BroCation

Where's the post on the goings on of the Bros on the 'cation? Seriously, I expect drunk blogging. Or at least a pic of y'all playing strip billiards with the Prince. Or with just Prince. And hot chicks. You all need hot chicks. And to train for your next Ironman. I'm off to enlighten the future of the Amuricka. Good luck, god speed, and good night, Gentlemen.

Funemployment 2.0 (The Reckoning)

Fellow bleacher dwellers,

It has been a long time since I have posted about the joys and sorrows of Funemployment. Nearly three years later  (and one advanced degree)  I once again find myself in the in the clutches of this very....let's say existential, way of life.
  Contrary to the Funemployment experienced in 2009, the 2012 versions seems to be a little less about the the fun, and a lot more about the unemployment.  When one takes in to consideration the field I have chosen as well as the economic circumstances, funemployment actually seems like a logical spot for my life to currently be held up in.  To me, funemployment 2.0 is a beast that must be approached in a way that promotes adult behavior, while at the same time, keeping true to the essence of "Having fun with no job while you have the chance" With all that said I have listed a few bylaws/guidelines for those experiencing Funemployment 2.0

1. You have an advanced degree. You worked hard for that degree, but realize that does not increase the fun factor, but rather helps you to tackle the unemployment aspect of funemployment.

2. (May not Apply to All) You had to move back home. This time around, you are a little bit older and little bit wiser. If you are lucky, your new roommates (parents) will treat you as such.) Maximize the fun without breaching the respect of those who run the household. The occasional kick back may be a great way to ease those days of "man I wish I had my own place"

3. Get a part time job. Although it will not completely get rid of  unemployment, it will give you a sense of actually doing something with your day. I currently work at a car wash where I am known as "La Flama Blanca"

4. Make sure you have a network of friends in the area with their own places. This allows you to go out, maximize the fun factor, and not have to worry about coming home at 3am and disturbing your roommates.

5. (Probably the most important) Accept that Funemployment will not last forever. It will be a rare day where you can nod off and head to the beach, or enjoy a beer in the middle of the afternoon without having to worry about the responsibilities of work.

6. The opposite sex....This is the biggest gray area of them all, and strictly depends on the various ways people like to maximize their fun factor. Also, the fact that one is funemployed, may not be the most attractive thing to people. If you can find someone who can maximize the fun factor without making you aware of your.....lack of income.....and lack of things to do in the day, you have hit the jackpot for a funemployment friend.

 These are only a few of the numerous tenets that comprise living the funemployment lifestyle to the max. It is my hope many of you who read this don't find yourself in the situation where funemployment lasts for very long, nor  greatly affects your way of life.

Your's Funemployed
Nonnie

Cool shit: "consumer evolved" music

Evolutionary computation is cool, not to mention a really useful tool for finding algorithms that are well optimized or solve problems that are too complicated to simply write down an algorithm.  DarwinTunes  is a project by a couple of researchers from the Imperial College London which uses a genetic evolution algorithm to evolve short loops of music into something that appeals to our pop sensibilities.  Each generation has a number of different loops which have a few "genes" which each determine a series of notes to be played.  After the loops of each generation have been rated by listeners, they produce a new generation where two loops pair up to get it on and make a new baby loop (so the offspring has a combination of the genes from the two parents plus some random mutations).  The loops that get the highest ratings have the highest fitness and become the Genghis Khans to the future gene pool.  It doesn't take too long before the loops develop the same four-chord harmonies that we enjoy in our favorite pop songs.  Their algorithm has it's limitations so it's not eventually going to produce the Hamlet of 8-second music loops, but it does produce something that sounds like it could have been written by your favorite elevator music composer.

If you also think this is a cool project you can check out their paper here, go to their website above to rate some loops, or listen to the evolution in action through their SoundCloud channel:

things that are going to suck about future Carleton

1. no kegs 2. no sayles dances (sayles dances are now in cowling) 3. no one will remember the glory days of stadium 4. no kegs 5. new alcohol policy sucks 6. Carleton no care about traditions but more worried about the NAME 7. no kegs at Rottblatt and they will most likely be serving boxer 8. Boxer the worst beer ever 9. everyone forgetting about stadium 10. the rainbow has gotten out of control 11. New Administration 12. change should be good not detrimental 13. Kegs are still not allowed wtf 14. ole ball is still non-existent, more there fault not ours Brought to you by Freddy and Nonberg

Online Dating: A Story of Intrigue and Failure

I have been gone for awhile. I have no excuse good enough to justify how long it has been since I have contributed. Here's to new beginnings.

