No, there weren't subtitles, thank you very much.
I dreamed in Russian the other night, something that hasn't happened to me in a long time. In the dream I was shouting for my host family to come see the snow falling in the middle of the summer. I guess it was inspired by all the hail we've been having. It was reassuring to have a sign that I have integrated the language to some extent, because my skills were thoroughly put to shame yesterday afternoon. We had a group on students from a local high school come to visit the "real American house", a pretty common event. One of the current teachers, Alex, and I were asked to be the token Americans for the kids to practice on. The kids (and for that matter, the teacher) ended up talking to us the whole time in Russian, and I had to be rescued several times by either Alex or Olya. The teenagers talk so fast!

I do feel for the local English teachers - many of them haven't really studied English (this one, for example, apparently spoke excellent French) but have been basically conscripted into teaching English by the increasing demand for it. Even among the ones who have studied English, very few could afford to actually travel to places where it's spoken. I think they do the best they can with limited resources and under strict guidelines from the government. But still, I felt like a real idiot gabbling out my awkward sentences in front of them.

Yesterday evening I reunited with my second host mom, Dr. Ira, who is really more like my host big sister, as she's in her mid-thirties. We had a wonderful evening catching up and looking at pictures and gossiping in our special brand of Russlish.

Today is Russki obyed - Russian lunch made for us by the staff. They are all a-bustle in the kitchen and wonderful smells are drifting up the stairs.