Hooray!!!!

My grandmother is coming to visit me in Russia before I go home! I'm so excited I can barely stand it! I've already started planning a schedule! So, it looks like I will be coming home the 16th of July.

Not much has been happening lately. Natalia Petrovna, the woman who cleans the American Home is basically and angel; she is the one who bought me mittens for my birthday despite the fact that she probably makes about $200 a month. She always asks about my family and reads the stories I am reading for Russian class so she can discuss them with me after, and she just bought Adam's guitar for her son's birthday. He wouldn't let her pay full price so she made us an enormous cake pastry thing covered in powdered sugar and promised to invite us over. It was almost heartbreaking when she invited us. She came up to me and told me that she wanted to invite us over, but... It turned out that she was embarrassed that her house was too small for the "American standards". (She supports her daughter and her bum of a son-in-law as well as their little son.) Her dream is to see a classical ballet at the Bolshoi, so we wanted to buy her a ticket, but haven't been able to figure out a way to get her to accept them. A few months ago we gave her a card and a box of chocolates and she was totally overwhelmed just by that...

We are halfway through the winter semester so I have a few extra days off this weekend. We are planning to go to Suzdal to see the celebrations for Maslonitsa, a pagan holiday that revolves around worshiping the sun, celebrating the beginning of spring, and, more recently, starting the Lent fast. There are going to be goose fights, street mead, greased climbing poles and lots and lots of blini (crepes) which represent the sun. Sounds like a party to me... I also just heard from one of my friends from Middlebury, so I'm hoping he will be joining us for our little pagan celebration!

About a week ago Sasha invited me and Emily over to meet his family and have dinner. It was just the most pleasant evening of all time; they are such a great family and so silly. We just had a blast, did everything from looking at baby pictures to trying on Maxim's old Russian army jacket. At one point Sasha's mom started saying: "well, yeah, Stalin had his good points and his bad points. I mean, sure he was kind of strict, but..." and Sasha chimed in "yeah, kinda strict, I mean, he killed about 30,000,000 people" and everyone laughed for ages. His mom even was ok with me not eating meat! Everyone just really made an effort to understand everyone else. Things like that remind me of why I am here in this country, especially since Sasha is coming to South Carolina to work this summer! I can't wait for him to meet my family-- it really reminds me of how I felt finally meeting Masha's family this winter. International friendships are the coolest...

Spring is finally setting in here, too. Adam and I are planning a trip to Kazan in March, which should be amazing. We also bought tickets to a modern ballet in June; it is still surprising to me that I'm dating the coolest person ever, someone who actually wants to do all of the cultural things that I want to do and more. I told him that I've decided we are soul mates which it turns out he is ok with. Life is just so good right now...

Lots of love to everyone!

P.S. weird details of the day: maternity leave in Russia is THREE YEARS long! And you can come back and get your same job! Also, it is common knowledge that cabbage is "good for boobs", and the president declared no more daylight savings in Russia because all the switching of the clocks is making people sick. Really. Look it up.