Best day ever!

Dear faithful readers, I apologize for my lack of post yesterday! I spoiled you all with my frequent updates. I had SO MUCH to tell you all butttttt it was midnight before I got home and unfortunately for you guys my bed won out. After a quick call to Cory because I'm the world's best girlfriend and don't abandon him even when I'm half a world away.

Anyway, the day started out with the release of my LSAT scores!! I took the test early June, for those of you who don't know, and the scores were officially supposed to be released today but they came early, like they often do I think. Luckily, I was prepared after living through the release last time. Here's what it was like the first time around:

(Doing hw, maybe checking facebook, writing papers, etc)
Erika: Oh I have an email! AH THE LSAT RESULTSSSSSSS (commence freak out). Ok, get a grip, it's not like the score will be there right in the email. You'll have to sign in to your account so don't freak out yet. (open the email) AHHHHHH I WASN'T READY.

Because basically they just put your score in the email like hey dude you got a 164 love, LSAT commission. This time it was more like:

Erika: Good morning Russia I am so sleepy let's see if anyone exciting emailed me last night. Oh yes, so many people love m-AH THE LSAT EMAIL (choke on strange Danish cereal with dried fruit in it).

But at least I knew that the score was in the email so I didn't nearly die when I saw it. I did however jump up and run around the apartment screaming about how awesome I was. Which caused my dad to run out of his bathroom, probably to make sure that I wasn't fighting off some invader with a lamp (my weapon of choice). I was very pleased :). Plus, I don't have to take the LSAT again so that's enough to celebrate about.

Disclaimer: I'm in a fantastically good mood induced by the good day yesterday so please excuse my exuberance. I know you all miss talking to me so I'm trying to make it conversational.

So basically the morning rocked. We got this awesome text book that's like middle school politics in Russian or something like that and started learning, much to my excitement and the slight concern of my classmate, Joe, who I think hates me for asking if we could do this. Sorry Joe!!! I'll buy you a nice iced coffee from Dunkin Donuts to make up for it. Our afternoon class was Russian Economics but started with a (frank) rundown of politics. It was super interesting and I took like 10 pages of notes.

Joe and I met up with our tutors (who are best friends) in the afternoon and we pretty much walked the width of the city, saw tons of cool stuff, and I got like 4 blisters. I'm still in a war with them (the blisters, not the tutors) that makes me walk like I'm stepping on tacks or something. Very cute. But we're a lot more comfortable with the tutors now.

Then I met Dad and we went to the lake!!!! Everything I ever wanted and more. It took FOREVER to get there in traffic (this city is kind of poorly designed for driving and yet everyone drives...?). But unless you want to walk for like 3 miles with your skis on a dirt road after navigating the metro with them, you drive. But I skied AMAZINGLY. No problem running my opener, which I have been struggling with, easily running 28 and getting deep into 30, tying my tournament PB!!! I haven't even skied at 28 mph once this year yet (very depressing and frustrating) so I pretty much did my victory dance on the dock and possibly scared a few Russian skiers. Everyone was super nice thought and we had a great time. We're going back tomorrow so I'm hoping for a repeat performance. The lake is where the Russian state team practices so I stand to get some pretty good coaching I think.

Then we went to Ikea to get some stuff that we needed for the apartment and made it a pretty late night, rolling in at midnight. For Moscow, that's actually really early but for Erika it was a little bit late. In between we (somewhat) successfully navigated a McDonalds drive-through (I had to resort to "white" ice cream to communicate vanilla but the guy was really patient and only laughed at me a little bit). I called Cory, showered, and crashed.

Today was pretty chill. I managed to eat lunch for less than 5 dollars, a serious feat, but had a lot of food for the cost. Afternoon class was called "Contemporary Russia" and consisted today of a historical background to today's culture, which started thousands of years ago. It was really interesting to see how geography and natural resources shape so much of the culture that defines Russia today. The group went out briefly after class and then I headed home to start my Russian homework. We learn a lot of new words each day and it's pretty hard to keep up with them all. I made stirfry for dinner and we had some yummy watermelon for dessert so all in all it was a good, albeit calm day. Tonight I'll probably study my vocab more and go to bed early. Tomorrow's Russian lecture is about power so I better rest up!