Time to Celebrate!

LPI's (language profficiency interviews) are over and done with! Hooray :) I was the last of our group to do my interview this morning which was fine because it meant I got to do some laundry at my house before that! The past few days have included lots of times for reminiscing (sp? Since I'm on a Russian computer, every word I type is underlined in red so I can't really tell when a word is mispelled!) so I thought I would share some of them.

On a cold Friday in May, a bus filled with other PC trainees stopped in Oster at the aftostantcia (bus station). It was SNOWING...absolutely freezing...and I had about 24980 things to carry. Not really, but it helps the story. I was super jet-lagged still (took me about a week or more to get fully used to this side of the world's time zone difference.) and just wanted to go to sleep (I think we arrived around 5 pm ish?). My host mom and host dad picked me up in a taxi (I'm not sure why, seeing as to how my host family owns a car...maybe because of the snow?). This is what one of the rivers looked like on that day...


Anywho, I sat in the back seat with my host mom and wondered what in the world I was going to say to them that night. I couldn't even ask if they had any kids. We drove for what seemed like a while (in reality, it was less than 3-5 minutes I would guess) and finally stopped. I couldn't see out the windows because they were completely fogged over. We stopped at a big metal gate (guess I should take a picture of that part of my house before I leave!) and started getting my stuff out of the car. My host dad wouldn't let me carry anything, so my host mom quickly shuffled me inside. At that point, two tall, blonde girls came bounding the stairwell and said "hello!" in English. I was ecstatic. I remember eating something that night with my family...don't know what, but it was almost immediate upon arriving. My older host sister, Katya, who speaks English very well, showed me where I would be staying, where I could put my stuff, shower, etc. All that I wanted to do was go to sleep...and if my memory serves me correct, I slept for at least 12 hours that night.

The next morning, all of our host families took us to our teacher's apartment (since we had NO clue where we were going...) for our first Oster cluster group meeting. I remember where everyone sat that day in our classroom. Those became "our seats" for quite some time until we rearranged the room. That mornings meeting was to go over all sorts of cultural integration steps that we might need to know when living with a host family. However, the biggest thing that stuck out to me was that I was dying of thirst. Our teacher, Zhenya, had just made tea. It hadn't occurred to me until that point that I would no longer be able to get water straight from the tap, for two years. Wow.

I guess I never showed y'all what my house on the inside looks like...whoops. I took these pictures a very long time ago, but it just slipped my mind that I never posted them. I think they're on facebook...but I know everyone doesn't use that. So, enjoy!

Part of my living room/dining room. We've eaten at the dining room table for Easter...and that's it. Just like the U.S.!

The other half of the living room!

This is the laundry room where our clothes get hung up to dry! And my suitcases that I don't need are stored in here...

This is the upstairs bathroom! There is a half bath downstairs which is where we brush our teeth.

My bedroom! I believe this used to be my older host sisters room (who is now married and lives in Kiev).



The door into my room is on the left, and the door with the clothes hanging on it leads out to a balcony which is where we hang our clothes to dry in the summer!

In other news, I started watching Glee Season 2 last night. Just watched the Britney episode today. I was a die-hard Glee fan the first season or so, but then I became busy and never got a chance to watch all of the shows I had DVRed. BUT, rest assured, now I can watch them :) There were some pretty epic Sue Sylvester quotes in these two episodes. However, I'm too lazy to look them up online.

Today for lunch, Mark, Cassi, and I hit up the pizzeria here in Oster (one of the two or three restaurants we're aware of...). On my pizza, I had chicken, pineapple, black olives, and tomatoes, which I'm still trying to learn how to eat. It's a texture thing...we'll see if I ever like them.

The last thing I'll leave you with is my SDL :) enjoy it!