the last three weeks

Hey guys! I have good news. I come home tomorrow and I AM SO EXCITED. I have grown to love the people of Moscow, not to mention the culture, food, and my CHILDREN. I kind of am not ready to come home to be honest.. But I'm excited to figure out my life now lol. I have no idea what I am doing, but it's okay. Once I get used to the time zone, I will start working again and that's all I got. 

Here's how my last three weeks have been: 

-We had a group sleepover at our house the weekend after we got back from vacation. Everyone came, except for two girls who couldn't make it, but it was a blast! After school, they all rode the bus and I picked them up from the bus stop and walked them back to our house. Our host family had told us they were too busy with work to make us dinner, which we were all okay with. So everyone brought food for themselves, but then our host family made us dinner anyway, which was so nice of them. And of course it was amazing, they're such good cooks. We squeezed all nine of us at the table, ate, and hung out for a while. My host mom scolded me for not offering my friends tea lol. I'm such a terrible hostess. Our room is kind of small, but my bed is a couch that folds out, so we fit four people on the couch, Three on the floor, Abby on her bed, and I slept on the ottoman. Needless to say it was probably a good thing Joyce and Lauren didn't come, I don't know how we would have fit them in our room lol. 

-The next morning, most of us headed to Tsaritsyno, which is a palace museum that was established by Catherine the Great in 1776. We sat by the fountains, and then went up by the palace and sat in the grass for a while. I love sitting outside by pretty buildings. After that, a few of us went to the mall for some much needed retail therapy lol. Also I still had a lot of rubles I needed to spend before I left. So I did. No regrets. 

-On Sunday, we went to the Russian ward, which is always fun. I like singing the hymns and hearing the congregation sing in Russian, with our group singing in English. A few of us have been in search of Moscow sticker with no luck, but we knew we might be able to find some at Arbat Street, which is a cool street in Moscow with restaurants and souvenirs. We didn't find any though, so after wandering the street for a bit, we all went home. 

-I had a dream that I bought enough chocolate for my family and friends, but I forgot to get some for myself. It was horrible. You can see where my priorities are at. I am my mother's daughter. 

-One morning, I came out of my room and it was pretty early, but the grandma was awake. She doesn't speak a lot of English, but she said good morning to me in Russian, and I replied in Russian, and she was proud of me. Also one night, she was telling us about Tajikistan, and she started a Youtube video about it that was fifty minutes long, but it was in Russian, so she asked Malika to translate. That only lasted a few minutes lol. We also practiced some Russian with our host brother Dony that same night. He made us say things like "Dony is the king." What a jokester. 

-Abby and I were walking home from school once, and one of those trucks that cleans the streets was driving by, and we got sprayed by the gross truck water, so that was great. 

-Remember my Russian friend Victoria that I met a few months ago? Well I ran into her again. We were at the bus stop on our way out to the city one morning, and she was headed to school. But she didn't want to go to school, so she became our tour guide for the day! She took us to this really good restaurant first. I can say what it's called but I have no idea how to spell it, so sorry. I got fried vareniki with potatoes and cheese inside, and some soup that she recommended. We also walked around the Kremlin and then went to Arbatskaya, and we got cake at a cafe she likes. I got this chocolate cheesecake that was bomb. I didn't know this, but there is a new Arbat street and an old Arbat street. I had never been down the new one, so we looked around the old part, and then she took us to a bookstore on new Arbat street. It was AMAZING. They had an English section, and I bought two books.. one by J.K. Rowling and a book of Russian fairy tales. I've been trying to find one for a while, and it might be my most favorite thing I have gotten here. There are twenty different stories, plus really cool illustrations. There is a cafe in the store where you can sit and read, so we read for about an hour or so and then headed home. On our way to the metro, there was a band playing in a tunnel under the street. And they were reaalllyyyy good. So we watched them for like thirty minutes. We found a spot in the front, and we sang along to the songs they played, it was way fun. 

