An update

some friends along the beach.


This is my friend Amanda and Me.


there were all these ruins at the beach. I'm not totally sure what they were, but my guess is that they had something to do with the Soviet Union... most things do. I tried to dance inside this sunken, circular, cement structure. It's harder to dance in sand than on a lot of other surfaces... Sherry Lee would be very disappointed in me. (She was my ballet instructor last semester.)




Last night, friday, was our last day of classes. What a week! I love my classes. So, to celebrate the end of the week, we went to the sea to watch the sunset. There were lots of clouds, but the kind that just make it more beautiful instead of hiding the sun completely.

The other day I went to the store by myself for the first time! Iki (which is the equivalent of "see you later" -- which i think is like the best choice for the name of a store!) is about a block away -- right past all the identical, tall, brick soviet-built buildings. For some reason, it felt like a really big deal to go by myself. I guess that just means I'm still not totally at home yet! Which makes sense. But, of course, everything went just fine!

I can't remember if I said this before, but everybody walks all the time. Very few people actually have cars. At the beginning, all of the Americans' (including mine, embarassingly) legs were SO sore. It seemed like we were walking such long distances. But really it's fantastic.

People will walk to the store about every three days or so to get food for the next few days, then they will come back for the next few days, etc. No one really buys food with preservatives in it. They have it, but everyone is grossed out by it. I accidently got milk with preservatives -- it was my first time getting milk, and of course, no one was around me, and i can't read the labels! -- and I offered some to my roommate, and she didn't want any. Then she went over to the other part of our dorm to ask if she could have some of my other roommate's milk. Then when we were sitting together eating, I had the milk out and she pointed out the expiration date. So I learned that if I want to share, I should make healthy food choices. (Or vice versa... )