Little Friday

Yesterday was Wednesday, but it was also a "little Friday" as Toma and Lena say. It was the first day without class so I got to sleep in and basically just hang around all morning. I went to my internship and played with the children. They seemed kind of cranky and in bad moods but we still had fun. When I came home Lena and I went to the huge grocery store Lenta to buy some food for the party tomorrow. We ran into one of Lena's friends (Lena...teehee) and her Peruvian husband Carlos. Carlos speaks some Russian and has found a job here in Novgorod. He also (obviously) speaks Spanish so we chatted in Spanish a bit. Although my Spanish is quite rusty after all the Russian so I was really speaking some wierd mixture of English, Russian and Spanish...Spengssian maybe? While we were at the store Lena got a phone call from Alexander, whom she tutored in English and who was also Don's host while he was here. Alexander invited us over for a little shashlik party because he has a nice veranda in the back yard of his building and he felt like doing some grilling. We decided to go even though it was Wednesday night and we brought Colin and my Russian friend Masha with us. While we were getting ready to head out I got an interesting text message. When we went to Vertigo, the club on the boat, about a month ago, we met a few people from Finland. I gave them my number here because they want to meet up at the beach the next day. I never heard from them until yesterday when I got a message from Ilari. He wanted to go for coffee but I invited him to the party instead. He has been living and working in Novgorod since January and he is a very nice and interesting new friend. Anyway, the party was very fun. We ate some delicious shashlik and this Georgian bread that is kind of flat and very tasty. Alexander is very hospitable and generous and of course we had to drink some vodka with him but not too much. His wife is also a very charming woman and we just had such a nice evening.

Today I slept in again because we didn't get home last night until 2am! I hung out with Lena and Sasha came over for a bit. We ate and drank tea and watched Harry Potter and it was very pleasant. Then we headed over to the internship. The children seemed to be in much better spirits today. Unfortunately it was raining pretty hard and we had to stay inside today. We ended up watching Lilo and Stitch (in Russian of course). Since we were watching the movie it was a little harder to interact with the children although they did want to sit near us on the couch or on our laps. Hopefully it will be nice out tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow, it will be my birthday already! I can't believe it will be August 7 ALREADY. My trip is almost over :-( I will definitly post details about the party tomorrow or Saturday and I'm sure Lena will take pictures :-) She is the best Russian mamochka I could ever have gotten or even wished for. I so sad that I only have 11 more days here! But I am pumped to commemorate this momumental birthday with my Dansville and Brockport friends when I get home! Love and miss you all!

Francesca