Monday: Shout out to Nastia for her birthday! Jean, Nastia, and I were planning on going to the Rotary meeting in the evening and going out for a couple drinks for Nastia's birthday. I got on the metro at my station and the train just sat there for about ten minutes. I didn't know why, so I just stood there waiting for it to move. Finally, after it was uncomfortably full, we moved on to the next station. We did the same thing at that station, but at that point, it was even more full and I started to worry that something was wrong. I was texting with Jean and she said the trains were messed up where she was, too, and Nastia said the same thing. We kept stopping in between stations and taking forever. I got a text saying "There are no trains going to the center," so I started to get really worried. We were all made to get off the train about halfway to where I was going and I thought I was going to have to get out of the station, find a bus, and take it home. I was really nervous because I've only taken one bus since I've been here and it was with Jack and Nancy's help. Instead of getting out of the station, I stood there with the huge amount of people who were still there. The platform was so full I was surprised that no one fell on the tracks there. Another full train came and everyone started shoving and stampeding to get onto it. I was definitely scared at that point. I didn't make it onto that train, but when the next one came, I got shoved on. It was so full on that train that I couldn't even breathe fully. It was hot and slow and I didn't know what was going on. They kept shouting things in Russian over the loudspeaker, but I don't understand enough Russian to understand anything they yell at me. I didn't know what to think, but after all the warnings about terrorists, thinking about the Moscow metro bombings earlier this year, and my general level of anxiety at the time made me really worried. The train was the last place I wanted to be. Partway through that ride, Nastia texted me to tell me that a man had been hit by a train a couple stops down and they couldn't use that track. I was relieved that there hadn't been a huge incident, but it was still horrible for that man and anyone who was around at that time. I was still upset so I decided to get off the train and go to the embassy to hang out early. When I got off the train, I was afraid I was going to be trampled. Everyone wanted to get out of the station, so everyone was pushing and trying to get out first, whether that meant shoving elderly or disabled people or even trampling if it came to that. It was terrifying. When I got away from that, I was so relieved. I was still kind of upset for the rest of the evening, but we just chilled and watched a movie, so it was much better.
Tuesday: Demoni, Eduardo, Nastia, Ellen, Elliot, Toney, and I went to eat at a Georgian restaurant. It was my first time eating Georgian food, and it was really good! I had chicken and the cheesy bread, and I tried tongue for the first time. It had horseradish on it, so it wasn't my favorite, but I'll try it again sometime so I have a real opinion. After dinner, we went to a place called Silver's to hang out for a while. We went home kind of early and I got a good amount of sleep for the first time in a while.
Wednesday: Ellen and I went to our internship for a short time, but they didn't have a lot of surgeries that day. We saw an exploratory surgery on a 41-year-old man's knee and it was really interesting. We have seen a lot of knees now, but this man's cartilage was so soft! It looked kind of like Jell-o. They couldn't really do anything because his knee was in such bad shape, but they said he was a candidate for total joint replacement. I'd really like to see that. After our internship, I met up with Jean to go shopping for caramel and apples. Everyone told us that we wouldn't be able to find caramels, but we did! From there, we went out for the night, but I'll leave the incriminating details out :)
Thursday: Ellen's birthday!!! After class, a group of us went over to Ellen's house to make caramel apples. I'd never made caramel apples before and it was a ton of fun! When we bought the caramels the day before, I didn't know there was a difference between toffee and caramel (both were soft and looked like caramel!) so half of our apples were apparently caramel and the others were toffee. Elliot got us Oreos the day before (they are IMPOSSIBLE to find in Russia. We were so happy he could get them for us!!!) so we used that as a topping to roll some of the apples in after we covered them in white chocolate. The one I made with white chocolate and oreos looked really bad, but I'm sure it tasted good.
Friday: We had a dinner party at Jack and Nancy's apartment. It was great. Besides the students and Jack and Nancy, Nastia, Sasha, and Fiona's parents came. The food was wonderful and I ate so much salad! It's hard to find a good salad here, but that one was delicious. We had to rush from the party because we had reservations at a karaoke bar. The enthusiasm for karaoke apparently wasn't as high as it had been before, and halfway to the place, we were down to only a few people. So, naturally, we decided to go to Liga Pap instead. Always a great choice. Ellen even got some birthday cake. It was a great night.
 |
| Erin, Alice, me, Ellen, and Lilly |
 |
| Me, Lilly, and Sasha |
No comments:
Post a Comment