Trains, Spy Adventures, and Ocelots!

This last weekend my girlfriend Nastya and I went to Kiev for a quick weekend vacation.  We were only in Kiev for a few days, but I think we were able to see just about everything the city had to offer as far as sightseeing is concerned. I think the most impressive sight we saw was the Rodina Mat (Родина-Мать in Russian), and the war memorial built nearby. Everything there had a sense of grandur, and weight. Walking through the tunnel that housed the war memorial you felt small and inclosed standing next to 10ft tall statues of soliders, and surrounded by 3ft thick cement walls in any direction. I think the memorial did a great job of conveying the the glory and the tremendous pressure that those who fought in the Great Patriotic War probably felt. (Interesting fact: The Great Patriotic War is viewed as a separate conflict from World War II, and took place from June of 1941 to May of 1945)

If any of you reading my blog have questions about our time in Kiev, feel free to ask me, but I'm not going to be writing about the trip as a whole for the main bit of this entry. I started writing about everything in greater detail, but actually started to get a bit bored. The trip was incredible, and I had an excellent time, but it just seems to lose a lot of it's luster when I write about like a school report, listing everything we saw in order.

So I'm going to write about something a little different...
TRAINS!

I had never taken an actual train to travel anywhere before coming to Russia, but now I have had a little bit of experience with them, and I think it's time to give trains some attention.

Inside of a Russian sleeper train

Hang in there for a second with me, I promise it's more interesting than a late night ad trying to get you to buy "to scale" models.

Traveling from Moscow to Kiev by train is an affordable alternative for budget travelers (by which I mean broke-ass college kids) and, if you take the sleeper train, can get you to the heart of Kiev in time for breakfast if you leave the night before. I had taken a sleeper train once before from Moscow to St. Petersburg and found it to be a rather enjoyable experience, albeit an uncomfortable one. I had failed to take into account though that this time we would be crossing an international border, rather than just traveling from one city inside of Russia to another, and what differences that might make in the experience.

When Nastya and I arrived at the Kievskaya train station it was another cold spring day in Moscow, so we were both warmly dressed when we got onto the train at the start of our journey, which would have been great, except, in good ole' Russian fashion, they had the heaters blasting at full strength.

This prompted me to write a little fiction for myself, while I was passing the time. Despite the snow outside, and the fact that everyone was speaking Russian, I started to imagine that I was baking in the heat of the Colombian sun, with my sexy Russian spy accomplice/girlfriend, while we took a train ride to a meeting point with a contact in the Colombian drug cartel. It was just a way to let my mind run free a little bit while we were slowly cooking in the train, but it turned out later that my fantasy might have leaked into reality a bit more than I would have liked for it to.

After being woken up for passport control at the border Nastya and I were sitting on her bunk on the bottom rack while the border guards did some initial inspections. Suddenly, two of the guards come up to where our bunks were and started pulling up the carpet to reveal a small hatch in the floor. They then proceeded to open this hatch and started pulling out large bags that had been taped closed. At this point it was about 2am in the morning, and the only thing my sleep depraved mind could think was "holy crap, this is so awesome! I wonder what's in those bags... what if it's something crazy like drugs? Oh no, what if they think it's mine?!" I admit now that it would have taken quite a stretch for anything like that to stick, but my state of mind was not being helped by the fact that a group of four guards further down the cart had be arguing with some other passengers who were drunk, and had been rather obnoxious throughout the night. One of the guards decided that whatever was in the bag wasn't that important, and put them back, while the four guards down the way started kicking the passengers at the end of the cart off the train.

These guys were drunk, not all together happy about being kicked out at the border, and far from quite about their displeasure. The went down the cart yelling obscenities at the guards, and demanding to see official papers. We could continue to hear the protests of the passengers once they were outside of the train and the passport checks had continued. I was a little worried they might try and pull the same thing  on me in an attempt to get a bribe to stay on the train, and while they did regard my passport with enough suspicion to scan it, and double check all the facts, they left me alone for the most part. By the time all the checks were done our drunken cart-mates had managed to bribe their way back on board and were toasting to their good luck for being able to stay on the train.

