So this morning I woke up and headed to the kitchen to heat up some water for my shower.
Once I had it, I headed to the bathroom to shower. Being strange as I am, I decided to open the hot water just to see what happened. Cold water started to come out, but it wasn’t quite as cold as the cold water, so I decided to use that. I started with my hair, and after a few seconds, the water didn’t seem too cold, so I opened it all the way. A few seconds later hot water was burning me, but I was so happy, I didn’t really care.
I think they had just turned it on because the hot water pipe, which is out in the open and usually very hot, was cold when I touched it before.

Today was pretty uneventful. We still have no hot water, but this time, I got a small bucket with hot water from the kitchen in order to shower. I shaved and showered without suffering too much. After that, I had breakfast and went to school.

During class, it was raining outside, which pretty much meant no work for the day. After history class, I got on the bus and headed home. When I arrived, I had to explain to the grandmother why I didn’t go to work. I don’t think she quite understood because she had an unhappy/disappointed look on her face. How do I explain that if it rains, the earth is moist, and therefore they don’t do archaeological digging? I had lunch, did some homework, programmed a little, and then felt a need to go out. I went to the movie place and bought two DVDs. They were only about $4 each and this time, I made sure they were legit, unlike the last ones I got.

So today I woke up as usual and headed to the shower. When I opened the hot water, nothing came out, and I heard this very strange noise coming from the shower head. I thought for a few seconds and then decided to shower anyway. I still don’t know if that was a good idea. The cold water here is extremely cold! After a few minutes, I was done showering, but I was also trembling like crazy. I then decided not to shave with cold water; maybe later I’ll heat some on the stove and use that. I later found out that we will not be getting any hot water for three days, oh well… (In this building the hot water is supplied everyone. People don’t have their own heater in each apartment.)

Today went like most other days, in the morning that is. I woke up, showered, …, and eventually finished history class. After that, I walked to the bus stop and took a bus that took me near the Kremlin. After that, I walked for 10-15 minutes to get to the job site. It is an archaeological dig. When I got there, I walked down to where the people were, stood there, and had a confused look. Soon there was two people talking to me. One of them was sort of like a supervisor, and the other one spoke English. He explained to me what to do, have me a little shovel, a bucket, and a small wooden stool. My job was to clean a large piece of wood and it’s surroundings. I would get the dirt off, make sure there wasn’t anything interesting in it, such as bones or pottery, and put it (the dirt) in the bucket. There was a box were we put the other stuff.

Today was not very interesting, but it was not very boring either. After I woke up and had breakfast, I did some of my homework for class and decided to go out. While waiting for the bus, some old lady started speaking to me and making strange gestures with her hand. I told her I did not understand her, but she kept talking. Once I got on the bust, she followed, sat down, and started speaking to half the people on the bus, it was quite strange. After the bust ride, I ended up in a big shopping center. I walked around for a while and noticed 90% of the stores were womens clothing. I found a music/movie/books store and spent some time there. I bought a book and some discs. I also managed to make the cashier lady angry. The ATM only gave me 1000 ruble bills, and she kept asking if I had smaller ones, I said no a few times until she took it and walked away. She came back with my change and a not very happy face. Oh well, I can’t make everyone happy… I then walked around some more trying to find the place where I entered so I could leave and ended up in a huge furniture store. I never realized how long the mall was, and the stupid furniture store was just as long. Once I found my way out, I bought a soda and headed back home.

Today I went to a town whose name translates to Old Russia. I think the main reason it is famous is because the house of famous writer, Dostoevsky, is there. The house is now a museum and we walked around it with a lady explaining what everything was. After the house, we went to a small church with many paintings. We didn’t spend a lot of time there so we went to a restaurant to get food. Maybe all this happened in a different order, I can’t seem to remember what I did this morning…
After lunch, went to a cemetery where German soldiers from WWII are buried. This was a very interesting site, I definitely did not expect to see something like it in Russia. It is located on the shore of Ilmen lake, so we walked down to the beach and took some pictures. After that, we got back on the bus and headed home. I think the ride was about an hour an a half, but I don’t really remember well.
Once in Novgorod, we got some ice cream, hung out for a while, then I headed home. I still don’t know if I am going to do anything else tonight, but I have a feeling I won’t.

Today was awesome. I did the usual in the morning and went to class. After Russian history class we all walked to a local university to meet some students who are learning English. On our way there we were greeted by a group of students who walked with us back to the school. We went to a very nice classroom with several computers and some amazing LCD monitors. In the middle was a sort of oval-ish table where we all sat. We introduced ourselves and separated into smaller groups to talk.

I don’t usually start laughing in the middle of the street, but on some occasions, I just have to do it.
On a normal day, my alarm wakes me up at 6:50am, I shower, go on the computer, have breakfast, and then around 8am I go outside to the bus stop. Around 8:25am I get to school and classes start at 9am.

Today my alarm sounded, I woke up, showered, and went on the computer. I checked my email quickly because I had to get breakfast and leave by the hour. The computer clock said something like 6:30am, I thought it must be wrong because of daylight savings or something. I checked my cell phone, and it said, 7:30am, so I proved the computer wrong and kept on going. When I got to the kitchen, nobody was there. I thought that was strange because everyday either my host mother or father are already up. I figured they were tired and slept in, so I made myself lunch for school and started making a simple breakfast. I heard an alarm in one of the rooms, but it was quickly turned off. Later, unfortunately, I dropped something and made a loud noise, my host dad jumped out of bed and came to the kitchen. He had a very confused look on his face, I assumed it was because he realized he had slept in. He helped me with breakfast and went to the bathroom or something like that. I brushed my teeth and left the house. This was about 8:10am according to my cell phone.
The day seemed strange, the sun wasn’t as high as it usually was and the bus I got into was unusually crowded. After I switched to the second bus, I saw that it said 7:22 on it’s display. I must have missed the 7 because it did not seem strange to me at all. Once I got off near the school, I started walking and looked at my watch; it was around 7:30. I thought, that’s strange, I don’t remember messing with it, I guess the battery is dying or something. Finally, after a million signs, it hit me. I remembered that I had been playing with the time zones on my cell phone last night and I must have made a mistake. I then started laughing. I realized how many things I missed, the computer clock, the sleeping family, the sun position, the crowded bus, the bus clock, etc… I then started imagining what my host family was going to think, I leave the house before I am supposed to even wake up, I don’t say where I’m going, I was in a hurry. I sent an SMS to my host dad trying to explain in Russian what had just happened. Once I did that I realized I had an hour and a half before class started and nothing to do. I decided to walk around, but everything was closed. I ended up taking a nap in a bench in front of the school until it was time for class.

St. Petersburg was awesome! I just got back from four days over there, and I am very satisfied with what I saw.

On Thursday I woke up around 6am to make the 8am train to St. Petersburg. The train ride was about 3 hours long, so it was not bad at all. Once we arrived, we took a bus to our hotel, which was right on Nevsky Prospect, which is the main street where many nice things are. After that we went to the Saviour on the Blood cathedral, which is extremely colorful on the outside and very fancy on the inside. After that we went…. actually, I don’t remember, so I’ll just go to the next day.

I have not had much time to relax since 9am this morning. It feels good to finish the day.
I did the usual this morning and got to school around 8:25am. I sat on a bench outside and listened to music until class started at 9. Our teacher had to leave at 10am and left us some work to do for an hour. In the third hour, we sat in the more advanced class with another teacher and tried to learn some stuff. I think I did learn though.