What do you think of your experience in Russia?

Thanksgiving Dinner, picture stolen from Jen 
Mongolian contortionists, picture taken illegally by me
The group of us on Thanksgiving, taken by Nastia.I have no idea why Carlos and I are making terrible faces
Dessert, also stolen from Jen. Mmm it was good
Circus, another illegal picture. Please don't tell the circus authorities on me

The title today is a question my tutor Masha asked me earlier. We met and took a walk in a park near Moscow State University. When I started asking questions about the university, where Masha studies, she led me up a steep incline to get a better view of it. I've seen it before but I just love the building, it's beautiful. Stalin had it built in 1953. It's ENORMOUS, in a 1930's new york skyscraper style. It's got tons of statues and marble with a giant, red soviet star on top that I've heard weighs a few tons. So we hiked up this little hill to get a better look. The hill was steep but not crazy steep, and much of it had stairs. I was embarrassed by how much I was huffing and puffing, but then I looked over and Masha had the same look on her face, and she said "this is a lot of stairs." We reached the best look out point in Moscow, a panorama of the city in front of you, and Moscow State behind. Masha pointed out all the steeples and domes of the churches, and pointed to the Moscow Radio Tower, on the north side of town to show how far away everything was. 

We walked around the university and then went and got some coffee and dessert. We talk in a mix of  English and Russian, she's a linguistics major and has been speaking English for 12 years or something, so she's really good. She got a scholarship to go to Moscow State, the most prestigious university in Moscow, by winning an English language "contest," which basically sounded like a really grueling series of tests. The girl is really smart, and so nice. She then asked me "So... what do you think of your experience in Russia?" This is a hard question to answer, especially when a Russian is asking you. I mean, all the students gripe to each other about it a lot, some have legit reasons, others (like me) don't really. It's just a form of bonding, I suppose, because life here isn't exactly easy, especially when compared to life in the States. And that's what I said, that things were so hard here, a lot of it for me is language, but other things are also hard, but I like it. I can't exactly say that I had fun here like I had fun when I studied abroad in France, but at the same time I have had fun here. It's such a different place that it's almost impossible to explain how I feel. The history of the people and the people themselves are so compelling, their attitudes towards their country and their past.  There's almost a sheepishness to everything, but I don't mean that to be insulting. I like it. And when bad things happened here, it wasn't that we exactly expected it but it wasn't as shocking as it maybe should have been. Like, they took our passports away, said they would give them back in a few weeks, and then we almost didn't get them back for more than a month. Of course, it's Russia. Like, the heating doesn't work in our school and we wear our coats and scarves and have been doing this for more than a month. Well, it's Russia. Like bread costs less than 2 dollars but jeans cost upwards of a hundred.  I don't know, I forget where I was going with this.

All I could say to Masha was that things have been very, very hard here, but I love it. She smiled and said "That's how Russians feel too."

Happy White Thanksgiving!

Pictures taken on a particularly snowy night in Red Square:
                                         This is a fountain in Alexsandrovsky Garden
                                              State History Museum, entrance to the Kremlin
                                    The tomb of the unknown soldier
                                            Lenin's masoleum
                                                   ГУМ
                                               Another fountain, with a bear and a wolf

                                                         St. Basil's Cathedral

Well I know I'm a day late, but happy thanksgiving! I couldn't write yesterday because I was busy making the cranberry sauce! We all went to our assistant Resident Director's house, Vika, and had a little Thanksgiving celebration. Some of the girls came early to cook the turkey and gravy. The slaved away all day and if Hilary, Allison, Paige,Kat, Jenna, or Jen are reading this, thank you so much guys! It was awesome. The rest of us made other things and brought it to Vika's house. We started to watch "2 Days in the Valley," a really funny and very, very strange movie to watch, especially on Thanksgiving. Some people thought that we should watch a Christmas movie and so those of us who preferred to watch a less traditional movie were overruled and we were forced to watch "A Christmas Story." Some of us prefer to watch "A Christmas Story" on Christmas Eve, and we watch it enough times to get a year's worth of watching in. Oh well. It was a really fun Thanksgiving. And everyone loved my cranberry sauce.
The other day I went to ГУМ, the old State Department Store. It's in red square and now it's a really, really posh shopping mall. They have a grocery store in there with chandeliers and marble floors, and 100$ hello kitty champagne (believe me.... I want it). The have signs in English reading "the sturgeon and beluga caviar can be purchased in the center hall."
Anyways, I'm off to my excursion. Today we're going to the metro museum and tonight the circus!

Cranberry madness

For everyone who's reading this, feeling homesick, and wanting it to be christmas immediately, try this:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipes/Holidays-and-Events/Christmas/Main.aspx
Maybe it makes you feel worse, but it makes me feel better to read cookie recipes. I don't know why, maybe because I love cookies and Christmas. Or, if you don't like cookies because you're freak:
http://www.allthingschristmas.com/
Or how about the California Raisins being their creepy selves, brightening your holiday:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXzriJ2LDpI

I'm making the cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving so I had to go to the market today and buy cranberries. I was kind of scared to do it, because sometimes vendors aren't always nice to you here. You would think that, because they're selling things to you, and that they would in theory want your return business, that they would be nice to you. This is false. Anyways... I was kind of scared, because you have to put cranberries in kilograms, not pounds or ounces. But they were so nice to me! I got cranberries, and oranges and apples, and the lady was really patient and made sure I was getting the right type of apples. Then, when I was paying, she asked if I was Swedish or English. !!!! Isn't that great? Those were the two things that passed through her head first. Since she was so nice to me, I leaned close and mumbled "I'm American." I waited for her to cringe or get that "Oh... American..." look on her face, but she didn't do it. Or she hid it well. I was so excited... and that basically made my whole day. Also I wore my fur hat and got weird looks on the bus. Loooove it.
I forgot to mention that yesterday I INTENDED on going to the Pushkin Fine Arts museum with some girls from school. They forgot I was coming so I got to the metro and they had already left. In this one area of town, there are three museums in very, very close proximity. The Pushkin main art museum, the 19th Century Pushkin art museum, and the Ilya Glazunov Artist of the USSR Gallery. Both Ilya Glazunov Gallery AND Pushkin 19th century are green buildings. So when Jenna told me to meet her "At the green building across from the big Pushkin museum" I went to, of course, the wrong one. So I got to spend an hour in the Ilya Glazunov museum which, not gonna lie, is kind of a weird gallery. He painted a lot of naked women. I found his paintings to be tacky, but I loved his crazy, gothic sketches:

This was one of my favorites, his site in English is
http://www.glazunov.ru/EN/
so check it out if you want.
Anywayssss, stay warm everyone.

Great Bounty

Friday we had an excursion to a Russian school, a mandatory excursion. Most of us were NOT looking forward to this; we had to meet at 8:50 in the morning, it took an hour on the metro (for me) to get there. Plus, all of us imagined our worst possible high school moments and feared being brought back to that. But, I am pleased to say, I'm fairly certain all of us were pleasantly surprised. It was more like being taken back to elementary school, since all of the classes I shadowed were either with 8 year olds or 10 year olds. We shadowed three classes, I went to English 5, Russian 5, and Conversation 3. They "5" means the 10 and 11 year olds, the "3" was the 7 and 8 year olds. The English class was really interesting, the way they described everything in Russian to the kids. They were learning to ask "tail" questions, like "It's a nice day, isn't it?" or "Dima has a cold, doesn't he?" They all had trouble between "do" and "does." The teacher also made them turn around and introduce themselves to us in English, which was precious. And they were all SO EXCITED. They practically fell out of their chairs raising their hands, and some were so anxious to answer the question that they made little noises to demonstrate that they knew the answer. I don't EVER remember being that excited to answer questions... but who knows. That was a long time ago for me.

The Russian 5 class was depressing, since I could barely understand what was going on. That's right, 11 year old Russian was too ADVANCED for me. Eventually I understood that they were breaking down sentences into their parts and analyzing them. They did it SO fast... I was impressed. The Convo 3 class was interesting too. They had to read a little story on the board and then write it down from memory. At one point one of the kids, who had been turning around occasionally to give us a look, raised his hand and asked "Are the Americans going to be reading our stories?" The teacher said "No, of course not, I'm sure they don't want to." After that we got free rolls and tea and coffee. So, all in all, a fun excursion... though this coming friday we're going to the circus, so that might take the 1st place for "best excursion."

Then yesterday we went shopping at Izmaylova market, the HUGE souvenir market on the outskirts of town. Seeing as the day was pretty cold and people don't want to go shopping outside when their hands are likely to freeze into blocks of ice, and also as the dollar has been ROCKING the exchange rate lately, we got tons of really great deals. I generally was able to bargain around 100-500 rubles off the price, which is pretty exciting. The last time I went, the vendors were unwilling to bargain much at all and everything was at least a couple hundred rubles more expensive. I don't want to say everything I bought, since most of it I'm going to give away as a present, possibly to someone reading this. I will share one of my proudest purchases, which is mine:

Oh yes, that is a real fur hat. I bargained him down 500 rubles and got it for 1,100 rubles. That's 40 bucks. Usually they're 1500-2000 rubles. It's really warm. And please, if you will, notice the random balls of fur that hang for no reason from the ear flaps. I love this hat.

SNOW!

The Neva!
Representing how man battled nature...
The Hermitage
Church of the Spilled Blood, through the bus
Catherine and Peter
In the Hermitage
Белый медведь!
It's snowing!! It looks just like Christmas (should be)!! I AM SO EXCITED!
That said, I will probably fall down and this time BREAK my ankle... it's sooo slippery. Luckily around where I live it isn't so bad, I only almost fell once. And it's freezing. Luckily I just got a package from mom with Marina's thank you gift, and a pair of really warm gifts. I gave Marina her gift that my mom made, a purse and coin bag, and she loved it. We had a little love fest where she told me that I was so nice and really easy to host and so on. I realized then that the one thing I'll actually miss about Russia is her. Despite nagging me about not wearing enough long sleeved shirts, forcing an abundance of food on me, warning me not to let the wind blow on my neck, and "healing" my sprained foot by wrapping it in ace bandage so tight that my foot turns purple, she is just so honestly concerned with my well being that I can't help but love her. She does her best to give me all types of Russian food, encourages me to try new things, and actually calls me pretty a lot. When we went to the dacha, she was like "Emma, did you see all the men on the metro ogling you?" No, I didn't. "How could you not?! You're so beautiful, you better be careful. They love your hair." She pretty much IS my mom. She bought me lotion for my hands, because I told her I have skin problems. She's the nicest person in the world and I'll really miss her when I leave.
I won't miss the bus, though. I missed my first class yesterday because the bus I take EVERY MORNING decided to take a random turn 2 miles away from school. I got off, went to the nearest bus stop and awaited my bus. Turns out it was the WRONG bus stop, and so I had to jog to another one. I then waited 20 minutes in the snow for a bus. By the time I got to school, it was 9:30. I didn't feel like ambling in class that late, so I just read in a classroom until it was time to go to literature. The bus is horrible.
I'm starting to become afraid of my tolerance (and sanity), which has dipped to an all time low since being in Russia. I'm a pretty passive person usually, and generally don't mind letting others do whatever they want to. I'm pretty much a doormat, honestly, but it doesn't really bother me, that's how passive I am. However, if you do this in Russia, you would literally get nothing done. They cut in line like it's their job, and if you don't get cut back you're going to spend 20 minutes a day waiting around. They're bossy and vocal, and heart breakingly honest. So to say the least, I've had to change a lot of things about my personality here. Like defending myself to people. Like cutting in line. Like pushing people. Like knocking down babushki to get where I need to go. Anyways, people piss me off all the time now, and I really feel like screaming all the time. Maybe it's just city living...

48 hours in Petersburg on a sprained ankle

Well it's been a full school week and a weekend since I last wrote. I was trying to think of what I would write about the school week.... hmm... well, I was incredibly depressed, if that's note worthy. I think a lot of us are at a point now where we're tired, sick a lot, frustrated, and ready to go home. I think our teachers have also hit a low point, and are much less patient and tolerant than usual. On Wednesday me, Hilary and Allison all went to Кофе Хаус to try to kick back, drink coffee, and talk about everything that was upsetting us in general. We had a great time, then the waitress charged us 18% service charge... pretty much because we're americans. This is especially bad because in Russia tipping is a new concept and people hardly tip over 10% unless they're rich. So this just took us all back down to a really low place. How can someone decide to try to pull the wool over our eyes because we're foreign? How can someone think we're so stupid and unimportant that we have nothing better to do with our money? If I did that to someone in the US I'd be fired. This happens a lot here and it's so upsetting and disheartening; we never feel like we're wanted or appreciated at all. Ever. So that was definitely a low point of the week.

On Tuesday I saw a movie with my tutor. Well, it was supposed to be with my tutor but she wanted to study so I ended up going with two other tutors. It was a french movie called "comedie de l'innocence" and was completely in French. So I watched a French movie in French in Russia with Russian students who speak English and French. Weird. And the movie, following the rules of French cinema, was really, really weird. And the sad part was that I understood most of what was going on. It's sad because I've seen Russian movies in Russian and only understand about 1/3 of what was going on, simply from context. My life...

Ok so Thursday night, or rather Friday morning at 1 a.m. I caught a train with all my friends to go to St. Petersburg. Yay! I was so excited. We got in around 9 am and were wowed by how beautiful and clean it was. We walked to our hostel, checked in a relaxed a little bit, then we started leaving to start our tour of the city. At the bottom of the stairs, I promptly fell down a few steps and landed on my right foot, which twisted under me as I fell. This was embarassing enough and THEN I realized I had actually hurt myself and was limping. From then on I knew I was down for the count and probably wouldn't see much of Peter at all. I took a bus tour with my friends, so I actually got to see most of the historical parts of the city and learned a lot through a really, really funny commentary we got to listen to, but I didn't get to visit things up close and personal. Like I really wanted to go to St. Isaac's Cathedral and climb the spiral staircase to the top and see the incredible with of St. Petersburg. 40 flights of stairs on a sprained foot? Nope. I did get to go to the Hermitage, The Church of the Spilled Blood, and the Russian Museum. I did not, however, get to go to the Erotic Museum and see Rasputin's penis in a jar. Damn my foot.

I also had to buy a cane and hobble around on it, which was hella embarrassing. And I moved really slowly and found it hard and really painful trying to keep up with everyone. Friday night we went to a Georgian restaurant, which was delicious, but the pain was excruciating and my foot began to swell in my shoe at dinner. The 20 block walk home, let's just say, was not fun. But my friends were so nice about it, and waited for me and let me tag along at the Hermitage, which was another trying event. We saw lots of really, really incredible art, including Rubins, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Picasso, Van Gogh, Michelangelo, and so on.

The train ride back was actually alright, I spent most the time talking to Grey and Carlos, two people I rarely talk to. Carlos if from Barbados so I spent a lot of time teasing him and asking silly questions(do they grow bananas in Barbados? What about pineapples? Do they practice voodoo? Do you love Americans? Do you have outdoor showers?) but he told us a lot of really cool things about his family history and dynamic. He also told us all about sugar cane production. So, all in all, a very educational train ride.

Anyways, I'm back in Moscow, spent the whole day walking around school WITHOUT the cane, and I'm glad to be back. Petersburg was fun, and way friendlier. Someone asked us on the metro if we needed help. Just some random, young guy. That NEVER happens in Moscow. Another drunk guy followed us a few blocks, heard us speaking english, and began pestering me about where we were from. I finally said "canada" (the safe answer) and as we crossed the street he screamed "I LOVE CANADA! YOU ARE WELCOME HERE ANYTIME!" this ALSO never ever happens in Moscow. If some drunk guy was following you in Moscow, it would be to assault you or try to get you to come to his car, never to compliment your country and welcome you to Russia. I then experienced true Moscow hospitality as I was leaving the metro to walk home and someone kicked my cane out from under me. Oh, Moscow.

But Moscow is definitely more authentically Russian because it hates and does not welcome tourists, and we heard a lot of English being spoken in St. Pete. Gotta love Moscow with it's cynical, evil cashiers and it's hatred towards all other nations in general.

Next time I'll post some pics of st. pete, mostly taken from the bus. Stay safe everyone!

зоопарк

so for the elections, I went to the Starlite Cafe, an american style diner that's open 24 hours. Some of my friends stayed from midnight until school the next morning, but I slept at home and joined them around 6 am. It was so exciting- there were tons of Americans sitting around, heckling, cheering when Obama won another state. There was a group of American students sitting next to us, apparently they were studying at drama school. When Obama won and the restaurant erupted into cheers, one of the drama girls burst into tears and began sobbing. That was a little weird... and she kept sobbing during his acceptance speech. A photographer came around and was taking pictures of all of us. Then we headed off to school, and everyone was exhausted but happy.

Let's see... we took an excursion Friday to the revolutionary museum. High point- there were kittens outside. Low point- super boring, and two hours long. Also really intense and hard to listen to for more then 10 minutes at a time. Then we went to the White House, stood far away and just looked at it, which is about all you can do with the white house. Then I went to the zoo. Somehow, the fact that it was 30 degrees outside wasn't too appealing to everyone else, because no one wanted to go to the zoo with me. So I went alone and had a fine, cold time. I got to see an exhibit on "american cockroaches" which was gross. Why would they ever be in the zoo? I will include a picture of what an american cockroach's natural habitat, or apparently what every american house looks like.

And then yesterday Paige and I went to the Tretyakov Gallery, one of the most popular museums in Moscow. It was pretty cool, but exhausting.

Anyways. Pictures!

                                                    The main stairway

                                                One of my favorite paintings
                                                   Sup White House?

                                       The natural habitat of an American cockroach. A pirate ship?

                                     There's the little shit. In a zoo. I mean...why?

                                                Don't feed the animals!
 
                                              Monkey cages? No idea, but it's cool.

More Pictures

here's some pictures. And also, yes, finally, a new president in the near future. I'll talk about how I spent the moment of victory later.
the best gravestone I'VE ever seen

barbara's bushes golden ducks. except they aren't gold, and they're two times the size of a normal, non-mutant duck

...see?

novodevichy monastery

a view on the moscow river

an amusement park?

in the novodevichy graveyard

experiencing american culture

On Sunday Erika, Paige and I went to the Izmaylova market, a crazy market on the outskirts of town where you can buy any imaginable Russian souvenir- matryoshka, scarves, chess sets, palekh boxes, soviet lighters, tea pots, anything really. You also have to haggle or you're going to get ripped off. I'm pretty bad at haggling but Erika was fantastic at it so we let her do most of it, but Paige and I did venture to do a little bit on or own. As we were leaving this guy selling fur hats was yelling in english "girls! 5 dollar hats over here!" I was like, alright, 5 dollars, I'll take a look. Then he plopped a hat on my head, put an arm on my shoulder and said I looked great, then called Erika and Paige over to confer. I bought the hat and he kissed/licked my cheek and said we should all go out for tea. We declined and ran the hell out of there. I think I got pretty good deals on everything, I only spent about 70 bucks or so.
Then yesterday, Marina and I were talking about the elections. She thinks McCain is going to win, I said Obama is def. going to win. Then she said we should make a bet, except I'm not really sure what for. She said the loser has to buy pastries, or pay money. I guess I'll see soon enough. This conversation was also helped along by the fact that we were drinking a bottle of champagne, which I had bought for the Halloween party which was cancelled. She said McCain is going to win because America is white and only want a white president. I said Russians didn't like Obama because he is black, and she agreed. Then I pointed out the fact that Pushkin, the most famous Russian poet, had a black grandfather from Africa. She flipped out and said Pushkin's grandfather WAS from Africa, but he wasn't black, he was "arab." She refused to consider that he was black, it was crazy. Then somehow, while talking about race relations in America, she said her favorite american movie is about race relations, with Kevin Costner, called "The Bodyguard." I had actually never seen this movie, so she pulled it out and made me watch it. Kevin Costner, Whitney Houston, you know. After I watched it, she asked if I had truly never seen it before, and I said no. She was completely incredulous, then said "I'm going to teach you a few things about American Culture." Oh Marina.
anyways, here's a video of tequilajazzz, the band I saw the other night:

and here's an even better video about russian vampires:

Mazeppe, Halloween, and Russian Pearl Jam

Wow, what a week. On Thursday I bought tickets for St. Petersburg, which, when I think about it, makes me super excited and super tired at the same time. Hm. Anyways, I got the tickets and was walking around looking for a pumpkin( I had been searching in vain for a pumpkin ALL WEEK, and had yet to find one) when Marina called and asked if I wanted to go to the opera. It was super last minute and I hate that kind of stuff, plus I had American Club, but when I said this to her she exclaimed "the opera is BETTER than american club!" I had to agree with her there, plus she refused to let me pay, so I said ok. She told me to go home быстро and so I ambled to the nearest bus stop and waited for one of my buses, 70 or 82, to come.
I've been taking the bus the whole time I've been here, and never really had a problem with it. It's a pretty simple routine: go to bus stop, wait for correctly numbered bus, get on said bus. Well, number 82 showed up and I got on and after about 5 minutes I realized, to my dismay, that the bus was going THE WRONG WAY. Apparently there are TWO number 82 buses and one just takes you in a huge loop around Leningradsky Prospekt. I started to panic because I knew I had to get home quickly, but then I figured I'd just wait until I saw a metro sign and get off and then haul ass on the metro to get home. I must have had a guardian angel, or maybe just the patron saint of pumpkins, looking over me because I got off the bus, ran to the metro station and there, there was an old babushka, holding a beautiful, maybe a little misshapen with tumor like bulges, pumpkin. I warily approached her, not wanting to seem to desperate lest she raise the price. Except here's the problem: I was never taught how to open an encounter like this in class. They don't really teach you how a regular Russian person would approach a homeless woman and ask to buy her pumpkin. So, doing the best I could, I came up and said "Pumpkin." This apparently did the trick because she immediately went into how it was a really, really nice pumpkin and it was so many grams and whatnot. She gave me a price, 130 rubles, and I tried to haggle it down but she wouldn't budge. So I bought the pumpkin and then she tried to sell me kefir in a really sketch bottle. I said no and bolted down the subway. I ran through two transfers and pushed people out of the way, my pumpkin cradled in my arm.
I eventually got home and changed for the opera. As we got to the theatre I learned that this was more of an "avant-garde" type of theatre, so instead of seeing the regular old Mazappe I got to watch Maria, wife of Mazeppe, slaughter a watermelon onstage with an axe to represent the execution of her father while a dozen brides stood in a boat and sang. It was weird.
I got home and carved the pumpkin, a picture of which is above. I couldn't decide what sort of face I should go for, so I tried to incorporate all of them. I think he looks hopeful, Erika says he looks hungry.
Halloween I went to a cemetery, how appropriate, and got to see Gorbachev and Mrs. Stalin. It was just how I imagined a Russian graveyard might be, brambling and weedy, crowded and beautiful but lonely. It was so different from the cemeteries I've seen in America and France. Then we went to the monastery next door and there was a black kitten, pictured above. Oh my god, so cute. I almost cried at how cute it was, I went into spasms at the cuteness of it.
We were supposed to have a halloween party but it was cancelled, boo, so I stayed home and read a Stephen King novel, which really put me in the Halloween spirit, with my lit pumpkin sitting on my desk. Actually, I felt pretty depressed, I hate to not celebrate to the full extent, and usually reading Stephen King makes me more uneasy than anything else, and this was no different.
Today I sat around doing nothing much, though I did buy pastries. Then tonight we all went out and met up at Chistie Prudy, the "hippie" part of town, only to discover our beloved hang out place which we fondly referred to as "the beer tent" (owing to the fact that it was just a tent and you bought beer there) has been torn down. This was indeed a blow but we quickly recovered thanks to the CD place blaring Britney Spears. We went to McDonalds and bought coffee, then went to the hippie park and poured Kahlua in the coffee and stood around, chewing the fat. We then walked a few blocks down to Kitai Gorod to meet John, our resident director, who had invited us to a club where a band he liked was playing. We got there and he informed us it cost 700 rubles just to GET IT. This is like 30 dollars, but it seems like so much more. You could buy SO MANY Big Macs with that! That's several half liter Baltika No. 7 beers! John could sense that this was not a popular plan, as people asked him if there were any considerably cheaper places to go around. He gave a few options and then said in a tentative voice "but you guys are already here! come on... just go inside. It'll be fun!" Something about his pleading got to me, probably as he intended, and so me, Kat, and Mikel all stayed to party with John and the others left. It wasn;t much of a party seeing as after I paid 700 rubles to get in I was left with exactly 90 rubles. That would have bought one beer, so I passed. We talked for a while and then the band came on. John described it as "alternative rock" and said it was a "hard rock band that had mellowed out." It basically sounded like a slightly more upbeat Pearl Jam in Russian. But their energy was infectious and we all danced and had a really great time. Plus I got to see John jam, which was adorable. Then a drunk chick forced her way to the front, where we all were, and began to basically grind on me while throwing her hair in Mikel's face. Not cool. And the guys behind me where moshing a little bit, but I could tell they were just really excited and into it so I didn't mind.
Anyways, that's it for now. I have a few more days of school (yesss thank you crazy russian holiday) and tomorrow I'm going to this really awesome russian market.