When I return home, describing Russia to my friends and family will be an impossible task. There's no way to properly express how rich the culture is, but I'll make a quick attempt. Despite some of the issues that have befallen me here financially, and despite the weather (it's no wonder that the Russian word for frost, мороз (moroz) sounds like morose!), I still adore the motherland. So here's a list of what I've learned from Russia, with love:

Traditional Russian music is amazing. It's a unique mash-up of European, Asiatic, and Middle Eastern sounds. I'm terrible at writing about music and can't really direct you to any specific things to download, but take my word for it that it's such a beautiful and soulful concoction. But hey, even Paul McCartney wanted to hear them balalaikas ringing out! Also, if not for traditional Russian music, we would not have the theme song for Tetris, which is the greatest video game song ever. And don't forget that Tetris itself is Russian too!

Russian is beautiful. The Russian language has a bad reputation with English speakers as a harsh consonant-filled tongue, and that's a terrible misconception. Did you know that the Russian alphabet has 10 vowels for its 33 letters? And despite such words Americans may be familiar with, such as гласност (glasnost) and борщ (borscht, which I'll crave like a junkie upon my return), there are some really sweet-sounding words to be heard. My favorite words that I know so far: картинки (kartinki): paintings, чуть-чуть (choot-choot): a little bit, чай (chai): tea. Yeah, "chai tea" is pretty redundant. There are a ton more that I love, but I can't remember all of them now! I should also note my love for diminutives: the cutesy form of words, which just basically involves putting "ka" in it. Bird is птица (p'teetsa; it's adorable out loud), and little bird is птичка (p'teetchka). A female cat, as I mentioned, is кошка (koshka). A female kitten is котёнка (kotyonka). It's also a more lovey way to refer to something, like "kitty" for "cat", which is sweet.

Russian is also incredibly logical, and has far less exceptions than English. Once you begin to learn a non-romance language, you really learn how illogical English is. It'd be a long-winded diatribe if I went on about sentence structure and grammar, but to borrow a bit from George Carlin, just think about how "bomb" "comb" and "tomb" all sound entirely different. Or consider the words "enough" or "sign", whose spellings make no sense whatsoever. Russian is only incredibly difficult because of the vocabulary differences -- of course it's easier to learn French, since 40% of English came from French thanks to the Norman invasion. However, sentence structures always follow distinct formulas, and the majority of the words are pronounceable on the first try. I took French for 3 years and loved it, but I'd always have to hear a word aloud before I had any idea how it was spoken.

The Russian people absolutely adore and respect their great masters. A large number of Metro stops in Moscow and St. Petersburg are named after authors and composers -- okay, the majority still also carry Soviet-era names such as Proletarskaya and Marxistskaya, but that's besides the point. If you've been in Russia and haven't heard about the poet Alexander Pushkin or have seen a statue of him, then you must have been in Siberia. I love this love that Russians have, and I wish that it were the same back home for people such as Twain or Whitman. You can give me examples of different dedications that we have, such as the popularity of the Hemingway house as a tourist attraction in south Florida, but the cultural attitude overall is what's entirely different, and what I can't convey. Though Hemingway's cats are pretty sweet.

The Russian people, for how hard they may seem on the outside, are warm and generous once they open up to you. I've mentioned Russian generosity many times in this blog as it is. There was a theory I heard a few months ago about why New Yorkers are perceived as rude while everyone else in America is so danged friendly: it's because New Yorkers encounter more people per day than middle Americans encounter in the span of a week, month, or year. There's no point in wasting your energy on so many random people whom you'll never encounter again. For the opportunity to live in one of the world's most wonderful cities, New Yorkers have to squeeze next to unhygienic idiots on the subway, and have bums yelling obscenities at them on the sidewalks. It's the same deal in Russian cities, so I've encountered. However, 9/11 showed New Yorkers' true colors as kind on the inside; at least, that's my opinion from living there at the time and seeing what mere acquaintances did for each other. And after all, the majority of city folk are liberal and open-minded. It's the backwater folk who tend to be least accepting of different customs. But I digress: Russians are nice people deep down, even when alcohol isn't involved.

