19 Sivan/1 June, 2010
Jun. 1st, 2010 11:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bearshortyI’m turning thirty in less than one hour. It is a bit surreal because it doesn’t feel like June yet. Tomorrow should be a fun day, though. I love birthdays, even one as daunting as this one.
This morning we went to the North cemetery again so Mama could visit my grandfather again. Aunt Vera went back to work this week, so we had to use public transport. We took a trolleybus and a bus and it took us about an hour in total. I finally took out my iPod during this trip – I haven’t listened to it since the first dacha visit. We didn’t stay long at the cemetery because a million mosquitoes tried to eat us all at once. It was still wet from all the rain, and they had a blast. After only a half an hour we were waiting to the bus again. This time it was bus, trolleybus and a metro to get to the center of the city.
We had lunch at the underground mall again. I had French-style meat and then stopped by a food store to get ice-cream (I wanted a vanilla covered in yellow lemon again but I got chocolate covered by chocolate by accident. We then walked through the center of the city to the main train station and the area there. Kirov street is wide and pretty.
Then we walked to Katya’s and rested there for a bit and chatted with Katya who regaled us with stories of various train trips. Lenya was not in the mood for company and was a bit rude to his Mom and us.
We decided to finally stop by my first school, #136 where I was in grades 1-4 (equivalent to elementary school in US. In Soviet Union and then in all former republics, a student stays in one school and in one class all throughout school – grades 1 to 11. I just transferred to a specialized math school when I was in the fifth grade – which was unusual to do.) We got off Pushkin metro stop and went to all old store on Pritytskogo street (near to where I grew up). After a couple of stores, I went off to my school while my parents continued to look in more stores. The school was all freshly painted and renovated. I saw my old classroom on the ground floor and walked in to the front hall just to look around. It all looks pretty much the same inside, maybe smaller. The coat room where I once went home in a wrong coat was still there and all the hallways. I still remember the school plan very well in my head.
I then joined my parents at the sports store and I got Bear a T-shirt – dark blue with a Belarusian crest on it. On the way home, while my parents bought more food and I was waiting inside for them (since it was slightly raining) next to magazines. Out of boredom, I started looking at the magazines and I bought a cross stitch magazine with some great designs. Two caught my attention. One – a girl with a red violin and another of a woman in a modern art style. I think I found my future big project for when I feel up to tackling a big project again.
In the evening I had smoked salmon and salad. Called Bear. Talked to Sveta for an hour and a half on the phone. I also talked with Uncle Tolya a bit in the kitchen in the evening – it is a first time I’m relating to him as an adult really – last time I visited I was twenty-one and we lived in Katya’s apartment. It was actually one of the highlights of the trip, getting to know him as a person and not just an adult figure.
Tomorrow should be really warm, just the way I like it. And I get presents! That I like even more. My twenties were interesting – there are many food memories as well as not awesome ones, like being not well. But it was mostly good. I’m definitely in a very different place mentally that I was when I was twenty years old and when I look in the mirror now, an adult is looking back at me. I’m ready for my thirties.
This morning we went to the North cemetery again so Mama could visit my grandfather again. Aunt Vera went back to work this week, so we had to use public transport. We took a trolleybus and a bus and it took us about an hour in total. I finally took out my iPod during this trip – I haven’t listened to it since the first dacha visit. We didn’t stay long at the cemetery because a million mosquitoes tried to eat us all at once. It was still wet from all the rain, and they had a blast. After only a half an hour we were waiting to the bus again. This time it was bus, trolleybus and a metro to get to the center of the city.
We had lunch at the underground mall again. I had French-style meat and then stopped by a food store to get ice-cream (I wanted a vanilla covered in yellow lemon again but I got chocolate covered by chocolate by accident. We then walked through the center of the city to the main train station and the area there. Kirov street is wide and pretty.
Then we walked to Katya’s and rested there for a bit and chatted with Katya who regaled us with stories of various train trips. Lenya was not in the mood for company and was a bit rude to his Mom and us.
We decided to finally stop by my first school, #136 where I was in grades 1-4 (equivalent to elementary school in US. In Soviet Union and then in all former republics, a student stays in one school and in one class all throughout school – grades 1 to 11. I just transferred to a specialized math school when I was in the fifth grade – which was unusual to do.) We got off Pushkin metro stop and went to all old store on Pritytskogo street (near to where I grew up). After a couple of stores, I went off to my school while my parents continued to look in more stores. The school was all freshly painted and renovated. I saw my old classroom on the ground floor and walked in to the front hall just to look around. It all looks pretty much the same inside, maybe smaller. The coat room where I once went home in a wrong coat was still there and all the hallways. I still remember the school plan very well in my head.
I then joined my parents at the sports store and I got Bear a T-shirt – dark blue with a Belarusian crest on it. On the way home, while my parents bought more food and I was waiting inside for them (since it was slightly raining) next to magazines. Out of boredom, I started looking at the magazines and I bought a cross stitch magazine with some great designs. Two caught my attention. One – a girl with a red violin and another of a woman in a modern art style. I think I found my future big project for when I feel up to tackling a big project again.
In the evening I had smoked salmon and salad. Called Bear. Talked to Sveta for an hour and a half on the phone. I also talked with Uncle Tolya a bit in the kitchen in the evening – it is a first time I’m relating to him as an adult really – last time I visited I was twenty-one and we lived in Katya’s apartment. It was actually one of the highlights of the trip, getting to know him as a person and not just an adult figure.
Tomorrow should be really warm, just the way I like it. And I get presents! That I like even more. My twenties were interesting – there are many food memories as well as not awesome ones, like being not well. But it was mostly good. I’m definitely in a very different place mentally that I was when I was twenty years old and when I look in the mirror now, an adult is looking back at me. I’m ready for my thirties.