Staying busy

On Wednesday, our economics class was canceled again so Ellen and I went to our internship at the European Medical Center early so we could see more surgeries. When we got out of the metro station, it was snowing! We seemed to be the only ones around (and maybe in the whole country) who were excited about it. Thankfully, I had worn my down coat and super warm boots so I was nice and toasty :) The snow didn't stick, but it was really fun to dance around in while it was falling.

At the Med Center, we saw five surgeries - two meniscus repairs, two ACL repairs, and an installation of a calcaneal plate. (I'd recommend skipping over this part if you are squeamish…) The calcaneus surgery was sooooo cool!!!  They didn't tell us how the man had broken it, but Ellen and I decided he must have fallen somewhere. How else would you break your heel? Anyway, the man was awake (he had a spinal block so he couldn't feel anything) so we had to be careful about any noises we made (laughing was absolutely against the rules, as we later found out). When they cut in to the patient's foot, it was almost unreal. The inside of the soft tissue looked like a combination of hamburger meet and the fat that I had to eat a few weeks back. They kept cutting and pulling the skin back much more than I expected, but we could see a lot of the inside of the foot. The surgeons used really long pointy rods to stick through his foot to keep everything in place while they were installing the plate. Because they had to put so many rods through and had to make sure that everything was in place, they had to use the x-ray machine pretty constantly. They didn't have enough lead vests for everyone, so to start with, we left the room every time they used the machine. That got old pretty quickly, and at one point, one of the doctors grabbed me and positioned me behind him so his vest would block me, too. Ellen kept leaving each time they took the x-rays, until one point when she decided to join our human x-ray vest sandwich. It was funny and all the surgeons were chuckling and the nurses were taking pictures, but when we laughed a little bit, we got in trouble. We managed to stay quiet the rest of the time, and had everything explained to us in detail. It was awesome. We ended up staying the entire day, from 8:45 until 5:15.

Group at the restaurant before going to the dark room

On Thursday after class we went to the restaurant called "In  the Dark". When we got to the restaurant, we walked into a big room with a huge table. We were all confused because the room was light and we expected to be taken into a dark room. It turned out that we were just in the room so we could order. They gave us a choice of four menus: red (meat), blue (seafood), green (vegetarian), and white (surprise). I chose the white menu after letting them know I couldn't eat peppers or walnuts. We went downstairs to go into the dark room, and while we were waiting for our server to lead us in, they offered us vodka out of a water dispenser. It is supposedly a special vodka that restores sight, but I thought it was great because it came out of a water dispenser. I haven't found any free water anywhere since I've been here, but free vodka is available. Haha. We started with a plate of appetizers. Mine was some kind of mushroom tart with a white sauce, a salad with cabbage, and some seafood thing that I could not figure out, but it tasted pretty good. After finishing that plate, I didn't know we were going to get another plate of food. I had salmon on my plate, but Jean got the most delicious steak I've ever eaten. I ate the whole meal with my fingers, as forks and knives were too difficult to use in the dark. I was able to take the steak apart with my fingers with hardly any effort. It made me wish I ordered from the red menu. After our main dish, they brought us dessert. Everyone else had carrot cake and ice cream, but since I'm allergic to walnuts, I got ice cream, fruit, and a little cheesecake-like tart. It was delicious, but so rich! It was really interesting to have our sight completely taken away for a couple hours. It was a great experience, and I would recommend it to anyone near a restaurant like it.

On Friday, I was really tired after my language class, so I took a nap in the afternoon instead of going on the walking tour class that I'm auditing. I woke up around 4:30 and got ready to go back to the Academy because there was a show that we were supposed to watch. We were really confused what was supposed to happen, but we all came because Lisa and Alice were performing. It turned out to be similar to a high school or middle talent show, with a lot of skits and dances. It was pretty entertaining to try to figure out what was happening since everything was in Russian. When they spoke English, it was almost more confusing because what they were saying didn't particularly make sense in context. When it got to Lisa and Alice's performance, we were excited to see something a little different from everyone else who performed. When Lisa started to sing, all our jaws dropped. She is an amazing singer! Alice's accompaniment on the piano was great, too. They blew everyone else out of the water. It was no contest after that, and they ended up winning first place!

Krushka

After the talent show, a group of us went to Krushka (a sports bar chain) by the zoo. When we got out of the metro station, we were still waiting for Ellen to join us, and we saw the most adorable dog. It was a normal sized dog with tiny little legs. It was so adorable that we broke our usual rule not to pet the strays. It was so friendly, but it was really dirty and smelly so we all smelled pretty gross after petting it. We went to Krushka for a little while and then most of us went over to a party that the Marines were having. The party was really fun, but most of the group left early since we had to be up really early the next morning. I stayed there until the end and got in the vans with the guys to go out. Most of the people wanted to go clubbing, but Elliot and I went to Liga Pap to have a more relaxed night. Elliot and Chris had to get back in time for their curfew, so I waited until Pete got off work to walk me to the metro station when it opened. Oh! And I got a Dunkin' Donut from Pete for breakfast. Haha. A little piece of America in Russia.

In Suzdal. It was cold!

I rode the metro to my stop and then realized I wouldn't have enough time to walk all the way home and get back to the metro in time to meet everyone, so I got back on the metro in the other direction and rode it to the place where we were supposed to meet. I slept on the metro until I got to the stop, which I don't normally do, but I was so tired! We left on a bus to Vladimir and Suzdal, two cities on the Golden Ring. It was an interesting bus ride, and we got to check out some things we don't see in Moscow, like the wooden architecture museum. They also had a bunch of vendors, so I bought some wool mittens, a lollipop in the shape of a rooster (I don't know why all of them were rooster-shaped, but every person selling lollipops was selling rooster-shaped ones), and a gingerbread-like cake/cookie. It was really, really cold when we were there, so we stayed inside as much as we could. The ride on the bus was about 4 hours in each direction, so we ended up getting back to Moscow at 11pm, in time to get on the metro and get home by 12:15 am.

I saw my host mom this morning, and I was surprised that she wasn't mad at me. I hadn't seen her for a couple days because I had originally planned on coming home for dinner on Friday, but never made it home. So, I'm really really happy that she doesn't mind my all-nighters.

Clearly, I didn't get much homework done this weekend so I'm off to do work now!