Joseph Galla ’18 reflects on his first three weeks in Russia on the Dickinson-in-Moscow program.<\/p>\n
\u0412\u0441\u0451\u043c \u043f\u0440\u0438\u0432\u0435\u0442 \u0440\u0435\u0431\u044f\u0442\u0430!<\/p>\n
My name is Joseph Galla. I\u2019m a double major in Russian and International Studies and am currently studying abroad on the Dickinson-in-Moscow program for the 2016-2017 academic year. The main question I typically get is, \u201cWhy did you start taking Russian?\u201d I took Spanish for 10 years in high school and decided it was time for a change. When I first got to Dickinson, I actually didn\u2019t plan on studying abroad. I didn\u2019t even plan on majoring in a language, but now I\u2019m here in Moscow for the long haul.<\/p>\n
When I first got to Moscow, I honestly didn\u2019t know what to expect. I\u2019d never been to Russia, and I\u2019ve always grown up in smaller towns and would only visit New York City occasionally. Now that I\u2019ve been here for three weeks, I can say that I like Moscow more than New York: the parks are nicer, there are more trees here than in Manhattan, and obviously the metro system is just leagues ahead of the NYC subway. I also didn\u2019t expect the metro system to be as easy to use as it is. I\u2019m one of those people who worries over everything (no seriously\u2026everything!) and I was nervous I\u2019d get lost in the metro. As long as you have the ability to read Russian to any degree, a map of the metro, and know which station you need to get to, you\u2019ll be fine. The metro system is incredibly intuitive and really simple to navigate.<\/p>\n
I won\u2019t lie: the first couple days here were hard. I didn\u2019t know where I was going and my bodily schedule was all thrown off. However, once you get used to your new schedule, you\u2019ll adjust to life here easily. Probably the best advice I can give you is to make friends with the OSAs and with your Skype partners. While it\u2019s good to have friends in your Dickinson group, it\u2019s even better to have Russian friends here who already know the city and speak the language. You can always ask them for help\u2014whether you need help finding your way around the city or getting recommendations for good places to eat.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve only been here for a few weeks but I can already tell that it was a good decision to stay the whole year. I can already feel that my speaking ability is getting better, both because I need to speak Russian all the time and because living in Moscow is a much more in-depth cultural experience than any class I could take at Dickinson.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m happy to answer any questions you have. You can reach me on Dickinson email or on Facebook.<\/p>\n
\u0423\u0434\u0430\u0447\u0438!<\/p>\n
\u0418\u043e\u0441\u0438\u0444<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Joseph Galla ’18 reflects on his first three weeks in Russia on the Dickinson-in-Moscow program. \u0412\u0441\u0451\u043c \u043f\u0440\u0438\u0432\u0435\u0442 \u0440\u0435\u0431\u044f\u0442\u0430! My name […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3148,"featured_media":1464,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[115596,22761,1877],"class_list":["post-1463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-galla","tag-moscow","tag-russian","post_format-post-format-image","first-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/russian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}