So a month has flown by, and both of my Grandmas have requested further information, and a friend who only says nice things when he REALLY means it has suggested I update my blog, so I figure I better.
I've had a month full of first-world annoyances like figuring out the internet, having my shoes break, having my phone speaker stop working and the power button jam for a couple days, having my laptop charger quit working, and so on. These are typical things which can happen, but become excruciatingly frustrating when in a place where nothing works they way you're used to. For starters: where do you go to solve these things? How do you get there (no google maps)? How do you tell a taxi driver where to take you? If you get there and only speak English is it even worth going? How big of a wad of money do you need to take with you to be able to pay for it (took me a couple week to figure this one out. The answer is huge, a huge wad)? Is the President going to decide to go for a drive and stop traffic on the major roads for 15 minutes? Why did this happen HERE and not in Europe or Canada where things are easy? WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME!?
Where I've had bad luck in one area, I've had great luck in others. I wasn't too hopeful about being able to meet many people as I'd heard that the teachers in the international schools would all be out of town for the summer to escape the heat, but there are quite a few people around and I've been slowly snowballing a couple more friends each week. We can usually manage to find something fun to do either at the few bars in town (although most close at 11:30) or in someone's flat. I've got big plans for the karoake bars around and the bowling alleys I've seen too.
There are lots of decent restaurants here, but also lots of mediocre restaurants that won't even serve you alcohol, so that's a challenge. I've found some decent Georgian wine for sale in the shops, so that base is covered too. I managed to find peanut butter, Heinz Ketchup, great bread and cheese. The one thing that is definitely missing is deli-style sandwich meats, so I'm missing sandwiches. Luckily when Mom and Grandma were here they had me eating like three sandwiches a day so maybe I can go a few months without (hahahaha). The local food is also quite good, and I've found that it's a mixture of Western Chinese (noodles and mutton), South Asian (samosas), and Russian (meatballs, pasta, Russian salads which are gross), and Uzbek food which is mostly just rice and meat (but delicious rice and meat!). Will try to get more food photos!
The deal with the sacks of money is that the biggest bill I ever have on me is worth less than 1 USD. Things are fairly inexpensive here, but even a $2.50 meal requires 4 bills to pay for it. Think about that. If I need to spend $60 on a laptop charger, that's a huge wad of cash (I'm not doing the math but you can figure it out I'm sure). It's insane. And even getting money is a pain in the ass. I brought quite a bit with me, but due to paying rent and other start-up costs went through it pretty quickly. So to get more cash, I had to go to a bank (and apparently only a few will do this), show them my passport, withdraw USD from my MasterCard, pay the bank 4%, and then go get the USD exchanged into soum. You might also imagine that my aversion to math and multiplication does not help me at points of sale here. The locals can count off 170,000 Soum in about a second while I'm standing there like "10, 20, 30, 40..." etc. etc. There's even a fancy technique in holding the money while counting it that I'll be lucky if I catch onto before I leave. It's all just so ridiculous.
While general dysfunction is something I've encountered in other places I've lived, what's so unique about Tashkent is that the infrastructure is generally very well developed. Roads are good, traffic isn't bad, parks and public places are well-kept and clean, and there are fountains and statues everywhere. It's a bit more like living in a weird dystopia than living in a less-developed country. There are police everywhere, checking bags at the entrance to metro stations, pulling random cars over to check documents and just generally hanging around. I've been asked to show my passport just once at the metro, and it seemed they were almost just curious to see where I was from and what I was doing there rather than suspicion. The cops are actually generally pretty friendly (to me at least) and people seem to feel comfortable asking them for directions (no love for Google maps, remember?). I won't get into it more here, but if you're interested I suggest the Human Rights Watch Report on Uzbekistan in 2017 to get an idea of the other side of things.
