Okay, so it’s been a couple weeks. Perhaps you've given up on checking for updates. I know how much you've missed me. Well, you might be in for another marathon post. Let’s see how this goes.
Following the completion of OFS-1, we had to attend light vehicle driving training. I had been semi-dreading this experience, because I knew we’d be required to drive manual vehicles, but my experience with manuals consists of a couple times being coached by someone in the passenger seat in slow residential zones. I had kept meaning to find ways to practice over the summer, but of course I didn’t. So here I was, a pretty competent driver in the states when it comes to mountain roads and other difficult conditions, but I had to drive like I was a little n00b trying to learn the stick.
But, as luck would have it, I talked myself into being good at it with my sweet Zen driving skills and voila! I drove (and maneuvered) an old stick shift car unaccompanied by an instructor. It was like getting my driver’s license all over again, except we did more badass maneuvers. We had to do an exercise where there was somewhat of an L-shaped area demarcated by cones, and we had to slam the breaks and skid initially before turning sharply at the end, thereby simulating crash avoidance. It also happened to be the first day that it started snowing, which made for a little wilder time. After that we had to practice weaving through cones at two different speeds, proving that it is impossible to not miss a cone trying to sustain 60 km/h. By the last maneuver, I was no longer stalling out every time I came to a stop. I was also able to start the car on a (slight) uphill grade.
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| One of the cars had somewhat of a "Little Miss Sunshine" moment where it wouldn't start without a good push... |
Our driving instructor was cool little man named Dmitry, who obviously had a lot of professional driving experience. He would also tell stories of crazy races he would sometimes have with his friends and the stupid things he did. He also had the largest collection of driving-related video clips (serious, funny, instructional, etc.) I had ever seen, and he enjoyed showing all of them to us. He also really enjoyed showing off his spinning and skidding u-turn skills, sometimes with us riding. Unfortunately the only English he knew pertained to driving, so many of his jokes in the classroom lecture portion were lost in the translation. That’s another thing. For two weeks, we had classes taught us in Russian with an English translator repeating every sentence, elongating all explanations by more than two-fold. I saw “more than” because there were often mis-translations and a lot of clarification had to happen. The first day, our translator was a designated medical translator to handle on-site communications with the nurse-on-duty. But when it came to automobile specifics, the poor girl was often at a loss. The second day was the most skilled translator, a woman who had spent time in Texas and had a definite grasp of the technical and idiomatic terms. She was also the only translator to speak in real-time, as the instructor was talking, which got the class to move along a lot better. Consequently, I was less likely to fall asleep and be called on by Dmitry to demonstrate something to the class.
Oh, and I can’t forget to mention the full-sized driving simulator that they had in the driving school. Dmitry could put any sort of scenario settings up on the front screen and we could attempt to drive them. Most notable was a setting that made men suddenly pop out of manholes that you had to avoid. Sometimes they just seemed impossible. I think Dmitry was just messing with us most of the time.
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| Treacherous mountain road |
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| Our lovely driving class. Dmitry's in the center, flanked by women. What a guy! |
In my last entry I spoke of the two ways of beef preparation—the stew and the ground beef loaf that could take the form of a ball or a turd. Well, the turd shape just went to a whole new level, when they decided to fix what they labeled “kebab.” Behold, the poop-on-a-stick!
And, as I said before, it tastes the same as all the other ground beef concoctions and is fine once smothered in hot sauce.
Oh, and as I mentioned before, it snowed on the day of the driver’s test (October 25th), which I think is the earliest that I’ve ever seen it snow (not counting up above 7000 feet in the mountains). This was also a very exciting day for us, because it was…..Tuesday! Yes, we were excited for Tuesday, because our first and only full day off for our three weeks at the training center was Wednesday. Following that, we would have nine straight days of Industrial Safety Training, as required by Russian Law for all Specialists (as we are designated by the immigration authorities, “Highly Qualified Specialists,” to be exact. Teehee.). Many of our new found Kazakh and Azerbaijani friends from OFS-1 had already had the training and would be leaving us. It was also going to be my birthday on Saturday, and what better way to celebrate the big 2-3 than to go out on the town with your international buddies on the preceding Tuesday night?
So, everybody got all pumped up and decked out (in what few going-out clothes we had packed), and I found myself singing my own version of Rebecca Black’s “Friday” with the word “Friday” replaced by “Tuesday” and the word “Weekend” replaced by “Wednesday.” It actually worked out really well, except for the people who had to listen to me.
We boarded our bus (why try to fit everybody in cabs when we can all ride a chartered bus?) and rode the half hour that it takes to reach downtown Tyumen. We weren’t sure where we should go, so we had the bus drop us off in the city center and we started walking. We passed a Mcdonald’s and some sushi bars (there is actually a lot of sushi here, though I’m not exactly eager to try it) and then we landed at a quiet restaurant with very modern but boring décor. It didn’t take us long to decide we wanted a place where it was ok to dance and get a little rowdy, so we called up some cabs and drove across town to a better place. I don’t remember what it was called, but that really doesn’t matter.
Hookahs are very popular in Russia (I’ve seen them sold in supermarkets) and judging by the smell, this place was no exception. We ordered our drinks and I assured everyone I would be sticking to a couple beers, because after my Vodka experience the previous week, I’d rather take it slow. Of course, nobody listened, because they said we’re celebrating my birthday, so I found myself sharing tequila shots with Kazakhs and wine with a Texan, and then I was dancing-off with an Azerbaijani. Some of the guys also ordered a hookah, and I wanted to see how they compared to American hookahs, so I had some as well. American hookahs have more of a flavor in my opinion. But I still had fun getting creative with the smoke. All in all, it was a pretty fun night. Though, like the last time, I went into it somewhat dehydrated, and I spent the next day with a bigger headache than I needed to. But hey, it was our day off! Anyway, here are some highlights from that night….
