In case you haven't heard, and have been wondering why I disappeared so suddenly, I nearly died. Okay, not quite so dramatic, but I did have a very very bad case of salmonella and am now very very slowly on the mend. Today is an Exciting Day because I walked all the way to the post office to do e-mail and internets, except that I only had maybe 3 e-mails of an exciting nature and absolutely nothing on Facebook (except lots of photos, which I don't have the energy for now) and I am disappointed in all of you. When I am dying, I want well-wishes of an electronic form!
So 4 days in a Soviet hospital didn't kill me, but it was very very scary and I want to go home soooooo much. Instead, I am curling up in a hotel room, reading a lot of books, and not eating much. I wouldn't be eating much at home, either, but I think it would be a lot more. No food here is appetizing.
I am quite tired now, so I shall wrap this up and convince Debi and Sarah to take me home (which means another very long walk, which I am not looking forward to) and I will sleep for a very long time.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Git a Kuk!
Sarah and I have titled our movie after our favorite Berl Kutlerman catch-phrase. If I am a good videographer, we will have a fascinating montage by the end of our time here.
I spent my afternoon in some sort of press conference about a new book called L'Chaim Birobidzhan. Said press conference/panel discussion/something or other was entirely in Russian, although I'm sure it was fascinating. It is classic Berl to have us all show up for something without bothering to tell us that we won't understand it.
The level 3 ("advanced") Yiddish class is up to something like 12 people, of 12 utterly unrelated levels. I am the only person in the class who knows German, and everyone else knows at least some Hebrew (including people who know Hebrew much better than Yiddish), and this means that Hebrew is no longer just stealing my lunch money, but now it is also waiting outside in the school yard to beat me up on the way home. The fact that my teacher knows German and only as much Hebrew as Yiddish has taught him is a deliciously ironic reversal I am sure to face for the rest of my American (non-German) Yiddish education, but I'm not quite excited about appreciating said reversal when it totally ruins my opportunity for the perfect Yiddish class. New plan: take myself off to Trier and learn Yiddish for real, with actual linguists who are doing actual research that interests me. Preferably this coming spring, but that's something to negotiate with Hampshire.
In other news, we went to Khabarovsk yesterday, and it was a very interesting but poorly planned trip. Example: Berl forgot to schedule meals. We left at 6 in the morning and returned at 8 in the evening. After much whining, we got him to give us 20 minutes to grab hot dogs (I pity my vegetarian friends- Debi is pretty much living off chips at this point, and sometimes I have to stop her before she accidently eats bacon flavor). We also met some old Jews at a synagogue, and some young Jews at a preschool, and had a lovely "Git a Kuk" tour of Russian architecture.
Today is aBad Day because it started badly, but I promise you should not worry about me. Tomorrow shall be better. It is a funny story, though, so I shall share: last night, we got a call from someone who was like "we will pick you up for class at 9:15 tomorrow." So I set my alarm for 8:45, woke up, knocked on Sarah's door to let her know to get up, and decided to lay back down for 10 minutes because I was very very sleepy. At 8:48, someone banged very very loudly on my door and shouted something in Russian, then went around banging on all the other doors. Upon opening our doors, myself and my neighbors encountered one of the Dorm Mothers saying "mashine mashine" and making driving motions, and we gathered that the car was here for us, and wanted to leave. Half an hour early. Chaya figured this made no sense, and went down to find out what was going on. The driver was Russian, no one spoke any not-Russian, and so Chaya wrote 9:15 on a piece of paper, which the driver crossed out and wrote 9. So we determined that we had to get ready very very quickly, and I went to brush my teeth while the dorm mother lady continued to point at her watch and shout things in Russian at me. We did leave at 9, and got to school far too early (class starts at 9:30 Jewish Time, which is like 9:45. We were there at like 9:15. Not cool.) and I have been really off-center all day because of it. Grrr.
I spent my afternoon in some sort of press conference about a new book called L'Chaim Birobidzhan. Said press conference/panel discussion/something or other was entirely in Russian, although I'm sure it was fascinating. It is classic Berl to have us all show up for something without bothering to tell us that we won't understand it.
