Kazan Again

Ok, So I've done quite a bit the past week.

Thursday night, six of us left for Kazan on the train. Mike, Shamella and I were going to be visiting Aygul and Ildar, and Natasha, Cody, and Jen wanted to see the city.

Mike, Natasha and I on the train. (there are more pictures in my Picasa webalbum...a lot of them I just copied from friends who came with)

The day before we left though, Aygul went intot he hospital with a really bad sinus infection, and they had to scrape out her sinuses through her nose and ears. (yes, if I had to hear the details you do too!) We went to the hospital every day, and it was essentially just like you would imagaine a Russian hospital to be. We weren't allowed in past the lobby, instead the patients came out and we all just stood there awkwardly mingling. It resembled a prison actually, and everything was falling apart - though I was told this was better than the other hospital she was in last time and it was better once you left the lobby.

Mike, Ildar, Aygul, me, and Dilyara in the hospital lobby.

The rest of the time in Kazan was pretty normal. Saturday was March 8, which was woman's day in Russia. Women's Day is nice because all the girls get flowers, and the guys do all of the work, but it hasn't turned into a cheesy holiday like Valentine's Day in America. Another night, we all went skating at the arena across the street. I was one of the few who actually knew how to skate. We went shopping a couple of times, and then hung out the Meagan (a girl we know from ASU) and her roommate Chris. Shamella and I left for Moscow Tuesday night.

Natasha, Mike, Ildar, Jen, and I at the skating rink.

Wednesday I didn't have any class, and on Thursday we had an excursion to the Energiya plant (which is like Russia's NASA). That was really cool because it meant I had an entire week off from classes! At Energiya, we saw a lot of the original Sputniks, the first Mir spacestation, and a lot of the little pods that the cosmonauts came back down in, including Yuri Gagarin's.

This is a picture of the Russian station docked with the American one.

Friday I went to class, at which point some other people decided they wanted a Saturday class even though our teacher wasn't requiring it. so yes, on Saturday I went to class. Afterwards though, my friend Chase and I went to this market called Izmailovsky Park, where they have a bunch of souvenirs and then outside normal clothes and stuff that you can get for very cheap. Then I met up with Cody and Jen, and we went to a Modern Dance performance in this crazy independent studio in Moscow. It was taken from Japanese spiritualism, and very strange - one lady danced for an entire hours, in super slow motion, and I felt like she was acting out dying/seizures the whole time. It was...interesting.

Today I am going to the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, and then back to class tomorrow.