tongue!

salty snacks from the sea!

mega-ginormic store


me and the mega mall

the mall

As you can see from my last post, I finally got my modem to work – hooray! I had to go back to the store again and sit for about an hour while Alexei, aka my hero, tinkered around with my computer until he got it to work. Meanwhile, he got out his MP3 player and had me try to transcribe an English techno song for him, without much success by me, I might add. He spoke English pretty well though and wants me to help him learn better English when I come in.


After I came home, I went with Nadya, Nazim, and Alina to a huge mall (Mega) – it had an IKEA, an H&M, a bunch of typical mall stores, a food court, and a giant Sam’s Club/Wal-mart/grocery store-like store! I bought a couple of basic shirts for layering and a little mirror for my purse. And at the grocery store we bought sooooo much food! We all got ice cream after shopping there and then proceeded to stop at yet another giant grocery store to get more food! I had a really good time though just looking at all the different foods and things that they sell there – I took a picture of the section for tongues J and I was so excited to see the dried raw fish snacks that they bought me some dried calamari. Num num num…


Today I went to church by myself at a Roman Catholic church (I think St. Catherine’s?) on Nevskii. The mass was in Russian, but the priest spoke slowly and clearly so I felt like I understood the vast majority of what he was saying. And the singing and the acoustics of the church were so beautiful that I thought I was going to cry! I definitely think I will add that to my weekly routine.


When I got back, Nadya had lunch ready for me – mashed potatoes, carrots, bread, and best of all – chicken heart! I was eating it and she was like, “So do you like the meat?” And I was like, “Yeah, tasty!” and she smiled that smile of hers and was like, “It’s heart of a chicken!” I was like, “Oh wow!” But honestly, it was pretty good, kind of the same texture as mushrooms. During lunch we talked about the Olympics. Nadya said that America always does well in running because we have a lot of black people. And she thinks that Michael Phelps takes steroids. Lol. Oh, Russia. I also found out that Nazim is from Azerbaijan and got to hear him speak a little bit of Azerbaijani, which I enjoyed. Apparently they visit his family there – it’s about a 3 and half hour plane ride away.


Today I don’t really have any major plans, so I guess I’m going to try and catch up on grant apps and my essay on our excursion for this week. My tutor texted me on Friday saying that she wanted to get together after 5 on Saturday, but then she never called, so I don’t really know what’s going on with that. She should be working at Dacha at 10 tonight though, so we will see what happens there.