Day 4: Today was interesting. I had my first day of class and met my teacher Alla Kirsanova. She is a really sweet woman and a great teacher. She also speaks Spanish really well. I’m loving the one on one attention in class. I feel like I should be paying extra for this kind of education. After classes, I adventured out with Colette and John. We went to the Russian flee market at the nearby station. It was definitely and interesting experience, we also walked around to some other areas of town, I do constantly see poor older women wandering the streets. Its kind of interesting yet sad. In the evening when we returned to the obshchezhitye (dorms) Colette and I were sitting in the kitchen when we heard someone coming up our escape latter/balcony. sure enough it was a Russian teen asking us if we had “smokes” (It seems to me like most Russians smoke a lot). Of course we didn’t have any and sent him on his way. A few minutes later a girl came up and asked if we had “fire”. we knew she meant a lighter, and gave her one that was left here by previous students. When they came to return the lighter, they invited us to visit their dorms tomorrow. I’m looking forward to it, and can’t wait to blog about it.
Day 5.
Today was another interesting day. We had our first lecture class, which consisted of Russian Geography and Politics. After classes Colette and I went to McDonalds and split a Chicken McNuggets meal. McDonalds taste better here for some reason, but they don’t give you ketchup ..you have to pay extra for it ;( After that another student came. Her name is Sara, and she has been here at Grint before (2 years ago). She seems like a nice girl, and I’m sure I can learn a lot from her as well. I tried to take a shower today, only to find out that there was no hot water. I was freaking out, but luckily I saw a sign outside that said they were working on it and should be back within a few days. Colette and I went on an adventure to see the Russian students who invited us to come over, but unfortunately we chickened out and Colette mentioned we would try later. While doing HW, this Asian guy wearing a Japanese shirt came up (the fire escape) and asked us for a smoke. We said no sorry we didn’t have one, then 5 minutes later someone else came and asked. Colette and I started cracking up. At this point I had decided I was going to gather up my nerves and go introduce myself to the students downstairs. I also wanted to find out if the Asian was a Japanese Russian, or if he spoke any Japanese. Colette and I went down and introduced ourselves, and they seemed very excited to have met us. I did get a little embarrassed however when I asked the Asian (whose name I found out was Ivan) if he spoke any Japanese, and he said no. His Russian friends got a kick out of it however.
They said that they were busy at the moment but would like to play cars with us at a later time, so we will see how that goes.