Ready for the cucumbers???

Yesterday was a pretty average day for living in Moscow. I went to class, discussed political thought in Russian and learned a bit about foreign policy in Asia Pacific. My language class is still challenging but now that I know what to expect it's less of a shock, of course. Learning about Asia Pacific foreign policy isn't quite what I'm interested in but it was interesting (and short) enough to hold my attention. Then we went to KPMG, one of the big 4 financial firms in the world.

At first I was a little excited because it seemed like they were courting us or something. We had official schedules, complete with a coffee break, and bags of free stuff, the best of which was a mug (hooray for coffee!). But the presentations had little to do with what I was interested in, were full of acronyms that I didn't understand, and generally took longer than they were supposed to. At the end we had to listen to an hour long presentation about...giving presentations. Even though it was only scheduled to take 35 minutes and we were only supposed to be there for another 20 minutes it took a full hour. I really wanted to raise my hand and suggest that an important part of giving a presentation was not angering your audience. Perhaps it's just me, but one of my pet peeves is when people/things run long over the time they are allotted. I understand being 5-10 minutes late but when I finally walked out of the building an hour late I was really annoyed.

Luckily I was meeting Dad for skiing!. I skied pretty well - did all my tricks the first time except the easy one (of course). I decided not to slalom because my back was a little sore from the day before...not painful sore, just muscle sore, but I didn't really want to aggravate it. After skiing we went home and I did some homework then crashed. I've been super tired despite getting 7+ hours of sleep each night so I figured bed early could be a good thing.

We only had language class this morning and boy was it interesting. We're making our way through historical political thought (today in the 20th century) and my teacher asked me what I thought the ideal political-social structure was. Try forming that idea in English! I think I did an ok job of explaining and I'm pretty sure she doesn't think I'm an ignoramus so that's go

This evening I met the group for dinner at a Georgian restaurant about 10 minutes away from the apartment. I'm not sure if Ben picked close to my place on purpose or not, but I sure appreciated it! The food was decent, but with small portions, and the service was AWFUL. I mean, Russian waitresses aren't as friendly as American waitresses because in general the culture is less open and their wages depend less on tips. But still, this girl was awful. Even Ben's girlfriend, who is a Russian, was appalled. It's too bad because it's close to home and could be a good place to go.

After dinner every one came back to the apartment, and we all hung out and had a good night.

I'm doing fabulous and most importantly - looking forward to the CUCUMBER FESTIVAL this weekend!!!! We leave tomorrow and I'm sure it will be the trip of a lifetime. Mixed with "I can't believe this is happening..." and "I can't believe this is happening!!!" moments (I'm sure you get the difference)...I think it'll be nothing like I've ever experienced before. I'm sure we'll get closer as a group, have tons of fun, and probably eat way too many pickles!

That being said, I'm not taking my computer, and we're leaving tomorrow afternoon. I'll get back Sunday afternoon so expect an update then or maybe on Monday depending on how much work I have to do and how tired I am. Until then, my friends!