ещё без интернета

Hiya. It’s now Thursday, and I’ve been moved into my apartment for about three days now. So far it’s been pretty good, and I’ve spent time the last couple days gathering all the things one would need in their apartment. You know, cooking and eating utensils, cleaning supplies, spare light bulbs (well, light bulbs to replace the four that were burnt out), etc. Probably the most exciting thin I bought was a Brita-style water-filtering pitcher. The tap water here is awful and not recommended to drink, so I figured a filter would be a good investment and alternative to buying tons of bottled water all the time. It cost about $16, fits perfectly in my tiny fridge, and appears to work just great!
The landlady and her assistant or whoever have helped me out with domestic stuff as well, although it did take them a little while. My first night here they were supposed to bring over some bed stuff (sheets, blankets, etc.), and they said they’d bring them over around 5:00, so I waited around at 5:00 and kept waiting for a few hours, but nobody ever came. I fell asleep waiting and then realized I’d have to spend the night without the bed stuff. Luckily there were a few pillows lying around, but I had to use my coat, my hoodie, and my towel as makeshift blankets. It wasn’t so bad, except for the bed itself. I guess it’s about a queen size, but it consists of two separate twin-sized pieces laid side-by-side into a frame, so there’s a big dip in the middle where the two meet. Each piece is basically a board with foam padding held in place by the outside fabric, so it doesn’t offer a lot of support. After a night sleeping on it, I figured I’d need to buy some sort of extra padding to go over it, but luckily the landlady had the bed problem taken care of. Her assistant finally arrived with some bed and kitchen stuff the next day, but I was surprised to find with him a couple of burly movers hauling a brand new mattress up the stairs as well (I live on the fifth floor, so it took a lot of huffing and puffing for them to get it up). There was, however, another problem: We couldn’t get the mattress through the door! See, My front door and my neighbor’s front door are in a little nook that is closed off by a steel gate that we both have keys to. My door is on the left once inside the gate, and my neighbor’s is across from the gate (there’s no door on the third [right] side). My door opens out towards the gate, and the neighbor’s opens out towards my door, and so we weren’t able to either get the mattress through the gate and then around my door, or conversely backed into my neighbor’s apartment and then forward into mine (because his door would be blocking my door, you see). So, the only way to do it was to take my door off its hinges, but since they didn’t have the right tool to do that, we had to leave the mattress inside the gate until the next day so the movers could return with the right sized Alan’s head screwdriver and finish the job. The mattress propped up inside the gate made it difficult to get in and out. Luckily, the movers returned today and took care of everything. I was late getting home because I had gotten on a marshrutka heading the wrong direction, and thus had to ride it to the end, turn around, and ride past where I had initially gotten on in order to go the right direction home. I let them in, they took down the door, put in the new mattress and hauled away the old ones. I was kind of hoping they would leave the old ones so I could keep them on the balcony and I’d have something to offer future guests to sleep on. As it stands there is nothing else besides the bed to sleep on in my apartment (though the bed could easily accommodate two), so I’ll probably have to buy some sort of pad before I have any guests stay the night. As the movers were leaving, one of the movers was hinting at a tip, but I half played dumb and half was dumb and didn’t know anything about tipping procedures in this situation, so he soon gave up and the movers left grumbling. I set up my bed with the sheets and blanket I bought earlier today, and now I have a right proper bed to sleep on, and it’s quite comfy to match; with real springs in it and everything! The landlady’s assistant had brought a blanket the night before, but it was really old and musty. The first thing I thought when I smelled it was, “that smells like the Soviet Union.” It is nice having a back-up blanket, though.