Once we reached the second passport control point upon entering the Ukraine the train attendent started trying to extort one of the drunk passengers, and the drunk passenger lost it. I should mention that the train attendent looked a lot like the guy who played Bronson in the movie of the same title, if Bronson had spent less time in prison gyms, and more time killing bears with his hands in the Siberian wilderness.

Rather Large and Very Scary

The passenger tried throwing a few punches but the train attendent got the better of him, putting him in a head lock, and dragging him to the other end of the cart. I don't know what exactly happened, but my guess is the attendent got his money, because they let the guy stay on the train again. There were no celebratory toasts this time though. I imagine they were trying to make as little noise as possible so they didn't attract anyone else looking for a little extra cash. 

The whole time these two shake downs were happening, my mind kept going back to the spy fantasy I had written for myself earlier. Hidden contraband in the floor compartments, corrupt officials, and the whole time I was just playing it cool. If I'm being honest though, Nastya is probably the one thing that kept me out of trouble. She was able to respond much quicker to the guard's questions than I was, and they didn't seem to like me asking them to repeat the questions a couple of times so I could get the full grasp of it. Regardless, I went back to sleep feeling like an undercover badass. 

Our train ride home was thankfully much less eventful, but we did also have two huge cats in the bunk next to us, so maybe they scared any would-be trouble makers into submission. 

I'm convinced they were ocelots. No amount of proof will convince me otherwise

All this is to say: if you're looking for a more exciting way to travel next time you're going on vacation, give trains a try. You might get to have your own ocelot filled spy adventure.

Seriously though, check out the resemblance 

(It's a picture of a cat on the back of a bus ticket that I drew)

What I Learned Playing with LEGOs and 20 New Uses for a Brick

I've been pretty awful about posting since getting back from Europe, I know. I honestly don't even have a reason for it, I've just been feeling lazy lately. Hopefully I'll have some time to write about some of the things I saw during my Eurotrip, but for now, I think I'll stick with news from Moscow.

I've been teaching one of my professor's sons English once a week to help make a little extra money this semester. My professor wants us to do things that are fun so her son actually enjoys learning a second language, rather than looks at it like the rest of his school work, so we do things like play darts, go for walks, and two weeks ago we were playing with his LEGOs. I was a huge fan of LEGOs when I was a kid, and I think you would be hard pressed to find any person around my age who didn't also enjoy building spaceships, or ancient tombs filled with zombies out of those little bricks. God help you if you ever stepped on one, but short of that, they may very well be the greatest toy known to man. You can choose to follow the directions and make what was originally invisioned for the set, you can mash up the sets and make stuff like an AT-AT from Star Wars with a dinosar head, or you can take the "directions are for pussys" route and start making whatever the hell you like out of all the blocks you have at your disposal.

My professor's son was busy building a pretty sweet space ship while I was asking him about the different colors of the blocks. I, on the other hand, had been kinda picking through the blocks and not really making anything. My young pupil took notice to the fact that, while he was already zooming around the room in his new intergalactic ride, I had nothing of my own, and he asked me "Did you forget how to play with LEGOs?" I tried explaining in Russian that I just didn't know what exactly I wanted to make and he said something to the effect of, "It's really easy! Just think of what you want, and then make it!"

Those words really stuck in my head for the rest of the day, and while I was walking home I had to wonder to myself, "how can I have forgotten how to play with LEGOs? It's one of the easiest, most fun things I can remember from when I was a kid." For the next few days I spent a lot of time wondering why nothing had come to mind while I was staring at those blocks sitting on the ground in front of me, and I found an answer:

I've lost my sense of creativity

The thought had occurred to me that same day, while I was walking home from my professor's home, but at the time I had told myself that it didn't really make sense. I have played the saxophone since I was in the 6th grade, and musicians are creative by default, right? The more I thought about it though, the more it made sense. As a musician, I've always loved playing big band charts. I love the feeling you get when a band grooves together, and it all just works, but, to a large extent, that's a technical skill. It requires some sense of feeling to know how the music should flow, but a lot of it comes down to reading the music sitting in front of you, so you're not really creating anything in the process. Improv, however, has always scared me stiff. The prospect of making something musical out of thin air always made me nervous, and I often did my best to shy away from practicing my improv skills. I would always do just enough to get by, rather than really jumping in balls deep to try, fail, try, fail again, and start to actually get better at the process of creating music.

