hello :)

i put up more pictures from red square and some more dorm ones...so check it out! PICASA.
i attached them to the previous Russia album so you'll have to find where the new ones start...if that's too confusing let me know.

yesterday stuart, jordana and i went to red square for the maslenitsa festival. as far as i can tell it's sort of a celebration of lent-easter-the eventual coming of spring. kind of hard to explain. we heard they were giving out free blini, haha. anyway it was wicked cold and windy, the snow was whipping into our faces. ugh. but it was very pretty. we only stayed for a bit and then ate in the sbarro in the mall on red square. we went onto the metro at around 6:15...HUGE mistake. people were EVERYWHERE. we got into the train car and got pushed against so many people. then when we tried to get off no one would move...we almost didn't get off at all until some russian girl got aggressive and pushed, haha. then we all tried to cram onto the escalator. it was seriously like we were cattle. we decided no more metro-riding on weekdays :)

but yes, the pictures are of red square, st. basil's, etc. very very pretty.

today we had more classes. my grammar class is pretty intense. as is my lit class. we read a story that we had in english AND russian, which is actually harder because you're so tempted to just read the english. classes are 90 minutes each...we begin every day except friday (no classes on friday!) at 10:30 and go straight (except for 30 minutes of lunch) until 3:30. except thursdays, when we only have the morning class! so we shall have long weekends :). i've only had to buy two books which is nice.

oh, and i found out i'll probably be coming home earlier than expected. rob can't get june and will have to have may, so i'll probably leave here on the fifth, assuming nothing changes with the army.

i miss you all!