One more note on the similarities between NY and Moscow: the juxtaposition of the cosmopolitan and the impoverished is quite unnerving. In New York, it's how a five-minute walk will take you from million-dollar townhouses to crack-riddled slums. Here, it's the mink-coated Prada-toting girl who walked on by the leper with the dying face. I'm not kidding. I saw my first leper about twenty minutes ago, and it was horrifying. This sounds facetious, but he resembled one of the zombies from Planet Terror. I wish I could have done something. I always wish I could do something, for the guy with no legs propelling himself on the skateboard with irons in each hand, or for the amputee war veterans. Jesus, I am truly jaded towards the horrors of the human body now. I give when I can. I bury my nose in a book, or walk faster when I can't. That's city life for you.

Transit geek blurb: I don't know if I've said this enough, but the efficiency of the Metro system here is mind-blowingly awesome. The stations are so gorgeous and well-lit, and the chandeliers and art make even the super-squashed rush hour commuter a museum-goer. And for only 68 cents a ride! The train lines are also laid out in the most efficient manner, unlike New York's, whose train lines were built by 3 different companies when the subway system was privatized. Sorry, conservatives, but urban planning should be left to the government, and the Moscow Metro is definitely on the Top 10 list of Things That the Soviet Union Got Right. Although, New York does win in terms of maps throughout every station, express trains, and above all, doors that'll reopen if anything gets between them. Moscow's subway doors will, but only if you fight them. Most times, you'll lose. They once almost ripped a purse from my body, but at least the door-fear makes people get in and out faster. Oh, and two intersecting lines have different station names for the different platforms, which annoys me. It's physically one station and you don't have to pay to switch trains, so why can't it be named as one too? There are 8 different trains that go to Union Square, and if I had to remember 8 different station names for the one stop, I'd go insane. Regardless, I'm not looking forward to going back to the NY subway system, sorry to say.

Rock me, Amadeus is now stuck in my head forever, thanks to the Moscow Circus. They played it while a woman descended from a giant disco ball, over a pool of synchronized swimmers. I took a video of it. Hilarious. The circus' theme was Around the World, and it was pretty funny (of course the portion representing America was rodeo and line-dancing, hurr) and a little mind-blowing. Somehow the stage turned from being solid ground, to being a lion cage, to being an ice rink, to being a swimming pool. I have no idea how they transformed it so quickly. It was awesome. They even had cats twirling sticks of fire! The only thing I didn't like was how sickly the lions looked, but otherwise, I've learned that the circus is serious business here. It was a nice final excursion for our program, and a nice treat before the big exam. I mustn't forget that it was a children's circus, and they played some American song with the repeated lyric, "would you go to bed with me?". All of the Russians kept clapping, and all of us Americans had our jaws drop, and then cracked up.

Today I took half of the TORFL test, the Test Of Russian as a Foreign Language. Between my money woes and the time spent in preparation for this test, I haven't been going out very much at all However, since I'm leaving on Sunday, I'm going to try my hardest to see my friends before I go, even if I can't afford to eat/drink very much with them. I need to go to Belfast and talk computers with Ildar, and go to Jagganath and eat soy goulash with Julia. I think they're my two favorite Muscovites, and I'll miss them badly when I leave. I admire Ildar a ton for his infinite computer knowledge, and I admire Julia to the moon and back for her English abilities. I'd give anything to speak Russian half as well as she speaks English. I'm excited to see her DJ at the Cavestompers show Saturday night, which'll be my final outing before I board Delta flight 31 on Sunday afternoon. Oh oh, and I finished all of my Christmas shopping! I'm in terrible debt now, but once I slay the dragon of bureaucracy currently holding me down, I'll be able to pay it off within 2 weeks. I just really wanted to give things to people, even if it meant going beyond my means. I'm so excited for the holidays, it's unreal.

And may I add, I'm very excited to see Joey. I can't wait to give him this fantastic mix I made. It's all hey-I'm-back-from-being-gone-a-long-time-I-still-like-you-a-lot-I-hope-you-like-me-too-let's-be-ultra-cute-together-and-go-on-sweet-dates-and-have-awesome-times. On another note regarding my heart, I'm not bringing my little котёнка back to America. Cost and effort, but other students are taking good care of her, her mom, and her kitty siblings. We've been feeding them meat and cuddling all of them, aw. Here's a picture of me and said kitty! Eeeee.

Lastly, I'm considering reaching into my mouth with a knife and a wrench, and taking my wisdom teeth out myself. They're really painful. I can't wait to come home, despite all the love for Russia. I miss New York so bad, and I really need a dentist rather than tetanus. 6 days!