Russia... Day Three

The events of 7/9/2012

Orange Juice!

On Monday morning, we got up and had for the first time, delicious kasha. Which on this first day was completely wonderful, but after having it every day for over two weeks, it was not as wonderful. There was never a meal where we didn't have way too much food. The cooks always wanted us to be eating more and couldn't seem to understand that we didn't want eat to the point where they had to roll us out the door. One of my favorite things for breakfast however was the juice! It came in weird box like containers that always sat out on the counter, but it was good!

Shell fish for sale...

Today I had to withdraw money from the ATM at the local grocery store called the Carousal. It was really just a short walk down the road. I was worried about my bank charging me and Armando made me nervous about someone stealing my identity, but I really didn't have a choice because I didn't have time to exchange money at the airport like everyone else due the late arrival of my plane. Rubles (Russian currency) are pretty cool looking, I still have some if you want to see it! The bills are really only the larger amount. Coins are used all the time so it was hard for me to adjust because we really don't use our coins to pay for many things. The exchange rate was 32 rubles to the dollar. So something that cost 100 rubles was roughly about $3.25.
The Carousal was like a mixture of Wal-Mart and IKEA. You could get anything there, but you had to go up an escalator to get to the store which reminded me of IKEA. They didn't have a lot of fresh produce but what they did have was displayed weirdly. They also really didn't sell junk food like chips etc.

Inside of Carousal

Monday we spent on orientation which basically meant a bunch of tedious paper work and lectures on what we were supposed to do and not do. Most of it was common sense and it was very hard to sit still when we all wanted to me out exploring and meeting people. We also had a Russian lesson with Natasha who was really my favorite translator. She is my age and totally cute and spunky. Also blond and pretty, totally what you think of when you think Russian women. Being able to practice with her and have her adjust my accent and pronunciation really made me feel better about the few phrases that I knew.

We then went on a tour of Yaroslavl, the city where we were staying and volunteering. There is a lot of interesting history there. Last year they celebrated their 1000 year anniversary so the buildings and roads and people have been around forever.

Down town Yaroslavl

Later in the day I went running with Gio, one of the cadets from West Pointe. She's a boxer and super in shape so needless to say I felt ridiculously slow and unfit next to her. It was so hot and muggy outside! After we ran, we walked around and almost into town. When we started to head back, we tried to do so by crossing some train tracks and we had to just run across because there really wasn't any designated crossing point. While we were running across, there was a small track car that was on one of the rails and it beeped at us and scared the crap out of me! I didn't want to get arrested for railroad jay-walking!

To finish up a crazy busy day, we began planning our weekend trip to Moscow! Colette and I had decided that we wanted to go and we were going to travel on the train with the cadets and their lieutenant, but not stay with them because they were doing a lot of boring tours and whatnot. The next day was going to be our first day volunteering and I couldn't wait!