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.

More Pictures of Thanksgiving!

I almost dumped the turkey all over myself before this guy, Vanya, came to my rescue and helped me.
We fit 14 people in our kitchen with a ton of food.

And my first attempt at gravy!

Ground Cloves on Tongue - Bad Idea!

Thanksgiving time was a wonderful time of trying to cook the turkey for the 1st time in my life, making stuffing, attempting to make pumpkin pie without canned pumpkin, grinding cloves in a coffee grinder because we couldn't find ground cloves anywhere, grating a wedge of parmesan as a topping for boiled broccoli, figuring out how to make cream of mushroom soup without a can of soup, and trying to have it all ready for the 14 people that showed up starting at 1:30pm on the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

The turkey turned out, after deciding that about 20lbs. of peices would be enough! It was so fun realizing that I could actually cook the turkey!

I tried and accomplished making pumpkin pie from some baked pumpkin Julie had frozen. It worked, but I had to make 2 crusts because only half the filling filled the 1st pie crust. I made a 2nd crust real quick and it all worked out.

I would NOT recommend tasting cloves that have been ground, regardless of whether it looks like coffee or not. Julie and I tried to find ground cloves, but couldn't, so I decided to try grinding the whole cloves in a coffee grinder. After I had cleaned the grinder to make sure there would not be any more coffee in it, I ground the cloves. When the cloves were ground, I pulled the container out that had the ground cloves. It looked like ground coffee, so I tasted it to make sure it wasn't. Nope! Cloves! Nice and Hot! Oh well, a bad mistake on my part. I started coughing and between laughs tried to tell Julie what I had just done. :) It was too funny. I had a burnt part on my tongue! I felt it for a few days, but it just made Thanksgiving memorable.

It turned out to be a fun group of people from 5 different countries. We had a wonderful time. I have a few more fun photos of the meal, but will post them at a later time.

Cookies and Liver!

The other day I was really wanting some "syrniki". It is a Russian desert patty that is made from cottage cheese. My teacher told me that I could buy them in the grocery store next to the frozen "blini", which are thin pancakes. So off I went!

Well, the one store I went in did not have any, but they did have some blini which, I thought, said that they had cookies in them. I asked a worker at the store if they had sour cream in them and she said yes, after telling me they did not have the syrniki that I originally wanted.

I read the word "печень" and understood it as cookies. So I thought I was getting cookies in my blini.

I got home and fried a couple of them up. As I tasted them I could not believe the taste in my mouth. I was tasting salt, onion, carrot, and some sort of meat in the blini. I was thinking, "Wow, this is an interesting tasting 'cookie' blini." I admit, I am not a big fan of liver.

That must have had something to do with the taste in my mouth. So I finished eating what I had prepared, then left the rest for later.

The next day while I was at class, I asked my teacher what "печень" meant.

She was like, "Oh, it's liver." Right then I could not believe what I was hearing.

The whole time I thought I was suppose to be eating some cookie filled blini, and yet, I was eating a liver filled blini. Oh to understand the differences in this language sometimes!

"печень" is liver!
"печенье" is cookie! Such a surprise! I now know if I want cookie filled anything to make sure of the spelling before I buy it!!!!

Language

So Yeah, language is coming along. I got use it quite a bit the other day while picking my friend up from the airport, showing him around the city, then taking him back to the airport. It was fun and comical all at the same time.

For instance, while we were out walking around Moscow State University we stopped to get some food on the side of the street. I ordered our food. A guy came out of the booth and started to talk to me. I was understanding enough that he wanted to know if we wanted a roasted chicken. Daniel is standing next to me asking me what the guy is saying. I had to think in order to attempt to translate for him, but it was fun actaully knowing some of what was being said.

When I took Daniel back to the airport we were going through the initial security. I set my bag down and walked through. No problem. Daniel set his back down and the lady did not like the side he set it on. She proceeded to say something. He looked at me. I asked her again. She said something else. I had no idea. Daniel turned his bag on another side. She did not like it. He turned it again. She still did not like it. Finally, after 3 or 4 attempts he laid it on the right side. Who would have thought there were like 10 sides you can turn your back on, and only one is right. His response afterwards was, "She could not have turned it herself?" Of course not. Granted it was 3:30am. Oh well.

The next time he was going through another place. Another lady asked him what flight he was on. I told her the flight number. She asked again. I told her again. She still did not like the answer. I said "Amsterdam." She asked "Rome?" I responded "No, Amsterdam." She was finally satisfied. This whole conversation was in English. Once again. I think it was because it was early. So, life goes on and language sometimes progresses.

These posts seem to be getting fewer and farther between...

I am just prefacing that I keep trying to write more often, but somehow it just never happens. :) I have been somewhat busy with traveling, that is no excuse.

After getting back from Germany we (Julie, Nathan, Matt, Julie's cousin, and myself) have been trying to rest and catch up from constant travel for 2 weeks. I have been so tired it feels as if I have been a fog for quite a few days. So evidence of our trip...