Back with the Host Family

Day 17: Back with the Host Family.
We got back at 6ish in the morning. Fortunately, we didn't have class, which was a good thing considering how little we slept on the train. I spent most of the day sleeping and reading books. My host sister took me shopping and I bought a new dress. It was fn shopping with her even though we have very different ideas about fashion and modesty.

Day 18: Back to Class and Kremlin Dinner
We started with Conversation in which we got a pop quiz, not a nice surprise. After class I came home to do homework and study for a quiz the next day, since we had a group dinner that night at the Kremlin. I got the homework done, but had little time to study before meeting everyone else, wearing my new dress. They liked it. The dinner was not good, but we had fun just hanging out together and there was dancing at teh restaurant, which everyone, but Valerie took part in. I came home and studied until I went to bed.

Day 19: More Classes and Wooden Architecture Muesem
I went to class where I took a quiz. Then I spent a lot more time in classes. After class we had our last excursion. We went to the open air wooden architecture museum, a trip that we were told would last no more than two hours since we all had tests the next day. There "that women" lectured us for over two hours before gining us half an hour to explore and for the boys to play a game, of course Anna and I joined. It involved runing in a circle while holding on to a rope then jumping and holding on for your life. Harrison fell off and in trying to avoid him I hit my foot which caused me to fall of backwards and sumersault, after which I sat there for a little bit to laugh. Then "that woman" came back, helped us straighten the ropes and told us we were to hop with one foot in the loops and then jump up. Just the guys tried this and it didn't work too well because there are only four of them and 7 ropes, but when Anna and I joined in it seemed to work fairly well and we had some fun. When we finally got back it was almost 3 and a half hours after we left. None of us were too pleased with that because we needed to study.

Day 20: Class, Class, Class
After class I went to a book store with Anna, but didn't find anything that interesting, so we left within fifteen minutes. I walked her to the nearest bus stop and then checked out the last book shop that I knew of. This store had absolutely no books in English, so I was getting ready to leave when I encountered my host aunt and cousin. He was about to head off to Moscow to get his visa to study in America in the fall, it turns out that he's going to the States on 28 July. He still doesn't know where he'll be living. Then I came home and rested, so that I could stay up to watch the football game. Russia lost horribly, 3-0 to Spain.

Day 21: Class, a Boat Ride, and Hanging Out
So more classes today. We have a big test on Monday and the teacher said that it will be harder because of Russia's horrible preformance. Then we had a pop speaking quiz in Conversation. After all of our classes we planned to meet at 5 by Lenin so that we could go on a boat ride to the lake, which the guys and Megan were very excited about. Max and Matt didn't come, but the rest of us went to see where we could buy a ticket. That was an adventure in itself, eventually, we learned that the boat would leave in an hour and that they wanted at least 50 people in order to leave (it cost 250 roubles for an hour ride) and after wandering around a lot looking for a ticket office we learned that you just sit on the boat and they collect your money eventually. We played frisbee for a while and then Megan, Valerie, Beth, and I got on the boat. Suddenly, the engines started, we tried to wave to the others, but in less than 3 minutes the boat had left the dock and they had not noticed our frantic waves. The boat when forward a bit and then stopped. Then we did a big circle and were approaching the dock again, but there was a smaller boat headed that way as well. We ended up being backed up by the other boat and then they were tied together. then we took the smaller boat to the dock and the otheres got on the smaller boat and were allowed on ours. Then we left on our "cruise." It was a very scenic route and we took a lot of pictures. When we came back we decided to get dinner together. We went to the Japanese/pizza resturant in the mall. Afterwards we decided to meet Max in a park, but got distracted on the way by this really interesting Soviet relic of a building, which used to be a theater of soem type. We spent a long time there but eventully made it to the other side of the river where we met Max at his bus stop (he'd been there a while). We were trying to find a cafe, buut everything was closed. We ended up meeting Matt's host family and hanging out with them for a while before we split up for the night. Three of us waited for a bus for over half an hour and then were joined by a fourth. Eventually we decided to just walk, at least to Big St. Petersburg St (that's the English translation), which I live right off of. When we got to my intersection one of teh guys asked if I was sure that I wuld be all right walking the rest of the way by myself and I said yes, i had less than a block to go I could do that even kinda late, so we split up, with the other three continuing on to a bus stop. I came home, sat with the family for a while and then went to sleep.