If It's Easy, You're Not in Russia

I continued my search for an umbrella this morning, since it was still raining. I asked the lady at the hostel where I could find one and she told me the name of a store (Spekter) and told me where it was. I went there and they had two kinds of umbrellas. One kind were made to look like animals and had eyes that stuck up out of the top. You could choose from a frog, a mouse, or a bear. The other kind were plain black, but seemed small enough to be child-sized. When I asked if they had any different umbrellas the salespeople seemed to think I was an idiot. Who needs more of a selection than this? Not me, I guess. In my desperation I went with the child-sized black umbrella, as it was better than nothing. I know you were all hoping I had gone with an animal umbrella. I would have chosen the bear. I'm left wondering where all these people are buying normal umbrellas. How can this be so difficult?

Work was uneventful today. There was an office meeting this afternoon (it lasted three hours!) which I enjoyed sitting in on at the beginning, but after a while it got really exhausting trying to follow everyone's Russian, especially since they were talking about legal stuff and not the things I'm really good at talking about, like where I'm from, food, or church related things. Dang I wish my vocabulary was broader. I think I got pretty good when I was in Ukraine. I don't have it all back yet, but I'm working on it. As I was leaving the office I ran into Ivan and his wife, Jen, who is an American, on the street. It was the first time I met her, though most of the correspondence I did before coming was with her. She asked how I was settling in, and then immediately said, "if it's easy, you're not in Russia." I thought that seemed especially apt. Nothing is simple here. Not finding an umbrella, not finding a normal place to eat, not buying a train ticket, not buying groceries. Nothing. I remember feeling this way when I first got to Lithuania, but things have changed so much in the Baltics at this point that I don't think that's true anymore.

I wanted to buy myself a little treat on my way home, so I walked into a store that said "supermarket," shoved my bookbag into one of the tiny lockers at the front of the store (you're never allowed to take them in, even though the stores are small enough that they could watch you) and walked all the way in before I realized that this "supermarket" only had liquor. Sigh. I sheepishly collected my bag and left. Not the kind of treat I was looking for.

Since I'm done with my writing competition, I figure I'll spend some time walking and being a tourist every evening before I come home. Tonight I went back to Nevskiy Prospekt and went into a few places that I walked by the other day.

First, I stopped into what I thought was the Armenian church just as services were starting. I was pretty quickly aware that it was not the Armenian church, but I enjoyed a few minutes of the service just the same. The organ was playing and a solo voice sang at the beginning. It was a very peaceful place to spend some time.

This is the Singer Building, as in the sewing machines, which is located right on Nevskiy Prospekt. I just thought it was kind of a cool building.

And finally, this is the Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan, named after the miraculous icon from Kazan, Russia, which is now located in this cathedral. There was a line of people waiting to pray at the icon. It was very subdued inside, but some of the icons were very beautiful. Originally the architect planned to build an identical colonnade on the opposite side of the street to create a large circle, but instead there is only the one. Can you tell in the picture that the colonnades curve out on both sides to the sidewalk? They do.

I'm starting to sleep more normally, which is a mercy. I'm just really tired when I get up in the morning. I probably need to start updating my blog earlier so I can go to bed earlier.