Anniversary of living abroad/Russia: Take 2

Today, September 3, 2010 marks the 1 year anniversary of my getting-the-f**k-OUT-of-Ohio" (asterisks provided for former co-workers and young family members).

It's amazing how quickly a year goes by, but that's not a surprise to anyone is it? I have had so many amazing experiences during these last 12 months. I feel I've grown more as a person and learned more about the world than I had in the preceding decades. I have done an awful job, however, at keeping a blog. I meant to write each time I visited a new place, or about all the little occurrences that have substantially impacted me but I suppose I'm too busy keeping busy (and I also write each entry laboriously). I am writing a personal journal to preserve these things for myself but it is filled with details and incoherent ramblings that are not fit for the general public (or anyone who happens to "Google" me online). I wish I had an ability to sum up exactly what this year has meant for me, but words are not enough.

I have been incredibly pleased to actually SEE several friends from home during these past months (in chronological order):

Justin Eddy - who visited me for (at least a week?) on Lesvos in Greece - the most beautiful and peaceful place I've ever been.
Mike Leonhardt - who went on a European adventure with me to Athens and around Greece, Rome, Prague and Amsterdam.
Jeni Peters - who just so happened to be in Rome at the same time I was going to be in Rome!
Michelle Smith - whose interests in arms reduction and Russia brought her to me in Moscow.


Before that it was 9 long months of new places and new faces which was terrific but seeing familiar faces allows me to reconnect with the past and evaluate the changes in myself. Another thing that has really allowed me to see this has been my stay in Russia for the past couple of weeks.

Russia was the first place I ever travelled to outside of North America. It was the first time I had to navigate in a different language and culture. Granted, for that trip I was with the Havighurst Center of Miami University on a summer course and actually had to do very little for myself. When left to my own devices I mostly clung to experienced travelers like Stephen Solomon (my peer mentor), professors and Russian tourist guides. Nonetheless, Russia terrified me. I couldn't understand anything - Cyrillic gave me an instant headache, all the words blended together, people were so MEAN, always looking at me like I was some sort of crazy person/confused American girl.

I have a distinct memory of being mocked on on overnight train from St. Petersburg to Moscow for breaking out in loud Nona-laughs. It was my birthday, for goodness sake and I was happy and had been drinking a lot of Sovetskoye Shampanskoye (and yes, I know I was being made fun of because the Russian speakers told me so). My critic, a middle-aged, brassy-blonde Russian woman proceeded to get staggeringly drunk, then dance and vulgarly grope a man half her age. But, really, it's Russia and laughing loudly is far less acceptable than complete inebriation and public displays of dry-humping... so I guess I was asking to be ridiculed. This was 5 years ago now, in the summer of 2005. At the end of my month in Russia I wanted nothing more than to leave. I was tired - of not being understood of feeling like a freak, of the sound of this hard-sounding incomprehensible language everywhere I went, of dill (oh, how I hated dill, apparently the only herb used in Russian cuisine).

At present, I have gone 12 times as long without being in an English-speaking country and these things have ceased to faze me. Now, I have visited 11 countries (once again, in chronological order):

Russia (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Veliky Novgorod)
Hungary (Budapest, various small towns)
Spain (Barcelona)
Austria (Vienna)
Serbia (Belgrade)
Greece (Lesvos, Athens, Volos)
Italy (Rome)
Czech Republic (Prague)
Netherlands (Amsterdam)
Poland (Krakow, Warsaw, small towns)
Ukraine (Lviv, Kiev)

It helps that most places I've been are relatively "English-friendly" including bus-drivers in rural Poland. I am also incredibly thankful for CouchSurfing and friends that have acted as de facto translators - especially in Serbia, Ukraine and Russia. I have also learned some important survival skills. I am comfortable now getting the things I need without (or with very few) words. I have grown to appreciate the fact that I can't understand advertisements or people's inane conversations on public transportation. I have no problem understanding non-native speakers. Perhaps these things sound trivial, but they feel substantial.

