For many foreign tourists, the first taste of Europe is somewhat of a frog’s legs-gelati-sauerkraut purée, washed down with red wine and beer by the keg-full. For in the relatively compact space of Europe it’s possible to realise the crossing of multiple borders and exposure to diverse cultures all within ten days.

A friend of mine once told me an amusing story of just sitting in an adjacent room and observing the package-tour gale bustling through the Louvre to catch a glimpse of the Mona Lisa. Like horses blinkered against any external distraction (in this case, any one of the 34,999 other works of art on display), the stampede could be heard to loudly exclaim every so often in noxious accents – “Where is she? Let’s find her and get out of this place!”

Guillaume and I went to the Louvre on Friday night though. This is when it’s packed with the youth of Paris and the world, looking for a late-night culture fix, because it’s free for all those under-26. We spent the evening in Ancient Egypt, and then headed home… via the gift shop… (sound the bells of doom now)

We bought a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle, a shrunken version of the enormous (h. 6.21m x l. 9.79m) Coronation of Emperor Napoleon I (1806-1807) by Jacques-Luis David (Guillaume’s choice…). Subsequently, we spent all Saturday night in, drinking beer and straining our already-temperamental eyes looking for details in fur coats, candle sticks and a red curtain (Guillaume had already done all the faces and edges).

The most amusing part of the jigsaw is the “puzzle after-sales service” leaflet.

It reads:

‘Have you lost some pieces of your puzzle? Don’t worry, let us take care of that. All you have to do is clip the bar code from one side of the box and paste it on this reply card. Fill out the card with your name and mailing address and forward it to us. We will mail back the solution of your problem right away’.

HOW!?! I’m tempted to just hide a few pieces, send away my name, phone number and address with the barcode (really, they ask for nothing else, no credit card, no stamped self-addressed envelope) and see if they reply with a “the missing pieces are under the bed”. Mystery and miracles… and a thousand pieces of coronation…

I’ve been thinking a lot about Russia lately (evidently), but also I can’t shake from my mind that I’m now living in France.

I wanted to write a piece that somehow encapsulated the meeting of these two great cultures, but in more of a recent sense than any Napoleonic 1812 overtures, grand architectural feats or exquisite culinary celebrations. France and Russia also have ties in their linguistic histories, many French words have been adopted into the Russian language, and there was a time in literature when the ultimate ideal of Russian womanhood could express herself better in French than her native tongue.

There is also the amusing anecdote that Russians gave the world the word “bistro”, because Russian soldiers in France during the Napoleonic Wars were “apparently” always rushing around, and demanding food from the French vendors quickly (быстро – ‘bistro’ – is the Russian adverb for “fast”). The French vendors misinterpreted this as meaning “food”, and so adopted it on their signs. This vague history piece has been brought to you by my first Russian teacher (hence any vagaries and historical inaccuracies are necessary for the re-telling of the story – why let truth get in the way?).

Anyway, I’ve got off topic. I was racking my brains to think of some magnificent cultural exchange, but only one would come to mind. So here it is, I present you the President of the French Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy, at the June 2007 G8 summit in Germany after a meeting luncheon with the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin. Apparently neither man drinks… I say judge for yourself!

Do you ever meet a new person and find that you get tongue-tied, shy, and can’t think of any questions to ask to keep the conversation going?

This is definitely the case for me, and I can’t even manage to ask the simplest questions. Are you working or a student? What do you like doing in your spare time? Even the language textbook favourite, do you have any brothers or sisters? It’s crummy, but it’s a starter. Even the odorous “what is your favourite type of music?” can get conversation going, even if it’s just to talk about how much you hate being asked that question, because it’s impossibly to answer succinctly, and it all depends on one’s mood at the time.

I usually end up spinning a convoluted tale (no surprises there, if you have read any of this blog) and then I worry about the impression that this would create of me as a poor conversationalist.

As a result, I’ve been collecting interesting questions, prompted by a friend whose conversation opener was: “what are you afraid of?”

The following enumeration of musings is far from a guide to social success, maybe more so just stuff that I’ve wondered over time (and very related to real experiences)… any answers? Any more questions?

