called to say

I’m a reader and a storyteller, and God chose literature and story and poetry as the languages of my spiritual text. To me, the Bible is a manifesto, a guide, a love letter, a story.
“Cold Tangerines,” Shauna Niequist

I love this quote from Shauna Niequist. It is an accurate description of the way God has designed my mind to function. I have had stories placed on my heart, and writing and language are the mediums in which I find the most meaning and the most potential.

Inconveniently enough, I also find that writing is both agonizing and intimidating for me. I struggle to find the right words and I piece them together slowly, like a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle (I’m also really bad at jigsaw puzzles). I struggle to find the place where I can write without second-guessing every word I put down on the page.

That’s where this blog comes in. It’s time for me to start not only practicing writing, but writing for God, about God and for an audience. This isn’t to say I’m striving for an audience; rather, I’m writing with the awareness that someone will read the words on this page. They might think thoughts (kind and unkind) or post comments (kind and unkind) about what I’ve written. I might be wrong, I might be right, I might come across a riveting line of thought or my words may be utterly mundane. The purpose is not to create something earth-moving, it is just to create.

So, on that note…welcome. 

Well, I am back in Moscow—for a few hours, at least! :) We flew out from Sochi today at about 7 p.m. and touched down in Moscow at 9. The flight was pretty quiet, though we did have a bit of turbulence in the middle. One flight down, three to go and I will be back in Nebraska! I am going to do the generally impossible tonight and pull an all-nighter in hopes of working on resetting my internal clock to something closer to Nebraska time. It will be a loooooong weekend trying to recover from the jetlag. 

Still, I am so excited to return to my home country and (even moreso) my home state. Nebraska may be small and quiet, but it is also clean and fresh and full of wonderful people with kind, caring hearts. One of the Russian students that served as a guide for us in Sochi told us that one of the first things she noticed about us was how friendly and full of smiles we were. She said that even through we didn’t know each other, it was like we were friends immediately. 

Of course, there are little things that I am looking forward to in America—things like normal toilets, free water during meals, and not having to ask for our checks when we’re done. :) There are also things I will miss quite desperately, like the AMAZING little pastry shop that sat across from our hotel in Sochi. As my final dessert I had a delicious berry and cream parfait that made my life a beautiful place. I have missed fresh fruit so much!

I truly cannot believe that my time in Russia is ticking to a close. I know that despite my pathetic eating habits and walking five to ten miles each day, I am going to miss this country and all I have learned about the people around me. I can confidently say that this trip has taught me so much about the world and the way we think as individuals and collectively. I don’t think I will ever be able to look at the world around me in the same limited way I used to. 

One of the things I was writing about in a letter to my mom today is that I think Americans have such a narrow perspective on the world around them, though not necessarily in the sense that we are ignorant to world events. Rather, I think that we are constantly presented with such a negative representation of the goings-on in the U.S. (whether in government, the economy, the marketplace or wherever) that we don’t realize how INCREDIBLY GOOD WE HAVE IT. We have so much to be thankful for on a daily basis but instead we are inclined to look at all that is wrong and needs fixed and why we are a horrible nation. Maybe we should start realizing that we live in a nation that grants us truly unprecedented freedoms to live the lives that we want. Maybe, instead of taking the time to worry about all that is wrong every day, we should take the time to thank God for everything that is right.

Sochi is still being its beautiful self, and we are racing through our final days here in Russia. (We fly out on Wednesday. Can you believe it?!) I am permanently exhausted and permanently starving, but I am still enjoying every moment here. 

I thought today I might talk a little about some little differences I’ve noticed between here and America. They’re just small quirks that run differently than the U.S….maybe you’ll find them interesting!

1. People (generally) don’t smile at each other.
It’s not rudeness or grumpiness, it’s just the norm in these parts. In America, I was trained from a VERY young age to smile, smile, smile at people and be friendly. Especially at home in Nebraska, we all tend to smile at each other frequently, even if we are complete strangers. We noticed the moment we touched down in Poland that our smiling at strangers habit would have to stop! 
Dasha, one of our tour guides in Moscow, told us that if you smile at a boy on the subway, it means you’re initiating flirtation with him! We all put away the smiles VERY fast.

2. Not everyone takes cards.
In Sochi and even many places in Moscow, only some stores will accept credit or debit cards. Most of them prefer cash. We also have a challenge with cash, as many locations will not accept large bills (like 1,000 ruble bills). It’s just been a big change of place from America, where not only does everyone take cards, but somep laces will take almost nothing BUT a card!

3. Welcome to the land of PDA!
PDA is very common here. We were all a little startled the first few days to witness how many people were kissing, cuddling and embracing in public. It’s not impolite or anything here—it’s just common and expected. I’m to the point that I don’t even notice it now!

