time goes by...

It's crazy to me how time flies.  People say that all the time, but it really has gone by so fast this summer.  A few days ago  I got my new passport in the mail.  My old passport was going to expire soon and besides, it was full! :D  I'm pretty proud that I filled my passport.  It wasn't on my bucket list but it should have been.  Maybe now I should put "Fill Up Two Passports" on my bucket list.  I doubt I will because my new passport has twice the amount of pages.  I thought that would be a good idea...but I didn't think about the bucket list thing.  Darn.  :)  But honestly, after this school year, I'm sure how much traveling I will do.  If I'm going to move back to America, it's just not as easy to travel.  It just costs so much.  That's what I've LOVED about living in Europe.  It's so much cheaper to travel around.  And everything is so close.
And actually, I'm not sure how much traveling I will accomplish this year either.  I have to come back to the US for Christmas because I need a root canal. bleh...  I had to put it off until December.  So I'll definitely be back for that.  And THEN my cousin Dallas is getting married in March.  I really would love to come back for that.  Hopefully that will work out.  But that will be my springbreak and will also be very expensive.  So we'll see.  I also need to be saving just in case I can't find a job...which is very much a possibility.  Whose idea was it to become a teacher??  wait...mine.

I was recently at the theater with my friend and saw the preview for the new Mission Impossible movie.  It started out with someone saying, "An hour ago...a bomb blew up the Kremlin."  Then they showed the Kremlin exploding.  I literally put a hand to my face and gasped.  People looked at me like, "Geez lady, it's just a preview." haha. It was SO weird.  If you haven't seen the trailer, you can see it HERE.  Russia is just that close to me, I guess.  And I've never seen that explode.  I've seen the Empire State Building destroyed so many times and even the White House.  That's not even a big deal anymore.  But to see that symbol of Russia blow up...it was so strange.  It's something that I see all the time.  I've thought about it getting bombed, of course.  While living in Russia, there have been 2 suicide bombs in Moscow.  I've blogged about it before.  You can read that HERE if you would like. Anyway, I just thought my reaction was interesting...and a little embarrassing. :)  I can't wait to see the movie.  I guess I'll have to watch it in Moscow.

well, my pictures are done uploading to facebook. :)  This blog was just to take up time while I waited.  Hope you enjoyed it.

baby steps for a 25 year old

A little update on my current doings...I've been driving around the country seeing loved ones.  :)  I drove to Denver to see my sister and brother-in-law.  I made the drive by myself and it was torture. Ugh...I'm never making that drive alone again.  Or if I do, I'm going to stop half way or something.  But I'm SO glad I did it.  I had a great week there.  Denver was beautiful and I took a ton of pictures.  Somethings we did:
-hunted Dog the Bounty Hunter (unsuccessfully)
-hiked up dinosaur ridge (then ran down and made everyone think we were really exercise-y.)
-went to Buffalo Bill's grave
-got Starbucks every day!
-watched a lot of TV (it was either really hot or pouring...besides it was nice to just sit at home and do nothing) while listening to a small dog chewing on a squeaky toy.
-went to Goodwill and bought too many books
-went to the theater and watched Super 8, Water For Elephants, and HARRY POTTER. :D
-watched people exercise at Red Rocks.
-ate at this AMAZING restaurant, Casa Bonita.  A must-see if you are going to Denver.
-giggled a lot

