Lord love a duck

yep, it's definitely Russia. the snow has come and is here to stay. the winds have picked up and I'm quite shocked I haven't blown away. the scene from mary poppins often enters my mind.It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. The streets are paved white and the ground is slick. I LOVE IT! Snow is comforting to me. I’m always disappointed by our winters in Washington. Maybe it’s the Eskimo in me.

mornings on the bus are still torturous. i find myself getting nauseaus and my limbs going numb. then there is the occasional surprise looking up and seeing my bus driver picking his nose and eating it. yeah. this is russia. i forgot to mention that a while back I went to the cinema and saw a documentary on british pop bands, like oasis. It was dubbed over in russian but still really interesting. gotta love wonderwall.

less than 2 weeks of class left. i'm super scared. scared for this russian language final we have to take. scared for this comprehensive final over every single thing i've learned all semester. the stress begins. i also have this 15 page research paper i'm working on. that's gonna be a doozy. it's a difficult process interviewing people that a speak a language you dont understand.

People will be people. My host family is great. My host dad has been nick-named ‘Mario” by the other American students. He is really funny and makes me laugh so much. Dinner conversations are the best with him. He always is saying ‘I am hungry’ and yells from his bedroom in the morning ‘bye bye’. He knows only a little English. He’s the cutest. And my mom is really fun too. She bought me gloves because I didn’t have any. She’s the best. They are both professors at different universities.

My host sister is Karina. Which translates to Caryn in English, how cool is that? The Russian students, ironically, had already been calling me Karina. And then somehow I acquired “Santa Karina”. This sister of mine though. She’s an odd one. Just a tad socially awkward. She basically runs my life. And she started liking a Russian boy. There’s definitely been unnecessary drama between the two. People will be people. Or kids rather. It’s nice to know we’re all the same. Whether in America or in Russia.

Mullets are everywhere. And when I say that, I mean both men and women have them. I was warned about going to a hairdresser here. I may get a she-mullet on accident. Makes me chuckle. I went with my host sister to the swimming pool today. Let’s just say, I didn’t do the banya…but I did the pool. Everywhere I looked there was a speedo. With some pretty big fella’s strutting them. Have I ever mentioned my distaste for speedo’s?

Like every Friday, Stephanie, Dan, Lica and I went to the orphanage. Except as soon as we got there, we were instantly told to turn around and go back and catch the bus before it left. I guess the older kids were at camp and they didn’t want us to play with the young ones. We were all bummed. But me and Lica ended up getting some pirogies and hung out at her apt. I stopped off at the Post Office and mailed some post cards. I ticked off several Russians. I think it was the 12 post cards I was buying stamps for. And for some reason, the post master puts all the stamps on herself then hands them back to me. This is Russia. Some things just don’t make sense. Actually, most things don’t make sense. We visited the Sakharov Museum. It was interesting, considering it was the apartment where the guy who made the H-bomb lived. Learned he was awarded the Noble Peace Prize. How ironic. A guy makes a nuclear bomb and realizes testing it would blow up the whole world…then turns anti-nuclear. Interesting.

It's pitch black outside by 4:30pm. And we get out of class at 4pm. It's a weird thing to get used to. I'm wanting to crawl into bed and sleep at 8 o'clock. Of course, anyone who knows me, knows that never happens. sleep? what's that?

I finally received the package my mom sent me in september. yep...almost two months. i finally have my power cord for my computer. Lord love a duck. the friends i've made on this trip are what keep me sane. or maybe keep me insane. either way. i couldnt do it without them. they definitely feed my hunger for laughter. just the other day I was coming to the reality of the fac that....soon we will all be departing and a lot of us will neve see eachother again. that's sad. it's gonna be hard to say goodbye. parting is such sweet sorrow...or something like that. leave the fancy words to the poets. its gonna suck.