Baptism by Vodka

Well, I have at long last been officially 'Russified.' Initiated. Christened. Re-born, even.

I spent Friday night in the company of two new Russian friends, Julia and Alyosha, and a new PhD student from Slovakia, Kinga.

The plan: hand-make pelmeni (Russian meat dumplings) at Alyosha's house and watch a classic Russian comedy, "Служебный роман."

The outcome: five-and-a-half hours of making dough, pulverizing meat and vegetables, wrapping this meat/veggie concoction in little circles of dough, boiling the pelmeni, eating the pelmeni along with smoked fish from the Far East, taking 4 (or was it 5?) vodka shots, only getting through 15 minutes of the film, watching Russian comedy skits online, looking at Alyosha's photos of an expedition he took to the Russian Far East, and sprinting home through the rain to make the 1 am dormitory curfew just as security was locking the door.

Julia is a third-year Lingva student to whom I give presentations, and through her I met her friend Aleksei (Alyosha) who is quite a character. His sense of humor is right out of my own backyard, and so far we have a really great budding friendship. He also happened to take a trip to Kamchatka and the Commander Islands last summer to research the Arctic fox population, and he knows of my new-found obsession with getting to the Far East after the debacle with my university in P-K. He enthusiastically showed me photos of wildlife from his trip: pictures of brown bears taken from a distance of 20 meters, four different whale species (orca, sperm, humpback, and southern--of which there are believed to only be about 30 living in the world) that swam up to their boat and even performed jumping spectacles for them, puffins, arctic foxes, sea lions, fur seals, and more. He even showed me a video he took at the summit of a mountain on the Commander Islands where the wind was so strong that he could lean into it at a 45 degree angle and remain 'afloat'. Needless to say, I got really jealous, but spent the whole time awestruck.

Alyosha and Julia have proven invaluable friends so far---always willing to take me out somewhere and keep me company. So far we have plans to go to museums, go bowling, to the theater, and more.

Saturday night I met up with my other new friend, Miriam, whom I met at Thaddeus' Halloween party, and who is also an English teacher at a school in another Moscow suburb. She was heading out with some other teachers on her program for drinks downtown and invited me to go along. They were all Brits (except Miriam, who has a mixed-heritage background of India, Canada, England, and Scotland and her friend Lisa from North Dakota), and I felt like I was in a proper pub for most of the night. It was great fun, and interesting to speak with people who have a similar job and who can offer me plenty of advice.

Finally, I'm feeling at home.