David digs potatoes

So I returned to the dacha, to dig the potatoes. This task gradually took on more and more urgency as the rainy weather of the past week continued, and I arrived ready to help, all weekend if necessary.

Except the first day, when I revealed that I had never officially dug potatoes I was relegated to pulling weeds along the field. This was not what I was expecting, and as the other
relatives talked about how to buy siding for the add-on garage cheaper, I was off in the corner, wondering what was a weed and what was just a plant, because they used the russian word "trava," which I thought meant grass, but clearly applies to most things smaller than a bush.

Later on I was taken with cousin Pasha and his girlfriend Anya to look at some horses near by, and we talked about the movie "Robin Hood: Men and Tights" a little bit. This goes along with my biology professor Pavel Aleksandrovich's frequent references to bad American movies, like "Police Academy."

Later that evening my host mom's son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter came, and I had a good time playing with my "niece." At dinner I talked with my host-grandma Ninel (what is Ninel backwards?) about some opera about a half-japanese boy who gets killed by her japanese mom so the american sailor father can't take him away with his new american wife.

I also on Monday was supposed to attend my first mainstream class, I chose History of Russian Literature, and after some awkward waiting around the door, I found out that the professor couldn't make it and instead was treated to a lecture on the details of Russian language, but the professor that day was young and lively and it actually turned out more interesting than the next class I sat in on, about the history of the Orthodox church, because it was taught by a man very similiar to Brezhnev with a class full of 20 year olds acting exactly like 13 year olds, i.e. punching each other, talking, sending text messages, etc.

I guess this didn't turn out to be as an exciting week, especially because I didn't make any embarassing mistakes, so here I will list some random observations:
1. Russians love ice cream, they sell it on the street for cheap and the toughest youths can be seen eating fancy strawberry cream bars. This is a plus for me, because I love icecream.
2. Russia is still awfully Soviet, i know that may seem obvious, but they just never bothered to change all sorts of stuff, and people just treat it as irrelevant, at least young people.
3. Russian cities are dirty but Russians are very clean. My host mom asked me if it was really true that Americans rest their feet on things and when I said sometimes, I couldn't really explain how that wasn't dirty.
4. One little thing: Russian notebooks for school are all like grid paper, it is impossible to find them ruled like in America. And they are all really small, and called tetradi. I guess this isn't interesting.
5. I still sort of like Soviet architechture, I don't care what people think. I like Kirov Square with its gaudy fountain, huge monolithic buildings, and terribly confusing traffic pattern.
6. I still don't know anything about Russia and it is probably not worth it to even write this out.

So next time I will have something exciting to write. We are going to Severobaikalsk for a week on Oct. 3rd.