A Crazy Day!

Wow, what a day! It all started when I kind of agreed the night before to allow the small group that I go out to lunch with on Sundays to come over after the service for a quick lunch and then we would be off to ice skating. I did some cleaning the night before so that they could come to a half clean apartment. (I didn't know if they would be coming over for sure. That part was never agreed upon. :) ) So left I home, met a friend on the way to the service and walked with her. We got there a bit late and just found any seat. Some friends that were sitting behind us told us we might want to move. I asked "why!" She said that she would tell me later, so we stayed where we were. Bordering on a bad idea. The guy that was sitting 2 seats away leaned over and shook my hand, then he proceeded to smell the coats the ladies behind us had laid on the seat next to me. The guy wanted to talk the entire service, and did sometimes just talk in a normal voice while everyone else was listening to the speaker.

After the service I was trying to figure out what was going to happen for lunch. One of the ladies came up to me. I asked her where we were going for lunch. She said, MY PLACE. My thought was, "I have to leave right now to get home and finish cleaning up." One of the ladies said she would take me, so I waited for her to get ready to go. We just kind of stood around, and kept waiting. More people kept talking to us; we found more people to talk to. It was finally decided that if we were going ice skating as was the plan, we needed something quick. So off to the food court we went.

After a quick lunch, where my brain was already tuning out of the language, we started out with 9 people in 2 cars. By the time we arrived at the place we were going we had 7 people. It took so long to get there that 2 people decided not to come.


Then, after skating for almost, our allotted hour, one of the ladies fell and split her chin! There was blood gushing everywhere. It was crazy! We got her off the ice and sitting down. There were no paramedics, just a lady who brought out some cotton and peroxide and tape, to tape the cotton on the wound! We got the cut to stop bleeding and headed for the nearest hospital. It was nuts, because of having to follow each other and loosing each other constantly.

After being refused at one hospital, we went to the next that would only be open at 7pm. It was 5:30pm by this time! We couldn't wait that long. One of the guys called the ambulance. We all just stood in the street while the ambulance arrived, and checked out our friend. They said she needed stitches so would need to go to the hospital. (I saw the gash after cleaning the blood off her chin, back at the rink, and knew it was pretty bad.) We all got in one car by this time, because there were only 4 people left. 2 had gone in the ambulance, and the last had been dropped off at the metro to catch a train out of town. We lost the ambulance on the way to the hospital, so had to find our own way. Our friend got stitched up, and we left to go get something to eat somewhere. We ended up meeting back up, with everyone that we had lost along the way, at this lady's home, for pizza at 8:30pm, and of course fellowshipped the rest of the evening, until 10:30ish.

It cracked me up at how crazy things got, and how everyone just kind of took it in stride. It was also interesting to be along for the ride, and try to keep up. I feel like life here is never boring.

Beautiful out!

It has been a while... In the last 2 months I have been pretty sick with pain in my side and anemia, but I am back on my feet, Thank you, Father! The pain in my side, now, only comes when I overdo it, and as for the anemia, well, I have many doctor's appointments to come, to try to figure that out. Hopefully sometime in the next month I will have that figured out. As for now... it was beautiful out the other night as I walked home... snow falling... not too cold...

I was at a friend's place for fellowship with other brothers and sisters. It was a ton of fun. The only tough part was translating between one of my friends who speaks very little Russian, Jessie, and the others who speak very little English. It was/is good practice for me though.
It is kind of funny... My friends from this group only speak with me in Russian, and I can only speak with Jessie in English, so can you imagine the confusion when my brain is going back and forth between languages constantly!? They also get onto each other when one of them speaks to me in English. They know I am trying to learn Russian so they try to just stick to that. I do love it though. They are such a good group.

I will leave it at that for now. Maybe more later...

Sights to see!

It is getting cold out!!! I love it. I should say, it is not just getting cold, it has been below freezing already. Katrina and her family and I went for a walk one Saturday evening into town. It was so nice out. The fountains were still going in the center. Not sure if they are still running now or not. It is only October and cold!

