Pictures--Unassorted

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Ok! Family!!! Here are a bunch of pictures for you to look at. I am currently trying to figure out how to organize them and put captions... it is taking me a while to do because it is a complicated website, and my computer is slow. But here are the general categories:
The old old lady is Hannah Yakovlevna, my hostess. The other lady is Emmilia, whom Hannah met at her synogogue. Emma is from Azerbaijan, and has lived in Russia for the last few years. She crashed the wedding with me and Hannah.
I'm sure you can tell which photos are from the wedding. There is a photo that has some bread in it... it was the most delicious bread I have ever had in my entire life! It was a white bread, served hot, with sesame seeds.... mmm mmm! There is also a photo of some red vegetable salad-looking stuff. That is called "vinagrette." It is made of beets, carrots, potatoes, and some other vegetables and herbs. the beets are what make it red. It's one of my favorite Russian dishes.
I took pictures of the doors and the woodwork inside the synagogue for Dad to look at. If he could have seem them in person, he would have been amazed at the quality of the work. Among these photos you will see one of a tiny scroll fixed on the wall. This scroll contains a part of the Jewish Law, and these scrolls are all over the synogogue, always fixed outside the entrance to a room. The tradition is to kiss your fingers and touch the scroll with your "kiss". It is how they remember to honor the Jewish Law.
The photo of the silver "Jerusalem" is a picture that Hannah and Emma wanted me to take especially for Dad. I had told them how he wanted to visit Jerusalem, and since they both are of Jewish heritage, they were very excited to hear that.
You will see that I tried to take a panorama picture of a river... my first week back in classes after being sick, this is where I went with my 2 classmates to do some homework. The river is the Moscow River. It is filthy, but people still swim in it... You'll see some other pics and maybe a video recording of the same River but at different time and a different part of the shore. It's a nice place to sit in the sun and enjoy the presence of trees and forestry on the west bank (behind me when i took the pics).
Week before last, we went to the world renowned Tretyakovskaya Gallerie. We were not allowed to take photos inside, so I snapped some quick random ones--which i think turned out kinda blurry--just before entering and having to hide my camera!

This past week's excursion was to the State Museum of Art named for Alexander Pushkin. Absolutely HUGE museum... I am sorry to say that I have exhausted the museum-friendly side of my personality...
Here, we were allowed to take pictures (no flash allowed) in certain rooms. Some rooms--photography was completely forbidden. And video recording was allowed no where... but "accidently" hit the RECORD button a couple times... Oops...
There are some photos of a most delicious breakfast which i often enjoy at Hannah's. It is composed of Nestle Instant coffee, toasted chala bread, and apricot "varenya" (basically, a very sweet jam). Delicious!

There is a random picture of me laying down in my room... exhausted after a long day of class. And very pale too, since most of our time is spent in class rooms, inside studying, or commuting on the metro... Also, the weather has often been overcast... All this contributes to our constant overcast moods.

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