The level 3 ("advanced") Yiddish class is up to something like 12 people, of 12 utterly unrelated levels. I am the only person in the class who knows German, and everyone else knows at least some Hebrew (including people who know Hebrew much better than Yiddish), and this means that Hebrew is no longer just stealing my lunch money, but now it is also waiting outside in the school yard to beat me up on the way home. The fact that my teacher knows German and only as much Hebrew as Yiddish has taught him is a deliciously ironic reversal I am sure to face for the rest of my American (non-German) Yiddish education, but I'm not quite excited about appreciating said reversal when it totally ruins my opportunity for the perfect Yiddish class. New plan: take myself off to Trier and learn Yiddish for real, with actual linguists who are doing actual research that interests me. Preferably this coming spring, but that's something to negotiate with Hampshire.
In other news, we went to Khabarovsk yesterday, and it was a very interesting but poorly planned trip. Example: Berl forgot to schedule meals. We left at 6 in the morning and returned at 8 in the evening. After much whining, we got him to give us 20 minutes to grab hot dogs (I pity my vegetarian friends- Debi is pretty much living off chips at this point, and sometimes I have to stop her before she accidently eats bacon flavor). We also met some old Jews at a synagogue, and some young Jews at a preschool, and had a lovely "Git a Kuk" tour of Russian architecture.
Today is aBad Day because it started badly, but I promise you should not worry about me. Tomorrow shall be better. It is a funny story, though, so I shall share: last night, we got a call from someone who was like "we will pick you up for class at 9:15 tomorrow." So I set my alarm for 8:45, woke up, knocked on Sarah's door to let her know to get up, and decided to lay back down for 10 minutes because I was very very sleepy. At 8:48, someone banged very very loudly on my door and shouted something in Russian, then went around banging on all the other doors. Upon opening our doors, myself and my neighbors encountered one of the Dorm Mothers saying "mashine mashine" and making driving motions, and we gathered that the car was here for us, and wanted to leave. Half an hour early. Chaya figured this made no sense, and went down to find out what was going on. The driver was Russian, no one spoke any not-Russian, and so Chaya wrote 9:15 on a piece of paper, which the driver crossed out and wrote 9. So we determined that we had to get ready very very quickly, and I went to brush my teeth while the dorm mother lady continued to point at her watch and shout things in Russian at me. We did leave at 9, and got to school far too early (class starts at 9:30 Jewish Time, which is like 9:45. We were there at like 9:15. Not cool.) and I have been really off-center all day because of it. Grrr.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Sholem Aleichem!!!
I am in Birobidzhan, and it is the land where dreams come true. We are being taken care of in the best of ways, the grocery store chain is called Brider, there is a Freylikh Cafe, a statue of Sholem Aleichem to which we have made great pilgramiges, a statue of Tevye... the symbol of the city is a menorah and a rainbow. How could this place be any better? Well, they could speak not-Russian or I could speak Russian, but we are getting by with the help of some new friends. My Yiddish is starting to recover from the 10 days in Germany which utterly, utterly killed it, Debi has recovered from the Frankfurt hot chocolate that made her deathly ill in Moscow, we've all recovered from not sleeping during the looooong journey from Frankfurt to here. It's only rained about half the 4 days we've been here, I have seen maybe 3 mosquitoes and they are not of a larger-than-normal size, they tell us the water is safe to drink and I had a cup of tea made from it this morning and still feel just fine.