So awhile back, I posted about how I had signed up for online dating on OK CUPID. In the coming months, the dates I went on and the people I met were, well, interesting to say the least. But that is not the point of this post. This particular story of online dating is about the failure, maybe it's my failure to build a meaningful relationship sparked by the internet.

Now before you go "Dammit Nonberg, you are getting emotional and love is possible over the world wide web.". I get it. I understand that people can meet, but hear me out.

1. Meeting Someone you started chatting with based off a picture and some paragraphs about themselves is one of the more unnerving experiences I have ever had. Moreover, it never helps that the picture posted bears no resemblance to the person you saw on the internet. I don't know if people who online date are masters in Photoshop, or their pictures just don't accurately depict what they look life in real life. I have been met by disappointment in this facet of online dating many a time.

2. OK CUPID tends to be the luggage compartment beneath an airplane. I mean everyone has some sort of baggage, or so it seemed. It could range from religious, personal, or other unexplainable baggage, but the bottom line is that every date was a lesson in psychology. I'm not saying I'm not without my flaws, but as my roommate put it. "There is a reason some of these people are into online dating"

3. Ultimately and maybe obvious to someone like me, online dating will never work. I am not saying one can not be successful with online dating. Heck I know a couple of guys and girls who have had wonderful experiences, but at the end of the day, there is just an inorganic nature to interweb socializing.

I have stopped online dating and I don't have any real plans to go back. I just think there are too many people to meet outside the walls of my apartment and not on the screen of my MacBook.

Gif of the week

http://i.imgur.com/K5fRF.gif

Got 7 Min? Pretty Amazing Stuff

Untitled.

What I learned today

So this is the craziest totally true story I've read in quite some time.

 The least I can say about libertarians is that they sure are entertaining. Cheeky bastards.

Gif of the Week

http://i.imgur.com/PeqLT.gif

http://i.imgur.com/vfeqp.gif

Living Spontaneously

A mini Stadium reunion occurred this past weekend on the beautiful islands of St. Thomas and St. John in the Caribbean. This was an impromptu reunion, an exercise in living spontaneously, what with Saturday morning flights purchased two days prior. Let me just say: live spontaneously, we did. Elliot and his friend Nick ("Nasty Nick"), who turns out to be a pretty cool dude, came down for a visit. These are [our] stories (I hope someone gets that reference):

Day 1:

Elliot and Nick woke up at 4:00am to begin their journey to the Caribbean. Arriving at 11:40am, I met them outside Cyril E. King International Airport and we had hugs all around. Elliot and Nick were the first people to visit me on The Rock and so I was, admittedly, rather excited to show outsiders around the crazy place (unofficial motto of the island: Welcome to St. Thomas, You Can't Make This Shit Up.)

From the airport, we drove immediately to my one room bungalow to drop some shit off. Here are pictures of Elliot on my patio:



After we were done, we hopped into the trusty Ford Fiesta and drove the windy roads across the island to Red Hook on the east end of the island where we planned to catch the ferry to St. John. We hopped on the 1 o'clock ferry and took the twenty minute ride to St. John. Here's a picture from the ferry:




Once we got to St. John, we rented some snorkel equipment and made the twenty minute walk to Honeymoon Beach. Honeymoon Beach is in the middle of Virgin Islands National Park, and is located such that it's remote enough that it's never crowded, but close enough that it's not a problem to get to. At Honeymoon Beach, we snorkeled, chilled, walked the sand, and generally did "the beach thing". This is what I'm talking about:





Honeymoon Beach is gorgeous. Unfortunately, I don't have any pics of the cool sea-life we saw, but I will tell you we saw sea turtles, two types of rays, lots of fish and coral, and there were rumors on the beach of a nurse shark (but we didn't get to peep it).

So, we left Honeymoon beach and we went to an aweosme bar called Iguana Grill. Iguana grill opened right across from Wet Woody's, which is a St. John institution famous for it's excellent happy hour deals, awesome atmosphere, sweet name, and strong pours. Iguana Grill opened a few months back, made their happy hour an hour longer, had the same deals, and offered more seating. Excellent business plan. Excellent way to piss off the other bar. Here's a picture of Woody's (you can't beat the ambience):



And here are some pics of us at Iguana Grill:





I'm not going to mince words: we're equal opportunity drinkers, and we're going where we can drink the longest, for the cheapest, and actually be able to sit down. So we went to Iguana. We still grabbed a brew from Woody's Express Window to drink on the street, just so we could tell our grandchildren about it.

