I thought I was going to a tennis match…

but instead, I found myself at a football match. But football matches last 90 minutes, not 5 hours.

Yeah, I am talking about the Davis Cup on Sunday. I was totally pumped to see some good tennis. In fact, I didn’t go out the night before because I knew I had to get up at 10am. I guess I should have known something was wrong when they handed out Thunder Sticks at the door. You know, those long tubes you blow up and bang together to make a lot of noise? At a tennis match. And that set the tone for the whole match. Granted, I knew watching Russia vs. the US in Russia, the crowd would be biased. But this crowd was out of control. All Andy Roddick had to do was fault on a serve- not even double fault- and the crowd would go wild. He shared a few words with the chair ump, but I’m surprised he didn’t just give up and walk out. Tennis matches are supposed to be reserved and polite- this really was more like a football match. All the noise gave me a headache.

As far as the playing went, it was disappointing. It was Andy Roddick vs. Dmitri Tursunov on clay. On any other surface, Roddick would have smoked Tursunov, but apparently Roddick really sucks on clay. It’s just too slow for him- Tursunov even had more aces than he did. (Tennis fans, let that one sink in). So Roddick dropped the first two sets, but he took the third and fourth sets. So we came to the fifth set. Apparently the Davis Cup doesn’t do the whole tiebreak concept. Which is very bad when players hold their serve. Roddick and Tursunov held serve through 31 games. Thirty-one games. Then in the 32^nd, Tursunov broke Roddick and finally ended the whole thing. By the end I didn’t even care who won, because the entire match lasted 5 hours. Just watching them made me tired. In fact, we didn’t stick around for the second match, which was James Blake vs. Marat Safin, I think.

Tuesday was my friend Henrike’s birthday, so Terri and I spent our Monday off shopping for her- and us. I actually bought a notebook which cost like $10, but it’s a really awesome notebook. Anyway, we ended up buying her a cake and some flowers, and made her a banner in Russian. Then at 10pm, us four ladies went up to her room and sang “Happy Birthday” to her in German. We had a fun little girls’ party: eating cake, listening to the radio, and drinking wine. Then Irina showed up and brought another cake, and we ate that with tea. Henrike’s parents were in town visiting her, so they brought German board games and sweets. We stayed up until 3am playing Bluff, eating Haribo Goldbären, and cooking up revenge on our noisy neighbors. Nice night.

McSplurge

Well, the sting of homesickness was tempered yesterday by a very productive day on my part.

This weekend the Davis Cup semifinals are taking place in Moscow- Russia vs. USA, and although I planned on going, I still had to buy tickets. So I decided to go buy tickets, and I took Megan with me because she likes tennis too (even though she calls Andy Roddick “Andy Rodderick”). I had only a “vague” idea of where the Olympic Stadium was located, but I wasn’t really worried about finding it once we got off the metro- how can you miss a whole stadium?! Well, it wasn’t so easy, and I had to ask a few people before I finally found the ticket office. And luckily there was a very helpful woman in line who spoke some English and helped us out a bit. But we bought 2 tickets to the Sunday session!!!! We could have gone for the 100 or 200 ruble tickets, but we decided to go wild and buy 600 ruble tickets. That’s about $23, which is a bit of a splurge for me. Now I just have to figure out who I am going to root for- Marat or Andy?

Then came the second splurge and the second success- McDonalds! McDonalds is pretty straightforward in Russia- a Big Mac is a Биг Мак and Chicken McNuggets are Чикен МакНуггетс- phonetically, they’re the same. But the first time we went, they couldn’t understand our English/ Russian accents and they pulled out these little picture cards and I just pointed to what I wanted. It was pretty humiliating and I felt like such an American. Fast forward to today: I ordered in Russian, and they didn’t pull out the picture cards! I was very proud of myself. To tell the truth, I wasn’t planning on ordering anything but a Coke, but I decided to give it another go and I was superbly rewarded. Unfortunately, that bit of pride cost me 125 rubles, or about $5. But McDonalds in Russia really is better than in America.

Also, Meghan and I went to the rinok again today (that’s the market outside our Metro stop) to get some cookies. I swear, my sugar consumption has gone through the roof since I got here. Actually I am eating a lot of fruit too, because it’s cheap and you don’t have to wait a week for it to ripen. Anyway, we went to this one fruit stall that I go to often, and the woman was really friendly. She came off her perch and showed us where the ripe fruits were, and then started a little conversation with us. I’m getting really good at small talk in Russian- everyone asks where I’m from, what languages do I speak, why am I here, how long have I studied Russian, where am I living. The rinok is the easiest way to practice Russian, because you’re forced to speak it at some point.

Also, thanks to everybody who has left comments and sent me e-mails. I appreciate every word you guys write, so please keep writing me. I know I am awful at replying quickly, but I’m trying!

Something to do!

I am excited about the Kremlin Cup, October 9-15. Naturally, a tennis tournament! This should be interesting because it's indoors on a carpet surface and it has a pretty small draw. Also, tickets look ridiculously cheap... the best full session tickets cost $75. Compared with $500 full session for the W&SFG Masters or $1000 for 2 sessions at the US Open.

One event I am going to be missing is Moscow's City Day, which is the first weekend in September. They celebrate Moscow's founding by closing the streets off to traffic and holding parades and fireworks and festivals. Definitely looks like fun, but too bad I'll miss it.

The best week of the summer

... and the busiest week too! This past week I've been volunteering at the Western and Southern Financial Group Masters tennis tournament. What an amazing, fun week! I probably worked close to 40 hours in the press box and spent a few more hours hanging around watching great tennis. (I also worked a few nights at Krogers and did a day trip to Columbus, so that's why it was so busy). On my first day I came face-to-face with Andy Roddick in the players' lounge, which almost gave me a heart attack. I felt like a 16-year girl again. I also got to watch some great practices (Tim Henman, Andy Murray, Marat Safin, Rafael Nadal). And, I got to watch a few awesome matches from the Center Court photo blind, which means I also took a lot of great pictures.

The biggest highlight came when I sat in on a doubles match featuring Marat Safin and Mikhail Youzhny. This was a highlight because I followed 4 Russian-speaking men (one was a player) into Court 3. Then I started talking to one of them in Russian- a very gutsy move for me, because of how little I can actually can speak and because they were total strangers. One asked me, "Marat davai?" (Come on Marat?) and I was like, "Of course!" I enjoyed the atmosphere of the match- mostly Russian-speaking crowd, who all seemed to know Marat and Misha personally. It made me excited about Russia.

Speaking of Russia! I leave in two and a half weeks- that's 17 days! This past week I haven't felt as excited as I was feeling a week or two ago. I don't know why that is... maybe because there is so much to be done, or the reality is sinking in, or even that sometimes the reality hasn't sunk in yet. I'm nervous and anxious, but I don't know why... I think I am worried about the goodbyes and "lasts" that are coming up- I am trying not to make a big deal out of them. I don't want to act like I'll never see everybody again. I'm hoping that will prevent some of the inevitable homesickness I am fearing.

Anyway, it's the homestretch, so I have lists of things to do. I've given up on learning more Russian and made my peace with my ridiculously limited skills, haha. I'm so lazy.