The weather is crazy hot, but I think I might be getting used to it. The first week here the air felt like it was on fire, which was pretty uncomfortable. I'm pretty lucky to have air conditioning in both my house and work, so only need to worry about travelling to places. At night it cools down a bit but is still pretty hot. I'm going to be very very cold when I get to Canada in October! I've been travelling on public transit as well as using taxis, although it took me a couple week to build up the courage to try the taxi system. You basically just stick your arm out, and any random car (not necessarily a taxi) will pull over. At this point, you're supposed to tell him (always him) where you're going and then negotiate a price. As you can imagine, doing this without a common language is essentially impossible. If the driver doesn't want the added hassle of a foreigner speaker he just drives away, and if he thinks he can rip you off because you're a foreigner you end up in an awkward situation at the end of the ride where you might just need to jump out the door and walk away (after paying a reasonable amount). They are also all very particular about how hard you should shut their car door. I've never lived in a place where people got upset with you for shutting a car door too hard. Like, they're literally built for that right? So they always get mad at me for that too, because I honestly am not sure I'm going to ever remember it, because like, when you're getting out of a car your mind is already thinking about the thing you're going to do next, right?
In general, not speaking Russian has made life challenging. I feel like a lot of these issues and annoyances would be helped by language. However, with this already being one month, there's only 2 months left, and it seems pretty unlikely my brain will be able to absorb too much of it. But I'm starting to be able to read some signs and recognize some names written in Russian, so that's pretty cool. It's the 4th alphabet I've attempted to learn not including English (plus whatever written Chinese is, I won't call it an alphabet though), and I'm pretty impressed with my brain for being able to catch on at all. I've learned about 5 words in Russian, but still up to last week caught myself about to say hello or thank you in Hungarian. I imagine my English will be absolute garbage by the time I get to Canada again, and you'll all just have to believe me that it WAS good after 10 months of grad school hahaha.
Ah - speaking of home, I've bought my tickets and will arrive October 4th for a whirlwind tour which will involve much administrative drivel (new driver's license and health card and police check for new job and blah blah blah), and high likelihood of me catching a bad cold, but also many Thanksgiving pumpkin pies!! I'm expecting to leave again in November, but this is unconfirmed so more details later.
As always, much love, and if I missed out on some detail that you're interested in please let me know! I'll try to take more photos I swear.
BYYEEEEEEE!
I've had a month full of first-world annoyances like figuring out the internet, having my shoes break, having my phone speaker stop working and the power button jam for a couple days, having my laptop charger quit working, and so on. These are typical things which can happen, but become excruciatingly frustrating when in a place where nothing works they way you're used to. For starters: where do you go to solve these things? How do you get there (no google maps)? How do you tell a taxi driver where to take you? If you get there and only speak English is it even worth going? How big of a wad of money do you need to take with you to be able to pay for it (took me a couple week to figure this one out. The answer is huge, a huge wad)? Is the President going to decide to go for a drive and stop traffic on the major roads for 15 minutes? Why did this happen HERE and not in Europe or Canada where things are easy? WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME!?
 |
| Baby I got your money don't you worry |
Where I've had bad luck in one area, I've had great luck in others. I wasn't too hopeful about being able to meet many people as I'd heard that the teachers in the international schools would all be out of town for the summer to escape the heat, but there are quite a few people around and I've been slowly snowballing a couple more friends each week. We can usually manage to find something fun to do either at the few bars in town (although most close at 11:30) or in someone's flat. I've got big plans for the karoake bars around and the bowling alleys I've seen too.
