Lot of Blogs!

Hello to my loyal followers who have missed me oh-so-much and to my not-so-loyal followers who did not even notice how long it has been since I last posted. Basically, I have had limited or no internet access for the past few days, so I have been typing blogs on my computer and will now post them all chronologically, typing the actual date on which I wrote them in the title. So, ignore the title that the blog site says, and only pay attention to what I write.

August 9, 2011

So, my last day in St. Petersburg was interesting as my English-speaking friend who was translating for me the whole time I was in Russia left in the morning, a good six hours or so before me. So, after saying our goodbyes, I left his parents' apartment with friend of my friend's mother and her daughter to go and see the Hermitage museum, as I had not yet done so. I could tell that the family friend and her daugher, a 13-year-old girl, were very nice people. I mean, it is not often that friends will take a foreign friend of their friends' kids to state sites and wait in painfully long lines just to suit their fancies. This woman and her daughter were willing to do so, and for that I am eternally greatful. I did realize by being around them that I literally sound retarded speaking in Russian around people who speak it as their mother tongue. As we walked around the city, I got overly excited whenever I saw anything of which I knew the word in Russian. So, picture this: we were walking around the sidewalk and suddenly I pointed and shouted "orange flowers!" or "big cat!" like a toddler learning to speak. Then they looked at me and said something along the lines of "yes, yes very good!!" just like proud parents. So, after this happened a number of times, the lady and her daughter started wondering if I was just inept with language or with life itself, and so they started pointing to things and saying what they were, and making sure I was able to get on the escalator alright. It is so tough not to be able to communicate properly with people. But we ended up making it all right, and the three of us had a good time and we shared some laughs and some eye-rolls at the horrendously long lines outside the Hermitage. I will always be thankful to them for their patience with me.

August 9, 2011

So upon turning on my computer, I saw that the St. Petersburg airport has free internet and thought to myself, "wow, this is literally the only positive thing about this horrible, horrible airport". Everyone is mean, you go from one line that moves about an inch every 10 minutes to the next, and they make you show your passport about 70 times. Thereofre, I really should not have been shocked when the alleged "free internet" did not work. Then, I thought, it was possibly just done by the employees at this crazy place to mess with travelers. I mean, I felt like a cow being herded everywhere by a dog nipping at my heels for the whole hour and a half it took me just to get my boarding pass and go through the passport check. Actually, maybe not a cow, because they at least like being in tight knight groups together. I felt like just one more gross and sweaty person amongst a ton of other sweaty and angry people trying to not-so-sneakily cut in front of me in line. That is one thing that gets on my nerves in Europe. Why does everyone have to be so panties-in-a-knot all the time? It just seems illogical to me. I feel like the high level of anger eminating from the stern faces of Europeans is one of the reasons that many of them dislike Americans. They look at us crazy folk smiling at people and saying "hello" and "how are you" and actually talking to our friends on the metro and think "wow, Americans are really annoying". I guess my theory is that Americans look really hyperactive and annoying because of the way that Europeans are quiet and solemn-faced all the time.

August 8, 2011

I had a good last few days here in Russia. A group of us went to Peterhof for the day and it was seriously breathtakingly gorgeous. It is the place where the Czars had their summer palace and let me just say, I would not mind living there in the slightest. There were extrordinary foundtains everywhere and buildings colvered in gold and flowers in extravagant patters all around. I completely understand now why the word Sveti was the first one that Rosetta Stone taught me. Not only are all the babushki selling them on every street corner, but basically every other store along the street is a Sveti shop. It was nice, it definitely brightened up the city.

So I think that relativity can be a funny thing. Story time! When I went to study abroad in Spain I would get super excited whenever I heard someone speaking English. It would be the kind of thing that would completely brighten my day. When I was in Russia these past few days, hearing Spanish or French was the most exciting thing ever because essentially no one spoke English and I was completely lost in a world of Russian. Now this whole thing has gotten to a ridiculous level where I got really excited when I heard Russian in the Czech Republic. I was excited for that, but then excited to a ridiculous level when there was a British couple at my bus stop. They were so helpful, they spoke Czech and English and basically told me exactly where I needed to go and what to do to get where I was meeting my second cousin. I did not even get their names, but we talked for a long time and they are officially my heroes of the day. Who knows if I would have even made it here without them?

August 10, 2011

Today was Brno. It was interesting, there are odd legends about everything in the city which is odd to say the least. The main one of the city, I suppose, was the one about the "dragon". And by dragon I mean large crocidile, but I guess there is an ongoing argument amongst the citizens of Brno whether it is a dragon or a crocodile and trust me, it is a crocodile (or alligator?), I saw it. Basically the story goes that long, long ago there was a huge "dragon" terrorizing the entire village and everyone was too scared to try and kill it until a traveling butcher came along and fed the dragon a dried lime, which made the dragon thirsty and it drank until the lime in it's stomach expanded and burst, thus killing the dragon. Ok, fine. So, this story raises a plethora of questions for me. One, since when is there such thing as a "traveling butcher"? Why would there ever be a need for such a profession? Do they run out of things to kill in their town of residence and need to move on? I just do not understand that. Also, the alleged "dragon" is now hanging in the town hall, and I saw it. It happens to be an average-sized alligator/crocidile (if Brno was argueing about which of those two aforementioned creatures it was, that would provide more valid. Dragon vs. alligator, however, not so much). Why were the townspeople so afraid to kill an average-sized reptile? I get that it is just a legend, but still.

August 13, 2011

My grandfather was and still is certainly a celebrity in his hometown of Vlcnov in the Czech Republic, and now I can say that I am one, too. Why is my grandfather a celebrity here? And, why am I now one? All in due time, my dear readers. Let's begin with the first question you persistantly asked me. I have realized that everyone here, even complete randos, knows my grandfather. I was wandering around the wine-making region of the village, and we were lucky enough to run into an elderly man walking into his wine cellar, so he allowed us to go in and have a look. My family mentioned to him who I am and who my grandfather is, and he got really excited and said that he and my grandfather shared a few laughs during his last visit in the early 2000s, and he made me sign his guest book. Then we were walking back to the car and we ran into another man who let us into his wine cellar and the exact same thing happenned. I felt really cool, and even more proud to be the granddaughter of Antonin Mostek than I already was. But, that is not even why I am a celebrity. When my second cousin and I arrived in Vlcnov, we looked around a bit and then hit up a couple of museums. The first was the museum of Slivovice which is esentially the moonshine of the Czech Republic. Then, we went to the old preserved building with an original rooftop and a ton of preserved artifacts inside. While in aforementioned building, a man heard me speaking in English and asked where I was from and why I was visiting. Then he told me that he and his crew were producing an informative film about the southern region of the Czech Republic and asked if I was willing to be interviewed for the film. Uhm, yes! I may have only been in that region for about a half an hour, but the offer of my fifteen minutes of fame made me suddenly very talkative about Vlcnov.