Current mood:

happy

Duck!
It is HAILING right now. Seriously. It's been clouding up for an hour or so and now it is pouring rain, thundering, and little tidbits of hail are battering the windows. Look out below!

I woke up early this morning to a fantastic thunderstorm, lightning in every direction only a second or two apart and great rumbling bursts of thunder. So far inland I think Vladimir gets the violent weather. I watched it from the sweet little balcony attached to my room, with the gauzy Russian lace curtains brushing up against my ankles in the wind.

Today I went to the ATM to withdraw rubles, lots of them, and then went to the little produkti across the street for black bread, vinagret (a kind of salad with beets, carrots, and potatoes) and kefir. So frickin' happy. Mmm.

Today I saw all the staff again, including the directors and my old Russian teacher. I got kissed a lot. I'm hopefully going to be studying a bit while I'm here. I also met with Olya to discuss my work here for the first time. It's going to be really interesting and useful. Also, it turns out the teachers are still here and will be until the end of June, so I've got plenty of company. Hooray!

My host brother, Yarik, turns out to be a really sweet-tempered leggy fourteen-year-old, and both he and my host mom are quite proficient in English (certainly more so than I am in Russian). The whole family is just wonderful, very chatty and interested in everything. I'll have plenty of time with them this weekend, as we have a holiday tomorrow (the Russian independence day). It's shaping up to be a very good two months.