I am not sure if this is our 1st or 2nd snow. But it is one of those 2! That was almost a week ago!
I got to join a group headed out to Suzdal and Vladimir this last weekend. It was a planned trip, but by the time I found out I was actually going it was totally last minute! I had a ton of fun though, and loved the quietness of the town and just being able to walk from one end to the other. I had wonderful fellowship with the people I went with, friends from small group. We had fun playing games together and walking around to see the sights.
The place we stayed was a hostel, but it was like a mini resort center. Beautiful in the middle of this run down little town. And of course because I was the only American in the group I got to do translating the minute we walked in the hostel for some English speakers who were trying to travel across the country and didn't speak any Russian.
The cathedrals were all so beautiful! It was such a peaceful time! So there you have it. Some photos and thoughts of what I have been doing. I might include more later, as I am getting more photos from others in the group. But, that is all for now!

Fun Times

I am staying quite busy. We were on our way out of fellowship one Sunday late in the afternoon when the guy that was driving asked where were going to go for lunch. One of the girls asked me if we could meet at my place. After hoping the place was not too messy, I agreed. It was not too much later we all went to my place, made lunch/supper, and played Uno until 8:30pm. Good day!


I also occasionally get to watch the little girl of my coworkers here. She is a cutie!

Time with Friends

Enjoying time with friends. I usually hang out with these folks on Tuesday nights and Sundays.


We are just hanging out at an apartment of a friend on a Sunday afternoon. Most of the time it is a day of speaking/listening to Russian from 10am to 6pm. Long day, but good fellowship!


Having a girl's night out with Katrina. Shopping, then watching a movie over tea and cookies! So fun and relaxing! And trying only to speak English until the language helper calls and needs a problem solved. Still relaxing, because she is able to understand when I make mistakes.

My Birthday Party!!!

On Thursday night some friends of mine threw me a birthday party! It was a ton of fun. They asked me to invite my friends since they didn't know who they all were. 27 people showed up altogether! It was quite a crowd, but we had fun!

I could not decide what cake was my favorite so Katrina and Bobbie made me a cheese cake and an apple pie! I even had help with the candles from the son of a friend.
So many good friends.

Such good fellowship in a mixture of Russian and English!

Of course, the kids livened up everything!
The food was excellent! It was the first cool day we have had in about 2 1/2 months so it was perfect for just hanging out and relaxing. I am so thankful for everything. Father is so good to us!

Internet

I got out of Moscow to Kaluga for a few days. It was beautiful there.
Met with some friends for a birthday party.
Just yesterday I decided to finally get the internet back up and running here in the apartment. Last week the wireless router over heated because the temperatures here are just plain hot all the time. I got that fixed over the weekend. Then, on Tuesday of last week the modem quit working. With all the heat it didn't surprise me. I lasted a few days without internet, then, after trying many things decided I needed to ask for help. I was told to get my teacher, Viola, to call the company and ask them to come out. When V called them, we were at that office. She was trying to explain everything they said to do and ask me all their questions that they had about the modem. (Remember we are at the office, not at the apartment where the modem is.) So, after that explanation, I came home and attempted to do what I had understood.

After trying out unplugging things like I had been told and still not getting any response, I decided to call the company myself, determined to get the modem working again. My thought was, "There has to be someone there who speaks English that I can explain all this to." No such thing to start with.

When I called, I got the technical department and immediately asked if he spoke English. The response, "No, I'm sorry I don't." I figured out what he wanted. He patched me through to the next lady. Once again I asked, "Do you speak English?" The response, "Unfortunately I don't." She put me on hold saying she would ask around. She came back on and said she couldn't find anyone. She then took my number and started telling me what I needed to do. As she spoke slowly and clearly, I was able to figure out what I was supposed to do. I did all that she asked. (I think) (This is all going on in Russian!) We got the modem to working, but the computer would not acknowledge it. She asked me to restart my computer. Okay, I have no idea what the word for "Restart" is, but I certainly didn't understand her. I asked her again. She said to turn the computer off and back on again. Ahhh! I understood. The internet still didn't work! She finally said, "Someone will call you in an hour." And hung up.