My second trip to Russia has been so much less painful and less disorienting than the first. In Hungary, I mastered the art of not-smiling-to-yourself and always find this composure useful in post-communist countries. I don't know Russian, but I know enough to mind my Ps and Qs and I know that smiling broadly is not the best way to receive assistance. I also learned the sounds the letters of Cyrillic alphabet make so I can at least sound out words (subsequentially mispronouncing them) and read the metro stops. There are even some cognates once you can understand the letters! By my appearance it is still immediately obvious that I am a foreigner. I no longer have the curly blonde hair but my short haircut and lack of stiletto heels is telling. It doesn't help that the only clothes I have that are acceptable for the cool fall weather are t-shirts, a pair of men's jeans and hiking boots (my farm-working wardrobe) but I get by. I have even come to peace with the food. I must admit I feel quite decadent eating shrimp and smoked salmon and caviar and fake crab and halva everyday. And the mayonnaise! There is something wrong with most the mayonaise in Europe. It's sweet, almost like Miracle Whip, but in Russia they understand mayonnaise and I love mayonnaise.

In a few days I will be leaving Russia. My expensive visa will be up and studies start in Manchester soon. I will be traveling through the capitals of the Baltic states for a week and then flying to the UK. I am both nervous and excited. I have grown a bit weary of homelessness and living out of a bag. Familiar MESPOM faces will be welcome. I am not looking forward to the high cost of living in the UK and I wonder what it will be like to be surrounded by English again. I am excited for a plethora of good shows to attend and access to "ethnic" foods and hippie foods like seitan and tempeh and cheap tofu. I intend to update soon, but don't hold your breath.

I miss and love you all. Please keep in touch.

Polish WWOOFing

Despite not having updated in many travel years (they're sort of like light years) I thought I would write something to let many of you know that I am still alive.

I've been a to too many places in the last few months (Greece, Rome, Prague, Amsterdam, and Krakow) and I am finally staying in one place for a couple of weeks before resuming my nomadic life and heading east (Ukraine) and east (Russia). Perhaps, in my brief period of staying still I will update a bit about the other places I've been but for now - where am I?

I am at a farm in Poland, about an hour and a half outside of Warsaw - more specifically near here. What am I doing here?

I am WWOOFing. Some call it indentured servitude, others serfdom, and, well, some of us call it vacation. Technically it stands for Worldwide Working On Organic Farms and you can find out more about it here. This is the second farm I have visited in Poland.

The first, Michnowiec Eco-Frontiers was in a beautiful place and I could even see Ukraine out of my window. However, despite having solar and wind energy, biological waste management, forests, wetlands, prairies, beaver dams and some very beautiful horses it was not a nice place. Andzrej and Aga were absolute misanthropes and it is beyond me why they would ever agree to let anyone come to their farm. They wouldn't talk to us, they gave us very hard work in hot weather and the only food available was bread, cheese, tomatoes and cucumbers. Look, I know I signed up to work for nothing, and all I really ask for in return is basic human decency. This was not provided at Eco-Frontiers Ranch.

The only other WWOOFer there, Vicky, was from Beijing and this was her first time out of China. She was so unhappy it was painful to watch. I encouraged her to leave - go to Krakow, Prague, a city. After I had only been there 3 days, she left. Although she asked me to come with her I refused. I was unsure if I would stay the entire two weeks I had committed to, but I thought I would stay a bit longer as I had no other plans. However, after Vicky's departure, Andzrej suggested I "find another farm" as "the work they had was for two people." I did not object.

So, I quickly found myself back in Krakow unsure of where I would go next. I ended up enjoying myself immensely in Krakow and stayed for about 6 days (you'll have to forgive me, I cannot remember anything precisely at this point). I was very apprehensive about going to another farm, but I didn't want to write WWOOF off based on one bad experience. When Ewa, from Grzybow Farm (association - Ziarno ) emailed me, asking if I was still coming, I took it as a sign got back on the train/bus.

