a week at home

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It has been one crazy week. I didn’t really have time to stop, collect my thoughts, and write in this journal. Now I have some free time and I finally made it to an Internet café. So, here is a recap of what I have done. The trip started off really well - Masha met me at the airport in Atlanta and I left US with really good and happy feelings (she somehow does that to me). In Moscow, my friends met me at the airport and took me to their house in Klin (a city outside of Moscow), where I was served a traditional Russian dinner. The next day we spent walking around Moscow - Poklonnaya Mountain (a memorial to WW2), Kremlin, Red Square, Cathedral of Christ the Savior and some monastery. I will write in more detail later and I will upload some pictures, hopefully in the near future. I have been in Ulyanovsk since Sunday, and I have been visiting friends every day and also trying to take care of “business” (getting my passport and stuff like that). I got my taste of Russian bureaucracy and am quite fed up with the lines. The city has changed, but I can’t quite decide if for better or worse. More stores, cafes, restaurants, streets a bit cleaner. I guess that’s better. Seeing my friends again has been the best part. Olya was so happy to see me that my happiness to see her seemed like nothing. Tomorrow my grandma and I are leaving for Samara, where I will be attending my cousin’s wedding. And then we will spend two days in my village, Eshtebenkino, where I will see all my distant relatives, which sounds pretty amazing. That’s all for now, I will either write from Samara or when I get back next week.

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