I want to be able to create, have original ideas and make them a reality, and I found the prospect that I might not be a creative person unacceptable in all honesty. I thought more and more about it, and realized that if I was given an unlimited budget, unlimited time, and a Matrix like ability to download any skill I didn't already posses, I wouldn't know what to do with it. I mean sure, I would probably throw a few raging parties, go travel a bunch, use skills other people had spent lifetimes developing to win bets in bars, and eat in all the most expensive restaurants I could find wearing hand-tailored clothes, but that's really just the fantasies of a 20 something college student. If it really came down to it, and I had the resources to do anything I wanted to do with my life, I wouldn't know what I would want to do.

So I started a list.

"The list of things I would do in my life if time, money, and skill were not a factor" currently includes 52 different goals ranging from "fly a jet pack" to "become a published author," and I'm trying to add more as often as possible. When I get up in the morning, I try to imagine what baby steps I'm going to take that day to reach one of those goals, whether it's "go to class" (Learn to speak Russian fluently) or "do push ups" (Bench over 100% of my body weight), or anything else, and I think that it has been a pretty healthy exercise thus far, and has helped me open my own eyes to the kinds of things I want in life, and what I need to do to achieve those goals.

I reached out to one of my former employers, friends, and creative minds in Colorado, Kelly, to ask for her help in regaining that child-like creative power, and both she and her husband Peter have been very helpful. While talking with Peter I was able to find a reason beyond "because I wanna!" to try and rekindle my creative spark, and that's for becoming a better worker.

As we were talking about the importance of creativity in the workplace I thought of myself sitting in a room during an interview and hearing one of those stock questions, "What is your greatest weakness?"Not to seem like I think I'm the greatest guy on earth (although, I am pretty cool), but I've never had a good answer to this question. I'm punctual, smart, good under pressure, I work well alone and in groups, and I can solve problems creatively. I've come to realize something though, being a creative problem solver, and being a creative person are not the same thing. When I have been given a goal, an end point, I can find all sorts of ways to reach that point, and I'm pretty good at leading groups to reach goals too, but I struggle when I try to decide what that end point should be myself, and that's where being a creative problem solver and a creative person differ. When someone says to me, "Tyler, you're in charge of five people, here's a kitchen full of everything you could need to cook a meal, now go cook me a steak and potato dinner, with steamed asparagus, and a cheesecake for dessert." I will find out which of those people grills a steak so tasty even PETA employees want them to barbecue at their company picnics, which one loves grilled vegetables more than their children, who got flunked out of baking college (is that a thing?) because the teachers were threatened by how heavenly their cheesecake taste, and I'll get those people making the dishes they need to make. No problem. If someone were to put me in that same situation, but tell me to cook whatever I felt like, my response would probably be, "Well I hope you like grilled cheese and Top Ramen then."

I'm over simplifying of course, but I hope the point is clear. When someone gives me a goal, a direction to go, I have no issues getting there, but if I'm left to myself to decide what that goal should be I'm usually at a bit of a loss.

So why is a creative worker important? Well the best way to solve old problems is with new thinking, and with the speed at which things change these days, especially with technology, I think the guy who can see which direction to go next is probably going to be one of the most valuable assets any company has available. Also, I don't want to work for other people the rest of my life, so I need to figure out how to set objectives and goals for myself too.

The really wonderful thing about this problem though, is that it is totally solvable. I'm convinced that creativity is a skill we all posses, we just need to develop it so that we can use it effectively. To that end, I've been trying to do creativity exercises, like "think of 20 new uses for a brick," which Peter told me about.

