Aggressive Napping

So since I’m about to move my life across the country, I’ve taken to fixating on dumb things like the phrase “aggressive napping.” Someone used this phrase in a commercial and I’ve decided that phrases like this are horrible marketing strategies because I have no idea what the commercial was advertising since all I could do was fixate on just what the meaning of “aggressive napping” is. Is the nap itself aggressive? Like will I be driving to Chipotle and out of nowhere I’ll be accosted by a particularly aggressive nap? Or will I nap aggressiveLY, much like a superhero ripping off my clothes to reveal my footy pajamas as I scream “THIS NAP IS ABOUT TO BECOME MY BITCH!!!”

This wasn’t a real post, but thank you for still being friends with me, blogger.

At this rate all I’ll have with me in Boston will be underwear and a particularly fuzzy Navajo blanket. I blame the aggressive naps.

Mr. Dragon and the Slow-Down Bumps

OK breaking news, team. So I started writing this blog two days ago to put of writing the anxiety-provoking final Russia blog but today I FREAKING WENT TO HAPPY HOLLOW AGAIN. So please, while you read this and are judging me for my frequent zoo visits, please be sure to add one more to every number of zoo visits I speak about hereafter. I swear I have friends that aren’t animals... no I don’t...

Apparently I love zoo’s. I didn’t know this about myself but I figure once you have gone to two zoo’s on two separate continents in one week that’s got to be some kind of intense dedication and undying love whether or not you realize it. (If you don’t know when the first zoo was, read the previous blog post)

The week I got back from Russia was a devastating mess of emotional distress, so when my friend Harriet offered us free tickets to a fund raiser at Happy Hollow filled with unlimited free beverages and food I bounced on it like an alcoholic moose (this isn’t a reference to me needing a beverage. Moose alcoholism is a real problem. Like to the point where they’ve killed people. Apparently they get addicted to things easily. We learned about it at the moose farm in Kostroma. Stop judging me. I hate you).

The details of the event were vague. I was getting information to go in a little black dress from one person and to dress casual from another. It didn’t help that Russia completely screwed up my perception of what is and is not dressy. I only brought work clothes with me so I pretty much always looked like I was homeless. However, the rest of Russia dressed like they were going out all the time. This made me think wearing wedges every day was totally normal and that it wasn’t weird to wear a dress to go work at an orphanage... but not really, I’ll never think that’s normal. After a few unsettling attempts at dressing myself and looking like a confused clown prostitute, I settled on a happy in between of dressy and casual. This information would not be included if dressing myself wasn’t such a genuine difficulty.

To make it worse, Happy Hollow itself is kind of a confusing land. It’s not quite an amusement park and it’s not quite a zoo. It got significantly less strange since I was little, but that by no means should lead you to believe it’s normal. There are a bunch of rides designed for children under about 6 that will literally crumble under the weight of an adult, a tiny zoo filled with exotic animals (you know, like a capybara and a leopard and what seems like the largest lemur collection in the United States), another petting zoo filled with goats the size of myself and some weird humpy African cows, playgrounds, and a crooked house (that’s closure made the city of San Jose one pitchfork and angry citizen short of the raid scene from Beauty and the Beast). There are also a lot of strange... uuuhh... attractions? Really I have no idea what to call these things. They’re things like an assortment of metal balls on sticks or giant wind chimes that don’t move in the wind and have nothing for the kids to bang on them with. And to top it all off, the mascot is Danny the Dragon which leaves it in a thematic gray area of being a magical fantasy land filled with nondescript Disney characters and fairy tales and being a zoo filled with actual animals. I think a good pants pigeon exhibit is just what they need to tie these two themes together nicely. Just the right amount of whimsey. 

Even they're not sure what to do with these things

ANYWAYS you can see why all of this made it very difficult for me to understand just what the attire and theme of this event would be. Turns out the theme was “What am I doing with my life and how did I get to the zoo.” The attire was “it could be a costume party?! Or maybe a club! WHO KNOWS!!!” There were about 7 different open bars and a similar amount of delicious foods from around the world scattered throughout the park as well as some very Happy Hollow-appropriate confusing NEW attractions. These included things like life-size operation turned into a drinking game, a ghost ship shadow puppet show, bathtub racing, and a jungle gym turned dance club. Danny the Dragon was meandering the park in a top hat and bow tie to greet his patrons and periodically taking dance breaks in front of the jungle gym. 

Me driving a bathtub

 
As the night wore on, the situation became more and more ridiculous. People (I) kept tripping on what Harriet aptly named the “slow down bumps for all the drunk people who walk too fast” that were in reality cord covers on the sidewalk. Side note: they really need to put those on sidewalks outside of bars because THOSE are the best sobriety test you could ever invest in. The jungle gym area became a rave for the middle-aged that made me infinitely grateful that I am still in my 20’s and infinitely confused as to why I was raving with a mid-life crisis convention. But I climbed up that rope net and I took that mandatory sake bomb on the way to the twirly slides and LET ME TELL YOU once you’ve chased a mandatory sake bomb handed to you by a dragon with a giant twirly tunnel slide you no longer have the mental capacity to do anything except not throw up so the self-judgment kind of ends there. Then you realize that rubber jungle-gym floors are excellent for dancing and you spend the rest of the night trying to convince your friends to table dance on big plastic rocks and watching ultimate midlife crisis woman cage dance on the playground tower like so:

Then you go on a childrens roller-coaster, eat a crepe from a truck, go home, and try to block out any questionable life-choices you made. But don’t worry, because when you take the kid you’re nannying to that same zoo three days later it will all come rushing back to you.

And that’s how you go to the zoo three times in a week and a half.

