Mock Spring

Those of you who are from winter country can understand the frustrations of mock spring. Mock spring is that evil time in winter where the sun shines all day, the days begin to warm, the snow begins to melt, the birds magically appear, and the trees start budding. Everyone is happy and brings out their spring coats and shoes. And four days later, there is a fresh blanket of snow, the wind is biting, the sun disappears, and you are freezing. This is what I am experiencing in Moscow.  We had nearly a week of nice, warm, sunny weather and then, bam, blizzards and black ice again. Depression ensues.

I lived that sunny week to the fullest. Any free time I sat, bundled up on a park bench (thirty degrees never felt so warm). I had been reading Oliver Twist and had to fight many personal battles to pull myself away from sun and book to teach. I also visited a few parks, wandering around in aspen groves dodging one horse open sleighs. A few of us even wandered through a street market, reminding me of living in Asia. Only the Russians will literally chase you through the market trying to get you to buy something.

My teaching schedule has changed, yet again. I no longer have the clients across the city at nine in the morning. They didn’t like me because I didn’t speak enough Russian. I danced for joy. Instead I got two more clients closer to home. The only downside of this is that I am walking under overpasses and bridges at nine o’clock at night with very little lighting—and in this weather, not many sane people are out that late under bridges.

I finally, finally, finally, got up the energy to go out on the town on a Friday night. But of course, no one else had the energy. So after wandering under bridges like a troll, I traveled an hour back across the city to a co-worker’s house. By the time I arrived my co-workers were all pretty far gone. It was attempting to blizzard and they had given me the wrong directions to the apartment (in their defense, I also came out at the wrong part of the metro). Luckily, my roommate found me. He had been on his way to the metro to pick me up and had gotten lost too. Somehow we found our way back to the apartment, but not before getting in a random snowball fight with our crazy Ukrainian co-worker. There were civilian casualties and we had to outrun an angry man… I blame the intoxicated members of our group, because I have an amazing arm and would never through a wild ball (ahem cough cough).

Last night my roommate and I headed towards the center again, for a sushi night, slash Carmen-thinks- she-needs-MORE-jewelry shopping. Of course I brought impractical jewelry instead one of those necklaces with a blue eye to ward off the evil eyes that old ladies keep sending me when I am so engrossed in my book that I don’t notice them wanting my seat on the metro.