After Iguana (18 beers, 18 bucks, bitches!), we loitered for a bit:



And then we went to Rhumb Lines. Rhumb Lines is a fantastic place. They serve Asian/Caribbean fusion and awesome drinks. They have fabulous servers that act like they like me, and they have begun to give me free drinks as a result. The bar at Rhumb Lines has swings for seats (if you want them), serves Fernet-Branca (delicious), and has a live guitarist who puts up with my drunken requests. I can't ask for more. Here's a picture of us at Rhumb Lines:



And one with our bartender:



After Rhumb Lines, we hung out on the beach for a while, had a pretty strange experience with some strung out locals (ask Elliot), met a man named Whisky (!), and then took the ferry back to St. Thomas.

I have no more pictures from Saturday, but just because I know you're all so curious to hear what we did, we went back to Red Hook, met up with some friends of mine at an Irish bar (St. Patrick's Day, after all), and then went home to sleep.

Day 2:

We woke up (early!), and ventured back to Molly Malone's for brunch. Highlights of our hungover morning were the pancake wraps (sausage, egg, cheese, wrapped in pancake) and grilled cheese with egg (Nasty Nick's a vegetarian - what a bitch).

After breakfast, we had made plans with a friend of mine to go back to St. John and rent a dinghy for the day! This meant that we got to take a little Zodiac with a 15hp motor and cruise around the north shore of the island, stopping as we pleased to go to beaches, snorkel, etc. And this, my friends, is where the pictures get EPIC!

Nasty Nick drivin' the yacht:



And Elliot straddling the boat:



But wait, what's that I spot? A jolly roger on the high seas? Where real pirates like Captain Kidd and Blackbeard actually roamed?







And lastly, Pajo and Nasty Nick posing with the flag:



While this only brings us through Sunday afternoon, I have no more pictures to share. I can assure you all, however, that the rest of Elliot and Nasty Nick's visit involved pools, beaches, beer, urchin spines in the foot, and Elliot passing a fart so smelly it made me vomit.

Yes, that actually happened.

Culture Shock

Life in Siberia is like a Mario Kart race. When I arrived, I was a little nervous, but things got started off perfectly. I hit the accelarator at just the right second, and was quickly out in front. I can usually handle all of the curves that life here throws at me, and oftentimes, afterwards I enjoy the difficulties, just like you can get a speedboost on turns in Mario Kart. But there are still those completely random, unavoidable moments, when a blue shell comes from no where and stops me dead in my tracks. Blue shells can come from anywhere, even places that I've been to many times, but for some reason, this time that item box turned up blue. Other days it's just lonely as hell out here. It was definitely worse in the dead of winter. But the great melt has some unintended consequences. For example, I'm not sure if it's expanding metal or trees, but fairly loud explosiony sounds are becoming a daily occurrence. This can be fairly unsettling. Also, now that it isn't so cold, more and more of the people that I should avoid at all costs are on the street, in between me and the university. Paranoid? Maybe. But a tourist did get beaten nearly to death, you guessed it, where I walk everyday to get to and from the university. Exploding sounds in such environs does tend to stress me out a little, especially if I have my computer or other valuables with me.

The melt also can be fairly funny. Each day, a little more of a beer bottle that has been trapped in the cement-hard ice/snow mixture that has covered the ground since December is revealed. Although they're dangerous, the icicles falling from the tops of buildings onto walkways are comical, at least to me. Ancient vomit piles are revealed, and new ones are created at an increasing rate.

But this year isn't just about the cold and darkness. It's about transitioning from being surrounded by friends at all times to being alone in Siberia for an entire year. It's almost like exile, but I chose it. And fortunately, I don't have to do hard labor. My circumstances are, at an entirely superficial level, similar to the tsarist political exiles sent to populate Siberia. And more than anything, it's completely awesome.

I still sometimes feel like I'm in a dream. The other day I was sitting and eating lunch, and for some reason I began to think about the LDC. There is absolutely no similarity between my lunches here and the lunches I ate at Carleton, except for the tray. No fountain drinks. No different stations. No different kinds of bread. I had a drink that consisted of crushed Siberian berries and honey, a salad (there is no lettuce here, btw), and a pastry stuffed with meat. And of course, I rarely know anyone as I gave around the cafeteria. This is my lunch here. But I never feel culture shock because of lunch.