This will never be the same...

Pokey Pokey, Mama R

Saturday we decided to live in complete denial that we were leaving the next day (besides the fact that we did everything but chain Sveta to our bodies to make sure she would hang out with us for our last day). We wanted to stay local for our last day, so we got up early, ate our last kasha, and headed down to the embankment to take a water taxi down the Volga to the women’s monastery. Walking there I realized how comfortable I’d become in Yaroslavl. It was really bittersweet and made me that much more dedicated to try and get back there one day.

The ride down the Volga was beautiful and freezing (by freezing I mean slightly uncomfortably cold. I’m sure we looked pathetic to the Russians). Going to the monastery was definitely the best choice we could have made for the day. It was by far the most beautiful place we had been. Those women knew how to do a monastery right. The entry way was covered in frescoes and flowers. The church was floor to ceiling gold icons and there were so many roses inside that it didn’t have that musty old church smell. Never before have I walked into a building like that and been blown away by the beautiful smell before I was blown away by the amount of gold inside. There were also tiny shards of ancient humans in little circles inside icons... so that was weird... but the beauty totally made it okay.

We went and saw one of the ancient icons that the monastery was dedicated to. We walked around the rest of the grounds for a while, drank some questionable holy water that made my insides burn for a week, and ended at the tiny cafe. Let me give you a piece of advice: When you go to the monastery, BUY A RIDICULOUS COOKIE. These nuns have a damn hilarious sense of humor. The my cookie was in the shape of a cartoon fish and was frosted incredibly well. We didn’t eat them for another day because we got piroshkis, but they tasted like gingerbread heaven covered in delicious frosting filled with caramel jam.

After the feeding, we found the bathrooms that traumatized Mary Elizabeth. They were probably the nicest public restrooms I saw the entire time I was in Russia. She had no idea how good she had it. We walked down to the river while telling Mary Elizabeth what a REAL bathroom fiasco was and sat down while our child, Becky, frolicked in the Volga... yet another questionable body of water. At least she didn’t drink it. Sveta demonstrated just why we make her come with us everywhere we go when she whipped out the surprisingly small bag she had been carrying around with her all day. She pulled out a bag of about 7 apples and nectarines, a bag of carrots, nuts, and a knife to shank our enemies (or, you know, cut the apples but believe me it looked MUCH more like something you would shank someone with than something you would pack to cut fruit). There was also a blanket to sit on, a water bottle, papers, and all the rest of her belongings in there. I’m pretty sure she just opens it up and climbs in at night. She probably has a bed in there somewhere.

Since a monastery is never enough, we figured we’d spice up the day with a trip to the zoo. We meandered past the dachas and along the road to the bus stop. It reminded me of being little in Belgium but without all the badminton, elderly people or vicious geese chasing me.

The Yaroslavl zoo is exactly what one would expect the Yaroslavl zoo to be. It was built for the town’s 1,000th birthday and was filled with what looked like whatever animals they could get their hands on. This included: one singular zebra, cheetahs, all of Santa’s reindeer, something called “wild arctic ass,” a herd of mountain goats, cows, bears and a pack of wolves housed in one large exhibit, and the largest smattering of birds I think I’ve ever seen. The birds alone consisted of your standard zoo birds like flamingos, various kinds of ducks, owls, the usual. And then there were the chickens and pigeons. There was an entire line of cages housing different types of chickens: ones with pompoms on their heads, ones with fluffy feet, ones covered in hair, giant chickens, tiny chickens, regular chickens, ones with long feathers, roosters. The pigeons were the same story except they were all housed in the same cage. My personal favorite was pants pigeon aka a pigeon who appeared to be wearing pants. When I come back to take back baby Sveta, I will also be making a stop at the Yaroslavl zoo to obtain my pants pigeon. The three of us will live a life of joy and comedy.

The rest of our time in Russia was filled with tears and goodbyes and the terror that Becky would be abducted and sold on her day alone in Moscow while the rest of us flew home.

Flying home, I realized CCS Russia was filled with a whole new kind of magic and the most special people I’ve ever met. It opened my eyes to new, beautiful things. I left my heart with pants pigeon and baby Sveta and I hope one day we all can be reunited and laugh over some delicious food cooked by Lena and a condescending yet well deserved judging stare from Galina. But for now, it’s time to move to Boston and let the sitcom that is my life start a new season. Stay tuned, loyal reader(s?). 

Here's Pants Pigeon because I couldn't take pictures of baby Sveta

 

The Day of a Thousand Tears

Friday was the saddest day of my life. I can’t even blog about it without bursting into tears. We left babies. I have a heart of stone and it actually transformed me. I can now make myself cry by just thinking about walking down the stairs and out of the room for the last time. I can’t even write something funny about it because it was just too painful. I left my heart at that orphanage.

HOWEVER the rest of the day was another story. Before going to babies, we gave Vovchik the best gift one could get: a crynapple. What is a crynapple, you ask? It is obviously a crying pineapple. Obviously. Vovchik always wore a shirt covered in pineapples which gave us the impression that he must be obsessed with them (not that he’s just wearing the same shirt all the time like the rest of the Russian population). So, we bought a pineapple and covered it in pompoms, beads, a layer of glitter, and googly eyes. His genuine excitement and awe at the crynapple was a true testament to how much Vovchik loved us. Or that he needed a good psychiatrist. He strapped it into the passenger seat and when Natalya arrived, made her climb OVER the crynapple that she looked at in horror and into the middle seat. 

