I moved in with my host family today! Well, technically, I moved in on Sunday and today is Wednesday, but I planned out this post on Sunday so it’s basically the same thing.
The mom and teenage son (Marina and Kirill) picked me up. It was hard to leave the Russians and Sasha One. We went home to their apartment (Russians say ‘flat’ which is very fancy and British) and then had some tea and some sweets. They have halva here, which I guess I just wasn’t expecting. Then we drove to the dacha, which is like a little country house that’s very common. Rather, Marina drove to the dacha, and Russians drive fast. It was kind of like being on a rollercoaster, except that the person operating the rollercoaster is trying to ask about your life in a language you don’t understand, and you keep zoning out looking at the trees, and so you don’t hear the questions you would have understood if you’d been listening. You know, that kind of thing. The dacha is about 45 minutes away, in the village where both their grandmothers live. My host family is currently working on building their house there. Marina’s husband Nikolai and kindergartener Evelina were at the dacha waiting for us. We sat with some of Marina’s friends and played Rummikub and ate sunflower seeds. I couldn’t say anything, so I ate a lot of sunflower seeds. When asked what kind of tea I wanted, I panicked, forgot all my colors, and asked for orange instead of green. We got there eventually, though.
I have a host dog named Lora who lives at the dacha. She is a very good dog.
In the afternoon, Nikolai took me to the river on a four wheeler. It was really fun. We met some friends of his there and took a picture with some old tanks. Then I met his mother, who gave me homemade cottage cheese and the best glass of milk I’ve ever had, possibly the best glass of milk ever had, period. After that, Nikolai’s sister took me on a tour of the church across the road. We went all the way up into the bell tower. I didn’t understand much of what she said, but the church is very, very old.