Kiev, Ukraine -or- Holy crap I'm lazy

About a month ago, I went with the other 90 Americans to Moscow and Kiev, and shortly after, I got super lazy because I have not yet written about it.

Kiev was my first time in Ukraine, but it also marked my first trip riding the Russian Platzkart option. I have read about other people's platzkart stories, either of horror or of amazing memories, but riding with other Americans made the trip less than memorable.

We stayed at a pretty decent hotel, not as nice as the Holiday Inn in Moscow though. The hotel was definitely from the Soviet era.

The trip confirmed what I suspected. I hate group tours and excursions. The places we all went weren't horrible. Some of them were quite pleasant. What was not pleasant was being with 40 other people, most of whom were not happy to be there. Another thing was having a tour guide that was really bad about reading the desires of the group. For example: Sure, St. Sophia's is a really beautiful church. It does not, however, deserve an hour and a half of my time, especially when the tour only includes the first floor. I do not need to know the entire history of the church, rather maybe some interesting facts like during the fresco restoration, a bunch of workers died from dust inhalation. Cool Stuff. I also do not need to spend a couple hours in the National Museum of Ukraine and only see the sections on pre-Ukrainian history (granted the money exhibit was really cool and I explored that area by myself. Too bad the rest of the tour group just got to see a bunch of Greek coins and stuff).
The tour guide also assumed that were were all just a bunch of dumb Americans. When she asked us "Do you know who Lenin was?", what she interpreted as confusion was actually a group-aneurism. Most of us had actually seen his very waxy embalmed self just a few days earlier!

Kiev is definitely on my plans for winter break. I did get to visit the WWII museum in the base of the Motherland Calls monument as well as visit the Chernobyl Disaster Museum.

The WWII museum was spectacular, seriously one of the best museums I have been to on this trip. It cost only 3 hryvni on a student card. One thing I wish I would have done was, for just 200 hryven (about $35) you can go up to the top of her shield. My friend and I wrestled with the decision for quite a while before deciding it was too much money. Also, it would have required us to share the journey with a really creepy dude who was obviously in Kiev to purchase a wife. (Speaking of that, the map that we all received had about 10 escort service ads on it. Classy CIEE, classy)
The Chernobyl Museum, while very good, was not what I expected. It was designed as more of a memorial to the aftermath rather than an exhibit of the event itself. I kinda figured they wouldn't have any items from the site, and they didn't, but I still wish they did. In the front lot they had many old vehicles that were used during the cleanup and evacuation. The last room in the museum had a massive structure on the floor that looked like the top of a reactor, with chairs on top of extracted control rods. COOL.

On food. There is a super cheap restaurant in Ukraine called Puzata Hata (Пузата Хата) which, if I remember correctly, means something like "fat gut". The restaurant is set up like a cafeteria; grab a tray and tell the servers what you want (or point, if you're lazy). Not only is it absolutely delicious, it's cheap; you can get a complete, huge meal for under $6.

Since it's not obvious, These are Hryvnia, the currency of Ukraine

So I finally made it to Moscow

And let me tell you, it was pretty fantastic!

The program took an overnight train to Moscow which took about 8 or so hours. The ride itself was pretty smooth and the Kupe compartment was rather comfy.

*Note on Russian Trains: Traveling by train in Russia is still probably the best option in terms of balancing speed, comfort, and price and is the most popular means of intercity, and possibly international, transportation. Typical trains in the former Soviet Union usually have three classes; Lux, Kupe, and Platzkart. Lux is the nicest and most expensive. It has 1 to 2 berths per compartment. Kupe is the next nicest and about half the price of lux. It's a four berth compartment. Then we come to the infamous Platzkart wagon. This is an open-berth wagon and is the cheapest option for overnight train travel. No Doors, and as many beds as they can fit in. It's a hoot, to say the least.

Anyway, Moscow was great. We arrived in the morning and despite being super tired, my level of excitement was annoyingly high. Immediately upon exiting the train, I saw the top of the Leningradskaya Hotel, one of the seven Stalinist skyscrapers in Moscow. For those who don't know, my fascination with these seven buildings (and a couple others) is approaching fetishism, so having one be the first thing I saw in Moscow was just splendid.