It was a fun week.  Now I am in Shawnee, Oklahoma.  That drive wasn't bad at all.  It is nice to be back in Shawnee but it is SOOOO hot.  We are just trying to stay in the cool air.  Tomorrow we are going to the zoo.  We being me, my aunt Jennifer and her 3 granddaughters.  It only costs a dollar on Wednesdays.  Yesterday we went to Walmart and bought little mist fans in preparation for the heat tomorrow.  We'll see how long we last.
 Last night I went to see Bridesmaids with my cousin, Brian.  And  I have to say, it was one of the best movies I have seen in a long time.  To be honest, it kind of inspired me.  If you haven't seen it, I do recommend it.  You just might want to skip the first scene and ignore all the bad words. :)  Other than that, it was a great movie.  It was about a woman whose best friend is getting married.  She is the maid of honor, but everything kind of goes wrong.  In a weird way, she reminded me of myself.  I really sympathized with her.  I almost started crying when bad things kept happening to her.  Lol.  My life is actually pretty good.  I have a good job.  I have an apartment.  I get to travel.  I have a great family and great friends.  But to be absolutely honest, I have been struggling lately with being single.  I've been single my whole life.  You would think that I would be used to it by now.  But actually, I think that makes it harder.  I just turned 25, an age when most people are married or at least on their way to being married.  It's strange to be back in America where almost all of my childhood friends are married and have houses.  I come back and I instantly feel like I'm 16 again.  I'm back in my hometown, living with my parents, fighting with my little brother, and go to Target every day.  But most people my age are having babies, trying to decide on a color of paint for their sitting room, and planting geraniums in their backyards.  Not that there is anything wrong with that.  There isn't.  It actually great and...normal.  That's what adults do and I guess we're adults now.  Maybe I'm struggling with trying to fit into that "adult" crowd and being single at the same time.  How do people do that?
 I don't know.  Maybe I won't ever figure it out.  But that movie inspired me to think a little differently about my life.  To move on from things that were unhealthy for me and to try and focus on things like living healthy.  Not just physically healthy, but spiritually healthy.  In the movie, she gets some advice from a new friend, "You're your problem.  You're also your solution."  We can sit an complain about lives and the problems that we have, but most of the time, if we just change something small, we can be our solution.
I want to challenge myself to eating healthier and actually using my gym membership.  Why am I wasting my 20s being lazy and eating crap?  I don't know.  I can sit and complain about being overweight but it's no ones fault but my own.  I also want to challenge myself to praying more often and reading the Lord's word.  I haven't been praying as much as I should and as much as I would like people to think.  I don't want to tell people, "I'll be praying for you," but then only pray once or twice.
*sigh*....from some reason last night after the movie, I decided that I wanted to be really open with my blog readers.  I don't know if anyone will read this or not.  Even if no one does, I was honest with myself.  And If you did read this...feel free to hold me accountable.  I think I need more accountability in my life.
At the end of the movie, she drives off with her new policeman boyfriend.  I don't have one of those so I didn't really sympathize with her then.  :)
Anyways, that's all for now.  Baby steps to an awesome upper-twenties life.  Let's see how this goes.

