la la fa.....
My very dear friend Russiagirl was found with the help of ladyloo. What a small world/diaryland. I shall now attempt to reminisce a bit about Russiagirl.
Yes, we did instantly bond, as we were both from Alaska. Not very many people in Russia wore black & white striped tights and had a nosering. What WAS the name of that nosering...?
There was a bus that took all 22 or so American exchange students from the airprt to the hotel place outside of Moscow where we would spend our first few days. One of the exchange student workers said that the elevator had broken, and we would have to carry our bags to our rooms. There were groans. He said these words "You're in Russia now." It was eerie and oh, so true. I learned not to depend on elevators, buses, and street vendors selling "beef". My first night there I roomed with a girl named Sola, from OH. I woke up in the middle of the night to big, booming sounds, and immediately thought we were getting bombed. It was thunder. We don't get that often here. Since I was awake, I flipped on my walkman to see what kind of radio station music I could hear, what was the FIRST song I ever heard in Russia??? Yep, it was the Beatles, "Back in the U.S.S.R".
When Russiagirl came to visit me in St. Petersburg from the town of Stavropol, we stayed up the first night talking all night in my host family's kitchen. I showed her a bit of the city the next day (I believe she peed in the Neva river). That night we went to Nevskii Melody and drank and danced. My host family had been robbed at gunpoint (me included) in our home a few months earlier, and had a security system put into place that would set off alarms if the doors were opened before 7AM. SO, Russiagirl and I had to wait around till 7AM before we could go back to my host family's apartment. It was the only time in my life that I have stayed up for 2 days straight. We ended up falling asleep for a few minutes on a park bench, only to be awakened by an old man, poking us with his cane.
The Whitesnake concert we went to was just like Russiagirl says, only the group Mr. Big was there too. Also, I remember another concert with a group called the "bush pilots", and NO, it wasn't a lesbian group.
SONGS THAT REMIND ME OF RUSSIA: Anything by Anjelika Varum or DDT,
"Shoop" by Salt-n-Pepa
"Ra, Ra Rasputin", by ABBA
"Englishman in New York" by Sting
absolutely ANYTHING by Haddaway (What is love, baby don't hurt me..." or Ace of Base (Happy nation...)
"Bicycle" by Queen
"pogovorim o cekce" by Malchishnik
"Faina", by Na Na but most of all....."I'm still standing" by Elton John. It was playing the morning after one of my worst nights in my 1st host family, and it just happened to be on the radio as I was in the airport one year later. It was the last song I heard there.