Happy happy new year!

It's time to stop being lazy and write about my year, for the friends and family who've asked me to! We'll brush aside the fact that this is the only thing I've bothered to write in 2017. I think I can manage to stop eating cake just long enough to get this all down...

January: The temperature went down to -33C/F (it's pretty much the same at that point).  Luckily we were all on vacation and didn't need to go outside.  Which we didn't.

(skipping months where nothing much happened and moving on)

March: Steve announced that he was ABANDONING ME to find his own place.  But then I found Masha, who is even more awesome.  Also I turned 27 surrounded by close friends (or as I like to say, celebrated the 2nd anniversary of my 25th birthday).

May: We had nice summer weather for the May holidays, followed by snow.  First attempt at a business trip to Tatarstan foiled by Moscow traffic.

June: There was more snow, but I dodged that bullet by going home! Attended my best friend's engagement party and said yes to the bridesmaid dress.  Visited Williams for my 5 year reunion, which was everything I expected and more. Had another mini reunion in NYC, and attended my first Pride parade thanks to Ben and Bill.  Was home for both my mom's birthday and Father's Day for the first time in 5 years. Spent a lot of time on the beach.

July: 24 hours after arriving in Moscow I was on my way back to the airport for Kazan, where I was a speaker at the FISU (International University Sports Federation) volunteer training academy. Then I went onward to Aktanysh, ie the middle of nowhere, to observe lessons at a summer camp and speak with some of the children (many of whom had never met a native speaker before). 

August: Our friends from Aktanysh came to Moscow for a week of training seminars that I got to help lead.  Then I fulfilled my long-time dream of travelling to Barcelona! More beach time, plus great food, amazing people, and all the Gaudi architecture my little heart desired.  We also managed to visit the highest point around at Tibidabo. 

October: The memory that sticks out most is Halloween, which I hosted at mine before heading to a club.  I did my Pinterest best and introduced the Russians to worms in the mud.  I was also responsible for the Halloween event one of our clients requested, where we discussed and then planned extreme pranks 💀

November: Thanksgiving! As usual, we celebrated twice.  This was the home stretch until Christmas.  But first...

December: ...I got really sick for a couple of weeks.  What's winter without being out of commission for a week or two? But thanks to the internet I was able to get all of my Christmas shopping done and watch loads of movies.  Speaking of which, STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI. We celebrated Christmas with 2 feasts as well, and I lead a whole bevy of Christmas events for the companies we work with which was actually really fun.  I showed them how to decorate Christmas cookies American style, and then got shown up by them. My lovely students gave me tons of cake and tea and chocolate that I'm currently working my way through.  I've walked around plenty and seen Moscow in all its New Year's glory.  Now all that's left is to wait for the New Year and see what it has in store for all of us!

2016: the good, the bad, the mundane

It's been noted that 2016 wasn't a great year for the world - take your pick of natural disasters, wars, terrorist attacks, or elections as an illustrating point.  However, I've decided to end on a good note by writing down some of the highlights from my year, starting from the last post.  So, before it's too late, my 2016:

- My friend, Brendan, came to visit from Connecticut and found my 10 tips super useful.  We had a cultural tour of Moscow which consisted mainly of food, but also included museums, parks, and a visit to the Bolshoi where we saw the opera Katerina Izmailova.

- My translations for an exhibition at the Jewish Museum in Moscow were published in a bilingual book! And my name was printed! I did not buy the book.  It was expensive.  Instead, I took a picture of the book.

- I went on a field trip to a cheese farm run by an American guy and his family.  There were over a dozen kinds of cheeses, wines, and meats, and I got to befriend the goats!

- There was the annual America trip with the traditional food, New York stop, beach time, and shopping.  Also the Olympics!

- I voted in the presidential election.  It was a really complicated process, but it was important to get done.

-  I finally had the opportunity to travel to Sochi in October, at first for work and then for play.  I spent a day in the botanical gardens, made friends with a monkey, and jumped off of a boat into the Black Sea.

- After that, I got to travel to Kazan twice, this time to train FIFA volunteers ahead of the Confederations Cup in 2017.  I saw the sites in one day and spent the rest of my trips eating Tatar food.

- I had a very American Thanksgiving in that there was an all-you-can-eat buffet with every traditional dish, and eat it all we did.

- There was one weekend where I was without my phone, and I first realized, then accepted, that I am rather useless without it.

- Last weekend we celebrated Christmas together, and it was nice enough to make up for my having been sick with the flu for the past week.

So, 2017: here's to more interesting projects, more laughs, more learning, more love!

In memory of Gene Wilder, a great man and a personal friend - we will never forget you or your kindness.  

Once Upon a (summer) Time

My mom asked me to write this so she would "have something interesting to read." A month later, I'm finally getting around to it - Happy Thanksgiving?

Summer was a bit of a whirlwind, partially because I stayed almost a week less than in the past.  In trying to cram an entire year's worth of things into about 3 weeks, I managed to: go to a 4 day music festival, have overpriced brunch in Manhattan with friends from college, stay in a lake house with other college friends, see most of my friends and family, road trip down to DC with 2 hours notice, catch the Milford Oyster Fest, and eat everything on my list of foods not available in the food dessert that is Moscow.

After getting back to Russia, I still had some wanderlust to get out of my system, so I took a quick trip to Romania.  Bucharest was a weird mix of classical European and super Soviet, but had great food and the world's largest Parliament building.  Constanta was really beautiful, and allowed me to finally swim in the Black Sea.

