Category: "Uncategorized"

Nettles

August 7th, 2012

Russians love plants. Windowsills tend to be very wide in Russia, and they often have potted plants on them. When walking through the hallway, one of our teachers spotted this pot and started laughing.

The little plant growing on the left apparently got in there as a weed. It's a stinging nettle. Galina tells me that it will raise blisters on the skin, and that in the old days people would sometimes punish kids by thrashing them with nettles.

Weirdly enough, once steamed they are safe to eat. Some people make nettle tea. Aparently it has an antihistamine effect, which is weird when you consider that it also causes uticaria.

Advertising

August 7th, 2012

Our classes conducted this semester are at the Institute of Economics, Management and Law. The hallways are lined with pictures, documents and a few ads, and this ad made me laugh.

Essentially it reads: "Your girlfriend doesn't know how to cook? Send her to study at our Department of Restaurant Management... or come yourself."

Musical memories

August 10th, 2012

Often when I go to Russia, it seems like there is some song played everywhere that triggers memory of the summer for me. In 1992 on European MTV, that was available in my hotel room, it was Nirvana's “Lithium,” a song that you would never expect I would like in terms of my personality, but somehow it works for me. For 1996 I think it was “Children” by Robert Miles. In 2010 it was a couple of Lady Gaga songs plus the occasional replay of “Take on me.” For 2011 it was J-Lo's “On the floor.” For this summer it is without a doubt Fly Project's “Música.”

If you look up the song on the web, very often the lyrics folks will tell you that part of it is Arabic lyrics. I think that's complete crap. Whatever they are saying, it's definitely a Romance language, and probably Portuguese if I were to guess. But what the heck “el sela” means is tricky. So far I think it's a weird reference to the psalms, where ‘sela’ is a word that we can't quite identify, although some people think it means “musical interlude.”

Okay, okay, I admit it

August 10th, 2012

Okay, okay, I admit it: I became weak and allowed a tight schedule to seduce me into stopping at McDonald's for an Americano this morning. But tell me this. How many McDonald's in the US would put a bouquet of flowers on your table?

Shoes

August 10th, 2012

Last night we attended a jazz concert. While I was waiting for the last of our group, a woman wearing an unexpected pair of shoes crossed my field of vision. They flummoxed me. Back in the States I can think of a drag queen or two who might wear these, but a real woman? I'm skeptical.