-Sunday, May 26, was an eventful day. I went to church. And then we went to a soccer game, which was a great after church activity if you ask me. The stadium was about a twenty minute walk from the church, so we got some lunch and hung out at the cafe until we had to leave. We found our seats, but then ended up moving up closer into the section with all the die-hard fans. They were all CRAZY, and we probably stuck out like sore thumbs, but we chanted and clapped with them. People were smoking and taking their shirts off and standing on their chairs and screaming. At one point, we got sprayed with water. And they had everyone put their arms around each other and jump back and forth. Right after that, I had tickets to the ballet, so I met up with the other girls who were going for dinner after the game, at the same place I went with Victoria actually. Which I was fine with because the food is way good. I got vareniki again, and tried some pigeon's milk cake. ugh Russia has some very good cakes. Okay and then THE BALLET. It was at the Bolshoi Theater, which is absolutely beautiful. And the ballet itself was incredible. It was called "Legends of Love." The story is about a queen and a princess. The princess is dead, but the queen makes a deal with someone to bring her back to life in exchange for her beauty. So the princess is brought back to life, but then the queen and the princess are in love with the same man. But obviously, the man loves the princess, because the queen is ugly. The queen isn't happy about that, and makes the man drill a hole through a mountain, and then I think he gets the princess? I don't remember, but he drills the hole and then it ends pretty much. It was a very abrupt ending. But there were three acts, and I was just in awe the whole time. Our seats were on the third or fourth balcony on the side, but we could still see pretty well. It was so fancy and I'm still not over it. I felt super gross though because I had spent the afternoon at the soccer game, but it was still so good. The child within me was dying because I wanted to be a ballerina when I was little. After the ballet, we walked through Red Square, which was all lit up, which I had never seen, so that was great. I never get tired of that view. I slept at Felice and Sarah's flat that night, and then met Abby at school the next day. 

-We got dinner with our group on our last Thursday at the Kiev mall, and I found out there was a Panda Express here the whole time, so I'm a little DISAPPOINTED about that. I craved that so many times. But it's okay. We put together a gift for our head teacher, and took pictures, and said goodbye to the girls we wouldn't see again. </3 Also our bus had stopped running by the time Abby and I left, so we had to find a taxi that would let us pay with our cards. The cash we did have was saved for the bus fare, and we didn't really want to pull any more out, since we were in the last days of our time here. We found a taxi and we were trying to figure out how to pay him, because we don't have Russian cards so we couldn't pay him online. All Abby had was her credit card, and I was out of transfers for the month. Luckily, I had pre-packed my carry on bag, and put the extra USD I had in my backpack, which I hadn't had with me at all this whole semester lol. He asked if we had USD, and we paid him that way and made it home okay. It was a little stressful though. 

Kid things: 

-May 21st was a terrible day. There are three boys in my catch up class. George, Aron, and Platon. George and Aron especially cannot be in the same classroom, but on Tuesdays and Thursdays, that is unavoidable. And Platon is good, he just feeds off of their bad behavior and likes to do his own thing. But that day, I had all eight catch up kids, plus Irina's son Denis. George was flipping Aron off, Aron was running around the classroom, Platon wouldn't switch seats with someone like I asked him to, so I could separate him and Aron. Some of the girls were trying to help me by picking up Platon and moving him to the seat I told him to go to, but that made him angrier so he was flinging his arms, and he hit Polina. Spectacle rehearsal was also a disaster. George didn't care, they weren't listening to me, and they were knocking over the props lol. But there was this moment where I was just standing there letting chaos reign, and sweet little Sveta could tell I was struggling, and she came up and gave me a hug and I almost cried lol. Anyway. Moral of the story is that was probably the worst day of teaching I have ever had. But Sveta is a cutie. 

Here is Sveta. Look how cute she is 

-Somehow we pulled the catch up spectacle together. Once the kids were in front of their parents, they did great. Except George, he was still very distracted, but that is just who he is. I knew that would happen, but it was stressful during rehearsal not going to lie. They did so good though. The theme was cats and mice. Some kids were cats, and some were mice. The cats performed a little poem about cats sleeping. The mice sang Hickory Dickory Dock, and then there were some combined songs. As part of a lesson, we made cat and mice ears, Irina provided some tails, we drew whiskers on them, and gave them some tissue paper bowties. They looked so freaking cute. After the spectacle, Abby, Emily, and I sang our Russian song. We only were able to learn the chorus. The first verse wasn't hard, but the second verse was super hard, so we just did the chorus. One of the rules in class is "English only," and it's so funny to watch the kids faces when we sing in Russian because they know they're not supposed to talk in Russian, but then the teachers do. 