So here they are:

1. Hammer
2. Weapon
3. Plate (I know, not ideal, but still possible)
4. Super cool night stand
5. Primitive lock-pick
6. Makeshift weight for working out
7. Counter weight for a pulley system
8. Ruler
9. A little flower pot (I don't know if you guys have ever seen this, but some bricks have silver dollar sized holes in them)
10. Clap two of them together as a signal (The British are coming!)
11. Strap a couple of them on your feet to walk over hot surfaces (I know that if you walked on them for too long the bricks would get hot and cook your feet, but for the short-term, I think it could work)
12. Stop-blocks for a car or trailer
13. You could use different colored bricks to make a wall with a built in mural
14. Super effective spider crusher
15. The Pez in a heavy-duty Pez dispenser
16. Janga, hard mode
17. A place to leave a message (You know, write something nice to the future occupant of your current home, or take the express route and throw it through a window)
18. A somewhat uncomfortable stool
19. Door stop
20. Budget version of a drummer's practice pad

It took me 12 minutes and 38 seconds to come up with that list, and while I admit it's not the best, I'm still pretty proud of it.

Feel free to throw your own "20 new uses for a brick" list into the comments here, or on facebook, or just do it in your head, but at least give it a try. You might be surprised with what you come up with.

Гулять

Before I get into the real meat of this entry, a real quick Russian lesson for those who don't know anything about the language. I promise it won't hurt. For the most part.

The title of this entry "Гулять" (pronounced goo-LYAHT') is a Russian verb. You can tell it's a verb because it ends in "ть." You can also tell it's the infinitive form of the verb for the same reason. So why am I telling you this? Well, mostly just so you can feel like you walked away learning something today. You're welcome.

Гулять literally translates to "to walk, stroll," but the reason I want to spend some time talking about this verb is for its second meaning, "to make merry, live it up." This is a bit of a cultural phenomena here in Russia that I've really come to love and I thought it might be nice to share with you all back home. This isn't high level vocab or anything, I'm sure most first and second year students learning Russian could tell you what it means, but I didn't really understand it until I had a chance to experience it for myself. When I go out on the weekends my host Galina always tells me to "enjoy my stroll," but it's more than just walking around. When Galina says this to me what she's saying is something more like "enjoy your time," or "have a good time." It's not entirely about taking a walk, but, at least from what I've experienced, more about enjoying life.

You might say to me "well no duh Tyler, that's what the second meaning you wrote early says, quit wasting my time" in which case I will call you up over Skype and slowly shake my head at you in disappointment, and you don't want that.  There's a few connections that need to be made here that might be hard to see if you've never had the chance to experience this. First of which is that there is an extremely strong connection between walking around your environment and having a good time. You can go for a walk around the streets in the center of Moscow, or one of the many parks that are scattered all over the place, it's not important, but Russians love to be out and about, despite how cold it can get. The second is that you don't have a destination. There is no point A or point B. You might define the area you're in if you're going to talk about where you're strolling, like "I'm in this or that park," but it's not about going some place, it's about wondering.

Back home if I was going out I had a destination in mind. I knew where point A and point B were and the goal was usually to get from one to the other as quickly as possible. Point A might have been home and point B was wherever I was meeting friends, the space between them was... well, just space honestly. Nothing special. Here the whole point is that the fun happens when there is no destination. There's no goal, just exploring and have a good time.

Let me give you an example:
I meet with my friend Sasha about once a week and our meeting usually go about the same every time. First, we'll sit down in a cafe or bar, order a beer, talk about life, philosophy, news, whatever, pay the check, and then go for a stroll. Some of the most interesting things I've learned here have been while we're just wondering around. Topics come up that you would never think of during normal conversation, like issues with the infrastructure of the new parks in downtown Moscow, or why there are still bulky, outdated phone booths that no one uses still littering the side walks of Moscow.

