Dasvidanya Russia!

Wow! 4 months have never gone by so fast in my whole life. I am so sad to be leaving Russia, however, I'm happy to be able to see my family and be home for Christmas! So many mixed emotions!

I had an amazing last few days here in Russia though! I went to Red Square on Saturday and Monday. On Saturday we went inside St. Basil's and got to see all of Red Square lit up. It was beautiful. It was so sad to look at St. Basil's and know it was the last time I might see it. 

We made sure we did all our favorite thinks before leaving. Kremlin, check. Blinis, duhhhh. Made a wish at Kremlin, check. 

It was hilarious too, cause there was a Bobushka that was waiting around there and she would go and pick up all the coins that people would throw on the ground. Hahaha, homegirl is making a killing off all these tourists. People line up to stand in this circle and make a wish on Kremlin grounds. 

However, today, was a very difficult day! It was the very last time I got to see all my little students ): It was hard to give them all hugs and tell them goodbye. I will never forget them, they will always have a very special place in my heart. They alone have made this whole experience 100% worth it. They are the reason why I came to Russia and the reason why I'm heart broken to leave. 

I know that they'll probably forget about us as their next group of teachers come in, but I hope that what we taught them will be able to resonate with them for the rest of their lives; if it does, then I have accomplished my job! 

If I had to write a thank you note to Russia, it would be this: 

Dear Russia, 

Thank you so much for being a great country. I have truly enjoyed all the beautiful sites that I have seen , the Kremlin, St. Basils, Vladimir, Suzdel, and St. Petersburg. Thank you for being very different from what EVERYONE has said. The people here are not all mean and cold hearted; I have met some of the most kind hearted and genuine people here in Russia. The people of Russia don't drink vodka like it's water. Everyone I have met here has been sober....for the most part (; I am so glad that I got to experience all the craziness as well, the homeless people, the drunk guy that won't stop talking to me, being crammed in a bus for 2 hours, have Russians yell at me and not know what they're saying....and the list goes on and on. 

Thank you for showing me that the world is an interesting place and that there's good in the world no matter where you go. I also want to say thanks for not killing me. I'm glad that I've made it in one piece thus far. I am grateful to be coming back to America alive! 

Thank you for being sooooo much better than what everyone said you were gonna be like. Okay, but forreal I'll stop being creepy and pretending like Russia is an actual person. 

PS. I LOVE RUSSIA! 

I want to hold onto every single experience that I have made here. 

Now, to thank real people. Thank you to everyone again who donated to International Language Programs, helping me to make this trip possible. I wouldn't have been able to have these wonderful things to say if it wasn't for you! So thank you, thank you, thank you! I literally cannot tell you how grateful I am for all the kindness I've received. Well, that's it. Stay tune for my next adventure, because I assure you that there will be more to come; it's addicting and I definitely have the travel bug, I want to see more of the world. Russia was the perfect place to start and wouldn't have wanted to go anywhere else! 

Dasvidanya Russia!!!

Thanksgiving, Clowns and Robberies

Oh boy, sounds strange, right? I have so many things to say but first I need to talk about Thanksgiving in Russia!

It was quite awesome, the director at one of the schools that we teach at insisted on cooking us a turkey for Thanksgiving day. On Thanksgiving we arrived at the school and gave a presentation about Thanksgiving in America to the 6th graders at the school. It was way sweet and afterwards many of the kids stood up and thanked us for our presentation. After that we grubbed on some Turkey!

It was delicious! And we were very grateful that we got to celebrate it. There are about 13 Americans that are in Moscow with me that are apart of the same program. We decided to all get together and do a sort of pot luck Thanksgiving dinner the follow Sunday and it turned out great! It really felt like the food at home. Mash potatoes, stuffing, and pie? You can't get more American than that.

It was the most full I've ever been while in Russia! I don't think I've ever gone into detail my diet here in Russia, but I've lost about 15 pounds while being here! We are fed at the school that we teach at twice a day, for lunch and "dinner," for breakfast and the weekends they give us money so we provide our own meals then.

My typical day of food is this:
oatmeal in the morning at about 9AM. At 1:30PM lunch at the school consists of a small plate of veggies, a bowl of soup, and some sort of meat and starch (this is our biggest meal of the day). Then there's "dinner" and I put these in parenthesis for a very good reason....cause it's NOT really dinner! It's more like a semi-meal and a joke. It's the meal that they actually give to the kids before they go home, however, we found out from our coordinator that the school isn't technically allowed to feed the kids dinner, so it's really just a snack, which is served at 5:15PM. Then all the children go home and eat an actual dinner at about 8PM. For "dinner" we usually get some sort of small plate of a salad, and then something sweet, for example a pastry. And that's it! These 5 year olds eat more a day than I do! I sort of have a love-hate relationship with my diet, cause I'm definitely loosing weight, which has never been a complaint, but I'm also hungry most of the time! Hahaha, the fat Americans need more food than this.

We also got to go to the world famous Russian circus! It was amazing, we got to see some cool animals that I have never seen in person, such as polar bears, camels, and kangaroos! It was very random but interesting at the same time. They pretty much had all the works; my favorite act was the tight rope walkers, talk about intense and stressful!

The weekend after the circus the group of teachers took a trip to Ukraine. Sadly, it was not one of my most favorite experiences. Within 20 minutes of being in the country I was robbed! I got onto the metro from the train station, got off only after two stops, looked down at my purse and no wallet is in there ): Oh boy, and did the tears start coming! Hahaha, I was a complete hot mess all the way to the hostel. Everyone in the metro, streets, and hostel got to witness an original Whitney Meltdown. I had money, atm cards, drivers license, social security card, and the list really goes on, pretty much my whole life! Luckily I got cards cancelled quickly and no money was taken out of my cards. Then a few hours later we were forced to bribe these bus thugs to let us off at our stop! It kinda put a damper on my whole experience there, but I did enjoy the rest of the time I spent in Kiev.

There was definitely some beautiful sites to see. Another upside to Ukraine was how cheap it was to eat out! I also got to taste the best hot chocolate in the world, and I'm being serious. We went to this famous chocolate shop/cafe in Kiev and it was amazing. Their specialty hot chocolate was the best and you sipped it through a cinnamon stick.

Another great part of the trip was the people that we met in our hostel. You really do meet the most interesting people in hostels. We met guys from Sri Lanka, Spain, Russia, and the UK. They all had cool stories to share. There were these two guys from the UK, way cool guys by the way, and they are borderwalk, they are travelling from England to Austrailia....all on FOOT and it's all for charity! It's insane. They're stuck in Ukraine right now because their visas for Russia are being slow. If you want to know more about them, follow their story, it's really amazing what they're doing. http://theborderwalk.wordpress.com

So, it's coming down to my last week here in Russia and it is really starting to sink in! I am definitely going to miss everything about Russia, especially the little ones that I teach. I'm pretty sure they're getting so sick of me taking tons of pictures of them these last couple of days (:

How can you not take a million pictures when they're this cute?! This is Dajik, he is a slobbering mess of cuteness! I absolutely adore him and the few things that he does say in English. He is our youngest student at 3 years old and is constantly gibbering in Russian. I'll miss this little guy and the rest of them.

Thanks for following and reading! I'll at least post one more time before I go home (: Dasvidanya!