Ciaro

We took a two day trip to Ciaro and Alexandria to see the National Egyptian Museum, the Pyramids, the Nile, the Meditteranean Sea, a palace, a fort and an old Roman ampitheater.

Here are the pyramids.

The Red Sea

We took a little spring break vaca to Hurghada, Egypt. It was so wonderful and I tried to soak in as much sun as humanly possible, though I could have used more.

Here are some pics of the Red Sea, our hotel and on a boat. Enjoy!

Back

Back from a week in Egypt! Will post pics tomorrow!

Washing Machine Update

We have a new washing machine! After 3 weeks of a broken one we are finally able to do laundry. Now my roommates have been hand washing things but not I. So mine is super piled up. And not to mention that you cannot double wear any kind of pants here. It is disgusting right now with all the snow melting so everything gets super dirty when you wear it.

So I am kind of feeling like I have too many clothes. OK well lets not go too far and say too many, but a lot. I have just run out of tights, but still of hose left. Other than that I have yet to run out of anything yet. And then when I think about the clothes I still have at home, my goodness. Well in my defense, I just gave away 2 sweaters to a friend the other day. I have had them since 9th grade, that's 10 years! So that is one reason I have so many, I keep them forever.

So our landlord hasn't been able to get ahold of 'the master' since Friday. He came out about 5 times and 'fixed' our old machine. Um, not so much. He totally cut corners and it was still broken. So when our landlord couldn't get a hold of him after like 5 days, he bought us a new washing machine!

It is amazing already. It is almost the size of an American one. Our last one could hold 2-3 towels or 2-3 pairs of jeans max. So as you can imagine, with 3 girls it was always running. It took forever to do any laundry. I always do it once a week and it would take me 3-4 loads plus towels. So currently it is holding about 7 towels! Its really quite exciting!

Mazlenitsa

In Russia they have a celebration in March called Mazlenitsa. This is the official celebration of Spring. It is always on March 1st. At school we celebrated it this past Thursday. They send the kids home early and have a big party for the teachers.

First we went outside and all the teacher were drinking hot, spiced wine and playing carnival like games. It was very traditional Russian and so fun. Some of it was participated in and some we just watched. Then we went inside for some music and dancing accompanied by blini (kind of like a crepe). You could have smoked Salmon, red caviar, jam, honey, or sweetened condensed milk on your blini. They also had spiked punch, tea and some cookie like things.

It just really cracks me up that these things would be found at a school! I don't think that they were ever have alcohol at an American school for a celebration, even if it is for teachers only. But this is Russia!

Here is a pic of our drama teacher. He is a hilarious man! He was one of the MC's of the event.

Here is a pic of the American Girls. Kathryn, Truc, Lydia and me

The next few pics are just of some of the games we were playing outside.

This is a video of the teachers singing and dancing around in a circle. I don't know, its a Russian thing.

Here is a video of the teachers at Zaitsevo and the teachers at Presnya having some sort of sing off or something.

Women's Day

Russia has this great holiday called International Women's Day. Now as much as I love to honor my mom and grandma's and other moms in my life, I love this holiday. I get to participate in it so it is great. We got bouquets of tulips from students. I got a beautiful glass jam dish from 5th grade and a beautiful swvarsky crystal key chain from one of my fourth graders. Plus our kids did some performances for their moms. They sang songs, did drama's, and acted. Of course they sang songs in English too. They are just so precious. So I have taken lots of videos of the whole day.

Here are some of our tulips. The first 2 pics are of mine and the huge and gorgeous orange and red ones were Kathryns. I don't think they know that tulips are one of my favorite flowers!

Washing Machine Repairs

Well this is Russia. So as you can imagine things don't really go as planned and take a long time to accomplish, etc.

For about 3 months our washing machine has been sounding like a rocket taking off when it spins. Kathryn had this same one in her old apartment and assured us that it was normal. So we never thought much about it. Well last week it slowly stopped spinning all together.

I called our landlord and told him that our washing machine wasn't spinning anymore and we needed it repaired. So he said he would call 'the master' and let us know. Russian's always use this phrase 'the master' when they really just mean repair man. Well he has been here 3 times, 3 days in a row. Well this is what he left us with yesterday.

Well I would say it is not yet fixed. I am just hoping he can put it back together. 'The master' was supposed to come today again to work on it. But when I called my landlord he said that he could not get 'the details.' I am assuming details means parts. But who knows.

This is Russia!