I feel that I should be doing a better job of chronicling these things, as Debi certainly is, and Sarah appears to be, but my poor brain is all over the place running around in the happiest of circles. We got in at about 8 in the evening on Saturday, greeted by about 12 (or so it seemed, at least, it was probably more like 5) incredibly friendly, incredibly fast-talking Russians. One man spoke Hebrew, Debi and Sarah used him to make some communication possible, but mostly these very friendly women dragged us around showing us things, took us to the Brider, and put us in our rooms (we each have a whole room to ourselves! Mine's a triple, Sarah's is a double, and Debi has a suite with a bathroom of her own and everything) and we ate some bread and some chips and collapsed from exhaustion. Debi was awoken at 9:30 Sunday morning (although we thought it was 8:30- funny story about us not managing to figure out which time zone we're in) by the amazing Berl (who is a tiny Yiddish powerhouse) who was like "Good morning we, the leaders of the program, are here and we will come back in 5 hours to show you around and explain things" and then he left. Sarah and I awoke, we decided to wander towards the center of town, proceeded to be Amazed by the beauty of this city, got yelled at by a telephone salesman when we tried to use his internet, found a store called Tsimmes and some other exciting Yiddish things, and managed to order borscht and bread and juice at a real Russian cafe all by ourselves. Then we went back to the dorms because it was nearing the time that Berl and Co. claimed they would return. Tired, we all settled down to read, and promptly fell asleep for the next 6 hours. Fortunately or not, Berl and Co. failed to appear while we were asleep, and failed to appear for the rest of the night, during which we got creative enough to boil water and make a sad pot of pasta (this before we knew if we were allowed to drink the water or would suffer fiery stomach-death for it). Monday, the day the program was to begin, we awoke and gathered and had no idea what was to happen to us. And played cards and watched Russian tv (we have 2 channels, so we were alternating between a Soviet War Movie Marathon and some sort of herbal medicine talk show. It was surreal.) and waited. And waited. And hungered. And wondered what was to become of us. Finally, someone knocked on our door, and it was... a woman speaking Russian who apparently left something in Debi's freezer that she wanted to retrieve. So we waited some more, and then there was another knock! This time it was a Japanese woman named Tziziko, who is also in the program and living in the dorms with us. She had apparently talked to Berl earlier in the day, and informed us that we were to meet him and the rest of the program at 4 at the school. More excitingly, we found out that she speaks at least some Russian. With great gusto, we implored her to come to lunch with us, where we managed to get real food (at the Freylikh Cafe) and managed to navigate the Russian bus system, and got to the program at the appointed time. At the school, we found a room full of local students, which was most surprising and exciting. After we arrived, Leybl from Oxford showed up, and a couple from Ohio (one born in Israel, the other in South Africa) joined us later, and so I guess that makes us quite the international group. Yiddish classes began, and I am working with a German Yiddish professor, using a textbook written from Germans learning Yiddish, and this means that all my dreams have come true and that I should be doing my future Yiddish studying in Germany because it just makes So. Much. More. Sense. I have exactly 1 minute and 51 seconds of B-roll footage for the video, because I was a very very bad cinematographer and failed to charge my camera before Berl's amazing amazing walking tour yesterday, but it was also rainy and gross and that does not make for pretty video. Today it is sunny and we are doing a shmues-walk, so perhaps better footage will result.
We have 45 minutes left of our lunch break and have not yet eaten, so perhaps I will persuade Debi to leave now.
I feel that I should be doing a better job of chronicling these things, as Debi certainly is, and Sarah appears to be, but my poor brain is all over the place running around in the happiest of circles. We got in at about 8 in the evening on Saturday, greeted by about 12 (or so it seemed, at least, it was probably more like 5) incredibly friendly, incredibly fast-talking Russians. One man spoke Hebrew, Debi and Sarah used him to make some communication possible, but mostly these very friendly women dragged us around showing us things, took us to the Brider, and put us in our rooms (we each have a whole room to ourselves! Mine's a triple, Sarah's is a double, and Debi has a suite with a bathroom of her own and everything) and we ate some bread and some chips and collapsed from exhaustion. Debi was awoken at 9:30 Sunday morning (although we thought it was 8:30- funny story about us not managing to figure out which time zone we're in) by the amazing Berl (who is a tiny Yiddish powerhouse) who was like "Good morning we, the leaders of the program, are here and we will come back in 5 hours to show you around and explain things" and then he left. Sarah and I awoke, we decided to wander towards the center of town, proceeded to be Amazed by the beauty of this city, got yelled at by a telephone salesman when we tried to use his internet, found a store called Tsimmes and some other exciting Yiddish things, and managed to order borscht and bread and juice at a real Russian cafe all by ourselves. Then we went back to the dorms because it was nearing the time that Berl and Co. claimed they would return. Tired, we all settled down to read, and promptly fell asleep for the next 6 hours. Fortunately or not, Berl and Co. failed to appear while we were asleep, and failed to appear for the rest of the night, during which we got creative enough to boil water and make a sad pot of pasta (this before we knew if we were allowed to drink the water or would suffer fiery stomach-death for it). Monday, the day the program was to begin, we awoke and gathered and had no idea what was to happen to us. And played cards and watched Russian tv (we have 2 channels, so we were alternating between a Soviet War Movie Marathon and some sort of herbal medicine talk show. It was surreal.) and waited. And waited. And hungered. And wondered what was to become of us. Finally, someone knocked on our door, and it was... a woman speaking Russian who apparently left something in Debi's freezer that she wanted to retrieve. So we waited some more, and then there was another knock! This time it was a Japanese woman named Tziziko, who is also in the program and living in the dorms with us. She had apparently talked to Berl earlier in the day, and informed us that we were to meet him and the rest of the program at 4 at the school. More excitingly, we found out that she speaks at least some Russian. With great gusto, we implored her to come to lunch with us, where we managed to get real food (at the Freylikh Cafe) and managed to navigate the Russian bus system, and got to the program at the appointed time. At the school, we found a room full of local students, which was most surprising and exciting. After we arrived, Leybl from Oxford showed up, and a couple from Ohio (one born in Israel, the other in South Africa) joined us later, and so I guess that makes us quite the international group. Yiddish classes began, and I am working with a German Yiddish professor, using a textbook written from Germans learning Yiddish, and this means that all my dreams have come true and that I should be doing my future Yiddish studying in Germany because it just makes So. Much. More. Sense. I have exactly 1 minute and 51 seconds of B-roll footage for the video, because I was a very very bad cinematographer and failed to charge my camera before Berl's amazing amazing walking tour yesterday, but it was also rainy and gross and that does not make for pretty video. Today it is sunny and we are doing a shmues-walk, so perhaps better footage will result.
