Stranger in a Strange Land

It started as soon as  I passed through TSA at JFK airport. Gate 1 direct to Moscow. I was greeted at the airplane door by a rush of Russian from a dour, orange clad stewardess. I immediately missed my friendly Alaskan Airlines…and my MVP status!  Announcements were in Russian followed by a poorly made recording of very slow English.  Everything was quite efficient and I was even able to recognize the contents of my meal.

With only an hour and a half in Moscow to collect my bags, go through customs, and get to my next gate, I was rather anxious...Russian customs couldn't be easy!  But all went smoothly and I arrived in St. Petersburg, on time, with all of  my luggage to the smiling face of my new boss, Ron Gleason, a former Alaskan educator. I immediately felt at ease with him as he maneuvered the chaotic traffic to my home for two years.

My apartment is stunningly beautiful in the historic heart of St. Petersburg. Not really a residential neighborhood. Tourists are filing along the embankment below me,  I can hear the announcers on the  canal boats filled with vacationers taking pictures. Brides, their grooms and wedding parties stop to take pictures on the bridge below. (I am told it is customary to have your bridal picture taken in 10 locations in St. Petersburg.) The sound of horses clomping down the cobblestone is becoming familiar. But little else is..

I feel like I'm in a bubble. All around me people are speaking and I have no idea what they are saying. In the rare event that someone talks to me, I can only look at them dumbly. Being a stranger in a strange land makes you feel less than intelligent.

 The alphabet is soo confusing! So far,  I've figured out which signs say STOP and which ones say EXIT.  Whose idea was it to have the same letters as English stand for different sounds in Russian..the r is a p, the N is a e, the H is an N, etc. etc. Then there's these strange letters for all the z sounds, tsh, tch, shch, sh...ah ya!

  The ruble, at 29 to 1 exchange, isn't easy either I peeled off 3,000 for my first grocery shopping experience. I'm given change, a mixture of bills and coins and have no idea if I'm being ripped off. Dinners are 250-500 rubles (at the places I've been so far) and there is a kofe shop (or two) on every corner where you can get any type of liquor you want in your coffee...instead of sugar free vanilla, it's Baileys. or whiskey.

The 24hr. clock...Celsius... metric....directions in Russian on the phone, the microwave, the washing machine, etc. Even my Yahoo page comes up in Russian! Everyday, common acts have become a a mixture of logic and luck. But I guess that's what I get for becoming a  foreigner.