The first thing on the schedule was checking into the hotel, breakfast, and a bus tour, so after waiting for some very entitled people to get to the bus, off we went. We stayed at the Hotel Inn near the Cokol'niki metro, which was probably nicer than I would have wanted, but it came with a gas mask and a non-hand-held shower, so why argue? During the bus tour we experienced some of Moscow's horrible traffic, causing the bus tour to take about an hour longer than I would have wanted. We drove by a bunch of cool things, like a sputnik monument, Ostankino tower, the first McDonald's in Russia, and the center area. We also stopped by Red Square and the Sparrow Hills, where Moscow State University. Some point during the tour, we drove down New Arbat, which is a shopping/entertainment street with lots of Western things like Chili's, Starbucks, and Dunkin Donuts. I definitely need to go back there when I'm in Moscow again. Also, the bus tour added about 20 new things to my "Things to do in Moscow" list. Sheesh

After the bus tour concluded, about half the people on the program wanted to be lame and stay at the hotel for the rest of the day. I, however, went exploring to knock some things off the list. I hit up Gorky Park, to see the Buran parked there, and the sculpture garden across the street. Gorky Park was a pretty cool place to go walking. There were lots of sculptures and things; there was even a kids amusement park. I only explored about half of it, so I'm sure I missed a bunch of things. The sculpture garden is located outside the Tretyakov Gallery and is where they decided to put a lot of the old, Soviet monuments and statues. There are a bunch of Lenins there, some Brezhnevs, and a Stalin or two. This is probably one of the few places you can see a Stalin statue or bust after the De-Stalinization period. Also in the park, there is the monument to Felix Dzerzhinsky which used to be located in Lubyanka Square and was knocked down after the Fall of the USSR.

Hurray Capitalism!! I'm pretty sure this is the 1st McD's. If so, It's the largest in the world as well.

I had plans later on to meet with some friends for dinner on Arbat, so I needed to kill time around that area for a bit.
And then it happened. STARBUCKS. I got a way overpriced coffee, but dammit, it was worth it. It was ACTUALLY coffee, not an Americano. Also, it wasn't half bad. I mean, it was....Starbucks. (Caribou FTW)
Dinner at Chili's. Had an overpriced hamburger. Meh.

117 rubles of pure joy

Day Two: Crusty Communist Leaders and Over-zealous tour guides

On Lenin's Mausoleum: First thing in the morning, we set out for Red Square to go see Lenin in all his glory. Things you are allowed to do in the tomb: Talk, have anything electronic with you, have hands in pockets, smile, stop walking. After going through a metal detector (and in true Russian fashion, it's more for show than regulation), armed guards lead small groups of people to the entrance. The path takes you through half of the Kremlin necropolis (parts of the wall where important people are interred) and around to the front of the tomb. You enter the tomb and from that point on, you are being watched by at least 2 guards at any given time. The walls are black marble (think, Ministry of Magic), and there's just a creepy feeling in the place. After going down a couple flights of stairs, you enter the actual room. Lenin is in a glass case, dressed in a suit. He looks a little green, a little waxy, and a little plaster-like. Lots of people think he's a replica, and he could be, but he's also pretty old so I didn't expect him to look, well, lifelike.
After that, we had some time to bomb around Red Square before the Kremlin tour. I hit up St. Basil's (oddly tomb-like inside), and GUM, a massive department store.

Kremlin tour--Mostly churches, which we had just gotten done talking about in culture class. Also the tour just took forever and the guide just wouldn't shut up. Annoying. Next was the Armory, where they keep all the spendi things the Tsars had. Unfortunately, the jewels were not part of the tour and cost like 500 rubles extra. Our tour was mostly over a bunch of metal things the Tsars got from other country; lots of dinnerware. Lastly, there were like 5 Faberge eggs---Not worth it.

Day Three: Optional Tours-Lubyanka, Gulag, Cosmonaut
One of our coordinators led the group I was with to Lubyanka Square to talk about the building (it has a rather morbid history), and to see the stone placed there as a memorial to those who were killed there. Unfortunately, we were there during a holiday, the one day a year they let the families come and pay respects. We were not allowed into the area around the memorial.
Next stop-Gulag Museum. It was a pretty small museum, definitely not what I expected. The problem is there is no unified Gulag museum in Russia. The funding isn't there, and it is still a little taboo apparently.
Last stop- Cosmonaut Museum. This was the absolute coolest. It's located outside VDNKh, underneath the monument to cosmonauts. It's probably as big, if not bigger, than the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson. I was impressed. Also, for students, COMPLETELY FREE. They had models of all the Soviet/Russian rocket systems and capsules. A life size replica of a Soyuz capsule and one of the pods currently in the International Space station. They also had Belka and Strelka...stuffed. They were among the first animals to go up to space, and survive. One of their puppies was given to JFK as a gift and their descendants are still alive today.

