How do you measure a week in the life...?

Sportivnaya Harbor-- where almost all of those little white stands sell ice cream or shashlik. Mmm! :)

What seemed a lonely start to my new year here counted in empty frozen-food packages and stacks of already-finished paperbacks has fortunately picked up quickly as new friends emerge magically from the construction-zone woodwork of Far Eastern National University.

My first few days were, well, sad. I had no work, no meetings, no friends… and no clue as to where I was exactly! I spent the days roaming around aimlessly— always making sure to return to the dormitory well before dark (in accordance with the stringent advice from everyone I’ve met here)—and the very long evenings dining, reading, writing, studying, and (not or) watching bad Russian television* alone in my room. Those initial evenings all blur together in one confused, lamp-lit memory where Hemingway’s Frederick Henry conjugates irregular Russian verbs in green stilettos. Ужасно.

But on Tuesday, I had my first class with a group of very sweet girls, and we all giggled at each other over bits and phrases of English for an hour. Later that evening, I hung out with our lovely floor administrator Luba, and she helped me translate a poem by Anna Akhmatova. Since then, she's been super sweet about passing me notes of information she thinks I'll find helpful-- like the website for Russian Skype. It's a good feeling to know girl's (or, y'know, "dear older woman's") got my back.

Wednesday, one of the other teachers took me to lunch at Magic Burger—like McDonald’s but infinitely more awesome. We sat and chatted candidly for hours about… everything! She’s my age, about to enter a doctoral program, and, in my opinion, an extraordinarily sweet, intelligent, and down-to-earth woman. When she described the social pressures and expectations for women in Russia and her own personal struggles with them, I have to admit that I fought a strong— though, of course, wrongheaded and perhaps entirely erroneous— urge to whisk her away to the States where she might be better appreciated. Anyway, I guess the subject of this post is not gender roles in Russia, but friendship, and suffice it to say, this teacher and I confirmed the beginning of a friendship beyond coffee room camaraderie with a mock-ceremonial handshake halfway through our magic burgers.

Thursday, I invited Женя, who lives down the hall, over for tea and cookies after dinner. (Yes, I know, I really am an old lady trapped inside a 22-year old). All of the uni students (unlike their interim English teaching assistants) have a pretty ridiculous amount of class and work on a daily basis, so I wasn't sure if she would actually come. But at 9pm, she appeared with some sesame snacks and two pretty little ornaments for my phone (she had helped me figure out my cell) from her hometown in China. The two of us had a fun and cozy tea party in my dorm, eating too many sweets and chatting in a borrowed language for hours about our lives at home and in Russia. We have some grand plans for exploring the city's cafés and museums—but not on school nights, of course. :)

Friday, the rain began.

Today, I met my second and third groups of students—all surprisingly lucid and energetic for Saturday morning classes (one of which meets at 8am! Eek!). Eager to talk and quite charming at that, all of my students so far have been quite fun to get to know. This afternoon I received some friendly texts and emails from a few of them with welcomes and offers to show me around town. And some of the girls in my most energetic class seemed quite ready to "remedy" the fact that I had not visited any of the city's nightclubs.

After classes, I also met Vlad, a friend of a friend's Moscow friend, and his roommate Artyom. Turns out they're both studying English and Korean... and live just a few floors above me in my dorm! They gave me a lovely guided tour around Vladivostok (which I have an even greater appreciation for now, as a result) all afternoon, while we chatted in funny spurts of Russian, Korean, and English. And in a week or so, Vlad and I are going to Vladivostok's Pacific Meridian International Film Festival to see a screening of one of its French/Italian? films in Russian/English.

And tomorrow: brunch with a friend of the former ETA here in Vlad, church with the Pastor-friend of a Pastor-friend of a family friend (I guess that's how these things all work!), and dinner with two sweet Korean girls on my floor who will (I hope) show me how to make the magical food of my people.

The (close to) bottom line of this lengthy post seems to be the lesson I keep learning at the end of every day here: nothing is as I thought it would be at first! I spent a while moping about my impending loneliness this year, only to realize by the end of my first week that I'm actually surrounded by a myriad of warm and splendid people.

A season of love?
True-- maybe.
Cheesy-- most definitely.



*Bad Russian television is much like bad American television, while maintaining its own, uh, cultural idiosyncrasies. For example: on the Russian version of American Idol, one judge’s only comment to the lead singer of an all-girl punk rock band was that if she was serious about show biz, she needed to ditch the Chucks and adopt some stilettos. A pair of lime green, floral-print heels were immediately produced on stage and forced upon the poor girl.