We have 45 minutes left of our lunch break and have not yet eaten, so perhaps I will persuade Debi to leave now.
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Weimar Woot Woot
Yes, I am in the loverly city of Weimar, which is more shtetl than shtot by Yiddish standards, so I guess that makes it a Städtchen in German but that's not a word. And we finally found Debi (who is staying in the same hostel as us) tonight (although we have been in Weimar since 9 pm last night) and have had other adventures, including:
-finding the cutest French cafe EVER
-taking Katie to the hospital because apparently that's what you have to do to get sinus medicine in Germany on a Sunday (things not ever being open on Sunday was on my "I don't like this" list, I now remember)
-eating Bratwurst and Döner yesssssss
-hooking up with some Yidn (mostly German Gentiles, natch) for singing and dancing (we threaded the needle yay!)
Also umm München stories? Frenchy Frenchman our hostel roommate was so amazing and we had so many very short, slightly awkward but oh-so-charming conversations. Munich itself remains among my favorite cities in the world, we checked out some sweet art at the Pinakothek, and we went on a sweet free tour that involved so many stories about beer because Munich is all about beer. And Sarah inadvertently stole a beer glass from which she was drinking apple juice, because she is good at things like that. And ummmmm I love Munich?
Maybe I will be better at travelouging while in Biro-bairo-Biro-bairo-Biro-bairo-Birobidzhan. Tomorrow, it is off to Dresden, then Leipzig (1 day each), then we hit up Frankfurt for laundry and last-minute shopping and maybe a little sightseeing.
-finding the cutest French cafe EVER
-taking Katie to the hospital because apparently that's what you have to do to get sinus medicine in Germany on a Sunday (things not ever being open on Sunday was on my "I don't like this" list, I now remember)
-eating Bratwurst and Döner yesssssss
-hooking up with some Yidn (mostly German Gentiles, natch) for singing and dancing (we threaded the needle yay!)
Also umm München stories? Frenchy Frenchman our hostel roommate was so amazing and we had so many very short, slightly awkward but oh-so-charming conversations. Munich itself remains among my favorite cities in the world, we checked out some sweet art at the Pinakothek, and we went on a sweet free tour that involved so many stories about beer because Munich is all about beer. And Sarah inadvertently stole a beer glass from which she was drinking apple juice, because she is good at things like that. And ummmmm I love Munich?
Maybe I will be better at travelouging while in Biro-bairo-Biro-bairo-Biro-bairo-Birobidzhan. Tomorrow, it is off to Dresden, then Leipzig (1 day each), then we hit up Frankfurt for laundry and last-minute shopping and maybe a little sightseeing.
Friday, August 03, 2007
München Heart
It is good to be in Bayern again. We had a lovely train ride and a wonderful hostel with roommates from Ireland and France. Delicious Spanish food for dinner, exciting plans for today.
I'll remember how to blog with detail one day, I promise.
I'll remember how to blog with detail one day, I promise.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Today
Took a tour with the most amazing charismatic tour guide, said "un a" to a German, who quite within-his-rightly interpreted it as "ohne" (I have completely forgotten the word ein and I hate myself for it), and got hissed at by some random lady while having dinner in the basement of Bertl Brecht's house. Overall, a success.
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