Sunday, we had our excursion to the Tretyakov Gallery, which is an art gallery devoted solely to Russian artists!
I was actually slightly late in arriving; which was stressful enough as was -- but my phone was dying, too! When I surfaced from the Metro, I had ZERO idea where the Gallery was, in relation to the Metro, so I called one of the guys from my group, praying he could tell me how to get there, and before my phone died. Thankfully, he *did* pick up the phone -- but then the connection dropped! Thinking that my phone had died, I was rather upset, but then realized my phone was NOT dead, and tried again! Andrew picked up again, and started to give me the directions when I heard a lovely musical tune -- this time, my phone really did die!!
Given that I'm prone to being stubborn; and that I hate traveling to places for nothing, I decided that I was just going to have to ask people how to get to the Gallery. I found an older woman who was willing to help, and she gave me a string of directions -- almost none of which I understood, except for the first line. It was then that a handily little game they taught us to play back in Washington DC popped up in my head: "Connect the Babushkas!!!" Rules of the game: when you're lost, and ask for directions, and only understand the first part of what people say -- follow the directions as far as you can, and ask another Babushka when you get to that point. Rinse and Repeat. I made it in 4 Babushkas, and Vika (our assistant Resident Director) saw me as I was coming up to the Gallery, and got me the rest of the way inside.
Truthfully, being late actually turned out to be a blessing, because as I entered the actual part of the Gallery where the exhibitions begin, I found myself behind a tour group that was being conducted in French!!! =^___^= Oh, it was heaven to hear French again!! I started walking very slowly through the rooms, so that I could still stay in the same area, and listen. I didn't want to outright follow them around, because that'd have been too obvious… =O-o= But I wanted to! Unfortunately, when some of the kids from my school group saw me/I saw them, I went to go try to meet them, and lost the French group…. I got a good 15-20 minutes of time though, so I won't complain.
Normally, I'm not a huge art-aficionado, but I was pleased to find that there were a few displays that did really mark my fancy. There was a beautiful painting by V. L. Borovikovskii (В. Л. Боровиковский), titled, "Portrait of M. I. Lopykhina" ("Портрет М. И. Лопухиной") -- which I bought a postcard of; and another postcard I bought, of an M. A. Vrubel' (М. А. Врубель) painting, "Rose" ("Роза"). While I was at the Tretyakov, there appeared to be a special exhibition devoted just to Vrybel', and while inside, among all of the works, my favorite by far was, "The Flight of Faust and Mephistopheles" (1896). I was quite taken with it. I was also surprised to see that a few of his paintings, truthfully, reminded me of some of the styles of drawing we see in Animé today. Maybe I'm just weird. Changing courses, I also saw a bronze lion sculpture, "Lev" ("Лев"), by A. P. Ober (А. П. Обер) that reminded me of the **Bary (Sp?) Lion casting on Nana's mantle. =^__^= Beautiful!
Another lovely occurrence at the Gallery: most of the gift shops had the same items, but I went through every single one, just to check and make sure that I wasn't going to miss that, "one, special thing," that I might have wanted. Boy, am I glad I did!! In the very last shop, and with NOTHING to do with ANYTHING I had seen in the Gallery that day, I ran across all of these mini-posters (slightly bigger than postcards) that featured propaganda-type posters, from WWII, the Soviet Era, etc.!!! I could hardly believe it!!! I bought if not every single one of them, almost every single one that they had there… 36 Cards, to be exact. = O_O = *SO* worth it. Now if I can just find something like that, but for the US, that would be amazing. I'll have to look around online, maybe?
I found a store that was selling notebooks/school and office supplies, so I went in to buy some things (Thank goodness they took credit cards!), and went home to *eat!!* (And there were new sweets to try -- which I love!!!)
Polina and I ate together, and while we did so, we watched two episodes of The Simpsons and one of Futurama. They have a really weird dubbing style here, at least for those shows, where the English track is still there, and then it is dubbed over, on a slight delay. Sometimes you can still hear the English in the background. Polina and I talked about Homer, and The Simpsons -- how he's really such a fool, but everyone kind of likes him anyway. I shared with Polina the opinion I had heard voiced on the 20th Anniversary of The Simpsons t.v. special that aired before I left the States: 'We love Homer because *Marge* loves Homer. It's her love that redeems him from all of his mistakes and stupidity. If it weren't for Marge, we'd all probably hate Homer; but because she sees something worthwhile in him, so do we." Polina agreed, as I do, with the idea. (Which I thought was really well stated, and was something to think about, when I first heard it voiced.) She and I chatted about Family Guy briefly, too, and then we both went off to go do homework…
… Except of course, that I was online chatting again -- so I'm in so much trouble when it comes to school work!
(2-20-2010 Note -- I may have beeb 'Sarah Bernhardt-ing' there slightly. I've gotten most of my work finished, don't worry. The first two weeks or so were full of trying to get into the swing of things, scramble to find anything that could be used for school supplies/find and buy school supplies; and waste time trying to run around and buy Internet and Cell Phones….!!!! = @_@ = Needless to say, it felt like there were much more important things to do than homework, sometimes. And, hey - we have a 4 day weekend this weekend, so I will definitely be fully caught up, and ready to go for the future.)
Thankfully, with that chatting however, I got to have the following Gem of a conversation, with my great friend, Mark:
Mark
Trust me.
I'm an American.
You commie.
Me
I'm an American toooooo!
Mark
You are an EXPAT.
Me
Ha ha ha
Only a week so far
Goodness, I really am.
Mark
HAH.
THE TRUTH COMES OUT.
You COMMIE.
Me
I really am an EXPAT, not a Commie!!!!
Mark
Commie.
Mark
*calls the CIA* Hey, we've got an expat commie trying to destroy Applie Pie, Democracy, and Capitalism. :|
Me
Hey!!!
Mark
Apple*
Although applie is kind of cute.
Me
I make amazing Applie Pie, why would I want to destroy it??!
Whoah
I just did the same typo you made
Weird
Mark
Yeah, cause you're copying us.
YOU COMMIE.
PUT OUR ROCKETS DOWN.
You cannot has.
And you want to destroy it so that we can't have it anymore.
I know how this works.
Me
You know I'm saving this conversation for Posterity, right?
*laughs*
Mark
:|
And I'm saving this conversation for training material.
So we can teach other Americans how to deal with commies.
Ha ha ha ha ha -- wonderful times. And, for the record again, I am not a Communist, and Russia is not on the Communist system anymore either.
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