My first few hours back

Maybe some of you are asking so what do you do when you return to America after 4 months. Well I can tell you not much. Why? Mainly because by the time I actually got home I had been awake for about 2 days and traveling for almost 24 hours straight. Yes, it was only a 10 hour plan ride, but add in the 3 hours to drive to the airport, the 2 hours to fly from New York to DC, and the 1 and 1/2 hours to drive home and that's like well 16 and 1/2 hours. But also add in the 9 hours in the Moscow airport and the rest of the waiting and lay-overs and you got a lot of time with very little sleep. So basically all I did was enjoy being with my family for a few hours, then I went to bed.

But if you still want to know the first thing I did, well I guess that would be play Xbox, that is the first thing I did when I woke up. It was glorious.

I should also say that it surprised me how little I actually talked about Russia with my family and friends. It's not that we did not say anything, in fact there were many questions and conversations. I really just pictured hours of conversation based on my many wacky adventures in Russia. No doesn't really go down that way.

Hey Everyone,

Well I've been enjoying America for a few days, but now I feel it's time to get back to bloging. I've got about 800 pictures of my time in Russia and although I don't plan to show them all ... well will see. Anyways I thought I would pick out a couple of my favorites to start this thing off.

This would be from left to right Shawn, Tim, and Tom (my resident director). At the time I was playing around with my camera's options, but I think this one came out really neat.

This one is a cool picture of the sqaure by the Hermitage in Petersurg with the column and the sun and everything, well I like it.

Here we have all the guys in my group and we are standing on top a fort in Pskov.

Lastly, this one I really like, and I think the big cloud makes the whole picture, but either way I enjoy staring at it.

Ah Sweet America!

Well, I've been awake for around 48 hours, with very little sleep in between, I've traveled for atleast 24 hours straight and I'm pretty tired, but I am back in America. The Internet here is amazing, I've just done in 10 minutes what used to take me an hour in Russia! I'm watching American television and eating American food. I've even got to see my family again. Well, I am pretty tired, so I'll be going to bed now.

Talk to you later!

Going Home

Hey Everyone,

This will be my last post until I return to America. Actually this kinda reminds me of my post very similar to this one back in August. Thinking about back then and all the things going on and all the thoughts running through my head, I really am amazed to be sitting here. In so many ways I just can't believe I've been in Russia for 4 months, nor that I am actually coming home. It's been quite an experience and oddly enough I still have another semester in front of me. But no time to think of that now, I've got 5 weeks of vaction in America and I have a lot I cannot wait to do. Thanks to everyone for sticking with me this semester, but don't go away there's plenty more to come.

See you on the other side, bye for now!

I'm still around

This is just a quick post to let everyone out there know that I am still here! The internet has been down for about 3 years at this point and I have not been able to get anything out. Anyways I'll be posting much more real soon, seeing as I will be home in 5 days, and I've got some intertesting things stored up.

Anyways, till then.

Winter Finally Arrived!

Yes it took until mid December but I finally get a glimpse of the Russian winter. Yesterday we had flurries all day and I woke up today to about 6 inches of snow, although we already had about 2 on the ground. It was great I put on my boots and my heavy coat and walked outside. Snow was everywhere, especailly on the roads. I don't really know why but Russia does not seem to be all that good at keeping there roads clear of snow. I hardly ever see plows and even less than that dirt to cover the ice. There is a lot of ice on the sidewalks whenever it snows. Plus they don't use salt at all. On the other, they don't really seem to care. I mean traffic is a little slower and the busses a little more crowded, but the city is as active as ever. You definitely don't see the kind of city wide shutdown that you do in the states, at least in Maryland, and certainly is enough snow to merit that.

Anyways, I've been waiting a long while for this and I love it!

More to go

Well lets see Happy Immaculate Conception everyone! Today marks the end of my second to last week of classes, 2 more exams to go! This weekend will be filled with studying and preparations for coming back to America. But not much, next week is the big week. Besides the two remaining exams I also some exams for my study abroad program. This will be one written and one OPI (Oral Proficiency/Over-the-Phone interview). For those who don't know an OPI is basically an oral test. Its actually what the government uses to rate its language specialist. Of course I won't be taken this one over the phone, as they usually do, but its basically the same thing. Luckily these tests have no effect on my grades or anything like that, but it would be nice to show some improvement. Oddly enough it will be conducted by one of my college professors (ya!).

Besides the exams I have a few good-bye dinners to attend and of courses some packing. Hmm, week and a half to go. I should let you guys know that you can look forward to a lot of posts (with a lot of pictures) when I get back. I really hope I don't go internet crazy, going from hardly any access back to 24/7, oh and how fast it will be ... well anyways, it will be interesting.

I'll be in touch ...

Exams

I just thoght I would let you all know that my first exam is over and I did very well in my opinion. As far as the rest of my exams go I have one or two every day this week (until Thursday, no class Fridays remember?) and then 2 next week. Then for some reason I still have a few classes. I don't know why we don't have exams on the last day of class, but whatever by the end of next week I'll be looking at 5 nice weeks of vaction (I'll be vactioning in America this year)!

A few things on last weekend

Today I thought I would go over a few interesting things I did over the weekend.

First off do you guys remember that final scene in Romeo and Juliet, you know the one where Romeo and Juliet are dancing around heaven with Mercutio? Well that is at least how the quite non-traditional version of Romeo and Juliet that I saw on Sunday ended. Actually it was really horrible, it seemed like they tried to turn the play into some kind of comedy, but the joke seemed to be how funny I can make myself be while saying my lines. Plus it had some weird modern dances scenes scattered through out. Well, that's what I did Sunday.

Saturday was a productive meeting with my tutor, we finally found a book on fencing in Russian, Ya! (I fence for those who don;t already know), that was good.

Friday was of course another excursion around our litle town. We went to the two famous cathedrals here, it was pretty interesting, but not much to say.

Thursday we celebrated another birthday, which means we headed to our favorite bar/cafe, the Red Stallion, and stayed till closing, which is only 1 o'clock. Not too late, but the bus stop running at 11:30 here, so it does mean a long walk home.

Ya so 2 weeks. My first exam is actually tomorrow, wish me luck.

Week 14 Gone

Well today finished off week 14, which means I have 2 more weeks left in Russia (not counting next semester of course, to the 3rd decimal place of course). This week has been an interesting one for me. I can't say I did too much, but classes were good and there were some fun nights at the cafes. Actually it was only one night, but it was still fun. As I may have said before, every Wednesday we have a round table with some Russian students studying english. Every night after the round table we go out to a cafe. Anyways, its a nice break in the middle of the week. It's actually kinda funny because cafes in Russia usual aren't suited for large crowds so last night we walked around looking for a cafe for about an hour before deciding to give up and go to our usual place. I actually like the usual place, but whatever.

As for this weekend, not too much is going on either, we have a little excursion in Vladimir to some Cathedrals and then a bunch of free time. The real fun begins next week. Why? Because we start all the finishing up things you do every semester, thank-you dinners, final meetings, exam preps, you know stuff like that.

I'll soon be back in America, that will be sweet, 2 weeks is such a short amount of time.