What's here:

  • The List

  • Photos
    Alton
    smely xor
    Jolee
    *enċ
    "No Pants"
    Our long night at the
    universitetskaċ gostiniŬa
    The rowboat
    Bogalubova
    The Trolleybus
    And more...
  • Inside Stuff

    These are the things that we will remember most, and which will probably cause us to laugh hysterically when we do remember them.


    The List

    (All of our inside jokes condensed into one long list)

    1. PAT - ha,ha,ha!!! (he's a story in himself)
    a.speedos
    b.skirts and purses
    c.flashing
    d.the pole
    2. Trolleybus sandwich (Anna, Kristen, Pat)
    3. Horses (Anna, Cassie, Jolee)
    4. "Russians like pigs." -Sergei (Kristen's cousin)
    5. How we got the Russians Drunk: The Untold Story
    by Kristen and Anna
    6. "Do you have a dictionary? I think I've forgotten some of my words." -Sergei
    7. Brownie Jerky (Anna, Kristen, Pat)
    8. Ben's kereoke friend
    9. The s*** on the stairs (Ben's apartment building)
    10. "dooruk"
    11. MAO
    12. "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America"
    13. "Spades, dooruk"
    14. "Break... Why am I such a frickin' dooruk?" -Anna
    15. "There's only one left?!!!" -Anna, Jenni, Kristen
    16. Old Piece Of S***
    17. Milenki ti moi (the song)
    18. boobliki (Anna, Cassie, Jolee)
    19. Alton Powers: International Man of Mystery
    20. Ho Chi Min (Anna, Kristen, Alton, Amanda)
    21. "Jesus Drank" -Meghan
    22. Monkey Bars (Jenni)
    23. Adventures with Feodor and His Hay Stack
    a children's story by Anna and Tona
    translation by Sasha (Pats bro)
    24. Bens host mom: the self proclaimed mack daddy of cake making and decorating
    25. ghetto rowboat
    26. Fanta bottles, they double as weapons
    27. Spulung (toilet flush)
    28. Papierabdeckung fur Sitz (toilet seat cover)
    29. Gepackwagen (luggagge cart)
    30. boodesh chai?
    31. smelly whore (I mean brave choir) [See picture below]
    32. This is my house, my table, my newspaper, my crossword, my pen, my chai, my pig (Pat, Tona, zhenya you might ask one of them for a more precise version of the story.)
    33. "Who's key is this? This is my key, my room number, my room!" - Pat
    34. Jo-lee, Jolee, Jolee
    35. Masha i medvedi
    36. "Look it stopped raining" -Kristen right before it started to pour again (Mark, Pat, Anna)
    37. Pen aka Pat
    38. "If we don't get morozhenoe we are sacrificing Pat to the milk gods!" -Anna
    39. Coke Light!
    40. Dr. Pepper
    41. Meghan's watermelon
    42. group picture
    43. do you have human water?
    44. "Pepsi, Pepsi, Pepsi" -Pat's name for the trolley stop
    45. "Maybe we can find some rotten tomatoes." -Anna
    "No maybe some rotten rocks, no just one rotten brick." -Pat
    46. Tona's weirdo friend from the TARA concert
    47. Tona's great adventure
    48. German shepherds with horns (Anna, Tona)
    49. Jolee's laugh [see picture]
    50. Pasibo
    51. Any Russian word said with a southern accent (Anna, Kristen, Alton)
    52. "The sprite tastes like soap" -Jenni
    53. "That's 28 morozhenoes!" -Tona
    54. Mary's evil host mom and the mysterious suitcase under the bed
    55. The Adidas sandals
    56. Dizhornaya #7's night vigilance
    57. Ben's baby-eating tendencies
    58. Squeezy cheese (Russian "squeezy cheese" is disgusting!" -Tona)
    59. Playing boxes in history class
    60. "Is the window otkrited?" -Alton/Joey
    61. Dizhornaya #7's soap messages (Amanda, Mary)
    62. Pat and the videocamera
    63. Windows:
    -Ben misjudging the distance between him and a window
    -Mary throwing food out her window
    64. The way we talk:
    -"radiator," pronounced with rad rhyming with mad (Pat)
    -"agin" instead of again (Jennifer)
    -"Walk the dawg and look for some chawcolate cawfee and butter in a bottle" (Meghan, in her strong Brooklyn accent and without pronouncing the "t"s)
    -"Ya'll come back now!" (Kristen)
    -"That's way cool!" (Mary)
    -"watah" instead of water (Amanda)
    -"Minnesoda" (Elaine)
    65. The eternal soda/pop/Coke debate
    66. The x4lcp-0305 extended version model with additional 705 connecter gadget to enhance overall quality of the wcxtt 2000 hook-up... etc. etc. etc. (Amanda, Mary)
    67. Mary almost falling out of the bus taking a picture
    68. “no-no-no-no-no” -Jennifer, Pat
    69. Ten-second rule! (Or is that twenty, since it's Russia, or five?)
    70. Kafe, produkti, and magazin franchises (Mary, Pat)
    71. the Russian condoms
    72. Amanda's life saving duct tape
    73. Sandy is a perfectly good name for a pet, regardless of sex (Jolee)
    74. He said, "Ach" and she said, "Ooooo!"
    75. "Girl Fest" at the restaurant (Jenni, Megan, Tona, Elaine, Amanda, and...Ben)
    76. Long talks:
    -The blushful discussion at Cassie's (Jolee, Cassie, Mary, Jennifer)
    -The theological and political shouting match at Mary's (Ben, Elaine, Tona, Cassie, Mary, Jolee, Amanda)
    (editor's note: is it any wonder my evil host mom became so enraged? -Mary)
    77. Jenni's dogs
    78. Jenni's "guilty" story (Jenni, Meghan, Jolee)
    79. The encounter between Fanta and Pat's nose in "Old Venice" (Pat, Jolee)