4. The chips are different.
Okay, this one is a little dumb, but it’s noticeable! The Lays potato chip flavors in Russia are all different than in the U.S. I’m going to be honest; I think I like the Russian ones better! My favorite is easily Bacon flavor. Can you believe they don’t have that in America! I’ve also had some very yummy Onion chips. Other flavors I’ve seen include Salmon, Crab, Cheese and Caviar. (Seriously.)

5. WiFi? Not so common.
In Moscow, we found WiFi pretty often, but in Sochi, WiFi is not as common. We have found two locations that carry free WiFi internet connections: McDonald’s (only thirty minutes allowed), and a cafe called Del Mar down on the boardwalk with unlimited time. We had to get ourselves a wireless hub for our hotel because it doesn’t have internet! Can you imagine a hotel without internet in the U.S.? :)

Those are just a few things, and I know I thought of others when I was on our bus ride home yesterday. I do love Sochi and Russia has been amazingly fun, but I am definitely getting to the point where I am ready to get home. I don’t really miss anything specific—just America in general, I guess. :) Even the tree-blanketed mountains are making me homesick for the beautiful grassy plains at home. 

Until next time, folks! Only four more days in Russia—EEK!

Some pictures from Sochi! :)

We arrived in Sochi yesterday after a short (two hrs. + ten min.) flight from Moscow. When we started to descend, we could see Sochi along the coastline below and then the Black Sea. We went quite a way out over the Black Sea before we turned and did our descent into Sochi. The mountains are SO BEAUTIFUL!! They are so big and snowcapped, and then the land descends down into densely forested hills before sloping onto the beaches, which are covered in rock.  

Sochi is so incredibly beautiful. We stepped off the plane and the air felt so cool and it smelled fresh and salty. Everything is built into these huge tree-covered hills and the city is very narrow and long because it rides the coastline—I think they said that it is around 140 km long. I am going to be honest—I just love it already. It is so cool and I just love looking at all the Olympic preparations and seeing the advertising. When we flew in you can see these massive construction sites where they are erecting the figure skating/speed skating arena and all these other arenas. I am seriously considering opening an extra savings account when I get back and saving to return here for the games in 2014. This is like the epitome of sports and I want to be back to see it all come together!

Sochi has much more of a smaller community feel. They have a very long boardwalk that runs alongside the beaches where you can buy lots of souvenirs/shirts/food/etc. Something that is interesting about the boardwalk is that they told us to take a lot of pictures now, because by next year they are going to tear down ALL the shops along the boardwalk and rebuild the entire thing to prepare for the Olympics. When they say it is a city in transformation, they are not kidding. We went onto the beach and took pictures. I am collecting some pretty rocks from the beach that are very pale white-ish pink to bring back with me. All the rock is super smooth from being washed by the saltwater. It was very warm when we got here because the sun was out and it is extremely humid from the sea. The sun went under after we had lunch, though, so it was a little chilly out for the rest of the day. 

Today, we went to the university here (SUTR: Sochi University of Tourism and Recreation Management) and were welcomed by the Vice Rector and much of the faculty. After working on our projects all morning, we had an excellent tour guide give us a walking tour of the famous Sochi Arbortoreum. There were tons of little food stands and ice cream stands, as well as many monuments, statues, and lots of carnival-type rides. One interesting place was called the Garden of Freindship (I think), in which there were little monuments placed by astronauts from all different countries. The area was covered with Magnolia trees, but they aren’t blooming yet. :(

The highlight of today was easily visiting a small pastry shop across the street from our hotel. We went in and I had a delicious dish of rich, creamy Tiramisu. It was fantastic and now I am all content and ready to take a shower and hit the hay. Tomorrow will be another very busy day, but I am already looking forward to Saturday. We are going to visit the in-progress Olympic facilities! I am just loving all the new insight I am getting into the process of preparing for the Olympics. It is truly a life changing experience. Today, our dean posted the following Tweet and I really think it sums up how this trip will impact me:

“Our students’ parents are products of Cold War relations. Their children on this trip to Russia will forever change the parents’ attitudes.”

WOW—the first half of my trip is already over! I can’t believe that it is already time to say good-bye to Moscow and hop on a plane for the two-hour journey to Sochi. Our time in Moscow has been so incredibly fun and such a blessing; I am so grateful to God for the opportunity to travel here. I can already feel myself getting reluctant to leave Russia! Tonight will be our last in-hostel night, as we will be in a hotel in Sochi. Being in a hostel has been such an interesting (and sometimes strange) experience, although we all made some friends yesterday and today in Lewis and Corey, a pair of friendly Scottish boys traveling back to their homeland after spending several months in Southeast Asia. 

