Saturday I went on a scavenger hunt with Miriam, Joe, and the group of Armenians that live in their hallway. It started out REALLY badly, mild rain, my group was only speaking Armenian and they clearly didn't want to be doing this scavenger hunt. I pretty much said "peace out" and bailed to find Miriam. Her group was much more friendly and I spent the rest of the scavenger hunt with them before returning home. At home I got to Skype with Cory for the first time since arriving, which was great! The scavenger hunt itself was somewhat lame, with really weird or far destinations, and some things that you just plain aren't allowed to do, like take a picture with a policeman or take a picture in Chanel. Later we met the rest of the people from our program for dinner at a Japanese restaurant. Man is it weird to read Japanese words in Cyrillic. I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to end up with but successfully ordered vegetable tempura and a shrimp tempura roll. I know, pretty bland for a Japanese restaurant but they were basically the only things on the menu that I could decipher.
Afterwards Ben, his gf Alyona, Miriam and I had a little double date on the riverside and then Miriam and I walked back to the apartment and hung out for a while. She was thrilled because she got to see the Church of Christ the Savior close up and take lots of pictures. It was nice to have some girl time because I am desperately missing my girlfriends! When people are rude or crazy or funny, or I'm sad or happy, or pretty much like all of the time I like to talk it over with my friends and they aren't here :(. So Miriam and I filled that role for each other and it was great. I even managed to give her a little bit of advice in the long distance relationship department, pros that Cory and I are at that.
Actually, funny enough, her boyfriend's name is Chris, which some of you know is what Cory's name actually is. So we bonded over the trials of dating people named Chris.
Sunday Dad and I spent a lazy morning in the apartment, which was great because I definitely needed the sleep. Then we biked across the river and looked at art. We didn't find anything but we did have a nice lunch in Gorky park where I used my Russian food skills again. Clearly the only thing I can do is talk about food because that's the only time I feel competent in my Russian. After a quick stop home to drop off the bikes we went to the grocery store and successfully located ground beef, boneless skinless chicken breasts, turkey breasts AND sliced turkey. Dad had only found boneless skinless chicken breasts once before (the other time they turned out to have bones and I unexpectedly (sort of) learned how to debone a chicken). All in all, a pretty successful trip. We changed quickly and went to one of his coworker's house for a barbeque.
The party was (somewhat surprisingly) great! I didn't expect it to be all that interesting but the people were nice to talk to and the food was fantastic. Corn, steak, shish kabob, salads, all kinds of cheeses, hot dogs, and just about everything else under the sun you could want. We came home, called Mom, and crashed.
Today Joe, the other kid in my Russian class, decided to leave me for the lower class :(. He thinks the other class is a better fit for his skills, which is understandable but leaves me all alone. Once this sounded like a great opportunity...now it feels more like I've been cast out into the ocean without a life jacket. My teacher doesn't really speak great English and I don't always understand what's going on, so now I'm all on my own with that.
Luckily, though, our afternoon class got cancelled which is great because let's just say it's not the most interesting class ever. With the afternoon unexpectedly free Miriam and I hit the European Center (mall) and browsed. We unfortunately fell in love with more things that we should have but successfully walked out the door without buying anything! Except for some groceries that Dad and I forgot yesterday because there is a grocery store in the basement of the mall. I finally arrived home and started making stuffed peppers for dinner tonight...somewhat of an adventure due to the interesting tomato sauce situation. The options were tomato juice, spaghetti sauce with garlic and stuff, or this thing that was sort of between tomato juice and tomato sauce...and had giant tomatoes in it. I figure we'll put the tomatoes on a pizza or I'll make bruschetta and I was able to drain the sauce-ish stuff out for the peppers. Always an adventure!!
The one down side to the weekend - on Saturday night somehow I was devoured by a bug and now I have this HUGE bit on the end of my sternum. No joke, it's like half an inch wide and two inches long and looks like I'm having a mild allergic reaction or something....currently treating myself with cortizone cream that Dad found in his stuff and neosporin and hopefully it clears up because I really don't want to have to deal with the Russian medical service or the pharmacist. Yikes.
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