As much as I got to see, I didn't even come close to completing my list. I still have about 40-50 things left to do, including every station on the metro. I guess that's just one of the downsides of being in a group. I could have completed almost everything had I been by myself, but at the same time, I wouldn't have gotten a tour of the Kremlin, and I wouldn't have gone to the gulag museum.
Upon returning, I read someone else's blog about St. Petersburg. He is currently in Moscow as a student and was in Piter during roughly the same time I was in Moscow. He mentioned how in St. Petersburg, everyone speaks English and how you get a truer Russian feeling in Moscow. My two cents? I wish that were the case, but from my experience here, NOBODY speaks English to me. I can pretty much count on one hand the times someone has spoken English to me in St. Petersburg. However, in Moscow, literally everyone did. The waitress at Chili's, the barista at Starbucks, the cashier at the produkti--All spoke English. 

We shall meet again soon, Moscow.

LOL JK RUSSIA IS AWESOME

1) Classes are easy. Like really easy, to the point where I'll have trouble finishing my last semester of college because it'll be rocket science compared to what I'm doing now.
2) I haven't tried it yet, when I finally decide to, I take great solace in knowing that I won't have to walk more than 3 blocks to the nearest Sushi Bar. Seriously, If you live more than 3 blocks from a sushi-bar here, you're doing it wrong.
3) I would say the same about coffee shops, but that's the one thing I'm ACTUALLY bitter about. And the same is true, if you're more than 3 blocks away from some incarnation of a coffee-house, you're doing it wrong.
4) I actually like my host family. She's nice, and she makes lots of delicious soups and things for me. Like: Schi, Sour Schi, Rassol'nik, Pumpkin soup, caviar, pate, caviar, the best cheese I've ever had (smoked ftw), Kasha that would kill angels, eggs just like I like them (burnt whites, yum), eggplant mash, vat jelly, homemade sauerkraut, sausages with mash, Ukha, and more.
5) The food is SOOOO yummy! Syrok, Pops, Yogurt, Cookies (nutela waffle tubes), Blini, Soup, omg BUCKWHEAT, other Russian foods---even RAMEN tastes better here. (coffee still sucks...grrrr)
6) The stoplights have countdowns on them. You no longer have to guess how much time you have left before a gypsy cab (or cop) runs you over in the crosswalk. The cycle works as such:
Green to Red- Green Blinks 3 times, then Yellow for roughly a second then Red
Red to Green- Yellow turns with Red for roughly 3 seconds before Green light comes on.
The previously Green side of intersection is at a Full Red before the Other side is alerted to the changing lights. In theory, a very safe, efficient system. The US should implement.
7) There is an overwhelming amount of stuff to do. And I do mean 'overwhelming'. I feel like I haven't done anything since arriving because my to-do list is so long. I'm slowly working through it. I still have a semester to go!!!
8) I get to wake up every morning knowing that I'm in St. Petersburg! And lemme tell you, that is all sorts of surreal. Up until two years ago, I had no idea the direction my life would take, and had someone told me, I wouldn't have believed them. I am simply amazed everyday.
9) This city is older than the United States. Peter the Great FTW
10) Drinking beer on the street--at least until 2012 (wah wah). A new law will treat beer as alcohol and thus, the ban on public drinking will extend to beer.
11) Cheap vodka
12) Finland is super close, ya know, for smuggling runs. Apparently things are cheaper over there. Somehow, I find that hard to believe.
13) Banya--- Sauna + Sadomasochism + Snacks= Awesome!! Not only is it fun, it's super refreshing. While in the steam room, you beat yourself or others with things called 'veniki'. These are traditionally birch branches with leaves still attached, but oak is cheaper and I have even seen evergreen (with needles, I need to try that!)
14) Kopeck hunting (not for 10's or 50's, but for 1's and 5's). Stalk some weddings, find some coins they don't make anymore, get some weird looks from Russians. Fun times.
15) Hazelnuts in candy, like Snickers and M&Ms

16) This place is full of magic and Everything is amazing!

Guess Where I'm Going!!!!