If you wanted to take the phrase "stop and smell the roses" and put it into one verb, it would be Гулять. For me personally this is one of the things I struggle with the most. I always feel like I need to be going somewhere, doing something specific, but this is a completely new way to consider how to enjoy yourself. It's healthy, it's relaxing, and it encourages you to learn the environment. You have to stop thinking in terms of "here and there" and start thinking in terms of "this and now." It's not about where you are going, or who you're going to meet with. It's about where you are, and who you're with right now. Maybe it's difficult to understand by just reading it, but whenever you have some down time grab anyone you know who's nearby (or go by yourself, it's a great time to do some self reflecting) and just go wonder around. Don't set a goal or a time limit, just see where you're feet take you. Go down a street you've never walked down, maybe you'll find a new cafe, maybe you'll meet someone new. Who knows, maybe you'll learn something about yourself or your environment you didn't already know.

We live in a beautiful world full of things we don't know yet, too often we forget that.

Гулять - "To stop and smell the roses. To learn something new. To live here and now."

Someone decided the normal traffic arrow was boring

Nothing takes that pesky "rape-y" vibe away like an Avatar themed paint job.

Speaking of interesting paint jobs...

Yeah, that's a Porsche with a Boondocks paint job. 

Magnitsky Act

A new piece of legislation was passed by Congress recently called the Magnitsky Act that will normalize trade with Russia while condemning human rights violations in the Russian Federation. This act was passed without any problems (a vote of 365 to 43) and signals the US’s continued stance on punishing other countries that partake in human right’s abuse while still moving forward into a new era of trade with Russia. To really understand what this act means though it’s important to understand its predecessor, the Jackson-Vanik Act.

            

The idea behind the Jackson-Vanik Act was essentially the same as the Magnitsky Act, in that it acted as a mechanism to punish countries that violated human rights. Countries, like Russia, that restricted emigration were not given trade benefits with the US. Because of this act Russia began allowing certain levels of emigration so that they could trade with the US. This was seen as a human rights victory and Russia was able to trade with the US. Arguably a win-win situation for everyone involved.

            

Fast forward to the recent introduction into the WTO and we run into a problem with the Jackson-Vanik Act however. It’s against the bylaws of the WTO to have restrictions against fellow WTO members and if the Jackson-Vanik Act was not repelled Russia would be able to deny certain privileges to American firms and the same American companies would be unable to use WTO mechanisms for conflict resolution in Russia. Obviously this was a situation that the US could not allow since we’re all about having the maximum power of trade anywhere in the globe we can manage it. And why shouldn’t we be like that? It’s smart business sense. But anyway…

            

Sergei Magnitsky was a Russian lawyer who reported a $230 million theft from the government by Russian police officers, Russian tax officials and organized criminals. Clearly the man had some balls, because he must have known that he was going to get thrown in jail, which he did, by the police officers he testified against. It was claimed that Magnitsky himself was responsible for the theft, and while he was detained in prison awaiting trail his health began to fail, and it is claimed (though not confirmed) that while he lay in the prison hospital he was handcuffed to his bed, beaten by several guards, and left to die. Of course, he died before every receiving his trial, but with the state of the Russian legal system, it’s unlikely he would have received a trail with an outcome more favorable than what he received anyway.

            

This is the set of circumstances that led to the Magnitsky Act.

            

The US decided to pass this new act, named after Sergei Magnitsky, that would repeal the old Jackson-Vanik Act, normalizing trade between the US and Russia as well as continuing to have some sort of mechanism to punish Russian human rights violations.

            

So what is the Magnitsky Act? Well, it would deny US visas to the men involved in the detainment and death of Sergei Magnitsky, none of whom stood trail after his death, as well as freeze all their assets in the US. Along with this, all future Russian officials who violate human rights would also be denied visas and be unable to have assets in the US. This would continue to encourage Russian officials to take human rights seriously as well as meet WTO regulations for fair trade among members. This seems like a great solution to the problem of the Jackson-Vanik Act, and some European countries are considering enacting similar bills, but the Kremlin is far from pleased about this development.

            

The Kremlin sees it as a direct attack on Russian citizens and has threatened to respond in kind. They have said that they could similar ban certain US citizens from the Russian Federation, as well as freezing assets inside the RF. They also point out that America has far from a spotless record on human rights and they seem to feel that the pot is calling the kettle black.

