Week 5

I know, I haven’t written all week. To be honest, there hasn’t been an insane amount to write about, so I’m doing it all in one clump.

Monday was just school as usual, then I came home and hung out with my host family. They took me out to dinner, which was really nice of them. It was really good food; I had sushi for the first time, and it was delicious. Then I skyped my family, went for a walk with my sisters, and drew. Nice relaxing day.

Tuesday was about the same. I went to Mega, which is the really big mall in Kazan. They have a giant IKEA (with a restaurant and cafe) and a ton of other stores. I didn’t buy anything, but it was a pretty impressive mall.

Wednesday we had cooking classes, yay! We learned how to make a bunch of different Tatar pastries that are really really yummy. It was fun, and hopefully I can make these when I get home. It was really cool to watch the lady work, too. She was very quick and efficient, and hers turned out much better than ours 🙂

On Thursday, we took a children’s train out to a lake. By children’s train, I don’t mean a train for children (although it was that too), but a train RUN by children. Kids drove it, were the conductors, everything. Pretty cool to see kids doing that, and they were adorable. The lake was really pretty, too. Probably the best one we’ve been to. A couple of people swam, but it wasn’t very hot out so I just relaxed.

Yesterday (Friday) we found this really cool Cuban restaurant that had cuban and mexican food. The atmosphere was really awesome, and the food was good too, but a little overpriced. It was nice to have mexican food, though; that’s not something you’ll find easily in Russia. After lunch I basically went to the grocery store and got a bunch of food for presents. I really love grocery stores; I love buying food. That was really fun.

Today we went to a museum. There is a Tatar poet who is said to be the Pushkin of the Tatars – he wrote a bunch of fairy tales that basically every Tatar knows. So we visited the place he grew up and saw the museum. The museum was pretty cool, and was right by a really pretty river. We also saw a movie based on one of this guy’s stories, and it was really hilarious in a ridiculous way. I didn’t really understand the whole plot, but the main bad guy essentially did ballet in the forest. It was hilarious. After that our bus broke down for a little while, but our driver fixed it and we got home fine.

That’s it, week five. Only one more week until I’m back in America – and that week will be filled with tests, projects, goodbyes, and packing. So this is basically the end of my last normal week in Russia! Crazy.