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.
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.
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