Besides shopping for and setting up my apartment, I’ve spent some time exploring the city. Simferopol isn’t exactly laid out in a nice grid, but it’s been fairly easy to figure out just from wandering and looking at maps. So far my favorite feature of the city is the Salgir River running through the middle and the nice paths running along side it. Sure it’s really just a creek, and it’s kind of smelly in places, but the path is a great alternative to walking along the busy streets. Best of all, the river is about a two minute walk from the door to my building, so it’s quite convenient. I spent most of the day Wednesday walking along the river path. There are lots of nice little sitting areas and even some gardens and parks along the way. Today I finally explored the downtown area and the area around the train station. There was something very exciting about being at the train station for me, because this is a place I had been before, Two years ago while I was studying in Russia, some friends and I took a trip to Sochi and then over to Crimea and Yalta, and although we didn’t really spend any time in Simferopol, we come here to catch our train back to Saint Petersburg. So, this is really the first time I have returned to someplace abroad that I have been to before, and being at the train station again made it sink in. It seemed like such a travel milestone: to not only visit a place, but to revisit it as well. I ate some street food from the vendors around the station, bought a nice detailed map of the city, and wandered towards downtown. There’s a really nice pedestrian-only area with some cool old buildings and fancy shops (though for a pedestrian-only zone it sure did have a lot of cars parked in it). I didn’t even get to see all of the downtown area yet, but between it and the train station, Simferopol seems pretty bustling and metropolitan. My part of town, though not too far from the center, is a bit sleepier, so it was nice to finally see where all the action is in town, and now I definitely feel better about spending the next ten months here. To be fair, my neighborhood does have some good perks: I’m right next to the bus station, which means it will be really easy to catch rides to other towns around Crimea; there’s a small but useful market right across from the bus station, where I’ve been able to get almost everything I need for the apartment so far; the university is really close as well, though I haven’t been there yet; there’s an awesome hill with cliffs right across the street from me (of which I have a great view), and I’m looking forward to going up there sometime soon and checking out the view; there’s a Crimean Tatar / Central Asian restaurant about 15 minutes away by foot, where I’ll be able to satisfy my craving for lagman, manty, and plov. I’ve eaten there once so far, and the lagman was pretty decent. In case you were unaware, lagman is an amazing Central Asian noodle soup with mutton and vegetables. As some of you already know from reading my last blog, I became something of a lagman snob while living in Kyrgyzstan. I don’t expect to ever find a lagman as good as the lagman at the resturant Nooruz in Bishkek, but I’m sure the stuff here will hold me over until the day I’m somehow able to return to Bishkek and have that heavenly soup one more time.
So, what’s on the docket for the next few days: I should be getting internet in my apartment very soon. The guy Sergei who first picked me up at the airport has a son who works for an internet provider, and he brought him over to et the ball rolling. His son Dima was very slick with his leather jacket, sunglasses and fancy Bluetooth headset (apparently a traditional accessory in this family). I showed him my Airport Express router that I brought to set up wifi in my apartment, and he was intently interested in it. He looked it over several times, and then took a voice memo on his cell phone explaining what it was and reading off some details from the information written on the side. He said it would work fine with their services, and that they’ll be able to run a cable into my apartment sometime this week. I’m also supposedly getting a washing machine sometime in the next week, but I’ll have to let both the landlady and the internet people that they’ll need to do it before Wednesday, because that’s the day I’m heading to Kiev (sorry, but being in a Russian-speaking area I’m just going to have to stick with the Russian spelling in favor of the Ukrainian and seemingly more PC “Kyiv”) for the Fulbright Ukraine orientation. I’m really looking forward to catching up with the other Fulbrighters, and getting to explore the big city a bit. Hopefully before that, though, I’ll get a chance to head down to the beach (most likely Yalta) and go swimming in the Black Sea before the weather and the water start getting to cold. It’ll be a lot of fun going back to Yalta as well. I’m shooting for Saturday or Sunday to do that. I’m also planning on meeting with my advisor/supervisor/professor at the university for the first time on Monday. I talked to her on the phone briefly the day I arrived, and she said I should just worry about getting an apartment and getting all set up before I head over to the university and get down to business, so that’s what I’ve been doing this week.
I’ll likely upload this post from an internet center on Friday, but hopefully soon after that I’ll be set up with internet in the apartment and I can start doing more frequent posting. Drop me a line!


-Austin