Vovchik strapping in his crynapple for safe travels

On the way back from babies Vovchik stupidly agreed to subject himself to spending more time with the weeping Americans by taking us to the Locomotive’s store where we bought scarves to dry our tears. When we got home we sulked around and ate a weepy last lunch with Lena where she fed us all of our favorite things because she hates us and wanted us to never stop crying.

Then was feedback. Feedback is probably something you know nothing about because it’s the biggest waste of our time of every week and mostly only served to shorten our time at babies on Fridays. Except the week you leave. Then feedback is where Nataliya asks you questions that rip your heart into little pieces and then you cry the ugly cry (you know the one. Shaking. Moaning. The inability to breathe. All the mucus. The one that makes all the boys like you). We wept so much that the translators couldn’t even look at us. Natasha was crying the ugly cry right along with us... which I have to admit was kind of a shocker. Then, naturally, we decided it was the PERFECT time to take pictures with everyone because we all looked fabulous.

The night ended with one final game of slapjack with Victor. He only cheated a handful of times, too! It was a small miracle. Even with our referees. Then we went across the street to the basement to say goodbye to our favorite place and have a drink before Galina locked the doors with her bigass skeleton key.  

Thank god my computer’s covered from water damage. That blog was rough. Sorry for the lack of details. ONE RUSSIA BLOG TO GO!!!! You’re doing so well, team.

It's Raining... Maple Leaves?

Thursday may quite possibly have been the best day I had in Russia.

We started out with another double babies day. To make this even better, Natalya (another one of the translators) ensured that we were with our respective groups all week so we got to be with group 6 again. The last double babies day, Becky had only come for half so she had yet to experience the full intensity of a double babies day. What made it even more... fun... was that the kids had been getting a rash from the cushions they put down in the little play house (I’m so surprised... the babies throw up all over them and they look like an orange and brown grandma couch so you can’t tell and they’re almost never cleaned) so we were only allowed to play in the big one. This is especially difficult because when they’re in the big one, they’re technically not allowed to sit/crawl on the floor so they’re confined to a little elevated play pen or our arms and once they figure out that our arms are even an option they would rather be in a pit of porcupines than that play pen. At least we figured out that we could put Masha in the baby walker, Vanya in a stroller (since he’s 2 months old and perpetually upset), and that leaves one of us with Rita and one with Sveta. Even by the end of that, our arms were exhausted... and then we had to go get the big kids.

If I thought it was rough with the few bigger kids I had the other day I had no idea what I was about to be hit with on Thursday. We were given four kids: Katya, who is content anywhere (read: playing peek-a-boo under a blanket) until suddenly she’s not, Anya, who is tiny and quiet, Micha, who is twice the size of any other kid and only wants to be cuddled, and Varya, who is almost as big as Micha and is perpetually maniacally laughing and then bursting into tears. It was like wrangling a tiny petting zoo filled with animals that want to eat each other. I’ve never seen someone look as tired as Becky looked. At one point I was dancing in front of a pen of children, going through and fluffing each chin as they hysterically laughed at me. It was probably the highlight of my life. Then I looked over at Becky who looked like the living dead and it was as though they could smell her weakness. They became as obnoxious as possible and whoever I wasn’t giving my full attention to would throw a fit. Thank goodness we had to give them back and got Sveta and Masha back to walk around with and play with. It was my own little slice of heaven.

That night, Victor decided that he wanted to take us to the Russia vs. Canada hockey game at the Locomotive’s stadium either because he wanted to make himself crazy or because he was blissfully unaware of what exactly taking a group of Americans (more specifically, a group of Lily’s) would entail. Because he is Victor, we got to park in what I can only imagine is an illegal parking zone and walk right up to the entrance. He distributed the tickets (at which point he should have realized what he had gotten himself into because we were already missing Greg and we had only walked from the car to the entrance). The second we got it it was like we were a bunch of monkeys with ADHD. Before Victor could attempt to yell at half of us the other half were all gone and in 14 different locations. I’ve never seen someone turn so red so fast. I thought he was going to blow up the stadium. I didn’t blame him.

We finally got to our seats which were AMAZING and pumped ourselves up while Victor left us to have a smoke and calm down. The game started with the Canadian and Russian national anthems, a tiny snow princess, and more English than I had heard spoken outside the home base in the entire 2 months I had been there. The first period was slow but within the first 3 minutes of the second Canada scored twice. Now, I haven’t been to a lot of sporting events (read: 1) but I’m pretty sure that it was not just the fact that I was new that made these goals so awesome. The one and a half Canadian flags were raised up for about 0.5 seconds, the Russians started their cheer of “WE ARE HELPING” and the stadium started raining maple leaves. Then the cheerleaders (yes, cheerleaders at a hockey game in neon costumes) would start up one of their cheers. By “cheers” I mean roughly choreographed dances that one of them seemed to be making up as they went but it seemed unclear to all parties involved who exactly that one cheerleader was. In the end, Canada won, the Russians had more energy than I would have ever expected a losing team’s fans to have, and we snuck out of that stadium speaking as little English as was humanly possible. It was fabulous.