I met an American woman a few days ago. She is actually helping to organize a school to train tour-guides methodically. Her focus is mainly ecotourism. I got to speak with her a little bit. I hadn't talked face to face with an American in two months. I was depressed and lonely for the rest of the day. I wanted to go home.

Maybe culture shock happens when you find unexpectedly find familiar things in unfamiliar places. In Russia, that happens all too often. This is actually much better expressed in Russian. In Russian, things are divided in svoi and chuzhoi. Svoi is yours, chuzhoi is the opposite. But even though the mix of the two can make me feel culture shock, it also makes for some of my best moments here.

The sky is the most familiar thing here. I look up at night and see Orien. In the day, the sky is blue and there are clouds. But the weather here is different. It changes faster than you can imagine. One moment, there's not a cloud in the sky, the next it's snowing. This happened today as I was walking home. I walked outside and it was sunny, but snowing heavily. There were clouds near where the sun was setting over the mountains. Everything was orange and red and snowy. It looked like a filter on a camera for a Eurotrash action film. It was unbelievable. There are moments when you feel far away and its frightening, and moments when you feel far away and it's entirely liberating.

There are so many familiar feelings as spring arrives. The temperature, the birds beginning to sing, the wind begins to blow, the mud everywhere. But it's the lack of Easter, Rottblatt, Spring Concert, and general mayhem that will make this spring difficult. On the other hand, I have several upcoming trips that I can't wait for that have nothing to do with what spring meant to me for the last several years. I get to go ice fishing on Baikal. I get to go mountain climbing. And the Carleton study abroad group will even be arriving in a few months. So maybe culture shock is just struggling to move forward in life. I want to go back to the institutionalized days of assignments and weekends, but I'm stuck in this world of undefined deadlines and responsibilities. So what can I do? Well, for now, I just wait for my kart to stop smoking and get back into the lead to wait for the next blue shell. Because as far as I can tell, life is still stuck in Mario Kart 64, you can't do this. And while this race might end in a mere three months, the next one begins immediately after this.

gif of the week

http://i.imgur.com/ajNLL.gif

http://i.imgur.com/B6wfH.gif

gif of the week

gifs are great. Here is one: http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l3y0fmOJBm1qapyy7o1_400.gif

we are at 40's right now with a bunch of people. So far we have played all the regular stadium songs including Yes, Yada yada yada, and several others that represent the staium creed we so much represent on a daily basis.

Mark: I never shaved my armpits always trimmed down that area.

eric brenner says :this is about me, you, and aunt jemima. also thinks a good idea would be to put waffle cone caramel ice cream on his digorionaro pizza. wtf?

alfredo says lets drunk plog, even after we alsready wrote two posts


now these mothafuckashs writing about tracy morgan and shittt

Tim's post

at least this time alfrredo didn't get syrup poured in his mouth... AM I RIGHT OR AM I RIGHT? UPTOWN DINER?

fuck you mark, your so grumpy because you didnt seep you ashole

Drunk Blogging: MIAC 2012 Edition

HERE WE GO!

Alfredo is a good person so he gets food stamps from the government. He doesn't always spend it all. Tonight, with those excess food stamp dollars, we bought a feast. Pirourettes, salami, bacon, sausage, pancake mix, cheese curds, waffle cone ice cream, ETCETERA


Eric and Mark were at the meet, met up with alfie and tim. Played Games, went to bars, bought groceries. that's the life of twenty-something these days. at least this day.

we also got gatorade for our hangovers tomorrow.


Brocations? Yes definitely...


BLUEBERRY PANCAKES. WITH THREE FORKS. AND WITH CARAMEL WAFFLE CONE ICE CREAM ON THE PANCAKES.

eRIC BRENNER likes the syrup. oh yeah oh baby. "on there" "get it." - eb 2.18.12 (2:34am CENTRAL TIME ZONE)

he also loes sausage. not bacon though. just sausage.

"We got pizza coming too! That shit is ready" - alfie and tim

Tim picked digorno. Mark picked a smaller non-name brand. [side note: mark loves jack;s pizza]

NEWS BLOW

Ok. I have a confession.

I’m a news junkie.

An Open Apology to the blogosphere

Gentlemen...and the few ladies that frequent this site.


