Something tells me I am a dork

So, here is the first of many post from the city of Mockbe. (Pronounced Moscava).

I made it here with all of my stuff, but when we got to the exit of the airport there was no sign in sight for ILP volunteers. I thought to myself, "well, I can't have everyones luggage, and a ride waiting, that is selfish." The sad thing is that our native coordinator was on the other side of a very big Russian man. She is a rather short person and so it complicated things. Plus I was looking for a Russian not a Chinese. Our native coordinator has a very oriental shaped face. Go figure. I also consitently call her by the wrong pronuciantion. It is embarrassing that I can't get her name right.

So we took a bus ride from the airport and we stopped on the side of the freeway to drop off Angela. I was a little distraught that she was thrown to the wovles on the side of a freeway, but she is with one of the more wealthy people in Moscow and they live in a town house on the uppity side of town.

Everyone else was dropped off at their host family's and there was not a whole lot of incident through that. I went to the store because I didn't get fed by a host family. I have to feed myself. Getting off of the airplane pretty much starving and tired, I didn't want to go shopping but I had to because I would be really hungry the next morning. I went and bought the bare minimum things that I would need to survive. I also ate at a Russian fast food place that is a potato bar with everything that you could ever want on a baked potato. (I had crab :)) I got home and Gulya was trying to help me plan the next week and I was just wanting to crawl into my bed and sleep for several hours. My apartment is wicked. I have a leather door and I am on the 15th floor of a 16 story building. The views are incredible!

Erin will be disappointed that my pictures are all out of whack. I think it is just easier to post them on facebook and leave the information about them here. lol

Saturday we went to red square only to get stopped by guards. There was some sort of Lenin communist celebration going on so we didn't get to see Saint Basils Catherdral. We were so close though. It is really funny. We will get plenty of opportunities to go. It is right off one of the metro stops and, well, I love playing on the metro.

The metro is even better than I thought it would be. My house is really close to a station. Today I was headed to church and I have about an hour ride to church. I scanned my card and it blinked that I could go through, well, I went through the wrong side and got yelled at by some Russian women standing in charge. They pantmimed to me that I needed to go on the other side and then I thanked them in chinese because, I am an idiot. ROFL

I also wore a very American skirt today that is two inches below my knee. My boots are about four inches, so my nude tights were showing through about two inches. I cannot even begin to tell you how many people laughed out right at me. I was so cold that it hurt, it was just a little numb. An old man was staring me down on the metro and as he was about to get off, he made eye contact with me and said, it is cold, and pointed to my boots. I didn't know what to say so I just laughed. Then he carried off several bottles of alcohol and I realized that he was probably drunk.

Church was a blessing and I am glad that I get to be a part of this new ward. They are good people willing to bend over backward for any of the ILPers. I am looking forward to getting a calling. I bore my testimony and I was greatful that everyone smiled back at me. I would smile at people on the metro and they would immediately turn away. The people in the ward smiled back. The church is true. lol

I came home with Ted and Nathaly and we talked about life and got to know each other better. It was fun. I ate a pear and it was fantastic. I know that I won't starve as long as I have pears. I went to cook my frozen pizza that I found at a tiny convinent store but came to conclude that the plug is stripped and I will have to wait for my land lord to come and replace the plug before I can use it. I will just stick to ramen for now and hope that I can figure out how to cook pizza on a stovetop. It could be a fun expirement anyway.

Life is good so far. I am looking forward to teaching and getting lunch at the school cafteria. How many people can say that they ate Russian school cafteria food? It is cheep and they might make me cabbage stew with ice cubes. One of the girls in my group has had borshed twice and says that it is good. Another in my group had eggs for dinner and then pizza for breakfast the next morning. This is also the family that has a window looking down from the shower to the kitchen that is more of a hold in the wall than a window. We think that the host family is trying to give him the best Russian expirence possible. Then Ted has been living with a baboshka (English phonetic spelling) and eats old people food. He served a mission here and says that only old people eat like that. He is used to it though.

I am still jet lagging really bad and want to go to bed at 2:00 in the afternoon. But I keep fighting it. I don't know why it is so much harder to fight it here than it was when I got to China. Maybe it is because I didn't sleep at all before I left for China.

The metro is fun, the apartment is awesome, the group is a good mix of people, the teaching is going to go good or bad, there is only one thing that is not so much happy for me, the outside weather was -27 degrees C. Today that is about -16F according to my converter. It seems that everytime the sun comes out that the tempurature drops another eight degrees. It is almost always snowing, but the flakes are so dry that it is like someone is cleaing out their freezer that needs to be defrosted. I would describe it as cold silver glitter falling from the sky because when the sun catches it, the snow glitters. It is really pretty if you can stand being out side when the wind is blowing.

That is all I have for now.