Back in the USA

So my trip home didn't go quite as smoothly as I had planned.  The night before my big flight home, I stayed up all night having fun with friends.  We went to see Swanlake at the New Opera theater in Moscow.  I had recently watched Black Swan.  That movie is seriously so weird.  Very well done but bizarre.  It actually made me a little depressed after I watched it.  It was disturbing.  Anyways, it was a good movie nonetheless.  Having watched the movie, it made the ballet a lot more interesting.  I think the version in the movie was better than the live version that I saw.  During one of the intermissions, we were sitting there talking and we saw a group of twenty-somethings across the theater.  By the way they were dressed and the way they talked, we could tell they were American.  Americans just stand out in Moscow.  They are easy to spot.  Most of the time.  After the ballet, my friend went up to them, "So...where are ya'll from?"  And they said, "Texas."  :)
After the ballet, we went to the restaurant at the top of the Ritz.  It is SO expensive but has a great view.  We just sat there and chatted.  By then, it was almost 12am.  I was debating whether or not I should just go home and finish packing (Because at this point I wasn't done packing...I seem to save myself that joy until the very last minute).  I decided that I would just tough it out and stay up all night.  After the Ritz we walked over to Red Square.  It was beautiful at night.  But there was this crazy street cleaner truck driver.  He did NOT care if he drove right past people and drenched them with water and whatever other chemicals they use to clean the streets.  He was tearing around Red Square spraying the street and we had to run for our lives.  It was pretty funny actually.  And a good memory.
After that, we made our way to Starlite diner.  GREAT burgers and shakes just for the homesick American.  We stayed there until about 2:30am and then all piled into a cab and went home.  Once I got home, I had about 3 hours to pack, shower, and clean.  My car was coming at 6am to pick me up.  I was able to do it.  I woke up Megan at 5:50am and said goodbye. :(
Once at the airport, I found Jeff's mom and friend.  We made it through security and passport control pretty quickly.  Probably because we were so early. :)  All of us had no sleep at this point.  They kicked us out of the gate area to clean and we had to stand there and wait.  It was torture.  We were so exhausted.  I even put up a status on facebook about how tired I was.  I don't even really remember doing that.  I was falling asleep.  Once on the plane I was happy to find out that it was a pretty empty flight.  Most of the 12 hours, I was able to lay down over three seats and semi-sleep well.
Once we got to Houston, I had to say goodbye to June and Linn.  They were headed to Oklahoma and Alabama.  I noticed right away that my patience has "changed," let's say.  Walking on the moving walkway (just a flat conveyor belt that moves so you can get where you're going faster) people were just standing on it.  They weren't even standing on the right side like you're supposed to!  I was getting so frustrated.  I wasn't even in a hurry but I'm SO use to walking fast and getting where you need to go as quickly as possible, that I just could not stand waiting behind them.  People who were not on the moving walkway were walking past us!  I had to tell myself to calm down.  "You're not in a hurry...it's ok..."
I was also waiting in a huge line for an elevator.  I needed to go down but only the up button was pushed.  But I needed to go down!  So I walked to the front of the line and pushed the down button.  It made sense to me, but I think I made everyone mad.
So I finally made it to Minneapolis.  I called my parents and they were in Duluth waiting for me.  I got to the gate and saw that the flight was leaving earlier.  I thought, "O wow, I'm actually going to get there sooner."  Then the guy got on the horn and said, "We were hoping to leave 30 minutes early, but this flight has just been cancelled due to fog in Duluth."  WHAT?  Cancelled??  They said that they might try and find us all a bus to Duluth.  I waited for a little bit and that I called my parents and they said they would drive to Minneapolis to get me.  The whole reason I bought a ticket to Duluth was to save them a trip all the way to Minneapolis.  Now they had to drive to Duluth AND Minneapolis.  Story of my life.
So I went to get my luggage and sat by the baggage claim area for 3 hours.  So, I had stayed up all night in Moscow, took a 12 hour flight to the states, then another flight to MN, then had to sit at the airport for 3 hours and then a 4 hour drive home.  UGH.  But I made it and I'm happy to be home.  LONG trip, but worth it.

home again home again jiggity jig

"To market, to market to buy a fat pig.
Home again, home again, jiggity jig."
-Mother Goose

So, another year in Russia is almost over.  I can't really believe it.  Is this what happens when you get older?  The years fly by and you can't even remember what happened?  I am very much looking forward to being home.  I will be flying into Duluth very soon.  It will be a bit strange.  I've never flown out of or into Moscow alone.  It going to be really weird.  Although, I've just found out that my friend, Jeff's mom will be on the same flight as me.  She is here visiting for the week.  Last night she made fried steak, mashed potatoes with gravy.  It was SO good.  I'm excited to be home and having home cooking all the time.  I'm planning on cooking a lot, too this summer.  I feel like I am adult-enough to start cooking dinners for everyone. :)
This summer I plan on visiting my sister in Colorado.  I'm also thinking about going to Oklahoma for a week or so.  Then somehow I have to see some other friends in Missouri, Arkansas, and other states. AH!  I hope I can make my rounds.  Other than that, I plan on fishing, reading, going to Target, going to Caribou, going to

Here are a few pictures of summer so far.
Summer, Chapter 1: Moscow.  Coming soon, Chapter 2: Minnesota.