Back to Russia, and work/life have been business as usual.  Construction was finally finished on the square by my house, I convinced my roommate not to move away forever, and I've been SUMMONED FOR JURY DUTY AGAIN.  Again.  For Thanksgiving, I'm having a potluck, in which I'll try to fit way more people into my apartment than is probably advisable.  What can go wrong?

Fun fact before you go: remember when Crimea started being Russia again? Remember how the west was like "Not cool bro, give it back"? It's okay if you don't, people kind of stopped mentioning it.  The Levada Center mentioned it recently when it polled Russian citizens on whether they thought Crimea should be returned to Ukraine; a whole 3% said yes! How about that. 

An overdue synopsis

I have no excuses for my prolonged absence, so I'll just jump into a brief update since...what, October?
Thanksgiving was spent the same as last year's - diner dinner on the day of in a large group, followed by a Saturday potluck with a slightly smaller group.  Christmas was spent working, and New Year was spent in the north of England with friends.

Volgograd got bombed, but Moscow is literally closer to Poland than to Volgograd, so we were just fine here.  The Sochi Olympics have come and gone, wrapping up in a few weeks with the end of the Paralympic Games.  My friend Nic came for a visit after volunteering on the alpine track, and we watched the closing ceremony with a nice Williams representation.  Speaking of the Olympics, I'd like to note that they were incredibly well executed, especially taking into consideration that everything had to be built from scratch, unlike several previous sites.  Was it perfect? No.  Was it remarkable, to say the least? A resounding yes.

And now for the biggest news item: the current situation in Ukraine.  I think this is a nice summary of what's been happening since late December (for those of you who don't feel like reading in depth articles from legitimate news sources).  Things have carried on as usual here in Moscow, though people are starting to discuss it more and more.  This is also a nice piece on what's currently happening.  Interestingly enough, the only people I really hear talking about it at all are expats...I supposed it makes sense in some ways, since the ruble's rapid decline is making our money worth a lot less and our salaries suddenly much lower in real terms (since we'll need to exchange those rubles for dollars/pounds/etc at some point, and the exchange rate is increasingly against our favor).  Everyone is (obviously) also really hoping war doesn't suddenly break out, but for your peace of mind I will say that I'm registered with the embassy, I have the embassy's number saved in my phone, and my flatmate and I have an emergency plan just in case.  

In less interesting and less exciting news, the state of CT is being a real pain as they simultaneously inform me of my upcoming license expiration and summon me for jury duty...sorry, I won't be able to attend.  I'm busy being an expat in Russia, which had me ice skating, eating blini, and burning effigies for Maslenitsa today.

Hand Turkeys

Celebrating Thanksgiving in a foreign country is the oddest of all the holidays since it's only recognized by the US.  I mean sure, other people have heard of it (fewer the farther away you get), but for the most part we expats are on our own.  So walking down the street on Thanksgiving day felt like having a secret no one knew about.  I was celebrating and radiating joy and gratitude* while everyone else was going through an average day.  It felt like being magical or something, its hard to describe.  Anyway, I had little kids to teach on Thanksgiving day and dutifully drew hand turkeys.  I actually got in trouble for this when my twin 5yr olds' father walked in and asked me why, after only a month, his children weren't speaking English at home with him and suggested that "all [you] do is draw pictures with them," but no regrets.  Also he is wrong and clearly doesn't understand the concept of cultural education.  After work, I waited in the teachers' room (and drew a beautiful hand turkey) with Nick and Nina before heading to the Starlight Diner, where we had a delightful (and traditional) Thanksgiving dinner with some friends.  We also got the manager to give us free ice cream with our pie as an apology for not showing American football on TV as promised on their website. 

After work on Friday, I procured a potato masher from Martin (he totally saved the day with that) and headed home to buy 2.5kilos of potatoes and then turn them into mashed potatoes for the Thanksgiving potluck John was hosting at his place after work on Saturday.  Thanksgiving was a success, John managed to get turkey (which is a little tricky in Russia), and everyone ate so much they felt they might die.  A bunch of us opted to catch the last metro home (just barely) instead of taking a cab, and then we fell into food comas.  Chien also took some leftover turkey home, so despite planning on never eating again for the rest of my life, he, Ulianna, and I had leftover turkey sandwiches and mashed potatoes, just like real Thanksgiving.  This was joined by staying in pjs and not leaving the house.  Perfect.

Now I'm ready for Christmas, and so is Russia...or New Year, since they celebrate that the way we do Christmas. More on that when the date gets closer.  Anyway, Christmas lights are up! And Christmas decorations are in the shops.  Snow has returned, I've pulled out my warmer coat, and I'll soon have to buy a super big coat and warmer boots.  Christmas songs abound at school, and the semester is almost over.  Oh also, today I was told that my Russian is really good! I walked to the post office to mail things, but I couldn't get the door open.  I walked to the other door thinking it must just be a thing. When that door didn't open, I double checked their business hours on the sign and walked around to the other side of the building looking for another door.  There was another door all right, but it was to a different business.  After a comical exchange with the elderly security guard (who didn't realize I was a foreigner until I got flustered and exclaimed in a whiny voice that I just wanted stamps), he informed me that the post office was closed for lunch. At 2pm.  Of course they were...Russia. 

*I'm thankful for everything that has happened for me over the past year.  I'm also thankful for you guys! Thank you for caring enough to check this from time to time, and a big special thanks for those of you who have actually made the effort to keep in touch and communicate.  Big bear hugs!