Excuse Me

I wrote this my second day here. It's just taken a while to post.

Well, I have been in Russia for about a day and a half now. I’ve learned that as long as I keep TINA (This is not America.) in mind, I won’t get frustrated about the little differences as easily. It’s not that the differences are bad, it’s just that, well, they are different. Some of them I actually prefer.

The Airport

The airport in St. Petersburg was my first encounter ever with being in a country where I didn’t know the language and didn’t have a leader. Rachel (the girl I’m working with) and I had to figure out things on our own. There are two terminals in this airport. When we got there, we had to switch from the international one to the domestic one. It wasn’t like we just walked a few minutes to get from one to the other. They were completely separate buildings about a mile and a half apart, and we had to take a bus. When we finally got to the other terminal, we ended up going in the opposite side of where we were supposed to be. It took a while to figure out where exactly to check in, but we finally made it. When we got there we saw just one flight listed on the check in screens, and it wasn’t ours. We knew we were at the right place, but had no idea what to do. We tried to ask at the information desk, but the woman working knew about as much English as I know Russian- very little. She called someone to come answer our question and we got everything figured out.

Day 1 in Ufa

We arrived to Ufa around 4 in the morning. Our apartment wasn’t ready so we stayed with a girl named Kelly, who also attends the university I will be going to. I was finally able to go to sleep around 5:30 in the morning and slept until about 1:30. A few hours later we got to move into our apartment. It’s in a prime location. It’s on a main road, and everything we need is pretty close. Once we got settled in, Kelly gave us the option to just hang out at the apartment or meet some of her friends. Apparently they have wanted to meet us since they first heard we were coming. In attempt to get used to the time difference a little quicker, I decided going out would force me to stay up longer. Rachel agreed, so just a few hours into being into the city, we got to meet some people. Two of them spoke English really well and one of them is just learning. Communication was easy and hard, but I’m happy we chose to hang out with them. It was fun, and one of them said that next time they all hang out they were going to invite us.

There have definitely been some overwhelming times so far, but they only last a short time.

A few things I am thankful for today:

1. The English man at the airport who helped us switch terminals.

2. The English speaking employee at the airport. (3 hours after we talked to him, he was making his way through a crowd and as he passed us said, “Excuse me.” – it’s the little things like that that made our day)

3. Laughter

4. My apartment

5. The Carr family and Kelly

6. The chance hang out with Russians so soon after being here.