It has been quite awhile since my last post. I assure you a couple are in the works. No more typing out my thoughts, time to bring in the revolution of video blogging.

Get Ready

The 80's vs. Today: Youtube Culture Comparison #2

So a few weeks back I posted the first in what is now a series on a look at our culture today and back in the 80's through the lens of the music video.

Why the music video?  For one, because the music video was new back in the 80's, so it's interesting to take a look back and see how music videos have changed and how they haven't.  And two, I like music videos.  I've also been focusing on the New Wave and Indie genres—for now—because many New Wave artists were the first to make really effective music videos, and because Indie artists tend to make, well, let's say interesting music videos.  Also they were/are both not quite mainstream but fairly popular.

This episodes choices both have a slight semblance of plot, which allows viewers to attempt to read between the lines and come up with a deeper meaning, even though there probably isn't one.  Classic strategy!

6 Month Anniversary of having lots of pool parties

It's winter. And no one wants to get SAD, so I think it's appropriate to reflect on how amazing of a summer I had.

Fish...and plants...and you acting like you care!

Apologies in advance for not being able to a) hold a camera still or b) own a tripod:

Don't you want to know what is in the tank? And don't you want to see the other tank too?

Winter Squash Soup

So this is something new—a recipe!

I enjoy cooking and I've tried a descent number of new recipes since starting grad school.  Some turn out better than others.  I thought this one turned out very well, so I thought I'd share.

Squash soup is definitely one of my favorite soups.  It fills me up with a warm, happy feeling as soon as I taste it, so it is perfect for long, cold winter nights.  It's also perfect because this is the traditional season for  squash, so its more sustainable than making, say, a gazpacho.

When I cook, I tend to read a few recipes and then roughly follow a combination of them, so I apologize for any inexactness hereinafter.  But it still turned out really well despite the lack of recipe, so I think it's a very modifiable dish.  It took me a little under two hours in total to make, but it doesn't require constant attention so I was doing other things while it was cooking as well.  So overall I think it's pretty easy, and yummy.

Ted's year end early new year update, Pt. 1

Hey guys.  Apologies for starting a post and then not finishing it until several weeks later rendering it obselete—and ancient by internet standards—on arrival.  I've done this a few times, and I still have some stuff that I need to update from this summer.

First a digression: when I started this post, I'm was cruising above central Florida at around 39,000 feet and 445 knots, using free holiday wifi.  I continue to be impressed by how our lives keep progressing towards total, constant connection.  This would have been unheard of a few years ago.

Anyway the point of this post is to give an update on what I've been up to the past few days, weeks, and months.  Why was I on an airplane over Florida?  Well I was on my way to Minnesota from the Dominican Republic where my sister just had her wedding ceremony.  I've told some of you about this but this is probably news to some of you that I haven't talked to very recently, which is a sign that we need to catch up.

Before They Were Big Shots...

400 & 300!

400 & 300. What do these numbers MEAN?

Well. Let's start with the number 400. It's our 400th post! Pretty crazy stuff. We've come along way and I am really proud of us keeping it up for so long!

And then there is the number 300. I'm less excited about this one. Can anyone guess why the number 300 is significant today? Could it be the name of my favorite movie? Could it be the number of times I checked my email in the last week? Or is it the number of calories in the meal I just had?

Caribbean Winter

For those of you whom I haven't updated, I live in St. Thomas, USVI now. Sort of.

For the next 4+ months, I will be spending the majority of my time in the U.S. Virgin Islands, shuttling between my house, my office, and the beach in a rental car driving on the left side of the road. I will likely return stateside for a week or so every three weeks, but this could vary significantly based on workload, etc. While I still pay rent and have a car in Minneapolis, I now have a permanent place while I am down here (i.e. not a hotel).

This entire experience is cool for a number of reasons:

1) It's currently winter. In Minneapolis, this means it is likely a negative temperature with windchill. In St. Thomas, it means that it's 75-80 degrees and the swells are a bit better for surfing.

2) I'm meeting lots of people I would never have otherwise met. Everybody who lives down here has a cool story (bro), and a lot of people are down here living their dreams instead of slogging away in a job stateside that they'd rather not do. This means they are interesting.

3) I get the snorkel/surf/scuba dive. I just bought a surfboard!! Let's go surfing now!

