Tea Time!

I love Russian Tea Time.. its usually after a meal or when you just want a snack and you drink tea.. and the best part.. you bust out the sweets!!! most of the time its just a bowl of candy. my host family has a bowl of candy on the table at all times.. LOL.. its a time to relax and to soak in the quality time with love ones.. take about your day, your dreams goals.. or whatever else Russians talk about.. its fun and I love it!

This is in my flat.. our kitchen table and how there is always the candy jar for tea time. but overall... I love tea time and its fun... I found this picture picture about how it should always be tea time..

I am being taken care of by the Mafia?

So I was called in to talk to my Director of the school about something.. so I go and talk with him and he tells me that my host mom is really worried about me walking home late at night or in the dark. Then he informs me that there was a murder that happened in my neighbor about 2 weeks ago. I was thinking to myself... why didn't they inform me about this when it happened. So then he continues to tell me, its a bad neighborhood and not safe.. but it gets dark here around 7pm now.. so yeah.. I will have to walk in the dark no matter what. Then he says, the best part is that my host mom talked to "One of her friends that is a leader of crime",
and that she has an American girl living with them and to watch out for her,and they said, don't worry about it.. if someone messes with her, we will take care of it.. my eyes got big and was like.. alright, sounds great! He says, yeah...remember your your host family has the money.. well see, my host dad was in the KGB.. aka Mafia(LOL).He says he is retired, but.. hmm... not sure about that.
well, i told the Director of the school that I should be fine and that i always walk with a key in my hand and ready at all times to take someone on.. and he just started to laugh and said...well if I see a guy laying in the street, then I know that you attacked him... i said, YEP!
So... funny huh??? I just cant stop laughing now.. that i am protected in a way while living here.. lol..

voronezh is a college town.. not a tourist town

so, some of my ILP friends we went out on the town the other night and we ran into some kids.. we thought they were like 15 or 16.. they asked, where are you from.. we said America! they got all excited, so they asked if they could do some beat boxing, which was so cool. they told us that they were college students at the Tech school in town. so we asked them.. what is there to do in this city on a Friday night.. they said Drink and clubbing.. so... I guess not that much for us LDS people. (we are not allowed to go clubbing while on the program here). So, i learned that Voronezh has like 4 Universities here and so its mainly a college town, but a tourist town at all so for us ILP people, we will be finding other things to do, but at my church I attend, they have a English club and volley ball on Friday night, so I think i will be attending there.

Voronezh City Celebration Day Sept 12th

Voronezh City Celebration day, so today, I was suppose to meet up with my ILP group, but guess what.. I never found them. I first asked the bus driver where was McDonald and he pointed and said something in Russian..lol, then I was like, that is not where McDonald’s is.. then I realized after I road the bus all the way through town and got lost. I was on the bus for like an hour.. yeah and the bus driver was smoking.. crazy then i realized that the bus was on a detour for the day and that he was pointing saying to me.. you will need to walk through this area to get to McDonald’s.. so I never found my group, but I had a blast walking around and just watching all the Russian's celebrating their City.
It seemed like a very nice celebration.
They had street performers, games, dancing, food(which I didn't buy b/c its Sunday.. lol) and tons of people enjoying themselves. It was nice to be out with the people or Voronezh.


So that I wouldn't be walking home to late by myself, I left when it was getting dark, but the bus ride home was crazy..I had this drink guy in my face and then he decided to cough in my face.. I then was so grossed out by it..that I turned around and as soon as I could get off the bus, I walked the rest of the way home. it was a nice night and many people were outside.



As I arrived home the Grandma was waiting for me and we watched fireworks from the bedroom window... it was a great fun day

leaving utah and coming to Russia!

a few days before, i was able to have a good bye party, and that was fun. on facebook, my friends posted a few videos of them talking about me.. it was kinda weird being there while everyone was talking about me. today I met up with my group in the SLC airport. I am so excited, words cant describe. I started to check in and was so stressed that my suit cases would be too heavy, but they were 49.5 lbs... wow, I made it. We boarded the plane and arrived in CO, we didn’t have much time to waste when we got there, so we boarded the next plane. Then we arrived in Washington DC, and it was so humid there. Wow, I felt I couldn’t breath. We saw that we had a 4 hr delay. I got some lunch and I wanted to leave so badly, but I was too scared to leave because I don’t know my way around DC. So I decided to walk around the airport and took pictures. I was able to get some funny ones.