Here is Aron, trying to color, but his "best dancer" crown (my attempt at trying to get the kids to be more excited about the spectacle) is right over his eyes lol. 

And the famous George. He really is a cutie, but he just doesn't listen or care or want to be in class at all. 

Anna and Amalia

Aron

Polina

The whole class minus Dasha so see the picture below for Dasha

-We were playing Simon Says one day while we waited for parents to come get their kids, and Amalia said "Simon says.. touch your bum." But she touched her stomach and I was laughing so hard. 

-My favorite child (I'm not trying to hide it at this point), Platon from Captains, likes to slam his head into my stomach. Sometimes that turns into a hug, sometimes he just slams into me and then runs away. Also the other day, I gave him his craft at the end of the lesson, and he said, "Thank you mister." I wanted a polaroid picture of him and me, so I brought my camera to school, and took one with him, and then all the kids wanted one too, which was so cute. 

this photo was taken seconds before he pushed all four of his cups into masha's full cup of water, creating a fun mess that we all helped to clean up 

i couldn't tell you what's going on here with platon and ignat lol

-Aron is not always the best behaved, but he's very cute, and he seems to like me a lot. He is the youngest at Barvikha, so he sometimes doesn't understand as much as the other kids. If Abby is teaching, I sit by him to help him because he struggles with things like cutting out what he's supposed to cut out or coloring. We had the kids decorate rocks, and I looked over at him, and he had blue marker all over the desk, his hands, and then he reached up to point to something and got it on his shirt and his face lol. Somehow it ended up on the wall too. I don't understand how he got it everywhere. I also have explained to the kids that tape is sticky, but he just calls tape "sticky" no matter how many times I tell him it's called tape. He just says "Please sticky!" Also one day I saw him and he was SO happy to see me, he gave me this huge hug and AH I WILL MISS MY KIDS SO MUCH. 

if you look closely you can see his hands are covered in marker and there's a dot on his face.

-We had an end of year party at Barvikha with our basic reading and catch up kids. Each kid chose a country, and they had to come in costume and bring a food from their country. It was an insane party, but it was way fun. We talked about the animals that lived in each of their countries, and then each one talked about it and shared the food they brought. We also made a pinata a few days before and had the kids break it open. I stood on a desk and held it out. Not going to lie, I was scared I was going to get whacked. Also my country was Australia so I made kangaroo ears and got a little  pouch and put a stuffed dog in it lol. 

-I have gotten a lot of chocolate from my kids this week, which I am not mad about. Nastya also gave me a cute candle. At Captains, the principal gave us little wooden boxes which pretty paintings on them. Irina gave us cute scarves too. I am so happy. 

-One of the guards at Barvikha was listening to ABBA one day, and I walked up and asked him if he liked them, and his eyes got excited and he said, "YES!" And I said, "ME TOO!" And then we laughed and nodded at each other lol. He doesn't speak much English, but he's my favorite guard because he's so nice, and he gets excited when I talk in Russian. 

-My host sister Malika, has wanted a dog for pretty much her whole life. She was kind of expecting one for her birthday in March, but she didn't get one. But then somehow one became available for her from a family member or something, and she was so excited! It was supposed to come before we left, but then she found out the dog was sick and would come in two weeks. She was devastated, because we wouldn't be here to meet her dog. Her mom surprised her though, and brought it home the other day. She's so cute, her name is Lady, and Malika is very happy. 

-One day Abby and I wanted to have a picnic, so we got some meat from the store so we could make sandwiches. We made our food, and invited Malika to eat with us. She casually whips out this frozen squid and just makes herself some calimari real fast. We waited for her for like forty-five minutes lol, and then we ate our food together outside. And Malika did this lovely thing in my hair.

 

-May 31st was our last day of teaching. We said goodbye to our catch up kids the day before at our international party, but we still had basic reading and Captains on Friday. For basic reading, we had four out of five of our kids. We reviewed some letters, played a few games, painted rocks, and ate some snacks. They knew it was the last day so they ignored pretty much all the rules but it's okay. I'll miss them. They are so funny. Arina and Nastya always do my hair, Anna is an angel, Roma is just the sweetest boy ever, and Alisa is just Alisa. She's very sassy. Her mom had her give us some chocolate before she left at the end of the day. She was rolling her eyes, and avoiding eye contact when she handed them to us lol. 

-At Captains, we had a smaller version of our international party. We did some art projects and played some games with the kids, and then broke the pinata and gave them some awards. We had 7 kids there so it was kind of crazy. The principal of Captains and Irina explained to the kids that we were going home so this was our last day, and they were sad, but the quickly forgot about that lol. Irina told me that Platon said he WOULD MISS US </3 UGH I LOVE THAT CHILD. We had a good last day though. It was fun to play with the kids. 

Arina and Nastya do this to my hair like every day 

Roma from basic reading. He puts up with so much lol. Nastya likes him and always teases him

The pinata at Caps 

Aww all the kiddos

-We also said goodbye to Irina at Captains, which I was not prepared for. Abby and I had written her notes, and made her a bouquet of flowers out of materials from school because we were too poor to buy her actual flowers. She has been so helpful this semester, and I have come to love her and her kids so much. I am grateful to have met so many amazing people in Russia. Her thank you note made me cry. I will miss her. I should have taken a picture with her BUT I WAS TOO EMOTIONAL

-Speaking of that, the cute cleaning lady at Barvikha, Marina, is so nice and she always tries to talk to us even though we don't know what she's saying. She gave us huge hugs on our last day, and was blowing kisses. Irina told us later she wanted a picture with us but she forgot AND I DIDN'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT CAUSE IM A DUMB. regrets

-On Saturday, Abby and I went to Red Square to see Lenin's mausoleum finally. It's so creepy, but I had to see it because of Marina's song "To Be Human" because she mentions it lol. It wasn't busy thankfully, so we could get a pretty good look at him. He looks really waxy, and also I think his thumb is falling off. I read somewhere that he gets a new suit every few years or something. After that, we got some lunch, and then headed home because we were both exhausted. We took naps when we got home, and then I went walking with Malika and Lady that night. It had just rained, so it was really nice outside. It's so humid during the day, so it was perfect. 

-Today, I went to church, and then bought some snacks for tomorrow. I had used the rest of my rubles for the bus to go to church, so I planned on using my card for going home. But since my card isn't fancy and can't just tap, instead of inserting the chip, the bus driver wouldn't let me use my card lol. So I ran to the ATM, and pulled out 100 rubles, which sucks, but it's fine, and then had to wait another twenty minutes for the next bus to come. I made it home okay. But that was annoying. Tonight we are having a little party with our host family, and saying goodbye. We have to leave our house at 4:40 am so can't wait for that. I will be home at approximately 10:16 pm Utah time. That's like 28 hours or something if you were wondering. AHHHH CAN'T BELIEVE IT 

-This last week has been bitter-sweet. The kids have been extra crazy, but it's been more of a chill week with not as many lessons, so we could just spend time with the kids. I am proud of how far they have come this semester, and I feel very accomplished for what I have done over the last four months. I don't regret coming here one bit. I am so excited to be home though. It's going to be an adjustment, and I wish I had a little more time though. I feel like there is still so much out there. My visa is good for three years though, so I would love to come back, we'll see. 

Anyway, I am so glad I got to have this experience. It has been a challenge, but it's been so good to meet people, and be with the cutest kids ever, and try new things. I am stoked to try out all my Russian and Tajik recipes I have now. And also drink tea all the freaking time. And also have a dryer. And clean drinking water. 

Shoutout to Gulya, Irina, Abby, the rest of my group, and my host family for being the best ever. I'm so grateful. And thanks for keeping up with my adventures everyone! 

*peace sign*