Pigeon Mob Bosses and Other Important Concerns

My favorite part of each day falls in the beautifully peaceful post-dinner hour, when I'm drinking tea and watching Russian soap operas with my host mom, Tatyana. I realize that may sound kind of sad to some of you, but Moscow is exhausting when you're a shy American girl who only understands Russian at a kindergarten level. Living here truly is a grand adventure, but, that being said, it's not an easy adventure. I go through my day in an almost constant state of anxiety. On my walk to class, I worry that a stranger will try to talk to me and I won't understand him or her. When I walk through the park, I worry that a pigeon will fly into my face. (Honestly, there's something up with the pigeons here. It feels like all the Moscow pigeons are part of some big mean pigeon gang, and I must owe the pigeon mob boss money because I swear his little pigeon minions are in a competition to see who can poop on my shoulder first.) When it's raining, I worry that I'll slip and dislocate my kneecap, and then I worry that I lack the vocabulary necessary to explain to passerby and/or the paramedics that I dislocated my kneecap. When I'm in the metro and it's crowded, I worry that I will fall onto someone when there's a sudden lurch, and I'll accidentally say "please" instead of "I'm sorry", which would be completely inappropriate given the situation. When I go out to eat, I worry that the server will forget my order and I won't be able to explain that my order was forgotten. Then, I worry that I'll faint because I'm so hungry. Then, I'll wake up and everyone will be speaking Russian and someone will ask me if I have a history of fainting but I won't understand what he or she is saying and the stress of that will cause me to faint again. Basically, there's just a lot of worrying going on. As I write this, I worry that I'll never get better at speaking Russian and will be forever known as the one Dickinson student who went to Russia and made no progress. I might have a little bit of a worrying problem. Now that I'm writing all of this down, I'm starting to feel stressed and am battling an overwhelming urge to sneak into the kitchen and eat yet another piece of Tatyana's plum pie. Now, I'm worried that I will gain a hundred pounds because of all the bread I'm eating here. Now, I'm worried that I will return home unrecognizably obese. Now, I'm worried that I will die alone with not even a cat for company. Okay, well I've forgotten the point of this blog post and I'm feeling a little bit upset now. However, I took a pause and did go ahead and eat another piece of pie and the delicious sugary goodness has calmed me down enough to return to my main point, which is that I love drinking tea with my host mom. Even though I'm easily overwhelmed, at least I always know that I can come home and drink tea and talk about my day, utilizing the small - yet mighty - Russian vocabulary I do possess, with Tatyana. That's good enough for now.

#tea #Tatyana