Have you ever had a bathroom wall collapse on you?
Do you think it is immature not to clap for a character in a ballet, even if the dancer is magnificent but the character is a troublemaker? (reading between the lines: Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet)
Have you ever either intentionally or inadvertently brought two marines home?
Do you keep your fingernails clean?
Ever seen a dead body?
Does the whole idea of long-distance trucking hold a mysterious allure for you?

There, I thought, the chapter ended. But no, my “family” kept on calling me, asking how I was and saying how boring it was there in their village without me. I promised to visit them again if I was ever going back to Finland, and one month later, the occasion arouse. This time, they drove to meet me at the train station (some 50km from their house), took me back to their house for lunch, and then drove me again to the border (another 50km). So all together they did a 200km round trip for me, and I was left feeling that I could never do enough for them. Especially in terms of language, because on the second visit (and subsequent phone calls) it was sorely revealed that I didn’t have enough conversation to sustain any further contact, so there were just a lot of the same stories, over and over, and lots of mime to convey unknown verbs. This situation was made even more difficult by the fact that I couldn’t understand the husband’s accent, and he couldn’t understand mine, so the wife was left as the translator between his regional drawl and my fill-in-the-blanks bad grammar and accent like an American spy in a Soviet thriller (really, I’ve been told that before…)

It was worse on the phone. I mean, it’s always bad for me on the phone in a foreign language, because I rely a lot on communicating through facial expressions, but if there is any background noise I have no chance. They once called me to wish me a happy new year, but I was in a bar with a friend at the time. The conversation went something along the lines of them wishing me a happy new year, missing me, wishing I was there, and being bored without me. I, for my part, agreed with all the above sentiments, and tried to make the huge lie that it was also boring in St. Petersburg (with the bass from some dance track booming in the background, and the general hum of drunken revelry reaching a fever pitch) sound somewhat feasible.

I haven’t yet made it back to Kondratevo, but if I do, I’ll surely be dropping over for lunch.

I think the saying goes something about having a wife at every port. Instead I aspire to have a family at every border. Due to numerous nations and extensive international division, maybe this goal won’t be realised during this lifetime… but hey, give me ten points for trying.

I have a family in Kondratevo, a small village of a grocery shop, houses and a church, within Russia, but fifty kilometres from the Finnish border. I met them on the suburban train from St. Petersburg to end of the line at Vyborg. I told them an abridged life history, and was inquiring as to how I could get to Helsinki by 3pm that afternoon. They took me home for lunch, then drove me to the border, and asked the border guards sweetly to do a favour. There, we waited in the warmth of their car, protected from a light snow, whilst the border guards paced back and forth, trying futilely to warm their mittened hands. A car would approach, get the customary grilling, and then the guards would sling their machine guns aside, and explain to the Russians in cars with Finnish number-plates that there was a foreign girl (no visa needed, authentic papers) who wanted a lift to Helsinki.

No problem at all, a lift to Helsinki was a piece of cake to organise (especially with the Russian border guards on your side). Entering Finland was a little more arduous, as the Finnish border guards were a little sceptical of my papers and/or my relationship to these people (“friends of mine, but c’mon, listen to my fluent English, scoff at my crappy Russian, I’m a young girl pretty much travelling alone, but I’m legitimately foreign, I’m not trying anything dodgy”). But in the end, I made it to Helsinki for the afternoon rendezvous with my friends. After a weekend in Finland, I returned to Russia, back in time for class and work and all those Monday-Friday commitments.

One of the wonderful things about the European summer is the abundance of music festivals throughout the continent. My favourite types are of course those lasting for several unwashed days, and the word ‘camping’ is guitar-strummed music to my ears.

But a tent isn’t always a necessary part of this equation.

Hearing about the 3-day Rock Werchter festival in Belgium, I convinced two friends (the same two as the previous story, coincidentally) to come from Germany and Spain to meet in Brussels. I hadn’t quite organised everything comprehensively, and when we met we realised that the three of us were without a tent. It was the perfect opportunity to meet and mingle…

Firstly, we met an Australian guy, going to the same festival, but no tent.

That made four.

Then, an Australian girl, but same deal, no tent. Five.