The Perfect Lady

The most memorable details of Monday and Tuesday were that we got to stay at Babies extra long those days and by this I mean we actually succeeded in not coming home for lunch. The first day was wonderful because the week before we had been with isolation kids. These kids are fantastic, but they’re no Group 6 and DEFINITELY no baby Sveta so when I ran into Anya and had an extremely enthusiastic miming conversation with her Friday where we both tried to communicate to each other that this crap was NOT going to fly my last week and that she needed to request me and it actually worked, I was overjoyed. Tuesday I had the babies all to myself for the first 4 hours which was both really fun and also made me want to just get them to take a nap with me. Luckily, we were in the small play house. If you’re unfamiliar, there are two play houses for each group: one big one with a huge open wall for kids to escape through even though technically they’re not allowed on the floor and a tiny raised pen that they dislike being in and another one that’s much smaller with only a small door but we can all play on the floor of it where I can engage and wrangle 5 toddlers much more effectively. Also luckily, my group is filled with little shits which I say in the most loving and best possible way. It’s very clear that the nannies in my group all have great senses of humor because these kids (especially the older ones who are all a little over a year) are absolutely ridiculous. I’m really not sure how a baby could develop a dry sense of humor, but that is completely how I would describe each of them. They would do something completely inappropriate and then look at me with wide eyes and a blank expression and then let out a tiny chuckle. Katya was the coy one who would sit with all of herself but one eyeball under a blanket and then stare at you with a sneaky sideways glance until you noticed her and then she would giggle and do it again. Micha was the gentle giant who was at least twice as big as most of the rest of them and would come lumbering towards me with his giant body and tiny but huge man hands and then gently caress my hair. Varya would charge at me and then burst into hysterical laughter. They were fantastic. I wish I could have brought them home and opened the tiniest comedy sports team.

Wednesday, we went on our weekly excursion to a small neighboring village whose name I can’t remember. This is what I get for writing this blog a week and a half later. Either way, apparently this is where Becky had her first excursion, where she baptized herself, and where she decided her and Sveta would become friends. This was kind of going full-circle for her, so she decided to be twice-baptized and do it again. However, despite all the begging we could muster up (and some fake tears from Becky) we couldn’t convince Sveta to come. She had some “office work” to do or some important crap like that. I guess it was legit. So Natasha came.

When we got there, Victor (weirdly like all of the drivers whenever we go anywhere) magically appeared 3 seconds after arrival with an ice cream and showed us all where to get them. Then we went on a tour around the village and saw traditional banyas in little huts, some questionable [holy?] water that of course we decided to drink (Vic was sick for the rest of the week), traditional houses and family-run stores, a giant outdoor baptism pool made out of natural springs (and surrounded by tiny frogs that Victor chased around and caught for us), and finally Becky’s baptism pool. Unfortunately, the governor of Yaroslavl was also there and kind of on the same path around the city as us, so we couldn’t baptize Becky on the first stop so we went to the museum of entrepreneurship. Getting Natasha the Flirty out of the damn museum though to get back to the church was a difficult experience. Eventually we just left her behind to catch up and walked there ourselves.

While we were waiting for Becky to change into her special baptismal mu-mu, Janie was showing us a picture of Becky entering the church she had taken and was talking about the perfect lighting. Natasha apparently misunderstood this and exclaimed, “NO THAT IS NOT THE PERFECT LADY!” Alright, Natasha. But then she went on a rant about how she will only be the “perfect lady” after she is baptized. Pure entertainment.

Becky invited us in to watch herself be baptized in this freezing cold pool. She climbed in and dunked herself 3 times which looked like the most cold, painful experience. Then she climbed out and her baptismal mu-mu was see through. She was wearing a bathing suit, so it wasn’t really an issue, but apparently the first time she was baptized all she had was that. Pictures were taken, videos were made, and somewhere out there Becky has completely nude photos circulating the internet.

Conclusion to this day: Becky can never run for office, but she is now apparently the “perfect lady.”

Nothing Cheers You Up Like a Good Turpsing and Maybe a Cake

Sunday was intended to be our restful day after such a packed week. But apparently we can never rest without the crazy coming out to play.

If you’re familiar with the culture of essentially anywhere other than America, it is extremely rude when someone cooks something for you not to eat it. Or worse, to take it back to them and have them “fix” it. I would kind of equate it to getting a present from someone. It doesn’t matter if that sweater is covered in dancing unicorns wearing Santa hats; when grandma comes to visit you damn well better be wearing it with a smile (actually that sweater sounds pretty awesome). So when Orphan Hat the Rude came down to breakfast Sunday morning and asked us if it would be inappropriate (in a way that said “I don’t care if this is inappropriate but I’ll ask you anyways”) if she took back the eggs Lena made for us to “actually cook them” and then WHILE Lena was cooking something else slopped them into the pan to cook them herself, we were absolutely in shock. It made it even worse that usually we just get kasha for breakfast and anything else is a treat. Then she proceeded to tell other volunteers that Lena would make eggs any way they wanted. AND she did all of this after us telling her it was completely horrifically inappropriate. Lena looked like she was ready to use the ice cream knife (which is literally a murder weapon out of Clue) on her and stopped speaking to us.

So, later that day Becky, Vic, and I thought it would be a good idea to run out to Carousel to get Lena a we’re-sorry-you’re-surrounded-by-dumbasses card. For the record, Hallmark really needs to start marketing those because I’m pretty sure they would at least quintuple their sales. What we did not take into consideration was that it was unbearably humid earlier that day, which in Russia means that it is about to rain the wrath of a thousand weeping volunteers sometime in the immediate future. And of course, that immediate future was exactly when we decided to step out of the home base.

SPECIAL NOTE TO CALIFORNIANS: That H&M “rain jacket” you purchased for its seeming functionality and attractive cut will protect you about as much as covering yourself in a layer of toilet paper. By the time you arrive at your destination you will look dry but let me emphasize as much as I possibly can that you will not be. You will, in fact, be SO WET that every piece of exposed (and as you will later find out, unexposed) clothing will have become about 4 shades darker. There will only be 3 ways in which people will be able to find out you are soaking wet:

1. The neck up. Your face: It will look like you’ve been weeping/melting. It will also look like you’re dying if you, like me, are allergic to salt water ie rain. Your hair: It will look like you’re drunk and forgot to take your clothes off before you got in the shower. And it will also be frizzy. Yes. The simultaneous “wet-frizz.”

