncontrolled
convulsions of shivvering. If you are reading this now. I am warm and
dry and I still look back on that time and think it was awesome!!
Valya had plans for me at 10 PM and it was only 6ish by the time we
were done freezing our keesters off. Polina and Dina departed leaving
Olya and myself. We called another friend from discovery, Lena, and
met her and her er um boy friend date (it's complicated) at a fancy
hip, not well known, bar.
Someone had been doing some advertising because the place was PACKED.
Actually there was an art exhibit going on that was popular with the
kids. We bounced and hit up another spot. Here I spent the next
several hours drinking beer and just talking. What a wonderful way to
pass the evening. Lena, Olya, and Dude (sorry man I forgot your name)
are good conversationalists.
I made it to the designated metro stop by 10 where I met Valya and
Anya. I found out eventually the plans for the night were to go to
Nastia's flat and drink and party. When I asked about the purpose, I
was told we were celebrating being with friends. Good enough reason
for me.
Nastia knows a little English and more French. As she drank more I
understood much less. I did understand that everytime I left my drink
unattended she filled it with conac. (remember I had already had many
cups of mulled wine, and three hours of beer, alcohol was not
something my body was lacking at the moment. I finally was able to
hide my glass and cut myself off, but not before I was three sheets to
wind.
At some point a cab was called and following matts advice I went with
the flow and hopped in. We ended up at some small club and danced for
hours. Dancing to a live DJ playing techno, while very drunk is a
challange, believe me I know!! Finally we headed back to Bastia's
flat where everyone claimed a small spot on the floor and curled up
for some sleep. I think it was about 9 am at this point and my 24
hours were done with.
But wait there's more... We spent the day snacking and chatting in the
flat until Olya called and asked if I could come out and play. Valya
had to go home to work the next day and I had no plans, so we arranged
a meeting time.
Polina and Olya met me at a metro stop and we got thoughouly lost
looking for a club. It might have been more fun for them if I was not
coughing up a lung every 3 minutes (a lingering parting gift from my
flu). We found it and I unloaded my 50lbs of warm clothes at the coat
check. (note to self ask for more details on plans). Then we headed
out the back door to stand outside. I was wearing a T-shirt and jeans
and that's it!! (and shoes too). There were a few fires going so I
camped out.
Have you ever seen people twirl a ball arround on the end of a string.
One in each hand www.anti-spinners.com I think is their site (google
antispinners). Well they were all doing that but as a competition. Oh
did I forget to mention, the balls were all on FIRE. I was at home
with fellow pyromaniacs YAY!
After the competition we headed inside for, yep you guessed it, more
beer. One of the spinner dudes befriended us and let us try it out a
bit. I like it and I think I have found a new hobby :-)
Now I'm off to teach a workshop for actors at Valya's work. Catch you
all later.
-Dana
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment