language barrier wins again.

So i guess i could have gotten internet a week ago when andreu fixed it.... but he gave the password for the wireless to his mom and she never gave it to us because she assumed we got the internet to work... at dinner the word internet and the verb "to work" would come up and maggie and i just assumed that the internet was still broken.

oops? hahahahaha

BUT! we started class and have figured out the bus system and partially the metro system and have realized everything is DIRT cheap here. amazing.

i have also not walked more in my life. and i am quite impressed by the russian women who all seem to do this walking in their 5 inch stilletos. amazing. i guess despite my lack of 5inch heels, i still look russian as i have been approached MANY times and asked who knows what. my responses have been between a shrug, i dont know, or i don't speak russian. and then they shake their head and walk away.

i look russian enough when one day maggie and i went to the grocery store and maggie went first, the cashier asked her for smaller bills (prices in russia are like 200 rubles and if you try paying with a 1000 ruble bill they are not pleased) and maggie just blankly stared at the woman and shrugged. the cashier then turned to me and made some smug comment about how maggie didn't speak russian. i understood it but had no idea how to respond to it so she stared at me blankly and said "ah, you also"

but russians really aren't as unfriendly as everyone seems to think. our host brothers laugh more than most people i know. andreu is 24, still goes to school and is studying chinese and sells peoples cars... from what i gathered he is a free lance car salesman? but he has also done real estate deals (hence the tanning bed). sergei is 26 and i have no idea what he does. he's not as friendly with us. he has a girlfriend who was super sweet and came over for tea one night. her family is from the most east point of russia where you can find the best caviar- i still haven't made up my mind whether i'm a fan of caviar or not, but i've forced myself not to be picky here haha

as for food:

breakfast: oatmeal type dish, activia yogurt (one day we got prune flavored-sick.), coffee, salami and cheese, omelets, bliniys, cake, cereal, one day we had basically jam filled potstickers

lunch: bread, and basically things to put on said bread. today she threw fish- some salmon type looking stuff, cheese, meat, jam, caviar, something similar to salsa and tea LOTS of tea here.

dinner: usually a meat (loaf of hamburger, chicken, etc) macaroni noodles, salad (cucumbers and tomato in oil, pepper, and salt and some spice) or bliniys, or tortellini type thing

all meals are encouraged to be followed by tea and some kind of pastry dessert.

there is no going hungry in our homestay.

classes are pretty intense in the sense that they are each and hour and a half long. earliest starts at 10, latest they will go is until 5. i only have one day where i go all day long. we have grammar 3 times a week which is pretty intense. lots of oral, on the spot talking. conversation i love the teacher. he's hilarious and super outgoing. All of the teachers are russian so its nice to have someone be teaching you who has an inside perspective on the material.

campus is beautiful. i'll load pictures when i get around to it..

i'm freaked out by the militsia. which are basically like the cops who can stop anyone and everyone and ask to see their documents. most of the time they just look for a bribe. kinda sketch. we saw one the other day kicking a drunkard outside of the metro. they also walk around with guns a LOT bigger than a pistol and usually have their hand on them.