I'm so glad I did. It is a much better experience here. People are always coming and going, helping flood victims, teaching children English, running workshops on organic farming, baking bread, making cheese, and other kinds of do-goodery that I approve of.

The work is hard and there is a lot of hay involved - turning hay, collecting hay into piles, moving hay bales, feeding hay to goats, putting hay in the cow and horse stables, etc. but I am enjoying myself - doing work that I can see with my hands. There's another WWOOFer here, Hannah, a Californian that is on summer from Columbia and we chat easily while we work. The food is very good, especially the homemade bread and cheese. We eat meals with the family (Ewa and Peter and whichever of the 5 daughters are home) and are always treated kindly. Today, Hannah and I accompanied Peter to Płock, where he delivered bread. We walked around town, got coffee and cake and went to the cathedral.

The family has 2 horses, over 20 goats, including an adorable baby and a scary billy goat, 4 milking cows and 3 calves, and some dogs and cats. Ewa is Polish and does most of the work for the organization. Peter is Swiss and does most of the work on the farm, including making the amazing cheese.

So there you have it. I'm feeling healthy and happy. I'm getting stronger and my hands are getting callused. I am also very very tired, and I'll be back at it at 8 am, so I'm going to bed now. I'll post some photos soon.

I feel so funny.

This has nothing to do with my travels - but, actually, it does. I've certainly met a few Wally Campbell's. One of my favorite passages ever. Is it wrong to hope that we'll get some more Salinger now that he's dead? I know he wouldn't like it - but the rest of us would.

"Oh, I remember...Listen, don't hate me because I can't remember some person immediately. Especially when they look like everybody else and talk and dress and act like everybody else. " Franny made her voice stop. It sounded to her so cavilling and bitchy, and she felt a wave of self-hatred that, quite literally, made her forehead begin to perspire again. But her voice picked up again, in spite of herself. "I don't mean there's anything horrible about him or anything like that. It's just that for four solid years I've kept seeing Wally Campbell's wherever I go. I know when they're going to be charming, I know when they're going to start telling you some really nasty gossip about some girl that lives in your dorm, I know when they're going to ask me what I did over the summer, I know when they're going to pull up a chair and straddle it backward and start bragging in a terribly, terribly quiet voice-or name dropping, in a terribly quiet, casual voice. There's an unwritten law that people in a certain social or financial bracket can name-drop as much as they like as long as they say something terribly disparaging about the person as soon as they've dropped his name-that he's a bastard or a nymphomaniac, or takes dope all the time or something horrible." She broke off again. She was quiet for a moment, turning the ashtray in her fingers and being careful not to look up and see Lane's expression. "I'm sorry," she said. "It isn't just Wally Campbell. I'm just picking on him because you mentioned him. And because he just looks like someone who spent the summer in Italy or someplace."


"He was in France last summer, for your information," Lane stated. "I know what you mean," he added quickly, "but you're being goddam un-"

"All right," Franny said wearily. "France." She took a cigarette out of the pack on the table. "It isn't just Wally. It could be a girl for goodness' sake. I mean, if he were a girl-someone in my dorm, for example-he would have been painting scenery for some stock company all summer. Or bicycled through Wales. Or taken an apartment in New York and worked for a magazine or an advertising company. It's everybody, I mean. Everything everybody does is so-I don't know-not wrong, or even mean, or even stupid necessarily. But just so tiny and meaningless and - sad making. And the worst part is, if you go bohemian or something crazy like that, you're conforming just as much as everybody else, only in a different way." She stopped. She shook her head briefly, her face was quite white and for just a fractional moment she felt her forehead with her hand- less, it seemed, to see if she was perspiring than to check to see, as if she were her own parent, whether she had a fever. "I feel so funny," she said. "I think I'm going crazy. Maybe I'm already crazy."

from Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger