We all smile in the same language

привет!

Do you see this fancy shmancy word above? It says "Prevyet!" which is Russian for hello. So I am saying hello to you all, in a totally Russian way.

I haven't blogged as often as I should have during this semester, so I haven't told you all enough about the wonderful experiences I've been having and the reason why I am here. Between all the vacationing and friendship making, I actually have been teaching. Surprising, right?

I love what I do and I am so happy to be here! My kids are quite lovely, even if they are kind of crazy. Actually, they're very crazy. I love them! It's hard to describe all the wonderful moments I've had with them that are permanently etched into my memory. So what better way to try and illustrate than through pictures? Annnd... I even have a few short videos I can show you all.

I know that, because I'm a teacher, I probably shouldn't have any favorites. But can I help it? I don't think so. This girl, pictured above, is my favorite. Her name is Liza, and she is a gem to have in the classroom. She's always trying to help me out, gathering up ripped paper that the boys have destroyed, fixes my clothes if it's in disarray, and continues to always have a cute smile on her face. And she totally loves me, too! I mean, we have oodles and oodles of fun in class... so much so that it's hard to leave at times. One day, the poor sweetheart was having too much fun to leave that she peed her pants instead. It broke my heart; she cried so hard and was so upset, she couldn't even look at me when I left that day. She's adorable and I already know that I will miss her cute face so much!

Well, uh, this beaut pictured above is Nikita. Oi, Nikita! Trouble-maker on steroids, that kid is. I really have very little to say to him, other than he is the most challenging student we have. But hey, at least it's been a few weeks since he's jumped off the piano, right? And only two weeks since he tried to jump out the window. Oh, and last week he tried to push me out the window. At least his English is pretty swell, right?

Misha, as you can tell, is ADORABLE!! One of my favorite boys. Yes, he's a trouble-maker as well, but how can you really get mad at a face like that? Even when he pushes you down, ties you up with a jump rope, and rips a hole in your pants, he does it in such a suave manner that you have a hard time using any disciplinary strategies at all. And, it's probably to his advantage that he's very small and has a high-pitched voice (as do all little boys, but his is especially high) and repeats English in the most adorable fashion. Love love LOVE this little man!

Artiom! So cute, so small, so lovable. I mean, just look at his face! He has got to be one of the funniest children I have ever met, and most of the time I have no idea what the heck he's even saying. He'll always choose the most random toys at store, like a toy razor for example. He will repeat sentences said earlier to him that day at the most random of times, running down the stairs singing "One, two, three, freeze!" and dancing to it with his cute Russian accent. Love it! I love this small child.

Here I am, with little Anya, Polina, and Artiom. Good thing Artiom knows where his nose is, right?

Velizar hasn't shown up to class for nearly two months now. I don't know where he went, nor if he will be returning. Russians are kind of funny like that; they randomly will stop going to school for weeks at a time, or go on vacation, because it's good for their health. But perhaps Velizar moved. Even if he followed the other trouble-makers around, he is pretty dang adorable. And I especially loved his mullet.

More of the cute little Artiom :)

Kirill. Oh, the delightful boy he is. Do you like his face? I sure do. He has this thing about crossing his eyes. And he does it all the time. Sometimes he's a perfectly angelic child, but most of the time he makes you want to scream and pull your hair out. Tying me up and pushing me out the window was his idea, FYI. But with his cute face and lovely smile, it's pretty hard not to love him and have a soft spot for him.

Alosha! He hardly ever comes, and is usually too scared of us to do anything when he does. He's super little, and I don't blame him for being scared. Honestly, I'd be scared if I was stuck in a room full of Chinese teachers who only spoke Chinese trying to make me color, too. 

My cute kids... too enthralled with the movie to pay attention to my mind-blowing lesson. They missed out, it would have been life-changing I am sure.

And of course, Liza is always paying attention! Love. Her! 

Here we are on St. Patty's Day! Russians don't celebrate it, but that doesn't mean I can't do a St. Patrick's Day celebration with my children! They are just too adorable with their leprechaun hats and beards.

Misha makes the best leprechaun.

Here is Anya, and she is absolutely precious. I love her so much, she loves being a princess and giving me high fives. Her english is not so great; she'll only repeat one word at a time and it's usually the last word of the sentence. For example, I'll say something like "I see a duck!" And she'll look at me and say "Duck!" taking a few moments to be able to pronounce the last word. She'll get so excited and then grab my hand so she can give me a high five. She is so sweet and I love her!

This is our newest student, Liza. Her english is pretty swell, and her pigtails are, too. She is super smart, super little, and likes to pinch people a lot when they do something mean to her. But I promise she is still a sweet girl! She is lovable and I'm so glad to have her in my class.

Polina is so cute! Her English isn't too great, but at least her glasses are!

We only had two kids show up, so we played outside! We drew with chalk, and traced each other. Here I am with Artiom, just loving life! Being outside is so great, especially without a jacket in Russia.

Nikita was so happy to be outside! Ah, it's so great to be outside :)

And now, well, I wanted to show you the promised videos. They're all of Nikita, Artiom, and I outside while playing with chalk. Artiom is a funny kid, and if you have the patience/desire to watch the videos, you'll see why. Funny, funny kids. :)

It's been a great week, but goodbye for now!

до свидания!

A little taste of Europe

Before I start this post, I wanted to official apologize to any faithful readers. It has been a crazy time, I have been super busy and have decided to read or watch movies in my spare time instead of blog about my adventures. But I'm here now! I'll make sure to post weekly (at least) until I return home in a few weeks.

Obviously, a lot has happened since I last blogged. It would be way too hard and overwhelming to try and update on everything that has happened since the last post, but there was one thing I specifically wanted to blog about. And that is, my kind of European vacation! Ladies and gentleman, prepare yourselves for an adventurous story about food, karaoke bars, hostel creepers, and heavy backpacks.

St. Petersburg, Russia

We started our excursion on Friday, the 23rd of March and departed to the great city of St. Petersburg. We took the night train and arrived in the wonderful city in the wee hours of the morning. Nothing opens in the city until later in the day, so we had to sit around and wait for a few hours before walking into the city. The first view of the city was absolutely beautiful.

St. Petersburg and Moscow may be relatively close in proximity, both the "capital" city of Russia, but they are completely different from each other in every possible way. Moscow has the typical large city feel, complete with dirty streets and crammed with people with different backgrounds. You can't take the Russia out of Russia, but St. Petersburg would be the closest thing to Europe that Russia has. It's hard to really describe the difference between these two great and beautiful cities, but the best way I can compare them is like New York City and Washington D.C. Moscow is the NYC of Russia, whereas St. Petersburg is the DC. I hope this paints a clearer picture for you readers, but it's so difficult to describe.

We didn't spend much time in St. Petersburg; we had to be at our ferry ready to leave by 4 PM. While we were there, we visited the Winter Palace, home of the world famous Hermitage museum. I loved being in such a history-rich place and seeing the amazing art on display.

I don't really want to go into too much detail about St. Petersburg simply because we'll be returning there in a few weeks, where I can go into much more detail about this wonderful and amazing city. Stay tuned!

Helsinki, Finland

Our group was absolutely exhausted from all the traveling and going off of little to no sleep on the overnight train. We arrived at our ferry station a few hours early so we would have plenty of time to go through customs. When we payed the money for a ferry, I thought that we would be staying on an actual ferry boat, and I was kind of nervous about how we'd be able to sleep. Well, my fears were short-lived once I saw our "ferry". It was a cruise ship, the first cruise ship I had ever seen up close! I got pretty excited, because I had never gone on a cruise before but always wanted to. Which brings me to the beginning of my bucket list adventures.

Bucket List Cross Off #1: Go on a cruise

This cruise was much different than what I would expect a cruise to be, but I'm still counting it! First off, the water was completely frozen.

Second off, the food was absolutely not free. Super expensive, actually. Lucky for us we packed lots of bread, a jar of peanut butter, and some strawberry jam that our lovely cook Lena gave us. The third thing that was missing in our cruise was the entertainment factor. As in there was none. Lucky for us, we were all too tired to be able to do anything exciting anyways. In fact, we didn't allow ourselves to go to sleep until 9:00 at the earliest, so we tried keeping each other awake by playing Phase 10 and reading. We barely managed, but we did it! Our rooms were on the bottom floor, where the ice was being crushed by the ship, so it was super loud all night long. Thankfully, we were super exhausted and weren't kept up by the loud noises and slept soundly instead.

Our ship docked in the morning, and we arrived in the wonderfully chilly country of Finland! I got a stamp in my passport to prove it. Our first view was quite depressing; the cruise ship docked in a super boring area of the city where it was pretty dang cold. Not quite Russia cold, but still pretty chilly.

We walked around aimlessly for a little while, until we finally found the public transportation to get us to the city center. We road the trolley completely around the entire city in less than 15 minutes. Helsinki is the capital of Finland, and it reminded me a lot of Salt Lake. Except for the whole ocean being right there, but Salt Lake has a salty body of water, too!

I really enjoyed Helsinki. What did we do there? Well, basically nothing. Honestly, our vacation consisted of a lot of walking around and just soaking in the city. We didn't have any set plans; we wandered and went where the wind took us. Which is exactly how I wanted to spend my vacation, so it was absolutely perfect!

A little tidbit about Helsinki: they have the weirdest styles.

Notice the creepy way we took this picture. But seriously, what were these people thinking?! I am really hoping this is a fashion unique to Helsinki, and that it does not move to the US. Strangely enough though, the Finnish women were all beautiful, and there was not one Finnish man we saw who was even a little bit attractive. Kind of weird, eh? Maybe there are some attractive men somewhere within that country, possibly in hiding because they are a rare specimen.

One of my favorite things I did in Helsinki was visit Fazer Chocolate! Apparently it's super popular, even though I had never heard of it until we got there. Fazer is most popular for their chocolate eggs. I don't know how they do it, but they take a real live chicken egg and somehow insert their chocolate inside it without the egg stuff inside. The egg is perfectly clean and not cracked at all, so it truly is a mystery as to how they accomplish such a task. Kris and I each bought an egg and took video of us cracking it open, which you can watch if you really want to.

Stockholm, Sweden

By far, my favorite part of our vacation was Stockholm! I fell in love with the city as soon as I stepped onto the land. But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

To get to Stockholm, we took another ferry/cruise. This one was much bigger than the previous one, although the food was still totally not free. Our ship was nine or ten levels, and we were on the absolute last level of the ship. In fact, our room was below the area where all the vehicles are stored. Our level was called the anchor deck, because half the "level" was where the anchor was stored. Basically, if our cruise ship were to crash into an iceberg like the Titanic did, well we would have been the first to die. Luckily, no such thing happened and we were safe.

This cruise ship was a little better on the entertainment factor. Kris and I were in a crazy hyper mood, so we country-danced and square-danced and were being the typical obnoxious Americans.

This picture basically sums it up. But, it gets worse. We found out about the karaoke bar on the ship, and decided that we were going to do it! We got to the karaoke bar, which was completely different than how you picture karaoke clubs. The people there were all singing the worst and most depressing songs ever. The mood there was completely dead and I felt like I was going to fall asleep. Actually, us girls brought our books and journals because they were much more entertaining than what was supposed to be our entertainment. Everything was boring, until Kris and I got on stage. 

Bucket List Cross Off #2: Sing Karaoke

Unfortunately, the video of us singing our lovely Spice Girls is not loading correctly on to this here blog. I apologize profusely and will keep trying. If you really, REALLY want to watch Kris and I make a fool out of ourselves on stage, then shoot me an email and I will send it to you. Let me just say though, we were for sure the highlight of everyone's night and were the most entertaining thing they had probably seen all week.

We were pretty tired after singing our lungs out, so we all went to bed after the karaoke adventuring. As I mentioned earlier, we were on the very bottom floor of the cruise ship, so the tickets were super duper cheap. Which means, the really classy drunkards were on the bottom floor with us literally screaming and partying all night. Needless to say, sleeping was pretty difficult that night.

The moment we arrived in Stockholm, I fell in love with the city. What was it about the city that made me fall so much in love? I have no idea, but I did. I want to go back again! And again. And honestly, if I was given the chance, I would live there for an extended amount of time. I've loved cities before, some of my favorites being New York, Seattle, Beijing, and Moscow, but none of the cities instantly felt like home to me like Stockholm did.

Yes, this picture kind of sucks, but this was the first view I had of the city. Have I mentioned that I love it? I look at this picture, and the rest of the pictures I have, and I feel homesick for this magical and beautiful place. I am honestly praying that I'll have the opportunity to return there again.

Stockholm was the first really European city I have ever visited. Which brings me back to my bucket list!

Bucket List Cross Off #3: Backpack in Europe

Yes, it's kind of a stretch, but I don't care! I'm counting it, and I'm crossing it off of my bucket list.

There are two really sad things about Stockholm that are worth mentioning. First off, the exchange rate. Everything was super duper expensive! It was a terrible exchange rate and it was the death of my wallet. The second sad part of Stockholm is that my camera deleted two of the three days worth of pictures I took while I was there. :( I'm pretty bummed about it, especially since it was my favorite stop, but I'm really hoping I'll be able to make it back again so I can take more pictures to make up for it.

Our hostel was pretty interesting. Hostels are the very definition of sketch, and there were all sorts of weird people who were staying there. We shared a room with a really cool Australian girl, and a schizophrenic Norwegian woman. Our company was not boring and kept us pretty entertained. There were a lot of other people at our hostel, and we met people from all corners of the world. There was our friend from Missouri, we met a group of French boys, people from Australia, Nigeria, and Russia.

What was there to do in Stockholm? Like I said earlier, most of our vacationing involved walking around and wandering wherever the heck we wanted to.

Stockholm was unlike any city I've ever been to, so I don't even know what I could possibly compare it to. I guess you'll just have to visit it if you really want to get a taste of it! Which, by the way, I would totally recommend.

Call us nerds, or freaks, maybe crazy, but we went to The Hunger Games. And it was AWESOME!!! Sadly, I do not have the pictures because they were somehow ruined, but the memories are just as good. I loved the movie and was very pleased with the way they portrayed the books into the film. I'm excited to watch it again, and if any of you who are reading this haven't seen it, WATCH IT!!!

The candy in Sweden was delicious. Russian candy is pretty good, but they don't know how to make delicious gummies. Sweden has perfected gummy candy, and it burned a hole in my pocket. You know the candy, Swedish Fish? Well, I finally ate real Swedish Fish!

Bucket List Cross Off #4: Eat real Swedish Fish

If you traveled all the way to Sweden simply for the candy, I promise you that it would be well worth it. I LOVE this candy! I hope I get some more of it some day in the future.

The best thing we did while in Stockholm was visiting the temple. The temple was rather small, but of course it was remarkable and words can't describe how it felt to be able to go back to the temple after not seeing one for months when I had previously lived minutes away from the Manti Temple. I was so grateful that we were able to visit, and I hope to be able to visit more temples in foreign countries in the future.

Leaving Stockholm was terribly depressing. I loved that city and could have easily spent the full vacation there, even if were mostly just wandering around. The day we left it was raining, which was pretty cool cause it felt like nature was mourning our loss, or something. :)

Goodbye Stockholm, I shall miss thee! Until we meet again.

Talinn, Estonia

After a heartfelt goodbye to Stockholm, we flew for an hour to the wonderful country of Estonia! Prior to my arrival in Moscow a few short months ago, I had never even heard of Estonia. Did you know it existed? I was seriously amazed that I had no idea what it was, but I was going to be visiting there! I love traveling, so I was excited to go to a place so obscure that is not very well known.

Honestly, I don't even know what to say about Estonia. It was the absolute most random country I've ever been to, or probably will ever go to. There really was hardly anything to do there, unless if you're the total party type who likes to drink at all hours. Outside of our hostel window was a night club where people were literally screaming until 6:00 AM. Sleeping there was terrible.

What else is there to say about Estonia? We were there for two nights and once again we mostly just wandered the streets. Talinn is a medieval town full of lots of interesting history. We were able to go through the underground tunnels, which is probably the most exciting thing you can do there. It was a great place, I loved feeling like Robin Hood was about to jump around any corner.

My favorite part of Estonia: THE FOOD!!!!! I splurged a lot, ate a lot of delicious sour cream and cheddar chips, pastries, and anything else I could get my hands on. I love delicious food, and it was delicious! Part of the reason why it was so good was because it was so cheap. Isn't it interesting that food tastes so much better when you buy it for cheaper? The best cafe we visited was a medieval cafe in the city center which sold elk soup and pie. Sounds weird, right? It might just be my favorite meal I've had in the past three months.

Estonia in a nutshell: interesting people, great food, and a medieval good time.

Riga, Latvia

Riga was the last stop on our lovely excursion. We got there by bus. Isn't it crazy to think that you can travel to another county after a four hour bus ride? I think that it is so cool!

Latvia was pretty great, but to be honest, we were all exhausted from traveling and were dead from all that we had been doing that we were done with traveling. It was a pretty great place for sure, but I don't remember too much about it, except to say that I've been there. And I do have a few pictures to prove it, but not very many at all.

The one thing I will never forget about Latvia was our wonderful creeper. He actually wasn't wonderful at all, and totally gave me the heebie jeebies. I have no idea what his name is or how old he is, but I'm guessing that he's probably around my dad's age. He told us he was from Sweden, which is basically all that I know about him. It's great waking up to him in his underwear, which were whitey titeys, if you were wondering. I was the last of us girls to wake up, and all the other girls decided to go and eat breakfast. I was still in that stage of sleep where you're not asleep or awake, but you're pretending to be asleep in the hope that you do fall back asleep, when the creeper stood up, walked to the door, didn't go outside, but locked the door. I quickly looked around me, gathered my surroundings, and realized that it was him and I alone in the room together, and he had just locked the door. He was sitting on the bed, reading a book, so I quickly woke up completely, grabbed my passport, and ran out the room as fast as I could. I don't think I was really in any danger, but he creeped me out and I am so glad we were only there for a day. Do you remember the movie The Lovely Bones? The murderer on that movie looked just like our Swedish creeper. Gross.

After 9 days of vacationing, wearing the same outfit every day, using questionable showers, eating sandwiches and drinking little water, we finally went on our way back to our lovely school in Moscow. I love traveling, I am so grateful I was able to go on this adventure and I am looking forward to the many traveling adventures I will have throughout my life.

Sorry for the novel, but this should make up at least somewhat for lost time.

Highlights.

Sorry followers, it's been a crazy few weeks and I haven't had the time to be able to blog! Honestly, I really don't right now, either, but I figured I needed to update you all somehow anyways. So it's picture time! Get ready to see what I see it to the best of your ability.

We went shopping at a souvenir market where I tried on
this funny hat!
Perhaps I'll go back and buy it..

Maslinitsa! The Russian version of
Groundhog's Day.
We ate blini, danced, and burned a witch.

Watched a hockey game.
I expected to see major blood
and was disappointed in one bloody nose.
No fights :(

I started teaching at a new club, I mean school.
Complete with mini-bar filled with juice and Vogue magazines.

I went to the Russian ballet!!
Loved this performance of Cinderella.

I brought my balloon on the metro.
It popped, I scared the devil out of the Russians.
It was on election day.. a day that was super tense and we were told
to blend in.
Woops.

Finally, I ate McDonald's!
Basically the same as it is in America.

I received a beautiful gift from Dasha on Women's Day.
Beautiful fragrant flowers and $100 perfume like it's not a big deal.

Trippy dance I saw at the children's folk dance concert.

Went ice skating at Gorky Park.

All of us girls went ice skating.
You should be proud, none of us fell!
Or died.

I saw the Russian Circus!!!!
Best. Thing. Of. My. LIFE.

Moscow Great Circus.
It was great.

What the monkey?!
He hissed at people and creeped me out.
But he's still pretty dang cute bundled up like that.

I've been feeling ambitious, reading like a fiend.
Les Miserables! A little more than 1/4 of the way through it.

Any questions? Ask away, I'll try to answer them in my next post. This weekend we're going to some pretty amazing towns, I'll let you know allll about it!

Happy Women's Day!

Восемь марта!

What everyone THINKS they know about Russia...

Before I came here, everyone told me about so many things to expect about the wonderful country of Russia. I heard about how backward and rude Russians are, how ugly the people are.. countless other myths that everyone claims to know about Russia. Well, I am here to tell you what is true and what is completely false about this wonderful country. Tuesday I will have been here for one month, so you can pretty much consider me a pro in all things Russia.

Myth #1: Russian men are unattractive. FALSE!!!!! This is the most false of anything people tried to prepare me for at home. The men here are not hideous whatsoever, in fact they are quite good-looking. Are you a fan of the rugged, manly man? Well then, Russia is the place for you! Sorry all you American boys, but Russian men make all of you look like wimps. I was extremely surprised and was not prepared to meet such good-looking men. They're EVERYWHERE!! I'm always taken back by how attracted I am to these men, it was completely unexpected.

Myth #2: Russian women are beautiful. This myth is 100% accurate and very much true. The women are gorgeous! Really, all the people here are extremely attractive. And, they remain good looking (well, for the most part) as they get older. It's like the cold preserves their age or something. Seriously though, the women are gorgeous, along with the men. They have such beautiful eyes and skin complexion, and are just attractive all around.

Myth #3: Russians drink all the time. This is not false, but it's not entirely true, either. People are drunk quite often, but I wouldn't say that they're always drinking. I have seen my own fair share of vodka and many drunk people in the city, especially on weekends. Oh, and the older men smell strongly of vodka and cigarette smoke. Standing close to an older man on the metro or subway is difficult; their smell is extremely strong and I have to force myself not to throw up when I get a great giant whiff.

Myth #4: Russians are rude and cold. From my experience with the Russian people, I would have to say that this is false. At first, the people seem to be very hard and rude, but they open up to us and are friendly. There definitely is the "Russian face", but they warm up and smile their golden toothless grins.

Myth #5: Russian food is disgusting. I guess this is a matter of preference, but I would have to say this is FALSE. Of everything new and unique I have tried here, there is only one thing that I hate. One whole month of food I've never eaten before, and there is only ONE thing I cannot eat? That's a pretty good record! The only thing I won't eat is buckwheat, it is terrible. Let me just tell you about the food. We have porridge (delicious!!!) for breakfast every morning, potatoes, rice, pasta, meat, sausage, soup, cabbage, bread, and pastries on a very regular basis. I love it! Dill is used in everything, so it's a good thing I don't mind it! I love borsch and blini and every dish I've had so far (except for buckwheat).

Myth #6: Russians hate Americans. I am still not certain if this is true or false yet. People are pretty dang nice to us, but maybe we've just had the good fortune to only run into the super sweet and not-too-crazy Russians (because believe me, there still are some crazy ones we've ran into). We try to be safe when we're in the city and not be too loud and obnoxious, something that is surprisingly rather difficult to do. I never realized how hard it would be to try and blend in, we kind of suck at it. Whether the people hate Americans or not, they all love America and would do anything to get to the wonderful land, including marry one of us. Oh, Russia. :)

Myth #7: Russian women like to show a lot of skin. I know it's freezing, but this is so very, very true. I am quite astounded by how short these skirts are and the lack of layers underneath. Oh, and the short skirts and other skin-bearing whatnot starts pretty young; I am shocked by how short the girls' skirts are at the junior high we live at. Apparently there is no such thing as a dress code here, and everyone lives by the phrase: "If you got it, flaunt it!"

Myth #8: Russia is cold. True, true, TRUE!!! Actually, false. It is FREEZING!!!!!! Being indoors is fine, but the moment you walk outside it is absolutely freezing. I hate the cold and I will be fine if I never see snow again as soon as I return home.

These are all the myths I can think of at the present moment, but if you can think of anything else just add it in a comment and I will let you know if it is true or false! I love Russia and I can't believe I've been here for 4 weeks already.. the time is flying and I'll be back in Utah before I know it. Time, please slow down! I'm enjoying myself immensely and am incredibly happy to be here.

Dasvidanye! :)

Greetings from Moscow :)

I love being able to say that I live in Moscow. Guess what ya'll? I live in MOSCOW!!! Actually, it's kind of a suburb of Moscow, and I don't actually know what city I live in, but it's just easier to say I live in Moscow.

It's been about three weeks since I've arrived, and it still doesn't quite feel like I live in a foreign country. I mean, it does, but I'm not freaking out over it like I thought I would be. Honestly, my little dorm feels like home to me. I have great friends here with me who I can hang out with all the time, I have internet access for whenever the heck I want to Facebook stalk my friends at home or Pin my little heart out, and I have enough books to read throughout the semester (just as a side note, I started the unabridged Les Miserables... I'm feeling quite ambitious!).

I love the Russian culture. Gulia, our awesome native coordinator who helps us out with everything, teaches us culture classes weekly and has taught us how to make blini and borsch. I'm in love with it! There is so much history surrounding me, there are countless cathedrals everywhere. There's never a dull moment in Russia! Call me crazy, but I LOVED borsch. Borsch is a Russian soup that's made from meat (we used chicken), sauteed onions, carrots, beets, tomato sauce, and boiled cabbage. Then, you top it with a dollop of sour cream. I love it. LOVE! And blini... it's the Russian version of a crepe. Basically it's the same things, only blini is usually served with cheese and meat or mushrooms. I seriously crave it like no one's business.

The people here are wonderful. My teaching team is fabulous, I love these girls I live with so much! We're all like best friends. But it's not only the Americans who I'm in love with, we have awesome people always watching our backs. Our security guards are amazing. We've become best friends with Peter, he's always at the front doors of the school and will always say "Hello!" and try and wink at us and smile. Whenever we need something from him, or any other guard, we have to use google translate or just a lot of charades. I'm very much used to being laughed at, it's really interesting being the foreigner. I love our cooks, they are so nice and their food is delicious. Although the majority of people here will ignore us or give us dirty looks, there are so many wonderful and kind people we've met. Like Lucia, the babushka (grandma) on the bus who started talking to Reagan and I (in Russian) to our head teacher, Sarah (she speaks a little bit of Russian), about how great and wonderful of girls we are and told us to learn Russian. Then there was Miran, the man we met on the metro who helped us walk to the grocery store safely. When a sketchy man approached us, Miran told Reagan, "Go, I will protect you." These people are great. I love them! And their accents are so great.

This past weekend, we (except Kris) all went to a YSA activity in Moscow. It was kind of a big deal, they only have the activity once a year and people from all over western Russia and Ukraine come to this activity, so it's an all day event. We signed up to go, thinking it would be a cool activity to go to and would be fun to meet Russians our age who can show us around the city from an insider's perspective. I really didn't take into consideration the fact that I was in RUSSIA, meaning that the activity would be spoken in Russian. Holy cow. I got the biggest headache of my life, there were so many Russian singles speaking their language so loud and fast. Yes, we did have a translator, but it was kind of hard to understand her and it was so confusing listening to her but hearing noise in the background. Really though, it was an awesome activity and I really enjoyed it! The activity was all centered around marriage, I guess single's wards are the same all over the world. :) The best part of the activity was the dance at the end, and meeting people who speak little English trying to communicate with us. I had a blast!

Oh, did I mention that it takes two hours to get to church? So it's an adventure, and an all day activity. Well, the YSA activity lasted until 11, but we had to catch our bus by 10:00 at the latest, which meant we had to leave the church by 8:30 at the very VERY latest. We left on time, and were making good time, but we forgot to put into account our much needed visit to the grocery store. We met Miran on the bus, and he was being so nice and helpful, but we stayed and talked with him too long. Turns out, we missed our bus. It was pretty dang cold, and we were stranded in Moscow. We called Gulia, and she told us there was another bus we could go to that stopped at 12:00. So we traveled an hour to the next bus stop, to find that the bus stop actually closed at 10:30. We got right back onto the metro to travel another hour to the head teacher of one of the other Moscow school's apartment. On the metro, everyone was drunk. Vodka was everywhere, and some teenage boys reeked of marijuana. Finally, at about 12:15 AM, we got to Robin's apartment and crashed for the night. I know, the story probably doesn't sound as awesome right now, but when it was happening it seemed pretty darn crazy.

On the metro at midnight. This is Reagan! Love her.

I think it's pretty safe to say that despite the cold, I'm in love with Russia. The food, the culture, my adventures, and most importantly, my students. I feel so grateful to be able to be here, this truly is a once-in-a-lifetime experience and I am trying to live every moment to the fullest! Thanks for your support my dear friends! :)

By the way, the mail here is completely unreliable. I have a new address, if you would like to send me something you can! Just so you're aware, it takes two weeks at least for a letter to be sent, and AT LEAST one month for a package to be sent. But if you want to send me something, go for it! :)

Can you see how freakin' cute the envelopes are?? I love them!
And I LOVE that there are 5 stamps <3