First Russian Lesson - Reduced to Childhood!

In order to get visas to stay in Russian longer than two weeks we had to register with an institution and get an official invitation. We registered with the school where Les teaches English and so have to attend five classes of 90 minutes. We had the first class yesterday which was 90 minutes of mental torture! We had a very nice young lady, Anna, as our teacher. We were the only students in the class and the moment we entered the room we were into it.
Zdrastruviche - my transliteration for hello. (Why is a simple greeting so difficult!)
Privyet - a little easier. That was Hi.
Dobre utra - Good morning
Dobre yen - Good afternoon
Dobre vecha - Good evening
We were supposed to read it, then remember it and later on recall it and repeat it. The complication is that a guy named Cyril many centuries ago got his letters all mixed up and as a result came up with what they call the Cyrillic Alphabet. They say it is similar to Greek but to us it looks more like double dutch!

The torture continued all those 90 minutes and then I realized the teacher didn't have a watch. How on earth would she finish on time and not prolong the agony. I was certainly guilty of being a "clock watcher" during that class - but very inconspicuously of course as I was trying to impress the teacher, even though being reduced to the "da da" stage of infancy. We were back to the humiliation we expereinced when we first went to Colombia and took our first lessons in Spanish. Unfortunately 35 years have sped by and we find we are not so quick off the mark mentally. Back to the 90 mintues. Relief came when I saw that the teacher had a cell phone on the desk and finally after 90 minutes the class ended. The teacher dismissed us with the audatious statement. "I look forward to you learning Russian so that we can converse together and you can tell me all about your lives and homeland." IN FIVE 90 MINUTE LESSONS OF TORTURE !!!

It seemed that even nature was in sympathy with us as it had started to rain very heavily during the class and we left the school dodging rain drops. The rain was pouring down. Les took us to visit a friend who lived nearby. It was just like Bogota in the midst of a down pour. The cars on the street seemed to look for every dirty puddle of muddy water so as to splash the pedestrians. We made it to Andrei's apartment with only wet feet.

After the traditional cup of tea it was back outside to the rain and then trying to dodge the rain drops all the way to the Metro and then back to the apartment. The rain did clear and then Les and I went with another friend, Vitaly, an elder from the church, to a game of football - soccer - which started at 7.00 pm. Novosibirsk was playing a team from the Volga region. It was a pretty unevenful game finishing 0 - 1, but it was interesting to see the people and the culture. It rained while at the game but umbrellas kept us dry.

The day was ended with more torture when Les wanted to review the Russian we had learned in the class. It is one thing to recall what we learned in the classroom situation at 1.30 pm. It is quite another thing to try rememebr at 10.15 pm. We are impressed with Les's (and Debbie's) ability in Russian. As the day ended Nancye kept saying.... is there any way we can cancel those classes or get out of them!!! Did I hear her muttering "Privyet" as we dropped off to sleep.