 |
| Jazz...in a pub |
 |
| Unsatisfactory sandwich meat selection |
The deal with the sacks of money is that the biggest bill I ever have on me is worth less than 1 USD. Things are fairly inexpensive here, but even a $2.50 meal requires 4 bills to pay for it. Think about that. If I need to spend $60 on a laptop charger, that's a huge wad of cash (I'm not doing the math but you can figure it out I'm sure). It's insane. And even getting money is a pain in the ass. I brought quite a bit with me, but due to paying rent and other start-up costs went through it pretty quickly. So to get more cash, I had to go to a bank (and apparently only a few will do this), show them my passport, withdraw USD from my MasterCard, pay the bank 4%, and then go get the USD exchanged into soum. You might also imagine that my aversion to math and multiplication does not help me at points of sale here. The locals can count off 170,000 Soum in about a second while I'm standing there like "10, 20, 30, 40..." etc. etc. There's even a fancy technique in holding the money while counting it that I'll be lucky if I catch onto before I leave. It's all just so ridiculous.
 |
| I can math this: I would need 21 bills to pay for that! |
While general dysfunction is something I've encountered in other places I've lived, what's so unique about Tashkent is that the infrastructure is generally very well developed. Roads are good, traffic isn't bad, parks and public places are well-kept and clean, and there are fountains and statues everywhere. It's a bit more like living in a weird dystopia than living in a less-developed country. There are police everywhere, checking bags at the entrance to metro stations, pulling random cars over to check documents and just generally hanging around. I've been asked to show my passport just once at the metro, and it seemed they were almost just curious to see where I was from and what I was doing there rather than suspicion. The cops are actually generally pretty friendly (to me at least) and people seem to feel comfortable asking them for directions (no love for Google maps, remember?). I won't get into it more here, but if you're interested I suggest the Human Rights Watch Report on Uzbekistan in 2017 to get an idea of the other side of things.
 |
| Hotel Uzbekistan and statue of guy who forced people to convert to Islam in beautiful park |
The weather is crazy hot, but I think I might be getting used to it. The first week here the air felt like it was on fire, which was pretty uncomfortable. I'm pretty lucky to have air conditioning in both my house and work, so only need to worry about travelling to places. At night it cools down a bit but is still pretty hot. I'm going to be very very cold when I get to Canada in October! I've been travelling on public transit as well as using taxis, although it took me a couple week to build up the courage to try the taxi system. You basically just stick your arm out, and any random car (not necessarily a taxi) will pull over. At this point, you're supposed to tell him (always him) where you're going and then negotiate a price. As you can imagine, doing this without a common language is essentially impossible. If the driver doesn't want the added hassle of a foreigner speaker he just drives away, and if he thinks he can rip you off because you're a foreigner you end up in an awkward situation at the end of the ride where you might just need to jump out the door and walk away (after paying a reasonable amount). They are also all very particular about how hard you should shut their car door. I've never lived in a place where people got upset with you for shutting a car door too hard. Like, they're literally built for that right? So they always get mad at me for that too, because I honestly am not sure I'm going to ever remember it, because like, when you're getting out of a car your mind is already thinking about the thing you're going to do next, right?
In general, not speaking Russian has made life challenging. I feel like a lot of these issues and annoyances would be helped by language. However, with this already being one month, there's only 2 months left, and it seems pretty unlikely my brain will be able to absorb too much of it. But I'm starting to be able to read some signs and recognize some names written in Russian, so that's pretty cool. It's the 4th alphabet I've attempted to learn not including English (plus whatever written Chinese is, I won't call it an alphabet though), and I'm pretty impressed with my brain for being able to catch on at all. I've learned about 5 words in Russian, but still up to last week caught myself about to say hello or thank you in Hungarian. I imagine my English will be absolute garbage by the time I get to Canada again, and you'll all just have to believe me that it WAS good after 10 months of grad school hahaha.
Ah - speaking of home, I've bought my tickets and will arrive October 4th for a whirlwind tour which will involve much administrative drivel (new driver's license and health card and police check for new job and blah blah blah), and high likelihood of me catching a bad cold, but also many Thanksgiving pumpkin pies!! I'm expecting to leave again in November, but this is unconfirmed so more details later.
As always, much love, and if I missed out on some detail that you're interested in please let me know! I'll try to take more photos I swear.
BYYEEEEEEE!