Oh yeah. Also I'm pretty sure that song is in German.

And for your cheesy Soviet enjoyment



Pretty sure this one is Russian.
In other news: I have enough of a handle of the Russian language to reserve theatre tickets. Hurray me!! I'm going to see Spartacus at the Mikhailovsky Theatre. Should be good.

Anyway, Be back in a week!!

Fountains and Peter with a Shrunken Head

The last two excursions sponsored through the program were to Peterhof and to the Peter and Paul Fortress.
Peterhof was absolutely fantastic. We got a tour which consisted of the lower gardens and the grotto and lucky for us, the fountains were still on. The lower gardens have fountains everywhere including the main, huge fountain of Samson behind the palace. There is also the Chess Mountain thingy, which is, of course, a mountain of chess. My Babushka says there's a similar fountain in Germany somewhere. Peter apparently loved practical jokes because there was a bench fountain that when you sat on it, it'd squirt you with water. There was also a fountain which contained a bucket of fruit, and when you grab at it, the security guard flips a switch and *soaked. I'm sure all this water is fun in the summer, but in the fall, it's pretty cold. We saw the Gulf of Finland. Near the shore there's a bronze statue which if you rub it and give it money, it's good luck. I hear everything in Russia is lucky if you touch it/give it money. I have yet to prove this, but speaking of which, I need to go raid Chizhik Pizhik sometime; there are probably some cool coins there. Again, the lower gardens are absolutely beautiful. Definitely a must see if ever in St. Petersburg.
The next part of the tour was of the grottoes, where all the fountain mechanics are. And by mechanics, I mean just pipes and values. All the fountains are operated without the use of pumps; they just use gravity and differences in elevation. Though claustrophobic at times, the grotto part of the tour was the most interesting and cool.
After this, we had a little bit of free time to see the upper gardens or pay extra to see inside the palace. The people I was hanging around that day were getting hungry and cranky, so we, instead, went to a cafe nearby and ate. I guess the upper gardens will have to wait until next semester.
The next excursion was to the Peter and Paul fortress. The fortress is one of the oldest structures in St. Petersburg and is rather impressive. We took a tour of the main cathedral inside and of the prison. The coolest part was definitely the cathedral. Inside are the tombs of former czars including Peter the Great, Catherine the Great (tee hee), and the Romanov family (last czars). The prison was interesting, but not necessary. I would have rather toured the mint/coin museum thingy that is also located in the fortress.
The area around the fortress is also pretty interesting. There is a miniature park which has bronze miniatures of the famous buildings in St. Petersburg. The metro stop nearby looks like a flying saucer. The Mosque is really close and Peter the Great's cabin is just around the corner.

Pavlovsk

The next program sponsored excursion was to Pavlovsk, which despite being a REALLY cool place, I guess I just wasn't feeling it that day. So I present to you: WIKIPEDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlovsk_Palace

Read up. It's got some pretty cool history, all of which we learned on the tour. Picture permits were 70 rubles and I purchased one even though I have yet to actually be checked for one. I have a feeling you don't ACTUALLY need to buy one. Nevertheless, I took pictures of everything to the point of probably annoying the tour guide.
Cool story though: We took an elektrichka to Pavlovsk, that is to say a commuter train. This means the types of transportation I have taken in Russia now include:

Bus
Trolleybus
Metro
Marshrutka
Elektrichka
Boat
Cruise Ship
Hydrofoil
Airplane

I hear there are helicopter tours for rather cheap. Hmmmmm.