    -contributed by Anna and Kristen, with additions by Mary, Jenni, Jolee, __your name here__



    This is Alton Powers, man of mystery, the college student from Kentucky we adopted on our trip. Most famous for butchering Russian by putting a southern accent into it (ot-krit the window), Alton, a.k.a. Joey, was welcomed into our group from the first time he appeared on an excursion. He proved to be a very worthwhile companion, as well as our only representative from the deep south.


    This is Amanda, Pat, and Mary at a way cool childrens' museum near the center of town. This museum was probably our collective favorite because of the colorful sculptures on the walls and the rather interesting displays of subject matter. The museum artwork collided with our inside joke, "smelly whore," which actually means "brave choir" in Russian on our second visit. Here we are under the fake streetlight, more or less playing it out.


    Jolee always laughed at everything, and we were quick to join in. This friend from the far north helped keep us light-hearted and reminded us that there was nothing that wasn't funny if it was only looked at the right way. We love her so much that we even dedicated a song called Bjolee to her off of one of Pat's Ukrainian CDs and constantly sang it to her (which she didn't always appreciate :-). This picture, taken by Pat, shows her in the very act of beginning one of her long, hearty stretches of pure, quality laughter.


    Pat's host brother, Zhenya, shows off some hockey equipment. He and his brother, Sasha, were some of our favorite Russians and they added a lot to our fun. Zhenya's most famous sayings were "Pacibo" instead of the traditional "Spacibo" and "That's MY pig on MY cup on MY table in MY apartment."


    During our chilly day at the lake (right after a week of record high temperatures), Pat's numerous hockey jersies kept several of us warm while we picnicked, rented boats, and dodged broken glass and scantily-dressed Russians on the beach. This is Mary, who, despite the startling evidence (which took a while to get posed just right), actually is wearing shorts under the borrowed jersey.


