last one didn't have a title?

Well it's sunday, we went to chruch. It was a calvary chapel service in english.
It was nice, but I think I'll enjoy going to an eastern orthodox chruch here. I planned
on switiching off eastern orthodox and calvary chapel, but they want us to stay with
a chruch. I don't know if I'll fight the power and do as I want religiously, or play
along. It's hard for one to put rules on how I observe The Faith. It remains to be
seen. I enjoyed today, I had a good time with everyone I was with today. Alot of small
tibits of one on one time with people today that I liked. I miss people from back home...
0 connectivity bites. I live here, and here is where I want to be, but I want 30 min at the end of the day to write letters or talk with friends back home. Meals are where we meet Russian students, those have been kinda awkward. I'll feet better when I'm stumbling in broken russian,
instead of making others stumble in broken english. This all is so surreal. I can't speak
in an unknown language here. I still only catch about 5 percent of anything spoken here.
I'm learning about this country and learning about myself. That's all i could ask for,
but I have to remind myself that everyonce in a while.

So we arrived in Nizhney Novgorod late last night. Laura said that this truely feels like
we are in Russia. I agree. In Moscow it felt as if we were American Tourists that are just passing through. Now that we get to Nizhney we are here on campus to acutally study. We actually begin studying next week, but it feels like we have really arrived. We had a banquet, where the Russians welcomed us. We had skits and performances to entertain each other. We did line dancing and some skits and they sang and danced for us. After this we had a Disco running, and we all talked alot. If you haven't seen me dance, know that I like to dance. It's a different side of me than normally comes out. But there was this "dance" where everyone would couple up and hold hands and that made the cealing of a little tunnel that you would run through. Everyone would be holding a hand and one person would go into the tunnel and take the hand of anyone in the line he wanted and travel to the end. The person who was partnerless would go to the beggining of the tunnel and choose someone again, making a continous flow. I liked that alot. Then they just busted out the techno ish stuff and we danced. I also
met alot of cool Russians. Hopefully I'll get to know more. I bet a Russian 50 rubles I would beat him in badmitten. Also I thought it was funny that an aquantince of mine there, said, "I know who is American here, but on the dance floor I don't know the difference." I thought that was deep. Slow danced with a girl for the first time. I danced with Katya, and that was nice, but i was nervous and a little awkward at first. These people are so glad to have us here, and I'm overwhelmed at thier hospitality.

Meetings, Greetings, and some restrictions

So, I ended up meeting with Great Uncle Johnny at a Baptist seminary here. Me and the director looked an a christian academy before we met Uncle Johnny and got to tour that, so I feel like I got a good view into protestant education here in Russia. Very small modest buildings with few (70-20) students. We had a nice chat all three of us and went on our ways. We saw the church of Christ our Savior on Epiphany. That was interesting, I do enjoy these eastern orthodox churches. We also saw a modern art gallery, and Tolstoy's winter house. All interesting things. I also on the day I met uncle Johnny I was told to call my friend who currently resides in Moscow, Alex(I met her as an exchange student in the States). So tonight we met and ate together. I had caviar for the first time with her and her friend Sasha(they are both named Alexandra, Sasha is short for Alexandra). It was a very interesting conversation and Hopefully I will meet with them both again before I leave. They mentioned that they might meet me in St. Petersburg at the end. I head to the university now. The internet there is very low tech. I get 300 meg upload and download per month, so I don't think I'll be video chatting anytime soon. If you really want to get in on the video chat I may have to find some sort of internet cafe, and that might be a little awkward. Either way I don't think I'll have internet for a week or so as we get set up at the university. I am neither excited or nervous about studying. I'm just perplexed at how to function with that little connectivity and confused at the point that they want us to become well involved with the Russians while they try to shelter us severely. As of now I'm jut more confused than anything.

Bolshoy

So over the past couple of days we did some interesting stuff. We went to an art museum. Actually it's a very interesting story behind the museum. There's a religious sect here called "the old believers" Basically they opposed certain church reforms and embraced old Russian ways. Because of this anything of antiquity became of importance and one of these such people collected Russian art and now it's the museum. It was interesting, some very nice paintings. We also went to the Bolshoy theatre to watch swan lake. I would say it was interesting, but ballet is not my cup of tea. BTW tea is a must here. Everyone drinks tea, I'm still trying to like it. But the performers were excellent. People clapped for them in rhythm though. It was a little odd. We went an saw the inside of the Kremlin. Russia has a massive history of Religious affiliation, that I think most people don't really know about, because of the atheism of the soviet era. But we went into like 3 different churches inside the Kremlin. The churches here are amazingly beautiful. Almost everything is in gold leaf, and they have wooden painted "Icons" that are thought to have healing powers. During church everyone stands. There are no chairs. They sing in harmonics with no instruments. They do litanies as well and then do a message. It's very interesting. I liked the service I went to.
Tommorrow I should be meeting with a couple friends that happen to be here, that should prove interesting

the next couple days

So yesterday we went to red square and saw a bunch of stuff from afar. We went to see Lenin in his mausoleum. One of the guards yelled at me to take my hat off. That was interesting. But we spent the rest of the time hearing what all the basic landmarks of red sqaure meant and the history behind each piece. I came back and I found my roommate. Interesting fellow. It seems as if everyone here is more well read than me, and he would be the most well read out of all of us I would say, well most well read that isn't a lit major. Either way spent the rest of the day orienting. Today we went to Pushkin square and saw some scenery that is the start of the novel, Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. Honestly I'm not much for Russian literature, and I suppose I'll be glad i went to these places after I learn all this Russian literature. I tried to be as traditional Russian as I could with my meal. I had borshch, some fish thingy and drank kvas with it. Kvas is an interesting drink, I can see why people dislike it, but I think it's rather good. After that we walked down some massive storefront walkway but I was tired and didn't really go into any stores. I'm having fun, still figure stuff out, and still trying to meet with a few friends here.

First entry

as of right now the only thing to describe Russia is pure chaos
wonderful orchestrated chaos. So I thought with standing in line to get bread
these people would have a great ability and respect for standing in line
Yeah in Russia there are no lines. You stand in what appears to be a line
but you can basically go anywhere in that line with no boundarys
you are in a group close the the beginning of a line, that's about it
No one really gets pissed if you cut them in line, but then they cut you.
getting out of the airport cars were everywhere and there was no organization
to anything, just one police officer that would yell if people got too pissed
or the line got too big. Lots of chicks here with me, no roommate yet, the other dude
didn't get his passport on time, so it was just me and the chickas today
we had a hot german waitress and would laugh at every 5th thing said in german
fun day, except the fact that I was waiting or traveling almost all of it.

still no one knows a lick of Russian and I'm still trying to hold out like
I don't know any. That might change soon. later kids