Orientation Redux

So I probably forgot the most important part of the entire orientation experience: Meeting your Host Family. My host family consists of a Host Mother, her husband (I never see him), her son (rarely see him), and her granddaughter, who is visiting for a semester before going back home. So on the last day of orientation, they loaded us onto a bus and away we went. I was part of the last group to get dropped off and while they said the bus would be ready for us at 5, it didn't pick us up until 7ish due to 'dacha traffic'. Dacha traffic is a wonderful phenomenon that happens on Friday as people get off work. Basically everyone who has a dacha in the country gets the hell out of Piter at the same time. This causes all major and even minor roads jam up. So 7-ish rolls around, and off we go. There were around 25-30 people on our bus with luggage; it was a tight fit. We dropped off some people who lived close to the hotel first and then made our way to Petrogradskaya Storona. I do not live here so I settled in for the long haul, little did I know how long it would actually be.
It took us a while to realize that this process of dropping people off was taking far longer than it should. We also started noticing the same businesses and streets moving past us. As it turns out, we had been driving in circles for at least 3 hours. By this point we had just about finished dropping off half the group. After a few more trips around the same city block, we made our way back to the city center to drop off the rest of us. Luckily for us, we had a heritage speaker on board and she filled us in on what was happening. Apparently the bus driver had no idea where he was going, hence the circles. Also, the bus we were on was scheduled to go to Finland at midnight (yes it was that late).
A little before midnight, we pull in behind the October Hotel and the driver kicks us off. After 20 or so minutes of waiting street-side with our luggage, a replacement bus shows up. As a group, we were all still quite jet-lagged and the 6 hour bus ride was not helping things. We were all pretty delirious near the end; laughing at just about anything, most likely stupid things.
I was third from the last to get dropped off at a reasonable 1:30am. Upon entrance to the apartment, my host mother promptly fed me, which was greatly appreciated as I hadn't eaten dinner before the hell-on-wheels fiasco. Dinner consisted of soup--mmmmm. And after I had eaten everything, she then made (read: force fed) me 8 blini with black current jam. Those were delicious and I now have the privilege of saying that I have double-fisted pancakes.

Sweet Church OMG CATS

Last weekend, we all went on our first excursion – a trip to Valaam. Valaam is a grouping of islands on Lake Ladoga, the largest lake in Europe. Primarily, it is one of the holiest sites in Russia. We set out on the Alexander Suvorovsky, a cruise ship-like thing. The boat had a restaurant and two bar/club things. The trip involved overnight transit there, a day on the islands, and overnight transit back. I thought I would have gotten motion sickness but the ride there was incredibly smooth. The cabins were small and the toilets were those weird German shelf-toilets (didn't handle toilet paper either).

In the morning we went on a hike of the big island where our tour guide showed us the various churches on the island. Our tour group was in Russian and I understood everything up to the point when I stopped paying attention. The hike reminded me how much I like being outdoors, away from cities. Having spent most of my time over the last five years in Minneapolis, this was a refreshing escape.

The scheduled item for the afternoon was an excursion to the actual monastery on Valaam. The monastery is one of Russia's oldest and to my understanding, is pretty well populated with monks and temp monks. We took a smaller boat from the bigger boat over to the monastery and the ride was nauseating. Not only was the rocking sickening, there was an audio-tour happening over the speakers in Russian and English. The Russian sounded like the the Metro (think, teacher from Charlie Brown) and the broken Runglish did not help the nausea.

Believe it or not, visiting monasteries and churches is not one my favorite things to do. Sometimes I feel like once you've seen one Russian Orthodox Church, you've kinda seen them all. I know there are the iconic ones that you MUST see, but in general, iconoclasts are iconoclasts. Plus, there were people actually praying and lighting candles and kissing glass-covered icons while we were there, and I feel that our three groups of 30 people were interrupting what was probably a rather important experience for them.

Regardless, there were cats on the island, and cats fix everything. Every time my group passed a cat, our attention immediately fixated on the cat. The tour guide could have been spinning plates on a unicycle, but there was a cat, and that was more important. And because there was a cat, all warnings and advice from orientation flew out the window as many people pet and picked up the cats. I did not, because ring worm and fleas suck.

That night on the way back home, I went to the nightly discotheque on the ship. A pint of Tuborg for 50 rubles? Yes, please! Woke up the next morning feeling refreshed and went home. Rush hour on the metro=never again.

SCHOOL

I'm a week in to school right now and it's going swimmingly. The results of the initial placement test put me in group 3 which, considering group 1 is only heritage speakers, is pretty good. At least my host mother was rather pleased. I can pretty much understand everything that is said although I often have trouble responding without a good deal of 'ummms'. Each group is 7-9 people strong and pretty much stays in the same room all day; there isn't much moving around. All of the language students take Conversation, Grammar, Phonetics, a class on Vocab, and СМИ, which is a class on methods for consuming mass media. We also get two electives. I am in a class on culture and a class on civics (Russian political and social life). They also offered a class on comparing the US and Russia and a Lit course (ugh).

Classes take place in one of the back buildings on the Smolny Campus of Saint Petersburg State University. It's also the Smolny Cathedral. The building itself is fantastic. It's a light blue with white trimmings, and demonic cherubs everywhere. Inside, the walls are peach and it always seems to be on the cold side, somewhat like a cave. CIEE has its own lounge with free wifi, which I have yet to get working on my computer.

