I have been excitedly awaiting the days when spring would arrive here. During the winter when it was so cold and dark I kept thinking about how nice it would be to have spring here. Well, spring has arrived. All the snow is melting and we have rivers in the street. I am happy, but ( Read more... )

I have been off of LJ for a while, but things have been really crazy here. I am already back in Russia (CL and JG, I'm sorry that I didn't get to see you while in NYC. However, I had a very interesting problem that I couldn't find the phone in my friends apartment. I know that sounds like a really lame excuse, but it is the truth ( Read more... )

Here on the second official day of spring, it is snowing. I say on the second official day of spring, because spring started on Monday. There is a special festival that begins the spring season. It is called Maslenitsa. It is not a religious holiday, but the timing of it is related to Easter in the Russian Orthodox church, which is May 1st this ( Read more... )

So, I finally made my decision!!! I am going to return to teach here for a second year. One thing that this does mean is that I am not going to teach here for the summer semester. Which means that I will probably be flying back to the US in May!! It will be here before I know it ( Read more... )

The last two weeks were relatively busy, because Bruno came for a visit. I think that his impressions of Russia were pretty good, except that it is cold and there is lots of ice on the sidewalks. Maybe he will ahve different things to say about his impressions, but these are the things that he told me. During the week, I think that he must have ( Read more... )

I hope that this message finds everyone well and enjoying the winter. The weather has certainly turned colder. I heard that on Sunday morning, it was -31 degrees Celsius. It was pretty cold when I left the apartment to meet up with the other teachers for our trip to Sergiyev Posad. This town is located about 46 miles north of Moscow. We were ( Read more... )

Yesterday I used something in one of my classes that I would have never thought that I would use. We "performed" the spam sketch from Monty Python. It was really a lot of fun ( Read more... )

Hello all ( Read more... )

I have to admit that I have been very neglectful of my journal. It is not entirely my fault, however. There was a period of time where every time I can in to write, the internet here was not working. That made me feel very lonely and very far away from home ( Read more... )

I hope that your Turkey Day was filled with lots of love and good food. We here at the American Home had quite the celebration on Saturday. The American teachers cooked a dinner for 32 people! Remind me that I don’t ever want to be a caterer. I was the only teacher here who had any experience cooking a turkey, since I cooked one last year. So ( Read more... )