After she hung up, I unplugged the modem and router again just to see if restarting them would help. It did! I was back online! Now to wait for the call from the other tech, only to tell him that it is all working. :)

Within the hour I did receive the call. This time the guy spoke almost perfect English! Oh, if I had only had that before! He asked what he could do. I told him I had fixed it and the internet was working. He response, "I guess I am suppose to say goodbye." Click. He hung up the phone. He obviously didn'tknow what else to say. I thought it was a find of funny end to that conversation, but it ended it. So there you have it. The internet is fixed! I love getting things accomplished.

Fun at Red Square

I know it has been a long time since I have written anything, and I apologize for that. It has once again been a busy month. It has been somewhat tough to get things done in the last week because I have been sick, but now I am feeling some better. I just wanted to update you all a bit and let you know how things are going.

Last week I was down at red square with a friend and got to see some interesting things.

The dome behind us is about the top half of the world in globe form. The little tiny bunch of buildings you can see on the top left is where Moscow is supposedly located. It was the first time I had noticed that in all the times I had been there.

There were some people dancing to this band playing in the garden right next to Red Square.

I tried to get a video uploaded for this but it didn't work. The pictures will have to do, but don't have quite the same effect as being there.

That is all for now.

A Rose and Life

So, there is a story behind this rose!

It goes like this... I was walking down the street and a lady came up to me and handed me the rose. I was walking with 4 other friends although only one was near me at the time. She just asked me if I wanted it, then proceeded to hand it to me. I asked her how much it was. She just shook her head and went away. So, now I have a beautiful pink rose in my possession. My friends just looked at me. I have no idea what made her give me the rose, but it happened. I love it. I asked her how much it cost because just the other day I was in a food court with a friend and a man came up to our table and laid a bracelet with a note down on our table. The note said that the bracelet was a 100 rubles. Neither of us wanted it so we just let it lay there and he came back a bit later and took it back. I was not sure if that was the same deal for the rose - she would give it to me then want money for it. It did not happen. I still have the rose!

On other topics, life here just remains interesting. After my computer crashed a couple of months ago, I traveled to Kaluga and visited the cosmonaut museum. Shortly after that, I had some friends visit from my home town. After they left I had a friend visit from Yakutia, and we went to a play! That was very enjoyable! I will post a few pictures to describe this.

While my friends, Dillon and Codie, were in town we went to a Georgian restaurant and got to see some little girls dancing.
Codie and I hanging out in a friends 1 room apartment.
The play "the Cherry Orchard." It was a ton of Russian, but fun to be able to understand much of it.

So, there you have it. A bit of life for the last few months.

Some Think -29F is Spring!

So this is fun! I am back from Yakutia a week, thawing out, and getting back into my schedule. I am needing to decide if and when I will be heading out there. And to top it off, I fell while I was out there, hurting my hand. I am in the process of trying to convince my friends here that I don't need to go to the doctor, because my hand is not broken. When I fell out there, I hit my elbow, but I had pain in my wrist. It feels better when I don't use my hand. My problem is, not using my hand. It does not help that I used that hand to carry my suitcase when I arrived back a week ago. Then fell on that hand again this morning stepping off my bed. I am finding out how dependent I am on my hands.
I had a wonderful time in Yakutia. It was -34C/-29F when I arrived, but warmed up to -18C/-1F in the mornings by the time I left 2 weeks later. The people are very nice, and the place is beautiful. I was in the living the coldest city on earth and the largest city built on permafrost. But, hey, it is spring! Not so cold from their perspective. :) Oh, and it was 6 time zones away from here! Talk about jet lag on the weekend that daylight savings time kicked in, making it a 7 hour time adjustment.
So I arrived back here to life above freezing. It was an adjustment, but it is beautiful here as well.