Life is a duty, complete it

Well Today is our 8th day in Moscow... CRAZYYY! I can't believe the time is flying by so quickly. We have a three day weekend this week because Russia Day is tomorrow (Sunday 12). We have Monday off due to the celebration (the Red Square is crazyy, they have huge stages being put up for artists). Annnnd then we leave Thursday night for St. Petersburg so we don't have school on Friday!!! Yayyy three day week! So we have a lot to look forward to in the upcoming week. 

So yesterday we went through our usual routine, we got up, went to class for three hours, and then had an excursion. We went to see the imperial diamond collection... it was AMAZING! They wouldn't let us take pictures inside of it though which stinks... After seeing all of those amazing diadems and crowns I just know i'm meant to be a princess :) After we were done with that we walked around the Red Square again, this is probably the 100th time we've been there but it never seems to lose its splendor! It was one of the guys birthday yesterday so we decided to go out to eat to celebrate! We went to this restaurant called Yolki Palki ... and its supposedly like a Russian fast food chain, but it's not fast food like we think. It's definitely sit down, and it was amazzzzzing! We haven't been able to find good ethnic Russian food (this is Moscow... its an international city... and the food is definitely international). But this was definitely what we were looking for! And it was relatively cheap... let me warn you, if you ever plan on visiting Moscow.. bring lots of money... its EXTREMELY expensive! I got chicken kabobs and a plate of vegetables for 285 rubles about 10 bucks... and it was really good! 

After that we went back to the dorm and FINALLY met some Russian students! We met a bunch of girls who just graduated and they were celebrating right outside of our window. We all went down and ended up talking to them all for a few hours. Two of them spoke english really well, a few of them could make broken conversation, and one of them not at all. And for some reason she targeted me as her conversation partner. We (the girl and I) pretty much had a conversation with ourselves I spoke english.. she spoke Russian... we laughed a lot.. i had no idea what she was saying... she had no idea what i was saying, but it worked. The two things we did understand were: "Ya ne paneemayeww po- angleeskee" ( I don't understand English) and i would respond "Ya ne paneemayeww po-ruskee" ( I don't understand Russian), but it was a pretty good time overall. 

Today we had to get up kind of early because we were meeting with people for our Independent Study project. My topic is ethnic tension in Moscow. As many of you know the Soviet Union was made up of many republics, and know that it collapsed there's kind of any identity crisis going on over here. People say things like "Russia for Russian's" and "Moscow for Muscovites" and I'm interested in finding out how it affects the people who aren't ethnically Russian. So today my professor set up a meeting for me to interview an actor who is ethnically Polish and Ossetian. His name was Yan he's 21, he's an actor in Moscow, he's extremely intelligent, and he's GORGEOUS! Unfortunately, he doesn't speak English hahaha oh well. My teacher had to translate for us. She warned me ahead of time that he was good looking, but I didn't believe her because I have yet to see an attractive Russian guy since i've been here, but Yan made up for it :) Well I got some really useful and interesting information from him and it makes me really excited to continue my research. I'm going to be interviewing a professor who is Georgian, a professor who is an ethnic Russian, and some other people. After I was done with that my roomate and I took a much needed four hour long nap! It was amazzzing! We are making borscht tomorrow... so i'll let you guys know how that goes! Miss you and Love you!

                                                                            Yan <3