Friday, January 30, 2009

So we made it. We are here...safe and sound. And surprisingly in a very nice apartment. We got to the airport around four o'clock, and then drove to our apartments in a wonderful little van/bus thing that had no seatbelts. None of us are really sure how long of a drive it was because we were all basically asleep. Once we got here, we looked around at our apartment, and then went straight to bed. An eight o'clock bedtime actually isn't too bad, and since we got up at 5:30 we have just been relaxing. I got everything unpacked...so did Mollie. Now we are just waiting till 9:30 when we are supposed to meet our bus driver man outside our front gate and go meet Gulya (our native coordinator).
I can't even explain how pretty it is here. I am loving it!


This is the view out our bedroom window, and to the right.

This is the view straight our our window. That white-ish building in the distance is our school...the one with a bunch of chimnees. And we have these awesome 'princess' windows that open inwards and the sill is really big, so it's easy to sit on.





This is my Bed.




This is Mollie's bed.







Our awesome blue kitchen. The best part about it is that the far left cupboard that you can see there is the dishwasher. It is just designed to blend in with the other cupboards! The downside is that the water tastes and smells like sulfur...so we have to either boil everything, or drink water with the purifier in the fridge. Another upside though is the awesome cheese that we have! It comes in a giant ball...bigger than a softball, but much smaller than a basketball, it has a weird smell, but it tastes really good! We have already eaten half of it.




This...obviously...is Mollie modeling the bathtub. Notice there is no shower head. Just a handheld one. A little awkard...but its okay as long as we don't get water on the floor. Apparently it's a big "no-no" to put a towel on the floor.


And this is what Moscow looks like. This is us sitting in our van right across from the Metro.
I will have more pictures tomorrow! We are going to Red Square in the morning.

5 comments:

Rick said...

I am glad you got there safe and sleepy! It does look a lot colder than Utah Valley. And your apartment looks nice. Have fun and don't teach the kids any bad words.

Mary said...

It doesn't have as much snow as I thought it would, but it still looks cold! I'm glad you made it safely and that you're not living in a dive. The view is beautiful. I didn't realize the school was so close to your apartment. If the school's that close, why were you waiting for the bus driver man?? Anyway, I hope your first day has gone great. Be sure to post some pictures of the kids!

Brittany said...

We were waiting for the bus driver man to take us to Moscow to meet our native coordinator Gulya. Normally we have to walk about ten minutes to get to the public bus stop. We start teaching on Monday, so as soon as I am able there will definately be pictures of the childrens. \
(also, this computer is Russian, so it is telling me that every word I type is spelled wrong...funny).

Terri said...

One of my instructors from a class I took online last summer through NAU was actually traveling in Indonesia and Russia. Sometimes her posts to our classroom bulletin board were in Russian! It was hilarious. She had to repost her comments with the translation periodically.

Darron said...

For some reason the pictures from your apartment look different than anything I've ever imagined Russia would look like. Really, really glad you got there safe and sound. Really miss seeing you every day.