Classes, internship, and the zoo

On Tuesday morning, we had our academic orientation. All of the classes sounded so interesting that it made it hard to choose. Right now, I am taking 24 units, but I'm only allowed 23, so I have to somehow drop one unit. I am taking:
--Russian I
--Russian-American Relations: from the War of Independence to the War on Terror
--Economic Reform and Economic Policy in Modern Russia
--Foundations of Russian Culture through the Visual
--Six Centuries of Russian History through Architecture: Walking tour

The language class is a continuation of the intensive language program that we've been doing for the past three weeks. The idea of it sounds interesting, but it went kind of slow the first day. I think that once we get the readings it will be better. Our first econ class was just an introductory lecture, but it seemed pretty good. Professor Mau is very busy so I get the feeling we will get out of class early fairly regularly. I loved the Culture through the Visual class. We talked about the Russian Orthodox Church and its iconography. It was fascinating, and it seems like every class is going to be like that. I wasn't able to go to the walking tour class this week because I had an interview for my new internship, but I'm excited for the walking tour class as well.

Speaking of the internship, I am starting a new internship next week. I wasn't happy with the other one that I had, so I interviewed at the European Clinic of Sports Traumatology and Orthopedics. Every Wednesday I will get to shadow surgeons and observe orthopedic surgeries. The clinic is really nice - it would be a nice clinic even in the US.

After our academic orientation on Tuesday, we went to the Moscow Zoo. The entry was free for students - one of the first free things I've seen in Moscow. They had some really funny things in their zoo. After walking past the llamas and alpacas, we found our way to the raccoon cages. It was the saddest raccoon I've ever seen. There was only one in the small cage and he looked so sad! All of the cages looked really small and PETA would be all over it if they saw it.

On Wednesday night we saw Devil's Flower (the movie that looked like Twilight in the poster). It was hilariously bad. We were able to understand most of what was happening through our limited vocabulary, Nastia's translation, and the bad writing. You can see a little bit with this trailer.