Good Morning!

Though as I post this... it is early morning for y'all since I'm eight hours ahead of you. Or more if you're on the west coast!!!

Any way... it seems to finally be settling in that I'm in Russia! A very exciting thought. Yesterday I was up for 24 hours straight, and it was taking a bit to really settle in. It has been nice here so far. We have nice dorm rooms and the beds aren't bad. I wouldn't want to keep the pillow forever thought. Not all that comfortable. But when you are as tired as I was yesterday, you don't really care what your pillow feels like!

We got her yesterday about 4:300, got unpacked a bit (my luggage made it fine! and so did all my tags!!!), took a short rest before dinner, had dinner. Dinner was interesting. We started off with some kind of soup, then stragonoff and noddles (strange noodles) and dessert. Meal time here is going to be interesting. But I got enough food to make me happy. :-)

After dinner we had an on site orientation, and then several of us went to the grocery store across the street. This meant pulling out some money, which I did. All in rubles! The grocery store is small, but it has all the neccesities. It was different though with all the Russians and the Russian food. I got some juice, bottled water, dry cereal, and some toliet paper. It was going fine until the lady wanted exact change for 222 rubles and all I had was a 500 ruble bill. She was not happy, let me tell you. Whew! Wouldn't want to get on her bad side... oh wait, already did...

Any way, I made it out alive and have some smaller bills now which will be nice. And hopefully won't make the Russian people angry at me. :-) I think I will always make sure from now on to have some one who speaks fluent Russian with me!

After the store, we figured out who was going to take showers when and I went to bed. It was 9:30 and there was no way I was staying up any later. I went to sleep pretty quickly and only woke up a couple of times and went right back out after that. It is a little weird with it being daylight so much, it was still very light out that late, but I think I'll get used to it. And like I said, I was pretty tired.

This morning I got up at 8, could have slept longer, showered and went down to breakfast. At breakfast we had hot cereal, a type of corn flakes, bread, eggs and yogurt. I had everything but the eggs. The hot cereal was okay. I think I'll stick with the cold and the yogurt

In about half an hour we have our first Russian language and culture class, then we are going on a three hour bus tour of the city. I haven't seen the city yet, so I can't wait for that. Then once we are there, will come back on the METRO and learn how to use that. Exciting!!

I've taken a few pictures so far, and should be able to put them on the computer, but I'd rather take some more before dumping them here.