Summer in Virginia
So, Virginia Beach. A fairly large city with a population of almost 500,000, listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the longest beach in the world. And you can really feel it! It was enough to step out onto the sand, closer to the water, and look around to see a gorgeous landscape in both directions: warm ocean, yellow sand, and large buildings (mostly hotels, restaurants, and shops). The streets here are perpendicular to the boardwalk and are numbered in order, which is a huge help for those with a poor sense of direction. That's why I managed not to get lost even once. We lived on 24th Street, which is filled in the summer with students just like us from Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria..
31st Street is just the heart of the volcano. Thousands of visitors gather there to listen to street rock bands, take photos with the famous Neptune statue, and, of course, sunbathe. It's no surprise that people try to swim and sunbathe right here, because there is a restroom right on the boardwalk, while the next one is four streets away. Tourists change clothes in the restroom, but I'm still haunted by the question of why it says "No changing clothes" on the doors and where vacationers are supposed to change according to the rules. Oh well.
17th Street is the "black" street. At the end of our "work-vacation," in September, we moved there, and we were afraid to walk there at night. There was a small church there, next to which homeless black people hung out day and night. Let me move on to a no less "dark" topic – work.
Work is not a wolf, as we Russians say, but it kept running away from me. Part-time work at the restaurant wasn't enough to live on, pay rent, eat (and my appetite is huge), and pay off my debt.
By the second day, we realized this and went looking for work on the Oceanfront (along the beach). That was the start of my rich American work history: I worked at a hotel, at two or three (I can't say for sure) beach shops, gift shops, restaurants, cafes – everywhere it was either minimal hours or I didn't like something; in short, work just wouldn't stick. After getting a job at another beach shop, I happily arrived at work, thinking I would be sorting swimsuits and shorts.... The boss informed me in an absolutely calm, serious tone that I would be drawing temporary tattoos. At first, I thought it was a prank, because I could only draw a house, and even that looked like it was destroyed by a flood. In short, a bear didn't step on my ears, but on my hands, stomped around, and forgot to apologize. It turned out that was just what I thought. Somehow, everything started working out well, I enjoyed my work, and I didn't even mind standing all day in the scorching sun with a sunburned nose, until my boss decided that tattoos didn't bring in much profit and closed my shop, literally.
And again I was looking for work, but now I was only looking for tattoo jobs. I just got fired up about it! And I was incredibly lucky. I went into one tattoo shop several times, and each time a Russian girl told me they already had workers and the boss wouldn't hire another one, but by some miracle called stubbornness, I went in there one more time and arrived at just the right moment. That very day, the girl who drew tattoos was fired, and I happily took her place (may that girl forgive me). During the first days of training, I was shown how to braid hair wraps (these are ropes woven into a strand of your own hair with a colorful pattern), I practiced drawing tattoos (and they were colorful, bright, and featured all kinds of pictures here), and I started working. And since I learned on myself, for the first week I walked around covered in dolphins, flowers, and dogs. I couldn't help myself and kept choosing children's drawings. The work didn't just go, it raced! There were three of us including the manager; I worked in the morning at first, and when the second girl quit, I switched to full-day and worked from morning till night. Time flew by unnoticed, especially during long hair wraps, big tattoos, and conversations with clients. Oh, how many different people I saw at this job, and how many millions of stories I heard.
Another bonus to my favorite job was big tips. So paychecks piled up, and I lived and had fun on tips. By the way, about entertainment, we had days off, during which we lounged on the beach, sunbathed, went to the mall for shopping, and went to church. One of them was not far from us. There was free food and all sorts of events for J-1 students. And on one of our days off, our policeman friend took us for a ride in his private plane.
Once, after buying groceries for 60 bucks (for my roommates and myself, I'm not that much of a glutton), I went out to the parking lot where my pink horse was standing – a bicycle that refused to hold the huge number of grocery bags. They were falling, the food was spilling out. What to do – I had no idea! It was a decent distance to the house, and I hadn't bought a local SIM card to call anyone. Plus, the heat was about 40 degrees Celsius. A grandfather with a cowboy look in a huge hat and an unusual bicycle came to the rescue, and my bags were quickly hung on it. After walking me home, he hesitated, said he was very hungry and couldn't wait until he got home, he had bought himself food, but had nowhere to eat. There was nothing to do – I invited him into our house, which one of the girls we were renting from was extremely unhappy about. Pouting demonstratively, she said she lost her appetite at the sight of this, in my opinion, cute old man. After eating, we chatted a bit more, and he left. And then I was grumbled at for a long time... Americans are still distinguished by their simplicity, sometimes naivety, and most importantly, their readiness to help.
Continuing the "store" theme, I want to tell you how we first went into a store, an ordinary grocery store. You'll never forget that: a huge territory with rows and shelves and it's completely unclear what, where, how, when, why! We approach one row – boxes, boxes, boxes with different inscriptions, incomprehensible drawings like "I am a Superhero!", cans, bags, and complete stupor... what is this? What do you eat it with? Um, do people even eat this?? Gradually, of course, we figured everything out, but the first time we were missing a sign saying "Smile, you're on hidden camera." The only thing that brought us to indescribable childish delight was the realization of how cheaply we would be poisoning ourselves all summer with Pepsi, chips, and all that junk. No, really cheap, many times cheaper than in Russia. The remainder of our sanity took over, and we went in search of normal food. Here we encountered large, approximately 5-liter, jugs of milk that we had seen in American movies, cornflakes that we had seen in movies, and many other things from our American dreams! Some things we never tried, but we bought a lot, almost everything. But the most important thing is peanut butter! It's something magical, many will probably support me. We just gorged ourselves on it.
By the way, I was the only one who managed to crash my bike into a car twice this summer, resulting in bruises, blood, and a broken bike.
...Summer, as sad as it is, was coming to an end. We were stocking up on clothes, peanut butter, and second suitcases. It was time to think about traveling. Thank God, there was enough money, which meant we could finish work with a clear conscience and rush to California in September!
