kremlin!

so we finally visited the kremlin. we had a 4 hour tour, which was insane and intense but amazing. i put up some pictures...the link is in the post below. i made the kremlin its own album :)

my friend nikki went to the hospital yesterday. she had been having intense stomach pain for awhile and her coordinator finally said she should go. unfortunately we went to the sketchiest hospital ever...the hallway looked like a scene from a 1950s insane asylum. she's okay though...they took out her appendix and she is recovering nicely. i went there with her last night around 12 with her boyfriend beslan, from chechnya. i was so glad to have a native russian speaker -- we had to hail down a "cab" (i.e. a random russian person who wanted money to give us a ride) and i would never do that with my semi-limited russian skills. anyway we got to the hospital and met nikki's coordinator (a russian). they weren't going to let me and beslan in -- they were going to make us just stand out in the cold! again, beslan came in handy because he got the guy to let us in (the guy said "why does she need a cheering section?" haha). anyway we were there for awhile, then hailed a "cab" back. all in all an interesting night. happily nikki is doing fine.

again, the kremlin was AMAZING. so many pretty buildings, my camera died because i kept photographing everything. enjoy the pictures. some of them are similar, so please forgive that. we spent a lot of time in the armory, which has all these treasures from imperial russia, including gilded carriages, diamond-encrusted crowns, etc. the total value of that place has to be in the millions or billions. it was wonderful but exhausting...i came back to the dorm and took a 4 hour nap!

well i hope you're all doing well!