Merry Christmas!

I guess I'll start off with the cultural differences of the week. First and forecutest, BABY SLEDS. In the winter, moms put away their strollers on wheels and get out these mini-sleigh looking things (still with push handles). These sleds are full of all the Russian babies stuffed into their Russian snow gear that makes them wider than they are tall. It makes sense considering that Russians DON'T clear the sidewalks off in the winter. Or wait, they do--down to the layer of sheer ice that lurks under the new snow. And then, they call it a day and stop. Apparently this is what the sidewalks are like all winter. I fall all the time, and I've had to stop walking to work unfortunately. Second cultural difference: white out. All my students have these white out accessories (pens, bottles, buckets, you know) and they use white out all. the. time. Grown men in business suits sit and delicately white out test mistakes, or stranger, blow frantically on white out while I lurk over them and tell them time is up. (Part of me wants to just tell them to SCRIBBLE THE ANSWER OUT AND WRITE SOMETHING ELSE, I mean serious, what are they thinking?????????????) Finally, Russian lines. Post office, fast food, bus station, it makes no difference. They don't line up, they just kind of...hoard. And push each other. And, get this, cut in from the sides. Even if there are 20 people already milling in the hoard behind the person getting served, it is 100% fair game to dart in from the side and start asking questions EVEN BEFORE THAT PERSON IS FINISHED. Which basically means that the poor polite American struggling with Russian grammar has no chance of being the person most aggressively demanding service...

Anyway, all the other teachers except Emily have gone back to America, and things are pretty quiet around here. We are having our Christmas Eve dinner tomorrow, so we went to the market today and got tons of fabulous food. I also went to the bus station and got tickets back from Moscow, so our holiday plans are pretty much set. We are going on the 26th to Moscow where we will see an opera, on the 28th we will go spend a couple of nights with my friend Masha in Tula, then back to Moscow for New Year's Eve. On the first we will take a train back to Vladimir so that my students can pick us up on the 2nd and drive us to Nizhniy Novgorod. And that night Emily and I will hop a train to Kazan for three days! It should be pretty spectacular.

Miss and love you all! Merry Christmas!

Rosalind