Finally a Canadian guy answered in the affirmative to both questions. Yes, he was going to the festival, and yes, he had a tent. A two-man tent. For the six of us.

We weren’t going to let that bother us, and off we trotted to enjoy the festivities. We pitched our meagre shelter amongst a group of Belgian teenagers who had an ostentatious six tents for their eight people. When it came time for bed, I think we had five bodies across, and the sixth body at the feet. I managed in the tent until the early hours of the morning, and then just slept outside, which meant I was privy to the spectacle of the rest of the tent waking up.

From out of the tent popped our gangly, sleep-befuddled posse, one after the other, after the other. Like circus clowns from an impossibly small car, people seemed to just keep coming from the tent, and seeking spacious solace on the surrounding grass. It was a hilarious sight, and one that caught the Belgian teenagers by total surprise.

The second night, we just stayed up for an all-nighter. It was more diplomatic than trying to allocate tent space!

Ok, firstly, I need you to take a deep breath… clear your mind… and project yourself into a sun-drenched scenario, looking out upon a timeless terracotta vista of earthy-red roof tiles. Throw in, for good measure, an ancient city wall, and then the rich deep blue hues of the Adriatic.

Now, I have a story for you about Dubrovnik.

Somewhere amongst those stones is a little sign with an arrow. It promises you the ‘cafe with the moust beautiful view’. I was travelling with two friends, one of whom was celebrating a birthday. We had also met two laugh-a-minute Irish girls, which brought our party to five. With a few beers and the sunset, it seemed like a simple way to celebrate the event.

We perched nearby on the rocks with our drinks and chocolate cake, interested only in the ‘moust beautiful view’, rather than the cafe. That was, until nature called, and I sheepishly went to ask the cafe owners if we could use their facilities. I thought it might be more permissible if I was to explain why we were there, “my friend, she’s having a birthday”, and with an understanding nod I was shown through the empty chairs and tables, to the grass shack/hole in the rocks toilet.

Soon after I rejoined the group, the cafe owners came down to us with a tray of extra-potent rakija singing ‘happy birthday’. It was such a lovely and unexpected thing for them to do. They invited us to the cafe with our drinks, because it was a dead evening in low season, so why not celebrate together? Revelry ensued, and the evening culminated in the toilet being abandoned by some in favour of holding onto a rock, squatting and going into the liquid black of the crashing waves. By the light of day (the next morning), this dark abyss was actually revealed to be a steep vertical cliff face, with a long drop into the ocean. Eeeek! That definitely wasn’t the type of moonshine to enhance one’s night vision!

Enough with this general introspection! You want to hear some stories of high-altitude adventure, feats of athleticism, tantrums and slap-stick!!

Lucky I can read minds!

Once upon one of the times I was in Russia, I was in the Caucasus Mountains, wanting to get out of the flatlands of northern Russia, see snow-capped mountains, be nurtured back to health and live the life described by Lermontov in the mineral water towns of Kislovodsk and Pyatigorsk. Don’t get me sidetracked, as Kislovodsk is a story in itself… but I went from Kislovodsk to the ski resort town Dombai with a group of Russian day-trippers.

As this area is close to the Georgian border and pretty much impregnable, you can see Europe’s tallest mountain, Mt. Elbrus, coming from two directions – either via Dombai, or Terskol, in the Pre-Elbrusiye region. The latter I went to by myself, and the former, with the “safe and secure” option of a day trip.

We went to the top of Mt. Mussa-Achitara. Everyone else was in pairs or groups, so that means I was left with the driver to share the chair lift. I kept on blundering with my questions, asking about Russia and Russian life, to which the driver would fiercely reply “but I’m not Russian, I’m Karachay”, and I would have to bite my tongue and remember not to confuse Balkarians, Cherkessians, Chechens, Georgians, Kabardinians, Ossetians and Russians, it’s not really the thing to do.

We came, we saw, we ate khichini (hot, buttery regional crepes). At over 3000m above sea level, snow-covered peaks as far as the eye could see… can life get any better than this?

On the way down again, all fears of rickety machinery were realised as the chairlift ground to a swinging mid-air halt.