2. When someone bumps into you and feels your wet rag of a body. Then they will judge you. But it’s fine because you’re at the Russian CostCo buying a cake so you’re pretty much at a low. They have every right to judge you. I judge you too.

3. The trail you leave. You will be so wet that not only will you leave a series of puddles from excess shoe (sandal, to be specific. Because you’re super prepared) water upon entry, but for the entire 10 minutes you are in the store. That’s right. You’ll be wet to the point that you’ll be dripping the whole time you’re there. And after you leave. And after you get home and deliver the present.

When we arrived back home, we (Vic: the only one of us who can speak and write in Russian) decided the broken Russian between our three tiny brains could muster up enough to actually write in the card. It read something as follows:

    “Dear Lena,
        Sorry - American Idiots. We love when you cook food. Breakfast. Lunch. We love to you.”

So obviously she loved it because who wouldn’t love the work of three seemingly mentally challenged wet puppies? Then she showed us her new “real baby” doll (you know what I’m talking about. TLC did a special on them with crazy ladies who get these dolls that look like real babies and then pretend they are alive).

Later that night we sat around the pastry platter and listen to Basil regale us with stories of his life in New Zealand as a dairy farmer as Becky planned for her future career as a cow herder. The most interesting of these stories were about Basil and the local wildlife aka his neighbors’ dogs. Don’t get me wrong. I am morally against the mistreatment of animals. I think doing anything to harm one is horrible. But I am also morally for all comedy. And these stories were pure comedy. Especially the story of the dog and the turps. Apparently Basil noticed one day that the cream he would leave out would mysteriously go missing in the middle of the night. So, one night he stayed up to try and figure out what was going on. He found his neighbor’s dog drinking the cream in the middle of the night so he grabbed an oiling can of turpentine and squirted it up the dog’s butt and the dog went BOLTING down the hill and never came back.

By far the best part of the story, though was our reaction to it because we couldn’t at all fathom doing this in a way that wasn’t hilarious. Vic began picturing herself on a farm seeing her dog post-turps and thinking to herself, “AN EXCITING NEW GAME?! You turps my dog I TURPS YOU!!!” and then climbin’ in yo windows and turpsing you in the middle of the night in a vicious turps-battle.

In all, it was a good thing Lena wasn’t there and couldn’t speak English well enough to understand what we were talking about because if she were Orphan Hat would have definitely been getting a good turpsing that night.

Poetry in Motion

After half of new Lily went to Petersburg for the weekend we were looking forward to a relaxing weekend trip to Plyos, one of the three smallest towns in Russia right on the Volga where Levitan used to paint his landscapes.

How wrong we were. Natalya decided to announce that we were going during feedback which made all the remaining Lilys decide to tag along. Then she decided we needed a tour guide for our tiny town. She clearly had never traveled with Vovchik and Sveta like we had. They're the only tour guides we ever need. But because of this tour guide situation that forced Sveta to be the translator instead of just tagging along to hang out with her crazy American ducklings.

To mentally prepare ourselves for something so ridiculous, we decided to go to the basement across the street (a bar that's not nearly as sketchy as calling it "the basement" makes it sound) for beverages and a rousing game of boars on a board: the board game, brought to you by Clarence and Vikloti. Friday nights in Yaroslavl.

The next morning we woke up nice and early to pick up Sveta and drive two and a half hours to Plyos. Within the first three seconds of arrival Vovchik had already gotten himself an ice cream bar without any of us noticing that he had gone missing. We couldn't find our guide and meandered aimlessly for a while until he stumbled upon us eating our ice cream and harassing the souvenir vendors.

He was a hilarious human being who looked like he hadn't gone home from the night before and started the tour off by leading us up a small hill and then warning us that this was nothing compared to what we were about to walk up.

The next hill we walked up was second only to the hills we climbed in Africa that were covered in mud that made it essentially like ice skating uphill. This one was covered in cobblestones that had been walked on so much that they had a shine to them with gaps in between that could make the most coordinated person break their ankle, much less a group of American tourists who can barely walk on flat ground without a trip to the ER. Despite having only climbed 50 meters up the hill, we lost one group member and were breathing like we had just climbed Everest.  The view from the top of the hill was incredible and on top there was a little birch tree forest and a beautiful church. I can definitely see why artists would go there. We also had a great view overlooking the dachas (country homes) in all of their cottagey wonder. It was only mildly distracting that the four people who didn't want the tour were the only ones paying attention to it. On the way down the hill we learned about Sveta going to art school which was the perfect way to distract from the horrors of slipping to our death on the cobblestones set at an almost right angle that we were all climbing down in sandals.

Our guide led us to the Levitan museum where we found our straggler and had a very interesting second tour. To make the day even stranger, though, we kept hearing a camera shutter and at first couldn't really figure out where it was coming from. Then all of a sudden we turned around and saw Green Shirt secretly taking photos of TINY CHILDREN. Can someone say "inappropriate!?" Just a few weeks before we were watching Touristas, my new favorite movie, and in the first few minutes one girl is taking pictures of a local child and gets yelled at by the parents. We could not fathom how someone would think that was at all okay but Lily never ceases to amaze us with their inability to function as normal human beings. That was also when we realized that every other time she had stopped suspiciously close to small girls and fallen behind on the tour it was because she was taking pictures of them too! And she continued with this all. Day. Long.

Post-Levitan, we followed Vovchik around like little ducklings to see more sights and by the time we were about to eat each others faces, he and Sveta decided we should go find a restaurant where they could feed their American ducklings.