Today we spent most of our time working on our Storify projects. I am working on a project about the internal public relations Russia has done to promote the Olympics to their own citizens. I’ll post the link when it is finished! :)

Something I thought I’d talk about today is the language barrier, because I supposed that a few people might be wondering about it. For anyone who is curious, I know exactly three words in Russian: da (yes), nyet (no), and spaseeba (thank you). (That’s not how they are spelled, that’s just how they are pronounced.) We did do some language training before we left, but none of it really stuck for me and I got here with a depressingly lax knowledge of the Russian language (or Ruske, as they call it). 

Most of the young people in Russia can speak a fair bit of passable English—at least enough to get them by when needing to communicate basic ideas or information. Some do very well and can tell you quite a bit. Almost everyone will try to speak Russian to you first, but when they see the alarmingly blank expression on our faces, they can usually change to English. Some have been taking lessions since they were very small (12 or younger), while others have only been learning for three or four years. 

Most of the older people that we ran into on the street did not seem to know much of any English. Store workers have their own way of communicating prices to us: they will show us the number of rubles we owe, either on a cash register or on a calculator. Then we simply count out the rubles, hand it to them, and we’re on our merry way! :)

We have been fortunate enough during our stay in Moscow to have many wonderful guides who took us to restaurants, attractions, through the metro, and more. They were given the opportunity to sign up and guide us, which helped them practice their English. They all did such a great job and were a lot of help in a lot of sticky situations, like the time we all accidentally got split up during our first metro ride! :)

There are still times when people get frustrated with our total inability to speak Russian. I frequently find myself wanting to use spaceeba (thank you) as an all-purpose word, blurting it out when I bump into someone (I can’t ever remember “excuse me”!) 

Today, instead of babbling about all the neat and different things I saw today, we’re just going to do a history lesson! Won’t that be fun? ;)

On our adventures today, I saw my favorite thing I’ve seen yet in Russia. It’s called the “Friendship of Nations” fountain in Moscow.

It’s the most incredible fountain I’ve ever seen. The actual fountain part is surrounded by 16 gold-plated statues of females, with each female representing one of the 16 republics of the former USSR. In the center is a golden sheaf of wheat.  The statues and the detailing is truly extraordinary. Can you imagine if there was a fountain with all 50 states represented in the US? WOW. I walked all around it and just couldn’t stop staring. 

(For those who might be curious, the nations that used to make up the USSR ase now known as: Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Tajikistan, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, Turkmenistan, Aermenia, Latvia and Estonia.)

The fountain sits in the center of the All-Russian Exhibition Center in Northern Moscow. It’s a large grouping of buildings that was opened in 1939 and originally titled the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition. The exhibition had 250 buildings. In 1956, they added the All-Union Industrial Exhibition. In 1992 the park was renamed and they let private enterprise come in. Nowadays, the park is really interesting. One website describes it as “part agricultural fair, part trade expo, part shopping centre and part street market.” There was so much going on, with restaurants, food stands, games, exhibits to see and more.

I hope you like the fountain as much as I do! :)

Whew! Sorry, folks, I’m still here. I skipped yesterday out of laziness, but I’m back with more to observe. :)

Yesterday (Friday) was pretty tiring, so I didn’t have a lot of energy to report all I saw. I took my first ever ride on a subway (or the metro, as they call it here) yesterday, and it was quite the adventure! Of course, now we have taken the metro multiple times since then, so clearly I am becoming an old hand at it now. 

We also had the opportunity to tour McCann-Erickson yesterday. McCann-Erikson is a worldwide advertising and PR agency and they have a branch in Moscow! It was really cool to see all the awesome stuff they are putting toether for brands like L’Oreal Paris in Russia. In addition, they have done some national (meaning in Russia only) PR work and commercials for the Sochi Olympics. That’s what I was really fascinated with, so it was awesome to get to see some of the Olympic things that are going on in preparation for 2014. 

We all went out as a group for dinner last night and lo and behold, guess what we found? HARD ROCK CAFE! I was a happy camper with my big American cheeseburger and fries last night! I picked up a cool Hard Rock Cafe Moscow t-shirt for myself as well. :)

Today was a total blast, jam-packed with sight-seeing and a LOT of walking. We walked about ten miles today-whew! We started off the day by going to Moscow State’s campus and touring it. It has TONS of trees and it’s very big and very spread out. The university is the largest in russia, with about 47,000 students and 4,000 academic staff members. 