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| Hookah smoke in my Guinness. Classy, no? |
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| Tequila in Russia. I like to be different. |
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| Dancing cage? Yes. Did I dance in it? Maybe. Is there documentation? Yes, but you're not seeing it. |
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| I think this one captured the most people with Andrey's fantastic arm length, and it also captures the essence of the night. |
The next day, headache and all, I joined my fellow International Mobile employees on a trip back downtown to a mall. Everybody had some essentials they wanted. We all needed something in the way of phones, SIM cards, and/or calling cards. We also had Paul—the Scottish-Italian who knows enough Russian to get by and who also chose not to go out with us the previous night and thus didn’t feel like death. He handled most of the cell phone difficulties. Apparently it’s really hard to get it across to people that you just want a pay-as-you-go SIM card. Unfortunately, in Russia, everything is still region-specific, and once I am to leave the Tyumen region, I’d have to get another SIM card and phone card in the Krasnoyarsk region, so as not to incur roaming and other long distance charges. Oy! Paul opened up his phone and I saw at least 4 cards just chilling in there with the battery. I’m sure he has more. I’m having trouble even memorizing one new phone number for myself. Geez!
I did learn another valuable lesson: Mannequins here have a lot more personality than in America. Check out these kids:
I ended up sleeping the rest of the day and night, upon returning to the training center. It was great.
The following day we had our first Safety Training class. Since these classes are required by the Russian government and its endless bureaucracy, the classes would be taught to us in Russian. With a translator. For nine days. Unfortunately, this translator neither seemed to have a lot of the legal terminology down (we probably covered more policy than actual procedure), nor did she have much in the way of a technical oil background. Needless to say, it was a rough nine days. Luckily, the first two days, for “Labor Safety,” we were taught by a man who looked like Peter Lorre, and all I had to do was picture him screaming, “Rick! Rick!” and running from the police in Casablanca, and I would smile and it would all be okay.
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| Imagine this guy teaching you about labor safety policy. |
On Friday night, Paul and Jeff convinced me that we needed to celebrate my REAL birthday. This time I actually avoided the call of the drink and stuck to just a couple beers. We began our celebration by celebrating that the café in the Training Center’s sports building now served beer. Then we went into town to look for a good nightclub. We first went to a little café and had some pizza (the first mayonnaise-less pizza I’d seen in the country) and Paul asked the cute waitress for recommendations on the best discos in town. She came back later with a list of three places, named Giraffe, Mirage, and Pyramid (all translated phonetically from the Cyrillic form, so actually Zhiraf, Mirazh, and Pirimid). We decided we’d try Giraffe, and we hailed a “cab” to take us there. Despite the accumulating snow, the driver was very enthusiastic about accelerating around every turn. He also was more interested in turning and talking (more like yelling) to Paul in the passenger seat in Russian than he was about watching the road. But, thankfully, we made it to Giraffe. One could only discern the Giraffe theme by the statues out front.
Inside, it was all futuristic themed. The club was several stories tall, and the second story had cosmic bowling. The floor with the coat room also had a sweet Einstein bust thing.
Then we made our way up to the dance room. We got nailed with a high cover charge to enter, but the music was alright and the women were pretty nice too. Interestingly, all the women danced while all the men stood on the outside and watched, except for some extra-metro looking guys that went right in the middle. I wondered if this was the usual flow of things. Paul kept assuring us that the girls would be all over us once they realized we were foreign and therefore a novelty, but I wasn’t feeling it and had not had enough to drink to even think about going wild on the dance floor with all these Russian girls. Paul went up to a girl and started some Russian small talk (I’m just not good at that yet) and he told her it’s my birthday. She told him she wasn’t interested. I said, “Let’s go. This place is silly.” I mean, it was kinda cool, and really well themed, in a Dr. Seuss kind of way. And it was all too expensive. I’m trying to save my money here!
So, back to the training center we went. And along came six more straight days of safety training. I won’t bore you with the details. I’m trying to forget them. But for each of the five training sections we underwent, we had to take both a written test and an oral test before a panel of people from the Russian who-knows-what. Frankly, I’m so sick of all that stuff, I don’t even want to rant about it.
On Thursday the 3th, our second to last day together before we went our separate ways to our locations around Russia (except for Jeff, who’d be joining me in Krasnoyarsk), we decided to go out, but instead of drinking, we went bowling (and drank a little). So, in mall food courts here, the food counters sell beer. Is that not awesome? I think it’s awesome.
I was also impressed by my Tuborg bottle and how it had its own cap tab thing. I really did find it interesting enough to take a picture. Sorry if it disappoints. I stood up an issue of Mango magazine behind it just to make things more interesting.
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| Ooooo, special cap tab thingy.... |
I had one of my worst showings in bowling ever, but I will contend that these lanes were shorter than in the US. I’m probably just BSing but it seemed like it. I was also trying to work the whole side spinning method, which gets me a gutter ball 50% of the time. It can also get me cool strikes… just not with the frequency I’d hoped for. But hey, we had a lot of fun! Look at us!
Friday was our last day of safety class. It was Fire Safety Training. It was pretty easy, except when the instructor showed us some traumatizing fire videos. Here in Russia, they have no qualms about scaring the bajeezers out of you with graphic videos of what not to do. They worked for me, at least…
Okay, there's more to say, but I'm posting this, so you actually have an update to read. Woohoo!!
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