You would think none of us had ever experienced eating at a restaurant before. People didn't know how to decide on foods they wanted. Grown adults threw fits about the way foods were prepared. Don't even get me started on beverages. One of us fell asleep at the table. Our side of the table was about ready to pounce on the Lilys just to get them to function as capable and decent human beings to our poor Sveta who was forced into ordering what must have been the most jumbled and confusing order that waitress had ever taken. All the same the dumplings I got were absolutely delicious and gave me the necessary blood sugar to avoid murder.

Finally at the end of the day it was down to Becky, Vic, Sveta, and I and we could meander as we had wanted to all day. Obviously we chose to visit the shrine to a deceased cat. It had protected its kitten from a dog unsuccessfully, which in Plyos warrants a statue along the Volga. It was noble and insane all at once.

On the car ride back, Green Shirt took literally 500 more creeper pictures before her beepy camera finally died and she had to put it away.

At least the day ended in us going to a cafe called Etagee that was covered in twinkly lights and repaying Sveta for her being the most patient human being in all the world while learning the phrase, "I shoot to kill" in Russian.

A Lily on Your Houses!

So this week Lily 2.0 came at us with full force after our precious cads left. Originally we were supposed to get 4 new people at babies, but two of them were lost to the gods of travel (legitimately, though we have no idea what happened to them/ if they actually ever existed) so we only had two additions. Getting extra people at babies is always wonderful, despite us being overly-skeptical about whether or not they will damage our precious children, since it lets Vic, Becky, and I help our groups more.

Monday I finally got to go see Hospital for Kids which is essentially an inpatient mental health care facility for children that everyone raves about. Upon arrival I was showered with hugs and kisses from the kids and we dove right into making our craft of maracas. Which the children promptly ate. Things we didn't see coming. Then we did body paint which was basically just Claire paints a million dragons on every child there. Then we played a rousing game of aimlessly throw objects. Balls, sticks, apples, frisbees. It really made no difference as long as we were either aiming for nothing or the other persons face. I've never encountered a more dryly comical group of children.

On the way home I gave Natasha Armando's love note to her and we all got a good laugh as she turned progressively more and more red. That night we went out for Asya's last night and got rained on by sticky tree toxins and walked farther along the embankment than I'd been before. The true highlight was figuring out that calling Vladimir, our driver, Vovchik would instantly make him our new best friend. It worked.

Wednesday we went to Nacrassav's estate with our favorite Natasha as our guide, once again. I don't think I've ever been so hot in all of my life. First of all, we had to put on wool shoes on this 100 degree day. I use the term "shoes" as loosely as possible. These were essentially wool skiis strapped to our feet with a wool athletic sandal top and ballet string to tie them in the back. I felt like I was a penguin in the tropics. Then, because apparently Russia is not at all concerned with law suits, they marched us up stairs so narrow that my feet normally wouldn't fit on. It was similar to watching a herd of baby moose learn to walk. Two hours later, I had stopped paying attention to the talk and was only paying attention to strategically placing myself between strong and squishy people so in the event I passed out from heat stroke I would either land on someone fluffy or there would be someone strong to catch me. Thank god we went down into the coolest basement in all creation. The rest of the day was a blur of heat exhaustion and butt sweat.

Thursday at babies it was only three of us, which meant we had to go with the isolation kids instead of our regular babies. The isolation kids had just gotten there and we're being quarantined before they could be placed into real groups. They were absolutely adorable and on top of just having them we were given babies from another group, one of which looked exactly like a shrunken Spok.

That night we learned that it was the day of the special forces of the military where they would all dress in sailor stripes and round hats and galavant about through town in drunken revelry while jumping in fountains. So essentially Wednesday of finals week at Chapman except they're wearing clothes. Of course, I can't pass up a good undie run or anything involving jumping in fountains so Becky and I decided to meander the city center to see what this day was all about. When we got there literally nothing was happening so we walked along the embankment forever and found some tiny (when I say tiny I mean literally one square foot) beaches and arrived at the fountains. Nothing was really going on there either so we sat down and took a break. All of a sudden, we heard what we thought were boats with parasailers flying by. We were wrong. There were no boats. Only people on parasails with giant fans strapped to their butts. Then right over the fountains one of them dropped their army flag. They kept doing dips and tricks around us so we sat there and tried to figure out what was going on until they left. On our way back we saw the festivities starting and were quite thankful we were leaving when we were because with the terrifying army men also came the terrifying Russian police and the last thing anyone needs is to end up in prison.

A Hazelnut Catastrophe

This was the last week the cads were with us and, whether or not we realized it, we were going to live by a "go big or go home" mentality. Thank goodness my trip was able to be extended by two weeks so I didn't have to go home too, because our time at babies this week was WAY too short. Monday we went back to Zvolshky city camp where we did musical drawing with the kids. They really seemed to enjoy it and by "they" I mean Victor and also a side of children. I've never seen more crazy pictures drawn in musical drawing. After that we played mancala... You know, that game with the holes and the beads you played by yourself when you were a kid because you were an only child who had no friends? No? Just me? Well you played it, give me that at least.

