We are now going on our fourth day of school. My teachers are doing excellent! I think they are starting to get the hang of lesson planning. I sometimes feel inferior because I don't know how much I am really helping them. All I want to do is help them be the best they can be, but unfortunately, I sometimes feel like I didn't receive the training that I need to do so. We have sort of all been learning together what works and what doesn't. They have all been very patient with me as I try to figure things out. They are just wonderful! I have been working with Dima to try and figure out solutions as well, and he is just an angel. Dima is our savior here. Not only is he our translator, but he also runs the school, helps when we have problems, makes sure we are comfortable, and buys pizza for us to celebrate! After our first day of teaching, he bought pizza at Pizza Express and brought it back to the apartment and we all chowed down. He bought a carbonated drink that was Terragon flavored and had me try some. It tasted like black licorice :( He said he would drink it in his childhood when we grew up in Russia. We had pizza the next night as well for Katie's birthday. We walked down to Charlie Pizza to celebrate. We all ordered 30 centimeter pizzas (we were Hungry) and for some unknown reason, we all ended up getting 20 centimeter pizzas, except for Madison! Hers seemed to be the only one that was correct, but even still, on the bill they charged her for a 20 centimeter pizza. It was just all so strange. We were very clear that we wanted 30! Good thing we had some cake after, which filled me up :) Annie and Madison bought the cake at Maxima, and we weren't sure what it was made of. It was light brown so we figured it was probably caramel, and then there were round things on top. A couple guesses were cocoa puffs or malted milk balls. Well, they ended up being candy coated hazelnuts. They are AH-mazing! The cake was super rich so I couldn't finish my piece. Saffron ended up taking the remaining cake home. She took a photo of the description with her google translate app and it literally translated to "Caramel Cake with Hazelnuts in public." Hahahah! At first I was so confused why it would say that! But then it does make sense, really. The hazelnuts are on the outside of the cake, so it's like they are in "public?" Gave me a laugh :)
Yesterday we went to the Hyper Maxima in the Akropolis mall. It is just like a Wal-Mart. You can find all the necessities here. I purchased some dish and hand soap, and an iron. All of our clothes are dried by hanging racks here. And I despise wrinkles. It was a very inexpensive iron (11 euros) so hopefully it does a decent job. Annie bought some hand towels for the kitchen because all of the hand towels here are just wretched. At some point, I'd like to also buy some new dishes for the apartment. And definitely a warm soft blanket.
We had our first Russian lesson today. We were taught by a woman named Julia and she is a legitimate teacher. It was a different experience than Dima teaching us. She taught us a lot of words and pronunciation, but not the alphabet yet. Hopefully we can learn the alphabet next time. I know it mostly, but I would like a review.
We also purchased our tickets and hostel for Tallinn, Estonia next weekend :) I'm so excited to go back there! Tallinn was one of my favourite travel spots.
Tomorrow we are meeting with Greta and Edgar for Sushi (hmmmm...maybe I'll eat beforehand.) and then Saturday we are going to Trakai (The castle with the lake) for the Medieval festival, and then Saturday night in Vilnius is the Nike women's 5k and some kind of festival. So it should be an awesome weekend :)
Relaxing at the lake.
My new hat from H&M!!!
Me, Annie, Saffron, McCall, Madi (back), Katie & Rebecca
Katie's birthday dinner at Charlie Pizza.
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