Our walk through the university led us to a famous point in Moscow that serves as something of an observation deck. Standing on it, you can see all out across Moscow and it was really something. There happened to be a couple weddings there taking pictures (or celebrating LOUDLY in the case of one duo), so that was funny to watch. There were tons of tourists there as well as vendors selling typical Russian trinkets: magnets, scarves, t-shirts, etc. On the way back for lunch, we came across a food stand selling cooked and salted sweet corn on the cob. A bunch of us got some and YUM, it was delicious!

For lunch, we went back to a tasty Turkish restaurant nearby. My table and I split a crisp pizza with a very thin crust and a sort of blended layer of toppings. We also had kebabs that were really more like a hollow stick of seasoned hamburger that you could wrap in tortillas and garnish with rice, tomatoes, etc. It was really good!

After that, we walked to a cool craft expo full of neat handmade items in a really pretty part of the city. This has been easily my favorite part so far. The park smelled great and we got ice cream cones—yummm. I bought myself a cool red bracelet and I also found a really cool belated Mother’s Day present for my momma. Woohoo! There was all kinds of stuff there, from cute homemade dresses to different quilted items to handmade jewelery and lots of handmade toys/animals. I can’t even explain how many adorable little owls I saw! (goo Chi O!)

Now I am back at the hostel and resting before we go out to the nightclubs tonight. It should be fun! :)

Photos of Day One in Moscow.

Greetings, my friends!! Today was tiring, but really great. It was exactly what I needed—I just needed to get up, go out and start seeing stuff. I started having to write things down after a while because I knew I would forget everything I wanted to tell you about!

The weather was gorgeous today—sunny and 70s, with a slight breeze that kept you from getting too warm. It was just right for walking around! We were met by two Moscow State University grad students at 10:45 and they walked us over to the Journalism School at MSU. Their journalism school is in the oldest building on campus and it is very large and old-fashioned. We stayed there for most of the day and then at about 3 or 4 we walked around the city for two hours, had dinner, and then came back to the hostel.

The girls our age are very pretty. The vast majority are of medium to tall-ish build and most have dark hair. Everyone is very fair-skinned—no one looks like they tan, which is a trend that I appreciate and could get used to! :) The biggest thing I noticed is how fashionable Russian people are. All the women walk around looking very dressed to impress in the most trendy clothes. I was joking today that I need to learn how to say “I love your outfit” in Russian, because I want to say it to nearly every girl we see! It seemed to me that a lot of people smoke cigarettes as well, but maybe I just don’t see it much it Nebraska.

The traffic and parking in Moscow is like nothing I’ve ever seen. They just ramp their BMW or Mercedes up over the curb or in some places actually pull the whole car onto the sidewalk. They can be parked two-deep both parallel or even angeled-parking on the main streets. And speaking of the main streets-oh my gracious. Everyone seems to be driving about 60 miles an hour through the big streets in Moscow and they are constantly honking, changing lanes, gunning it and zooming every different direction. I have never seen anything like it. In addition, I looked a lot at the type of cars today. I saw maybe six or seven American-made cars all day long. I remember seeing a Chevy, a Pontiac, a Dodge, a Hummer (hahaha), a Ford, a Chrysler and an Escalade for certain. The vast majority of cars seemt to be BMWs, with quite a few Mercedes, Audis and Hondas mixed in. I also saw some Toyotas, Nissans, and Saabs. Oh, not to mention a Ferrari and a BUGATI. Yeah. 

One of the most distinct things I noticed as we walked around the city today is how richly historical it is. There are so many statues, fountains, historical buildings and more. It’s truly amazing and a history lovers dream! :) The architecture is mesmerizing, with so much intricate detail and trim. When I compare it to the U.S., America seems very sleek and modern and up-to-date. Yes, we may have historical districts or areas, but almost every area here seems exceptionally old and beautiful. In the areas we walked in today, there were tons of luxury stores (such as Chanel, Hugo Boss, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Dior, etc.) in multiple locations. I have also noticed that there seems to be a lot more advertising for luxury products than I’ve ever noticed in the U.S.

Today we were lucky enough to get to walk to Red Square, Saint Basil’s Cathedral and even by the KGB Headquarters. It was really exceptional. We walked by Lenin’s Tomb, and I was amazed at how big it is. 

The food has been a bit of a challenge just because I am so picky. For lunch I had some kind of a stuffed pastry as well as a sort of sharp pickled-cabbage-type salad that had cucumbers and peas in it. Dinner was much more American-ish. We went to a restaurant and I had a chicken Caesar salad with a baked potato. Much more my style. Hopefully I will get more adventurous and keep trying new things!

That is about all I saw today. I am exhausted and my feet are agonized from all that walking. I miss you alllll!