Day 32 ~ Sunday recap and Last day of class!

3. August - Monday
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So today was the last day of Language class!

Yay. I spent all day yesterday studying and being lazy. I cleaned and organized my room a bit too. I slept in really late and went to bed early again, I’ve been really tired lately. For dinner we had liver and onion patties, it was actually better than it sounded and Olga also make a peach pie. It was more like a pie and bread thing together but it was pretty good!

Anyways, today school went well! I did really well on the oral part of the exam, the Anton flashcards. I was happy with myself. The written part was a lot better than it could have been. It was multiple choice, 50/50 chance to getting it correct! We were given a sentence and we had to fill in the blank with the correct response. Basically it was quizzing whether you knew when to use the correct case. After the tests we practiced the song we are singing tomorrow and going over the jokes we’re supposed to tell.

After school I went to the Italian restaurant, Napoli, down the street with Steve. We had the business lunch, all you can eat for 400 rubles. It was pretty good. I had some vegetable lasagna, pasta, chicken, and they even had frech fries. I thought that was amusing and figured since I haven’t had any in over a month to get some.
After the restaurant I eventually made my way over to work at the orphanage. Francesca decided not to come since it had been raining on and off all day! I ended up going and it finally stopped raining so we were outside most of the time. A stray dog found his way into the playground and kept running around. The kids found this very amusing and chased it around for the longest time. I don’t know what the dog wanted. One of the ladies brought the dog some bread but it wouldn’t eat it. The dog just seemed really active and somewhat nervous. It would jump on the kids and run around, occasionally drinking water from puddles. So, anyways that brought some excitement to the orphanage for one day!

After work I thought that I would try to meet up with some of the group. I know Masha had said she was going back to the Army store and from there I don’t know where she was going. I decided to walk all the way to Coffee Land first to see if maybe they were there. They weren’t so I walked to the Army store. No one there, so I decided, I really didn’t know which bus to take so I just figured I would walk home since I know the way. Walking home from the Orphanage took almost 2 hours.
I don’t know why I really felt like walking, it’s a long walk and if you don’t know where you’re going you can get lost. There are lots of turns to make. I made my way by looking for familiar buildings; it’s a good thing I pay attention when I am on the bus. Overall I was proud of myself for being able to navigate myself home. It’s tricky. Although it poured and my shoes were soaked through I enjoyed it because it was nice and cool and I felt refreshed. Don’t ask me why I walked all the way home in the rain, I know it’s crazy, but I just felt like walking. For some reason the moment struck me and so I walked. Other days I wouldn’t have thought of walking home for it does take a long time. I didn’t even feel tired or anything either. It was a nice walk though. I took some pictures of the city that I’ve wanted to take for a while.

I got home and had dinner. Olga cooked potatoes, and I made them into salt potatoes, with beef. It was really good. We don’t have many potatoes I’ve noticed. I also had some Red Caviar lays potato chips, they are disgusting. I bought them the other say when I was shopping with Doug and Masha, but they are gross. I ended up throwing most of them out. Oh I forgot to say that when I was shopping I bought some tea to bring home, some flavors that I really like that Olga has. I don’t know if they have them in America so I bought about 3 boxes.

After dinner, Masha called and said that a bunch of people were getting together tonight, did I want to come.

Around 10 I made my way to the Kremlin and Masha, Colin, Jim, Steve and I all hung out. We originally were going to sit outside of a café but it was closing at 11, so we made our way to Café Fashion right next to Rus department store. Masha wanted to buy me a drink, since I didn’t think I would be getting anything I didn’t bring any money, so I ended up getting a mixed drink. We were there for quite a while and ended up taking a taxi home around 1am. Our taxi driver to my surprise was a woman! She was really nice and charged us only 90 rubles to take us to two addresses. Usually it is 100 per address. It was a nice evening, the café played a mix of American and Russian music and they had a huge big screen playing Jaws 2 and some movie with Sylvester Stallone. You find mostly American things on radios or televisions in restaurants and stores, it’s really interesting.

When I got home I just relaxed and went to bed. Tomorrow we have a get together in the morning at school, free afternoon and then dinner with the group at 4. It’s going to be bittersweet!

Love,
Sasha

Picture Link: Russia ~ Day 31, 32 ~ Novgorod Days and Nights