            

I don’t think that many Americans would be overly upset if Russia enacted similar laws against the US, but it’s an interesting idea. Personally, I think that the Magnitsky Act seems like a good piece of legislation, and that the Kremlin is upset simple because it may actual force them to conduct themselves in a manner more in accordance with the international views on human rights. At the same time, I’m not sure what to think about Russia saying that they will do the same thing to the US. Maybe it’s a good thing to have the international community holding each other responsible in this manner, but I fear that this sort of tit-for-tat reactionism might create gridlock in international cooperation.

            

Regardless, there are some interesting developments going on between Russia and the US and I think this is something worth paying attention to if you have any interest in international relations or human rights.

           

As always, feel free to comment, agree, disagree or whatever else.

Much love, Tyler

Thanksgiving Day Fail

We (the Americans) decided to celebrate Thanksgiving this year in Moscow by inviting over all our friends from Russia and other countries to enjoy some of the foods we were missing the most from back home. Sadly, I was unable to join them for the festivities. Why? Well, let me back up and set the scene for you first…

About two weeks ago I was at the dorm where our Thanksgiving merry making was going to be held with some friends and it was getting close to 11pm, which is when they ask guests to leave. Me, being the kind of guy I am, thought to myself, “forget that, I’m a grown man, I’ll stay as late as please,” and proceeded to do exactly that. The administrator came by twice looking for me and I hid on the porch while Anton explained that he had no idea where I was (thanks for that buddy). By the time 1am rolled around I decided I was ready to leave, and as I opened the door into the hallway I practically stepped on the administrator who had come up to Anton’s room for a third time to ask if he knew where I was.

Needless to say, she was more than a little pissed.

They tossed me out of the dorm, which was cool, I was leaving anyway, and yelled a lot of things at me in Russian that I could only assume were expletives. I got home, went to bed and didn’t think much of it after that.

Fast forward to this Sunday, I had just finished visiting a very cool exhibit on sustainable city development with my friend Sasha that was all in Russian and I actually felt like I understood with his help (his English is about as good as my Russian and we talk almost entirely in Russian, so this still required some work on my part), we went to the dorm, and as I was trying to sign in the guard told me to leave. A little confused I asked why, and he pointed to a piece of paper on the wall, which, if my translation is accurate said, “If you see some American clown with the goofy name ‘Тайлер Джоунс’ be sure to kick his ass to the curb.” That’s how my name translates phonetically, for those of you who were curious to know that information, which I’m sure is all of you.

After trying to explain to him that I just wanted to eat with my friends, and then trying to sneak in, which almost worked, I was forced to wait down in the guard’s office while dinner was being cooked. Anton brought me down a plate of food and some wine to enjoy in front of the guard. I was sure to eat it as loudly as possible and look like it was easily the greatest meal ever crafted on this planet in an attempt to make the guard jealous. I’m sure he probably couldn’t have cared less, but it made me feel better.

Anyway, that’s what Thanksgiving looked like this year: me sitting in a guard office eating turkey and cranberry sauce, drinking wine out of a plastic cup (because I’m a classy gentleman), and trying my hardest to make the guard feel as uncomfortable as possible.

But now for some important business: Things I’m thankful for

My parents who have been nothing but supportive and loving

My friends here and back home who I love dearly

All the teachers I’ve had that have helped me reach my goals

Eddie’s cranberry sauce, because it was like happiness in my mouth

The Elections

I know it's a little late, and you're probably tired about hearing about the elections now that they're over, but I'm going to write about it anyway.

I thought the best part about being abroad during the campaign season would most certainly be not having to see all the adds on TV, and while that was pretty fantastic, I think the perspective I got from being around non-Americans during the election was perhaps more interesting. I'll try and stick to just what I observed from those around me, but I'm going to share some of my own thoughts too. If something I say offends you... well, get over it.

