tidbit from moscow

i realized a little bit ago something that i forgot to put in my blog post about moscow that i  thought was really cool and worth sharing. we talked with an english tour guide for a little bit that walked with us from the red square entrance down to where you get into the armory. he told us little tidbits about all the things we saw on the way and was interesting to talk to. when we got to the armory we split up into different groups, and the girls who went into the armory stayed with him a little bit longer before as he got them into the armory. the following conversation went a little like this:

guide: by the way, thank you.

clarie: thank you for what?

guide: the american army saved my life. i was born in a concentration camp. 

when i heard that story, it gave me chills.

the best things are the random things.

obviously, so far i've only been blogging about the big things that have been happening. pretty much just our weekend excursions. those are fun, but the biggest reason why i love russia so much is all the little day to day adventures that come with living in a foreign country, a crappy apartment, and 7 girls. some of them i've already talked about, like the keifer NOT milk, and the scented toilet. here's a few more!

our first week in russia we had to get blood taken. they gave us chocolate :)

this is how crs park in russia. half way on the sidewalk, if they're not already driving on it.

sew your car together? why not.

there are cats living in our grocery store. it freaks me out. i don't really go there anymore.

who dropped a watermelon out out of an 8th story window? we did.

YES.

our doors frequently break.

what....?

a car accident outside our apartment at like 1 am. i heard it happen. i saw all the rubble from my window. and yes, took pictures.

this is what the car looked like the next day

right where this car crashed into the median fence is where we run across the road everyday to get to school rather than walk all the way to the cross walk. we started doing that after accident. we're smart :)

bag of chips, anyone?

i like this cake a lot

i love russia.

snow! snow! snow!

so, yesterday, it snowed in st. petersburg. it was a happy day. i think i may have been more excited than the children. it didn't stick much, and when it did, it didn't stay long. but it still snowed! i love snow :)

who's been to the very first cathedral in russia? this girl.

last saturday, we went to novgorod. can i just say, AMAZING. i love this place. i really do. even though it's a city of 350,000 people, it's still considered just a town here. and it totally had that small town feel to it too. i loved it! it felt like being back home in montana. where everyone is just walkin down the street and you cross when you feel like it and you don't have to worry about getting run over by a crazy russian driver, and it was just all around a nice place to be. it made me happy. getting there however, turned to be not a simple task....

so we decided to take the 8:30 bus, which meant we would meet at the metro at 7:15. i was gonna get up at 6 to get ready, but i was up till 2 the night before at already tired, so i woke up at 7, and got ready super fast, half asleep and left the house at 7:15. off to a good start already. so at the metro, 2 of the girls aren't showing up, aren't answering their phones, and one of them has the directions to where we're going. we thought we knew what metro stop the station was at, so we took off. eventually one of the girls called us and we got some very vague directions to where we were going, but we thought we'd work it out just fine. false. we got off the metro, headed in what we thought was the right direction for about 10 minutes, asked for directions, headed in a different direction. with a bus station no where to be found, we thought it was late enough to call the hazelwoods, one of our favorite senior missionary couples, and get directions.  turned out, we needed to go 1 metro stop further. so we did. and when we got off, we realized that the bus station we were going to, was one we'd already been to, and knew where it was. oh, and we missed our bus, so we had to take one an hour later. and THEN we got stuck in traffic, and our trip took twice as long as it should have. by the time we got to novgorod, we only 4 hours to enjoy the beauty there. we didn't get to see everything we wanted to, but overall i think it was my favorite trip that we've taken. it was nice and relaxing (except for the bus rides), and still felt productive. plus i just loved it. it was good. pictures!

the oldest cathedral in russian! built in the 11th century. yeah, i been in there :)

awesome doors

the bell tower

the bells

oh how i love cobblestone streets :)

novgorod!

they do the locks here too!

i love street signs...

run around this church 3 times and you'll get married soon

pony ride anyone?

the girl in the middle is Ira, she's in our branch. novgorod is her hometown and she was nice enough to show us around :)

october 11, 2011. a very important day in my life.

the day i fell in love with hockey. could there have been a better day? i'd say the day i fell in love with football, but i was born with that. last wednesday, after a long day of teaching, we followed a huge crowd of people into the ice palace, AKA: the hockey arena. we found our seats right in the front row, just after the game had started. it was the st. petersburg ska against their rival, the moscow hc cska. the energy in that stadium was crazy! russians take their hockey pretty seriously. i don't blame them.
---for some stupid reason, blogger is being dumb and won't upload my pictures right. so this is what's goin up cuz i'm sick of dealing with it. and, yeah. that's how i feel about that---

the coolest mascot ever? quite possibly.

 the whole crowd started doing the wave at one point. it was pretty sweet.

 i think this was the student section... it looked like a pretty awesome place to be!

 

 

 mascot!

 

 

after we won! 4-2 :)