Back in the States

I apologize for not blogging the last few days of my trip. I did a lot those last few days. Went to the Cosmonaut Museum, the circus, Dostoevsky's house, Bulgakov's house, watched the sunrise on the St. Basil's, ended up being pushed around in a shopping cart on the 6th floor of the dorms, visited a Cold War bunker, then one of Catherine the Great's palaces and then hung out with my Russian friends before I left. I will upload some pictures soon. 

Pics

 Vodka museum

 Buzz and Kitty at the Red Square

 This was breakfast one morning

 My roommate and I

Rollerblading on my Birthday

My roommate's last day

Well Monday was my roomy's last day. She was in girl scouts and apparently got a hold of the Russian Scouting office here and we tried to go meet up with one of the guys from the office. But when we made it there the phone number we had didn't work so we didn't get to meet up with the guy. I then got to finally pick up some of Gogol's short stories and Dostoevsky's "Brothers Karamazov". Lets just say my bag is now half way packed with books. I am not sure if my clothes will all fit. Thankfully I brought an empty bag with me. Well when I got back my roommate finished packing and then she played the Russian birthday song and American birthday song on a Russian instrument that she bought. It was so cool ! We then watched the cheburashka showes.  I am kind of missing my roommate. We were very similar. She is a history major with a minor in Russian. I am a Russian major with a history minor.
Anyways I need to get some sleep. I will write tomorrow about what we did for my birthday! It was so much Fun!!!!

Weekend of week 4

The last few days have been really busy and by the time I get home I am exhausted, so I haven't been writing as much lately.
This past weekend:
Saturday I went to the Izmailov souvenir fair. I am apparently a good bargainer. One of my friends requested that I bring him home one of the Russian fur hats. Well I of course wanted to get him the real fur one. When I went to look at a black fox fur hat the guy asked for 5000 roubles about $160ish. I told him I could pay about a 1000 and ended up only paying 1500 roubles about $45. I thought I did pretty good. I then proceeded to buy everything cheburashka. :D We then went to the Vodka history museum and bought some Vodka...yes Russia has a museum dedicated to vodka. That evening we attempted to go out. But when I went to go get my friend she passed out asleep. So I hung out with my roommate and my insomnia got the better of me. I can't get myself to fall asleep or sleep well when I do go to sleep.
Sunday my roommate and I went to the State History Museum. That place was so cool!! The crowns from the 12th century. The amazing and really shiny swords. The intricate military uniforms. The old school carriages! It was all so amazing! It was even more fun trying to guess what some things were. Thankfully my roommate and I had enough history and Russian knowledge to figure out most things. 

Christ the Savior church in the eyes of a Russian

Last weekend when I hung out with my Russian friends they took us by the largest active church in Moscow. During the soviet era Stalin had this church destroyed and turned into a pool. It wasn't rebuilt until about 1995. My friend doesn't like the church, because to him it is fake. Also, He doesn't like that the government put a large amount of money into rebuilding the church instead of helping the people in a time when everyone was starving and in great need. It is also a truly ancient church like St. Basil's, because it is only recently built.Thus, doesn't have as much historical value.

Army vs. Air Force

About 2 weeks ago we got a new student in the program. She is prior Army enlisted. She played French horn in the Army band. Despite the rival between our branches we get a long great. I love hearing some of her stories and we swap training stories. It makes me even more anxious about going active. I can't wait!