Delicious cakes made by a friend.

Boys during summer school.  too cute i think.

Experiments with bubbles for science camp.

 

Our weeping willow

   

what lulls you to sleep?

So, I was just offered to sit in a meeting.  This meeting will be about the planning of art classes for the next school year.  They will discuss music, dance, drama, and visual art.  Normally I would be all over that but when the meeting is in Russian it's a little harder to participate.
I've gotten to the point where I can follow the conversation in the meeting and know the general topic.  I can even understand maybe 60% of it, depending on what they are talking about.  But I've found that the sound of Russian just simply makes me sleepy.  I would have NEVER thought that Russian could be a calming and soothing sound but it certainly is.  I will be sitting in the meetings and following along as best as I can, and then my mind will drift off and I hear constant sound of Russian.  Then I start to nod off.  I find myself thinking, "I could just lay on the floor right here and listen to them talking and I could have a great nap."  I've even gotten to the point of pinching myself just to stay awake.  And then my boss will say, "Kristin, are you following this?  What do you think?"  My eyes are half open and I have no idea what they are talking about. 
One of the worst feelings in the world is when all you want to do is sleep but you can't.  So, what lulls you to sleep?  I love the sound of rain, thunderstorms, and a shower.  If I had the money and it wouldn't so wasteful, I would have a running shower in my bedroom all night. :)  I would sleep SO good.  Or a dryer.  That also would be nice. 

Cookies

It is now summer school here at MES.  I have been put in charge of summer school and the planning of each day.  I decided to make it a 2 week long science camp.  The first week we are learning about our senses and the second week, we will be doing fun science experiments.  These children are 3-6 so the experiments involve things like bubbles and raisins and the making of goop.

Today we talked about our sense of taste.  I brought the kids to the lunch room and we all made cookies together.  It was really fun and the children enjoyed it.  After the children left, I was finishing them and the cooks came out to see them.  She asked me, "What are you doing?"  I told her that I was making cookies.  She said, "Weird cookies."  haha.  I told her, "American cookies."  They don't make cookies like we do in America.  They don't make the dough and then make it into balls and put it on a cookie sheet.  I was a little worried that they wouldn't turn out.  After about 20 minutes, the children came back.  The cookies were ready.  The cook brought them out and said, "Are they done?  I don't know if they should look like that." :)  They were done and they were good. 

