Day 2 and 3.
Ok so first off, day two was pretty kool. First thing I did was go to the grocery store and got myself some stuff to drink/eat. Russian Grocery stores definitely do not have the selection we have back home. I mean the cereals didn’t even have their own aisle. I kid you not, I had a choice of like 6 cereals. “Do I want cornflakes…chocolate squares..cornflakes with sugar…or more chocolate squares lol.” It was hard to budget food for a few days with spending as little money as possible, but in the end I managed to spend only 300 something rubles which is like 10 bucks. (I got like 4 things lol).
I also found it interesting that they only give you one bag for all your groceries, and that you have to pay for another, but at least they are much stronger quality then the ones back home. The cashier giggled as I struggled to ask for another bag. Either way it was a fun experience hehe.
Later on at night another American student finally came. (I thought I would be alone here on the 9th floor forever lol). She is super kool. Im not sure how to spell her name but I believe its Colette (pronounced Ku-let) if she ever reads this I’m never going to hear the end of it lol. She is a student at Truman State, along with John, who I met today (day 3). I showed her around and we made plans to go class together the next morning.
So DAY 3!!
We got up and went downstairs to meet Lyena, who had called me in the middle of the night btw, to tell me not to go to class but instead to meet her downstairs at 9:50 and to please tell Colette who im sure was sleeping already…as I was. Anyways… so We go downstairs at 9:30, and now Colette has me all confused because both her watch and my cell say 8:30..but I was sure it was 9:30 (when I looked at my PC clock). after trying to figure out the time, we finally found out I was right, and we only had to wait 20 minutes for lyena. We walked together to the GRINT office, where I met Alexander (the Director) and Margarita (the head teacher) who I believe also speaks Japanese, because she was not only impressed when I told her I spoke some, but she also responded in Japanese, later on when I made the mistake of pronouncing the Russian word for “Horrible” Grosni, as Grasni, she said quote ” No, not Grasni, you mean Grosni, Grasni means Kitanai (The Japanese word for dirty”). At that moment I had decided I loved this women, and I was very impressed to have found someone who mixes languages as I do.
We then took some Russian language placement test, and then an oral test. I think I did fairly well, but I know my colleagues did even better, as they have had multiple Russian languages classes before, as well as internships in Russia before. but this is good because I can learn a lot from them. I guess I shall find out tomorrow where I will be placed..at this point though, I am sure I will have a class all to myself, so it will be one on one teaching at least for the first few days, totally fine with me hehe.
Finally, after the test, Lyena took us to downtown Moscow, which was a big surprise. (Unfortunately I could not enjoy it to my full potential because my book bag strap had broke on the way and I had to carry these heavy books with me for hours :( )At least we got to see a few famous sights, including the red square, but not in great detail as we are going to go back there for a full day excursion later on. The point of going there today was basically just to show us how to use the metro and get back to our dorms. (check out all the nice pictures I took today!(below).
In awhile I believe im going to go jogging with Colette and then maybe some more grocery shopping. (This time for lemons to make my own lemonade!! yay!)
Thank you all for following, and will post more soon.
