Angleeskii??

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!Today we went to the Hermitage museum. it was beautiful with fantastic rooms and art- but got boring very quickly. i spent almost 2 hours in the кафе (cafe) drinking capuccinos and coka-cola with cheesecake (nothing like american cheesecake). it is very difficult to communicate because i am too shy with my russian and they are all too shy with their english. its kind of funny. unfortunately, unlike most of the american tourists, i am also too shy to point at what i want. i only order what i can pronounce in russian and then deal with whatever i ended up ordering. we went to the Savior on the Spilled Blood Cathedral- absolutely stunning! the whole interior is mosaic tiled with pictures of Jesus and scenes from the Bible. the most amazing part was looking at the pics of what it looked like after the war and after the restoration that only finnished in 1994! I then got a very interesting 'russian experience' by going to the Cinema (while my dad went book shopping) and watched "Ледниковом периоде-2" or, as we refer to it in english, "Ice Age 2" in russian with NO SUBTITLES!!! yet i laughed thru the whole thing and at least think i could understand most of the idea of what was going on. Tanya was next to me and occasionally told me what they were arguing about. at least i could read the lips of the tiger! very exciting for me. we had dinner at Макдоналдс- if u dont know how to sound that out, its McDonalds. it was fun- at least they spoke pretty good english. tonight we are going on a train to Moscow. i dont know what it is going to be like there. i am hopefully prepared for anything. LOVE U ALL!!

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