Then we boarded and this flight was going to be long, really only like 6 hrs in the air, but it was a 18 hr flight because of the time change. Moscow is a 10 hrs ahead from Utah. So, that flight was my favorite, first, the plane was huge, the flight crew were great. I was able to watch some movies, sleep and I was fed too. The flight was not bad at all. I really enjoy flying. Well, then we landed in Moscow. We had to pass customs, which was fun... not too bad, but the language was a bit of a problem. The lady said...(билет), but I forgot what that would was. Its funny and you practice and practice a language and when you arrive in the country, you mind goes blank. Anyway. She then said, I need to see your ticket, I said, (да), which means yes. Then I was able to go get my suit cases. I grabbed my two check-ins, then had my two carry-ons. Wow, it was a lot and trying to pull all of them. Not too bad until... ( I will come back to that).... um.. we were met by Olga, who is our language teacher here in Voronezh. We then followed her to the train. It started to rain on us outside. The weather was 40 oF outside, and where I came from was around 80 -90 all week in Orem, so the temp change was huge, but 40 0F felt great at the time, b/c it was so hot walking around and traveling. We catch the train and traveled for an hour on there, then we had to get off and book it to the bus, which was 20 mins in walking distant. Remember, when we are asked to bring 2 suit cases which weigh 49.5 lbs each, its hard, plus having 2 carry-ons. With one suitcase not roll-able We were helping each other with carrying and such. ... so it was hard, but I did it. Two of the other teachers came back to help me, it was nice of him and her. It started to rain again and there were huge, I am huge puddles in the street that we were crossing and the sidewalks too. Then, we made our bus, YAY! Now, we got to sit on the bus for 10ish hours... we got everything loaded... it was hot, very hot and muggy on the bus.. there were fly's and a kinda smelling man that sat next to me.. wow, this bus ride, I thought is going to be great. I slept for a bit, and then we stopped. To use the bathroom, it cost money at this ran down place. Our next stop, we got some good and grabbed some mineral water by accident.... it was gross, but when you are thirty, you drink anything, plus it was all in Russian, so we didn’t know.. haha. When we arrived in Voronezh, I met my host family.. wow, amazing and nice people. They greeted me with hugs and kisses. I pretty much jumped into their car and I was gone. It felt weird at first, I was like, bye to my group, my host family is speaking in Russia to me, I am not sure what is happening.. haha it was funny. I arrive at their apt. they have a house, but its across town and their son lives there, so who is 23 so that would be a issue. (I cant live with boys who are around our ages). Anyway, they told me(mainly the husband , because he spoke to me in English), but the wife speaks well English too. They have a daughter who is 6 and she attends school where I teach. Umm.. they let me shower and then they fed me some yummy Russian food. Now, I found myself talking to you.. well.... so far what I have observed, is that many Russians smoke, you don’t smile at them or they look at you funny if you don’t know them or they might think you want something from them in a bad way. They park and drive on the sidewalks, they drive kinda crazy Umm... Russia people are very helpful and nice. I feel I will enjoy my stay here for the next few months.

Here alittle about where I will be living for the next 4 months

Welcome To Voronezh!

Voronezh is situated d is situated in, what is known as, the Black Earth Region, a particularly fertile agricultural area. However, Voronezh itself is an industrial city, home to a large rubber and tire plant and the Ilyushin Aircraft Company. Voronezh has a strong educational base with nine universities specializing in industry, agriculture, arts and science, including the third largest university in Russia.

The historic city of Voronezh is situated in the heart of Russia, 550 kilometers from Moscow. Voronezh houses around 20 institutes of higher education, including Voronezh State University. The city lies on the river Voronezh (a tributary of the river Don), and the port where Peter the Great built his famous fleet in the 17th century, which changed the course of Russian history. Voronezh has a population of around 1 million, and is particularly famous for its aeronautical and space industry. Famous Russian writers A. Platonov and I. Bunin were born here and Commandoes spent a large part of his life in Voronezh. Voronezh is a provincial city and you will get more benefit out of living here than in Moscow and St Petersburg. There are less foreigners, which means that you will speak more Russian here; it is less westernized, so you have a better chance to see real Russia; it is cheaper to live in and the crime statistics are far smaller than in the Russian capitals. Voronezh is easily reached by a regular overnight train from Moscow. There is also an airport in Voronezh.

I am excited to go and learn how to speak more Russian. I will keep you up to date through this blog!

summer.... time!

This summer has been an adventure! I have been working, from going to school, movie watching, then on vacations, etc. Now, I am preparing to move to Russia for 4 months. I am truly going to miss many friends and my family, but I will do my best to keep my blog undated. I know that i need to be a better blogger... so now I promise to be more faithful to you dear friends and family.

! I WELCOME 2010 !

this weekend, some friends and I went to the BYU Living Legends and it was really good. there were dancers representing from all over the world and it was really touching to see sacred and traditional dances. so here is one photo with one of the dancers. Tyler and Felicia were like, you take a photo with him by yourself.... they thought it was funny,I felt kinda weird.

Anyway we then went afterwords to the creamier on 9th and it was good. I was able to get some little clips from it. I hope you are able to watch it of see the pictures.



this is a dance from Mexico called the La Negra, Jarabe Tapatio



there is more to come....