First and foremost, I can tell you that regardless of your feelings about Obama, the rest of the world is really glad he will be back in office for the next four years. All of the foreigners I've met here, French, German, Spanish, Italian, and especially the Russians were all happy to hear that Obama won the race. My French friends thought that Romney seemed extreme, and reactionary, and of course, all the Russians I have met were more than a little put off by his Cold War-era mentality of Russia being the number 1 enemy of America.

I have to agree with them. Regardless of whether or not I like all of his policies, I do think Obama was the better choice between the two. Of course, I didn't care for either candidate, and saying  Obama was better than Romney, for me, is like saying oatmeal is better than grits. They're both essentially the same,  and I'm not particularly fond of either. All of that aside, I do believe that we are living in an every increasingly globalized and connected world, and it is increasingly important that we have a president that sees the necessity of cooperation between nations. Returning to the rhetoric of "Forget the rest of the world, especially those Godless Commies," will not take us anywhere. It's time to wake up, and realize that the rest of the world faces many of the same problems we do, and whether they speak English, German, French, Russian, Arabic, Spanish, or whatever else, they are still just people trying to build a better future. Of course, it's more complicated than that, and sometimes groups result to extreme methods like terrorism or economic repression (looking at you, IMF) to achieve these goals, and that's unacceptable, but the principle is still the same. Everyone just wants to be happy.

It's also important to point out that if Romney had won, and we had returned to the "Those pinko Commies are Godless scum," rhetoric I might have a lot of trouble finding work after graduation, and we can't have that, now can we?

One last thing...

I'm getting a little bored about writing entire posts about my week to week activities. Of course, the excursions I go on are interesting, and I'll keep posting about them, but the day to day of my life is pretty regular, and not much fun to write about, so... If there is something in particular you would like to know about let me know through email, facebook, messenger pigeon, whatever, it doesn't matter. Right now I'm thinking about doing a post on food, one about how we get around, and one focused more specifically on the metro here, but if you have some more ideas, let me know, because I'm sure I'll run out of my own quickly.

As always, much love and I miss you all

Happy Halloween from Moscow!

Not much new going on around here this week. As always, just trying to play as hard as I work haha. I wish I could tell you all the details of what I did for Halloween, but I'm really not sure myself what happened this last Friday. My buddy Anton and I went out with a few Russian friends from our faculty and went bar hopping. We met some fun folks from the UK while we were out and enjoyed a few pints with them, went exploring around Moscow and somehow found our way back home. I would like to take a moment to give a huge thank you to Anton for making sure I managed to get home. Who knows where I would be without him.

When I woke up the next day my clothes from the night before were covered in mud, I had hangover that kept me in bed all day, bruises and nice cut on my back from who knows what.

The sure sign of a good time

In other exciting news, I'm starting to get the plans for my Eurotrip during the break between semesters finalized. Right now the list of places I'm visiting includes: Budapest, Vienna, Prague, Germany, Amsterdam, Paris, Piza, Florence, Madrid, and Barcelona. Needless to say, I'm pretty stoked.

School is still going well and I feel like I understand more everyday and I'm starting to be able to have somewhat intelligent conversations with people. Classes are starting to get really interesting and I'm having fun writing on topics like "Freedom of speech in the Russian media and how it shapes political views of the public," and "Problems with legislation on human trafficking in the Russian Federation." If anyone wants to talk to me about these kinds of subjects, feel free to ask. I'm certainly no expert, but it's really interesting stuff and I've been getting some extremely different points of view from the people that live here.

And of course, bonus pictures! These are all from the Museum of Modern History.

1/3 Scale modle of the craft that took Gagarin into space

Book made out of coal that has pages you can actually turn. It was a gift to Stalin, but he never read it because he was afraid it might effect his already failing health negatively.

Big 'ole hammer and sickle. Each one of the ribbions was a country in the USSR

Remember folks, they're are friends!

Eddie SMASH!

Forward, into the future!

Gun cart used during the October Revolution. There's a little mechanism set up inside to imitate the sound of gunfire if the gun malfunctioned so that they could still be used as phycological deterrents.

Cornerstone of the Proletariat

Old school mortor