May in Moscow

May in Moscow is amazing.  I've come to realize, living in very cold climates my whole life, that spring is so much more appreciated.  It is special when you have to wait for it so long.  SO long.  Spring did not want to come this year.  At one point, I felt like I was developing SADD.  I was talking to my Russian friends about it and they thought that was a completely crazy idea.  (These two friends are "psychologists," mind you.)  People who develop a disorder because of the weather??  And then buy silly table lamps to shine on their faces during the coldest and darkest nights of winter??  They thought it was pretty funny.  I would never invest in a fake-sun lamp to keep me happy when it's snowing...but I did start taking vitamin D. 
At first when winter comes, she's a lovely time of year.  She woos everyone with her slowly falling snow.  You can hear the bells of Santa's sleigh and the soft singing of "Silent Night."  You get to put on your newly bought winter coat and look cute with your matching scarf and mittens.  You get excited about drinking hot chocolate by the frosty window as winter blankets the city with snow.
But then...4 months later...winter isn't so cozy anymore.  She's a mean and nasty old woman who refuses to leave even when she knows she's not wanted.  People have lost all interest in her...and yet she holds on with her cold, dead hands.  And just when you think the old hoot is gone for good, she shows her face again...and again you curse at the weather man.  You get sick of wearing your winter coat.  It's not cute to you anymore.  You feel like your scarves are slowly choking you to death.  You could still go for some hot chocolate...but only because it's still so cold!
But then...finally...spring shows her beautiful face.  You were waiting and waiting and even cursed her for not coming. But she slowly waltzes in as if she was never late at all.  And you've forgotten why you were mad as you become mezmerized by the warmth of the sun and the hundreds of tulips.
In Moscow, spring means to long weekends.  The first long weekend is Labor Day, May 1st.  On Friday of this long weekend, me and a group of friends went to this amazing restaurant.  It's called "In the Dark."  Here, you are seated, served, and eat in complete darkness.  When you get there, you first choose your meal.  There is a menu with four choices: Red-sea food, green-vegetarian, blue-meat (without seafood), and white-mystery meal.  There were seven people in our group.  Then we went downstairs.  The hostess told us to put our purses, cellphones, and even watches, in a locker.  Then we all stood single-file and held onto the person in front of us.  Then our waiter came.  Did I tell you that all the waiters and waitresses are blind??  He led us into COMPLETE darkness.  I have never been in a place so dark.  Literally cannot see anything.  At first your eyes play tricks on you and you almost see a fake light where light should be.  It's really weird.  So...our waiter lead us to our table.  One by one he sat us down, showing us our chairs and napkins and silverware.  Then he brought us our drinks and then our food.  We ended up eating with our hands.  It was really delicious.  You don't really know what you're eating until you put it in your mouth.  While we were eating, we could hear other people around us and we could also hear a band playing.  It was a live band too because they were interacting with the people in the restaurant and asking us questions.  It was such a fun experience.  Definitely worth the steeper bill.
The next day I was able to help out with a youth retreat.  It was at a place in Moscow called Pokrovsky Hills.  I like to call this "Little America."  It is just like a neighborhood in America.  Everyone speaks English.  There are houses and driveways and yards.  There are trampolines and grills.  It's so nice to visit when I'm homesick.  The youth retreat was so much fun.  I led the worship for the sessions.  We played games.  Then we had a campfire and made s'mores!!

The next day was another day 'o' fun.  After church, my Russian pal, Vitaly, invited us to his place outside of Moscow to make shashlik.  This is basically Russian kebabs.  In America, we have cookouts and barbeques but in Russia they make shashlik. So we walked and walked from Vitaly's apartment until we found just the right place in the woods.  Then he started up the little grill and we were shashliking. :)  Doing stuff like this makes living so far from home worthwhile.  Becoming good friends with people and doing normal things like having a picnic.  It makes this place seem a little more like home than just a temporary job.

The next weekend was another three day weekend.  May 9th is Victory Day.  (Pictures still need to be developed.)  This is when Russia celebrates their defeat of Germany in World War II.  Germany signed the surrender document late on the 8th of May 1945 which would be May 9th, Moscow time.  To celebrate this, every year they flex their military muscles with a massive parade on Red Square.  You can watch it HERE.  It's pretty impressive.  You have to be officially invited to watch it at Red Square.  Us townsfolk can watch a "parade" on Tverskaya street as the tanks and trunks drive through Moscow to get to Red Square.  After we watched the tanks roll by, we all went to Starlite Diner.  It is a fifties-style American diner that we like to visit a couple times each year.  Then we made out way to Victory Park.  Here, along with hundreds and hundreds of other people, we walked around the park and watched war veterans receive flowers from strangers.  All through out the city, the veterans put on their uniforms and come to local parks.  Here people give them flowers and thank them for their service.  It is truly a beautiful tradition.
Reversing back one day to the 8th...this was a Lord of the Rings Marathon.  It was my roommate, Sarah's idea.  It started at 10am.  People came and went, but in the end at 11pm, there were three of us that made it through all 3 movies.  I didn't really think I could do it.  :)  Those movies are so amazing.  I would encourage you to try it some rainy day.
Well, that's all for now.  I can't wait to come back to Minnesota in June.  It's been way too long, don't ya know?