    Our last night together, at the University Hotel in Moscow, was a good one. Many of us denied the urge to sleep so we could get some final bonding time in instead. We packed (Jenni's suitcase's zipper broke while she was trying to stuff everything in), played cards, ate our last Russian morozhenoes, and, of course, took pictures. Shown here are Jolee, Cassie, Pat, Mary, and Amanda in the early stages of their experimentation with self-timers.


    Once again at the lake, this picture is of a rented rowboat, which was rented by using Mary's watch as collateral. Because time was running out and expert rowers Mark and Amanda were struggling to coordinate strokes and dodge Russian swimmers (who seemed to have the right-of-way, unlike Russian pedestrians), a little Russian girl gave us a push. If it weren't for her, we might still be out there!


    During our stay in Vladimir, we visited several of the culturally-enhanced surrounding cities. This picture was taken in Bogalubova ("loved by God") early in the trip by those of us who straggled far behind the rest of the group to capture the beauty of the onion domes in the distance.


    The trollybus; catching it, finding a space to stand (or sit, if you're lucky!) and getting off at the right stop (one of us had a little trouble with that) was a constant concern in a city we couldn't simply drive ourselves around in, and a good source of funny incidents. In this picture (taken by Pat), Anna, Mark, and Kristen demonstrate the classic "trolleybus sandwich," right next to Pat's infamous pole, as a survival skill in urban Russia.


    Ben, the technical wizard of the group, was very popular among those of us who broke various important electronic gadgets. This is Cassie and Ben posing to celebrate the occasion of Ben fixing Cassie's camera. What a life saver!


    What trip to Russia (or Moscow, anyway) could be complete without a visit to the famous Saint Basil's Cathedral on Red Square? While some of us were content to merely look and take pictures, others (Jenni) insisted on crying every time she saw it, or actually taking a piece of it home with them (assorted violators)!


    This picture of Kristen, Mark, Anna, Allie, and Alton was taken during one of our many stops on the bus tour around Moscow. In the background is some sort of stadium, and somewhere there's a blimp celebrating the Piva Festival of the week. (Note: in Moscow the Piva Festival lasts a whole week, whereas in Vladimir it only lasted a day. Not that anyone went or anything.)


    Yet another stop on our bus tour. This is the Moscow River. In the background you can see the Kremlin, which most of us visited later in the afternoon.


    This is back in Vladimir, under the big Golden Arch, which is in the center of the main street (it has 3 different names, so we never knew what exactly to call it). Isn't Russia pretty in the summer? You can see the nice wide sidewalks lined with aesthetically pleasing trees, with a trolleybus waiting to pick some typical Russians up at the stop. Okay, enough nostalgia.


    One day we were fortunate enough to visit a school which trains future Olympic athletes in gymnastics. We were absolutely amazed at the dextrity of these kids! Definitely one of the more interesting excursions. This is one of our famous group pictures with some of the young girls studying rhythmic gymnastics.


    We happened to be in Vladimir during the Fourth of July this year, which I think caused a few feelings of a strange kind of patriotism. Many of us had planned ahead for the event, and we spent the day shopping around town (stopping for pizza for lunch that tasted quite American, but for a very Russian price: 40 cents for a personal-sized pizza!). Amanda supplied us with American flag stickers and Chips Ahoy with red, white, and blue chips. To our delight, Kristen brought "sparklers" (birthday candles that kinda shot out sparks), and we went to a sort-of hidden part of the park to light them off, much to the dismay of a certain group leader who thought we'd burn the entire park down. We didn't.


    After lunch we usually were allowed to otdihat (rest) for a little while. Our place of choice was outside on the front steps. We had our side, the visitors from Switzerland had theirs.


    Tona and Anna put their creative juices together one bumpy bus ride to create the story of Fyodor and his haystack in comic book form. You're on your way to fame, devochki!


    For Ben's pictures, go Here


    Special thanks to Mark and Pat for scanning the pictures.

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