Despite the fact that the mancala set at the home base looks like it was one of the first mancala sets ever created and contains none of the original marbles, none of them seemed to have any idea how to play it. Therefore, I took it on as my personal (and after realizing what I had gotten myself into slightly undesirable) mission to teach all the girls (plus Victor, obviously) how to play. You would have thought I was trying to teach them quantum physics (again by "them" I'm not referring to the children, who picked it up after like 4 seconds from my miming before any actual words could be translated for them, I'm referring to Natasha, Victor, and their teachers). Natasha absolutely refuses to translate anything unless she completely understands it, which I can totally see her reasoning. Someone could be trying to ask, "can I steal that baby" or "are you a spy" in which case it would be weird to translate that at all but I wasn't. I was teaching them DAMN MANCALA. So first, I would demonstrate, at which point every child in the room would essentially understand what I was trying to get at. Then, I would have to explain the thought process and rules and ethics behind why you could or couldn't make a move. Then Victor would be confused about what I explained that was translated (probably in accurately) by Natasha. Then I would have to continue demonstrating for him. Then when the kids would finally weasel through the adults to play the game one of their teachers would get confused and stop them. Not to mention the marbles we were playing with didn't fit in the holes or the children's hands.

Tuesday was Vic's birthday and I had made it my mission to make it as embarrassing and wonderful as any 21st birthday should be. Our cultural learning activity that day was by far one of the best we've ever had: singing lessons. I've never seen our group so enthusiastic about singing with FEEEEELING. It was a truly hilarious experience. Especially since the last song we learned was the birthday cake dance that is literally the most awkward birthday song I've heard in all of my life and probably one of the most humiliating songs Vic has ever had sung to her on her birthday. But the best part of this whole lesson was that Lena was making dinner in the same room and would randomly bust out some crazy dance moves as we sang traditional Russian songs.

That night we started out at Dudki Bar for Vic's birthday celebration. We merged all over town and finally caught the bus home. Yes, that is all from that night that will grace the Internet. No one deserves their 21st birthday posted in a blog. You're welcome.

Thursday was an attempted double babies day. Sadly for us, the second half was rudely cancelled (let me clarify, it wasn't rude to cancel, it was rude to deliver the news in such an uncaring way). Sadly for all of Russia, they had to deal with the wrath of removing us from our babies, a situation none of us saw coming. Galina had to come drag us weeping out of our beds for lunch and then forced us to eat a GINORMOUS lunch despite that we had just eaten our picnic in the car.

Since Thursday was the cads last night, we went out to a hilarious restaurant based on the Ivan Vasilievich movie with all of the translators. While at this restaurant, we dressed up in costumes from the movie... and by “we dressed up” I mean Natasha used her mom voice on us until each one of us conceded and put on at least one item of costumes to have a photo shoot in. I still have no idea why she was so enthusiastic to have us put on these costumes. Perhaps she wanted us to do something as embarrassing as when she tried to teach us to bellydance at Babies? Either way, Basil and Melissa dressed up as Czar and Czarina which was all it took to convince 70-year-old Basil that Melissa was in love with him. This was all promptly followed by Sveta and Asya tricking us into eating tongue. Although I knew what it was upon arrival at our table because apparently I eat a lot of obscure foods.

Oh and the bathroom was in an elevator. But don’t try to hold the door open because it will SCREAM AT YOU and then the lights will go off and the door will break and chop off your hand. Then a group of angry waitresses will come and chop off your other hand. And then you’ll die. Maybe not the last one though.

After that glorious experience, we clearly didn’t want the night to end so we took to the streets on a quest to find a bar that 4,000 Americans could cram into. And because we were feeling extra generous, we let Asya and Sveta find us a place. So nice of us. After the normal meandering for a half hour around one square block, we ended our translators’ misery and went to Your Bar (it’s in a basement with cool furniture, wood walls, and old, eclectic lamp shades on every lamp... basically a hipster’s dream bar).

I will leave you with the images of: Natasha dancing like a gypsy in the sea, tequila shooters, inappropriate lovin’, “losing my religion,” and being exiled.

And that is where the stories from this night will end. You’re welcome to all parties involved.

The only monumental event of Friday was Melissa buying literally a gold brick of chocolate ice cream at Carousel and then attempting to eat it all before it melts. It was like a 1 person eating contest where everyone loses.

Then the cadets left and we wept all weekend. And by wept I mean slept.

A Lesson in Wizardry

Surprisingly, this was a pretty smooth week. We did several double babies days which always fills my heart with joy. 

Tuesday we finally got to have our Galina talk. In case you are still unaware, Galina is our Russian mother, protector, and overlord at the CCS home base. She is also pretty much the most badass woman you'll ever meet in all of your life. She told us the story of her life, growing up in soviet times, having children, working for the army, being born in the woods and having her placenta thrown to the wolves while her dad carried her on horseback in his boot to safety, encountering bears in the woods and having the bears take one sniff at her and be afraid of her... The usual. I've never felt safer than when I heard this story and knew she was our guard half the time. When bears won't mess with you, you know you're doing something right. 

Wednesday we went on our excursion to my new home, Rostov with Natasha as our translator. Rostov is famous for enamel, so we went to visit the enamel factory and kremlin. It was like my own little slice of heaven. I've decided that when I move to Russia to adopt Sveta, we will live in Rostov and I will work in the enamel factory with the wire. We saw the women working and, while it looked a little bit like a sweatshop, it was exactly what I want to be doing. SUPER detailed wire work, lots of glue fumes, and silver powder that will shut down my ovaries. But don't worry, there are tons of potted plants in there too so that has to balance something out, right?

After making those delightful life choices, we went to visit the kremlin where Ivan Vasilievich was filmed and where a choir straight out of heaven sings. Hands down the best part of the day (possibly of the month) was when Madelyne, a teeny cadet from the Bronx decided to dawn what was supposed to be a Czarina costume but in reality just made her look like a tiny purple wizard with a fuzzy hat. Dressing up wasn't enough for her, though. She then strutted with her bulldog penguin gangster walk in a wizard costume around all the kremlin, pausing only for photo shoots. I don't think Rostov knew what hit them. I don't think we knew what hit us. All I know is that Madelyne will forever be remembered as the tiniest wizard CCS ever had the pleasure of hosting. 