To get to school, there are apparently some buses or marshrutkas I could take, but why would I waste 20 rubles when I could have a nice 40 minute walk? Good news: I haven't gotten lost yet!

In the school there is a cafeteria which is said to offer a cheap, albeit tasteless, lunch for 110 rubles. I have yet to try it. There is also a building across the street which has a banana machine in it. I will report on that later.

Homework seems to depend on which group you're in. My group hasn't had too much homework, maybe a couple hours worth if you were to spend some time on it.

And here's to beginning week 2 in school.

Arrival and Orientation

After purchasing a SIM card at the airport, the program coordinators took us to the hotel where we would be having orientation. The hotel was super nice, nicer than many American hotels I've stayed in. I should have stolen some toilet paper. The rooms had 2 twin beds and a TV with some Russian channels on it. I didn't watch much other than part of an episode of Russian “Married with Children” but I did see one fantastic commercial for plastic bags, if I remember correctly. Basically a fridge-ninja uses his blade to get rid of bad odors. Fantastic.

Orientation was a lot of fun. We had various lectures over safety issues, classes, transportation, differences in culture, the program, and Metroface.

Safety in Russia can be summarized as follows:

Roads: Fast, scary death

Crossing Roads: Never safe, Death

Shwarma: Frothy death on a stick

Winter: Icy death from above

Gypsy Cabs: Fiery death/mugging then death

Stray dogs: ring worm death

Tap water: more frothy death/death by illness featured on House

Alcohol: Cheap Death

No documents?: Death

Elevators: Claustrophobic Death

Totally kidding, people actually live here and it's just as safe as any big city with a couple of quirks thrown in. They just wanted us to be more aware of our surroundings, how to take care of ourselves, and avoid getting sick.

By the way, Metroface is what I have previously referred to as Russianface. It's an expression devoid of all emotion, but if one were to label it something, it would probably be closest to disappointment or boredom. When on the Metro, or even in the streets, it's best to wear this face. Why? Because the people around you will think you're up to something or they'll think you are crazy if you don't.

As a break from the orientation lectures, they took us on a bus tour of the city. It's amazing to think of how many awesome things there are in this city. I can't get over the fact that I can, as a student, visit the Hermitage Museum anytime I want, FOR FREE. The student ID card we were given apparently is gold because it gets you into places for a significantly reduced cost. Spas Na Krovi? Free. Hermitage? Free. Russian Museum? Free (I think). SO COOL.

Anyway, lots of cool stuff in the city and the canals are absolutely beautiful. The downtown center is full of streets and canals lined with buildings and apartments which to me, just screams Europe. I will be taking/posting pictures soonish, which will hopefully keep Mom happy.

During orientation I purchased a cell phone, and let me tell you, they are the coolest here. They run off the GSM network and SIM cards are really quite cheap. Mine was 200 rubles and it had an initial value of 150 rubles. Doesn't sound like much, right? Keep in mind that a text to someone in St. Petersburg on my network costs .20 rubles, and a minute of talk time to someone in St. Petersburg on my network costs .20 rubles. 150 rubles will last almost forever, unless you call land lines or are roaming as the fees are quite high then.

During the first two days of orientation, probably 90% of the students bought cell phones. Most of them cost around 750 rubles and are a basic candy bar style phone. Mine cost 910 rubles and was so worth it. It has an FM radio, AND A FLASHLIGHT.

In order to call home, you can either call just from your cell, which will cost 100 rubles a minute, or you can purchase any number of phone cards which will cost in total around 6 rubles per minute.

The city is breathtakingly beautiful and ridiculously busy. I'm pretty sure it's going to be impossible to complete everything I want in a year, but I think it's going to be a good one.


[Edit]

On HIV tests-

In order to extend our visas, we had to undergo another HIV test. This just so happened to take place in the sketchy basement medical room in the hotel. We all gathered in the lobby of the hotel; I personally thought they'd bus us to a clinic or something. The coordinators took small groups of us, five or so, into a back hallway where there was a secret elevator. The elevator led to the longest hallway every. It was dim, the doors were all heavy-duty, fallout shelter steel, and it was a little musty. We then, one by one, entered a room where, as promised, we got stabbed and bled.