To be continued…

So there I was suspended over the snowy mountain. Half an hour we sat, and waited. Now in the scheme of things, half an hour isn’t a long time, but it was an eternity when making small talk, being aware that my skin was gradually frying and cursing that I could be so stupid to forget sun cream on a day trip to the snow. Eventually two men with a rope descended from the ski station above. Many people were able to swing and jump off the chairs into the snow, as we were only about 4m from the ground. All except me, because in adherence to the “hospitality to the little lady” mentality, I was “helped” down by one of the men grabbing my feet when I was hanging from the chair, which ruined my jump and meant that I just hit the snow with my upper body (lucky my feet were securely held in the meantime… hmm…)

The effect of all this was that I was annoyed. I stormed off up the mountain, surging ahead with little regard for the altitude and effort required to trudge through the deep snow, and got back to the top, where I sat, contemplating the imminent explosion of my lungs. My Russian (etc) companions joined me, and dutifully lit their cigarettes, dragging desperately to get their breath back. I think this was the point that I lost it totally. By this stage I was pretty shaken up, and I just felt as if I had been kicked in the guts by this blatant attempt to steal my precious oxygen. I went into the mountain-top café, found a corner to sit, and withdrew from the world. I sat silently for about an hour, thinking about frostbite and missing toes. The girls from the café then gave me some tea and sat down for a chat. With a broken lift, they had no business, and were just hoping to get home that evening.

Eventually, the ski station men and the driver came around with plastic bags. I looked, questioningly, what were we to do with these? They were for our feet, it was revealed. We were to walk through the snow to the next operating ski lift station.

All that was left to do was laugh. I couldn’t help it; it was still the shock taking effect. I protested futilely in explanation of my joviality – “but this is not my life! This isn’t really happening to me and my delicate temperate-climate constitution!”

But on the bags went (note for the future – if your feet are freezing after a snowy trip to the local grocery store, just pop the bags on under your socks and it’s instant thermal bliss) and we were about to set off, when low and behold, the lifts started working again!

The driver grabbed my hand and hauled me onto the first chair. I thought this was a stupid idea… that we should wait until we saw if it was really working (as opposed to his idea that the quicker we got on, the better chance we had of making it to the bottom before it broke again). Unfortunately, pressed to react quickly, I shouted my objections in English, so we were halfway down the slope when I had finally explained it to him. But we got back. I lived to SMS the tale. My face, on the other hand, wasn’t so lucky, and I painfully shed skin like a flaky mask for a week afterwards, but that’s a small price to pay!

I think I became a stronger person in Russia. I had to be, because even after the first year it was still possible for me to return home from the post office in tears. Fortunately, it was at the foot of my apartment building, so it wasn’t far, but after being there for one and a half hours to send some Christmas postcards, well it was demoralising, to say the least.

It happened once that I was waiting amongst an elderly crowd, decked out in thick winter jackets, accessorised by mothballs. (“Why do you even bother going to the post office?” a friend once asked me, “it’s only full of pensioners wanting their pension”. Where else could I go to send my letters though?). The temperature in the post office was approximately 105° (and I’m talking Celsius, not Fahrenheit). In fact, if we were all wearing significantly less, we could have sweated out our tensions, soaped up, and slapped each other with birch branches – Russian banya style.

I waited in one line for an hour. I finally got to the front, despite the best attempts of those who thought they would just start at the beginning of the line, rather than waiting until the end. I announced sweetly that I would like to send my postcards (for some reason, the word for ‘stamps’ escaped me at that moment).

“What do you want me to do about it?” was the gist of the reply.

Put them in an oven and burn them, I wanted to retort, but instead answered… “I would like to buy…umm…”

“…stamps?” Ahh yes! Marki! I nodded. “I don’t have any. Fourth window”

I felt like I had been slapped. No stamps at the post office? I looked in dismay at the queue for the fourth window. I even tried to join in for a short time, then the heat and the intensity of Russian queuing got the better of me, and I emotionally retreated to the safety of my kitchen.

The next day, I went back to try again. My adversary at the fifth window was there, without a line, so I thought I would try my luck.

“So are you going to sell me stamps today?” I asked, surging with false confidence.

She considered it for a moment… and agreed. I couldn’t believe my luck.