Thursday we finally got ourselves together to go to the banya (a Russian sauna that combines a hot room with a freezing pool and physical abuse with branches) because after the last group's banya stories we couldn't resist going. Unfortunately we forgot to BYOB (bring your own branches), so we couldn't hit each other after being in the sauna... But really we were with a group of cadets so we would have literally been hit with the strength of an army so in reality we weren't that sad. 

Everyone seemed to have a wonderful time. We found out Geoff can't float so he was given floating lessons by MacBook in the cold pool. Aka sinking lessons for MacBook. I surprisingly didn't combust for an entire hour. Side note for those of you who don't know: I'm allergic to everything including myself. Literally. I'm allergic to salt water and guess what sweat is made of!? Not only that but I also in the four seconds before we left to go to the banya developed a raging cold. I was told though that as long as I didn't have a fever I probably wouldn't die. Apparently my health isn't my biggest concern. But for the last hour I sat in a sweaty ball of congestion and hives by myself in the corner. Lessons learned: nothing screams "do me now!" like a girl wheezing and swollen and sliming like a jelly fish surrounded by a bunch of people with perfectly toned and healthy bodies. 

The Parislavl Port-a-Potty Predicament

Over the weekend, we once again guilted Saint Sveta into coming with us on our excursion to Parislavl. I'm pretty convinced she gets secretly paid to come with us. It was pretty much the perfect trip, though. We arrived to a male monastery where we were told that all of us were dressed like ho-bags. Including Basil the older Kiwi man. We were instructed to find skirts from what appeared to be a Salvation Army wagon of clothing from 100 years ago and put them on. Basil found a fashionable sarong that matched his shirt and we were set. 

Sadly after that whole ordeal, there wasn't a lot to see other than horrible bathroom predicament #1. This bathroom was a raised building a la Slumdog Millionaire with a hole in the floor that you had to hover over and aim really accurately. This was also when we realized that between me and Vic we only had 3 pieces of tissue to last the WHOLE DAY.

Vovchik, our driver also known as Vladimir, then realized that he knew everything about Parislavl (we later discovered that he actually just knows everything in general) and took over as tour guide for the day. Our next stop was a magical blue rock that the pagans worshiped. The logistics of the rock are still unclear but Sveta told us to make a wish and rub it so I'm assuming it's similar to a genie situation. At the same location we stumbled upon ribbon trees (trees that are covered in ribbons that you're actually supposed to wish on and then tie your ribbon on) so we made another wish, realized none of us had anything to tie on the trees, had a photo shoot and were on our way again. 

Next we went to a female monastery which made it pretty clear that no matter who, where, or what you are gender will always play a huge part in the appearance of your home. The male monastery was much like a frat house of monasteries and the female monastery was like going to a museum. The buildings were beautiful and the church was having beautiful frescos painted on it. Vlad came running up to us with more enthusiasm than I've ever seen and insisted that we go see something amazing. He took us to the koi pond in the entry way and looked into it like a little kid who loved the fishies. That was when I knew we would be best friends.  

On our way out we spotted the Russian ghost hunters van in front of the monastery so of course we had another photo shoot. 

Then we had a ridiculously cheap and ridiculously delicious lunch speckled with creepers taking our pictures from afar. Nothing says welcome to our town like a good stalker. 

We headed out to the train museum where Basil turned into a kid in a candy store. To get there we had to drive to the middle of the wilderness and then get picked up in what looked like an old army truck. We rode sideways on the bed of the truck and had to hold on for our lives so we wouldn't bounce out to our deaths. The place looked like a graveyard for headless statues and old train parts but in the coolest possible way. To top it all off, there was an old mining wagon (I have no idea what it's really called. It's one of those things that has a flat bed and you crank up and down to move along the train tracks) that you could crank around a 2km track. We (by we I mean mostly Sveta who then got the rest of us as excited about it as she was) were all about it, but when we got there the line was 45 minutes long and in the 90 degree sun that was a little too much for any of us to handle so we decided to move on to see Peter the Great's museum with one of the original ships from his fleet. Naturally, this museum was scattered through a park filled with ridiculous things. 

Walking up the death stairs to the hill, there was a majestic statue of Pete and then a bunch of street vendors selling frog figurines. Obvious connections there. Next there was a tiny museum immediately followed by a group of renaissance people with costumes you could pay to dress up in and have photo shoots throughout the park. Right after that was a clearing filled with missiles that you could climb which several members of our group decided to do as though we were a group of American orangutans. Another time when I sure Sveta was reevaluating her life choices. 

We finally got to the actual museum which was filled with boating gear and old clothes they would have worn. The best part was that there was no barrier around the clothes so I could get up closeto see how they were made. My inner costumer let its geek flag fly. 

Before we embarked on the hour and a half red home, we figured we should use the bathroom. I have never made a more idiotic decision in all of my life. We got to the port-o-potties and realized that between us we only had one tissue remaining. Then we looked in te bathrooms. There were three port-o-potties and two outhouses similar to those in the monestary. It looked like a war took place in each one. A dysentery war. And no one won. And then they all died. And then they all exploded. How one can create a pile that large and vast BEHIND the toilet hole requires a level of strength, coordination, and expertise that I can't even fathom. But at that point the need to pee outweighed all else. There was no turning back. I held my breath and went for it. What I didn't realize was that I took the last piece of tissue so by the time Vic went in we had to combine everything else we had as a creative tissue for her made of postage stamp sized bus tickets, receipts, and plastic wrap. 

Only after this experience did we see the dense forest behind us that would have been a much cleaner and less traumatic option.