4) The work I'm doing is really cool, I'm learning a ton, and making myself more valuable. You know when you're in a situation where you feel like you're just bettering yourself? Getting good experience that you know will make you more useful in a specific role in the future? That's how I feel about the work that I'm doing right now, and that feels good. I like self-improvement.

5) I can haz visitors. The place I'm living is a guesthouse of a larger house, with no kitchen, but there's plenty of floor space and a queen size bed, so I can fit in one or two bros who make the trek down. Plus, the double doors open to steps that lead directly down to a patio complete with infinity pool (see here - same bay/view, different pool).

So, even though we may continue to push off Brocation 1.0 (Cuzco, Peru, anyone?), a Long Caribbean Weekend is beckoning.

UPDATE: JibJab Video!

As I referenced in my last post, the 2011 JibJab Year in Review wasn't up. BUT! Now it is. Enjoy!

Home for the Holidays

There's no place like home. I'm allowed to say that because I'm from Kansas (or is it the other way around?).  But it really is true. And it's not even just being back in your hometown, it's about being back in your own country. Where people grew up watching Sesame Street and The Rugrats. Where I can have a conversation with a customs official or store clerk and not have to worry about language or cultural faux pas. Where I can drive and know that 1st street is after 2nd street (except in DC). And especially where I know exactly where to go to find food.
That being said, I'd like to elaborate on the meaning of vacation. For me, vacation is still associated with summer and freedom from school. During the summer, I would relax at home, see friends, and swim way too much. When I got older, I began to work during vacation. On Wikipedia, vacation is pretty much defined as taking a trip somewhere. I was actually really surprised by how short the article is, considering how many various definitions of vacation I have floating around in my mind. So, disregarding everything Wikipedia has to say, which I know is heresy to this blog, I posit that vacation is merely an escape from the normal. For your average American family, that means taking a three hour drive and sitting in a hotel in a tourist trap. For school kids, it means time off of school. And for your average adventurer in Russia, it means going home.
I have to say that I by far prefer my vacation. Whenever you leave your comfort zone, a level of chaos enters the equation. Now, of course, this level of chaos stays very low in places like Branson or Breckenridge. But think of the number of Hollywood comedies about disaster vacations. Those comedies are so funny because we can always relate. Once you leave the comfort of home, Chaos gets stronger and stronger. Of course, there are comedies about coming home for the holidays as well, but don't those always end with the family getting closer?
When you live in Siberia, Chaos reigns supreme. The equivalent of a State Capital Building in Buryatia caught fire 2 days before I left. Think about that. Last winter, they wanted to put an ice skating rink on Soviet Square in the center of town. No one thought to hire an engineer to make sure the rink was flat. No one noticed that the water was gather along one edge of the rink until it was too late and the wooden gates broke, letting loose a flood of water that led to the entire center of the city being covered in several inches of ice. My friends who work in a kiosk on Soviet Square were entirely unable to open the door of their store. That's where I live.
The United States is ruled by institution and order. You may disagree, but often times our frustrations are the result of too much double-checking and oversight. I think our rules of the road are an excellent example of this. Our roads are well-constructed and orderly. Very few people run red lights. But people hate seeing cops because of speeding tickets. In Russia, when a cop pulls you over, they want a bribe. We in America hate getting caught. In Russia, there's very little you can even do about it. If you follow the rules in America, there's little that can happen to you. And our roads are not the nightmare that Russian ones are.
So coming home to familiarity and order led to some of the most relaxing two weeks of my life. I drove around. I lay around. I played Skyward Sword like there was no tomorrow (cuz I can't play it again for 6 months, dammit). And I basked in the utter lack of concentration that speaking English requires.
But when I landed back in Moscow, my heart began to pound and I felt a rush of adrenaline. It was similar to the feeling that I would get before a really great 200 Free. I knew I was back in my element. I understood every word of Russian, I knew every bureaucratic procedure, I knew how to travel on the subway. While I was in the States, I spent most of my time playing a game. In Russia, getting from point A to point B is a lot like solving a puzzle in Zelda. You have to study the map, but when you get to a key intersection, you find that it's closed off. So you go through your bag of items and pull out the ones you need to get around this roadblock (Russian language, knowing when to wait or when to find another way, etc.). And when the puzzle is solved, it's way more satisfying that anything that could be found in a videogame (much like getting through Skyward Sword is way better than anything in any other videogame).
Being home was perhaps the best vacation I've ever taken. But living in Russia is the best step I've ever taken in real life. And realizing that yesterday may have been the best part of the vacation that I took.