What the hell happened to you?!?

I was gonna transcribe some handwritten ruminations about this whole trip thing from the reallive actual journal, written on a plane or a train in some country or another recently, but then I looked at it and realized of the three or some pages it was all Russian and Czech, not even full sentences of either just all tremendously mixed up...and it would be more work to try to translate myself than its worth. So yes, for everyone who keeps asking...Prague was great, thanks. IF you want the long version, you can find me in Portland in less than 2 months. And by long version I mean uncensored irrelevant irrational caffinated one...

Funny story about getting back to town yesterday morning (today? I dont know what country I'm in...what language I'm speaking...just fuck me now man...) and trying to speak Russian to my poor host mother...We're all sitting around eating breakfast and she kind of starts giggling and says to me:

" What the hell happened to you? You used to speak so good and then you went to those Czech crazy people and now you speak like a three year old."

Maybe it was the beer. Or at least thats what I told her. I do feel like an idiot though, because now I'm afraid to open my mouth 'cause everything comes out in the wrong damn language.

And happiness, me being the naive forthright person that I am, I gave the correct migration card to the scary mafia looking man at customs, the one with all my registration on it saying that I'm legal in St. Petersburg, cause he scared the crap out of me. 'Lo and behold I discover today that you could have just given them the pretend one from when we were in Estonia last month, and kept the real one, thus circumnavigating the whole registration process. So tommorow I get to give up my passport and visa AGAIn (passport with real stamps on it now...my pride and joy), pay 60 freakin' bucks to get re-registered here in Petersburg, and PRAY that they return it intime for me to LEAVE THE FRIGGIN' COUNTRY. Fucking bureocracy, cracks me up actually. For now. Basically that just means that I can't end up going back to Moscow to visit the ancient commie friends of my dead grandparents, or go to Helsinki for the weekend, both trips I doubted were actually going to happen anyway, so no big loss. Meh.

Gotta love my parents actually attempting to come visit me...I am...shock and awe. Their itinerary of the day as follows:

Moms coming to meet me in Petersburg for three days, since I have to be out of the country 'cause of the visa...then we are flying together to Prague, spending a week or so there so she can see the place, taking a train to Berlin where my father is meeting us. Seeing Berlin, my other grandparents graves and such family nonsense, then my mom is flying home cause she has to be in school on the 2nd of January or such nonsense, and my dad and I are flying to friggin' ISREAL. Like, the COUNTRY. To spend a week or two with the semi relatives there, both the Isreali set and the French set (BTW: WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING IN FRANCE? I HAVE NO COMPREHENSIBLE NEWS ACCESS SOMEONE PLEASE FILL ME IN) I think they are second or third cousins and aunts but honestly I've never really understood it. I'm like, alright whatever yes I will allow you to pay for my travel...no argument here. But wow...craziness.

In other news, my dad is applying for some bigwig job in DC with AARP. Yea, I know right...I just smile and nod. And the Moldavian boyfriend of my hostsis has been officially dismissed. Made me bizarilly happy this morning when the four of us are just sitting around eating breakfast, and Lena is like "Ach how pleasant with no men..." Cracked me up. Poor guy though, he definitly got the rough end of the deal.

So much culture shock, in so many directions. And now suddenly I realize I have five weeks left in this country and I finally have to start doing all the shit I've been putting off until the weather gets bad (Its 50 ish and raining today. What the hell is happening to the world) like go to the Hermitage. Scary.

Ach, jo. Koncim.