My first few days in Russia

I have arrived! I am in Russia! And I am definitely in the honeymoon phase of culture shock. During our training they said there are four phases: honeymoon, horror, humor, and home. I’m not exactly looking forward to the next phase though…

I flew out of Salt Lake on January 25th, around 11 in the morning. We landed in Chicago a few hours later and had a four hour layover. That wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It gave us all a chance to get to know each other better and just relax. Then we got on the plane for our flight to Germany! It was 11 hours I think. It went by faster than I thought it would but it was s

till pretty miserable. I watched Scott Pilgrim and The Social Network. The other girls slept for four or five hours I think but I was only able to force myself to getting two hours of sleep

. When we landed we had to go through security again at the Frankfurt airport just for extra precautions (although the security there is so relaxed I fail to see how it is helpful). Then we waited around for 2 hours or so for our final flight into St. Pete. Needless to say, I was exhausted when we got on the plane for Russia. I slept for 2 hours but thought I had only slept for 1. So I woke up and thought, “Sweet, I have almost 2 hours before we land so I’m going to get myself calmed down first.” I had just started to write in my journal a bit when the flight anouncer said it was time to start our descent. I kind of freaked out inside. After trying really hard to get my emotions under control we landed and I got off the plane. We went through customs, which was not nearly as awful as I had imagined it being, and we met our native coordinator, Alla. Alla is very nice and helpful! I will try to post a picture of her…as soon as I take one! We found out from her who our host families would be. She said that I would be living with another one of our teachers, Sarah, and we would be living with a grandma and grandpa who want to take care of us like grandchildren. Their son, Costas, picked us up and took us to their apartment. Our grandma’s name is Galina and our grandpa’s name is Vladimir. They are so nice and I already l

ove them!

Galina fed us when we got there with soup, bread, a type of fried chicken, juice, buckwheat, and pirozhky which is a dessert that is amazing! It was a lot to eat so we got to go to our room and go to bed. Oh, also, their next door neighbor, Anna, speaks a little English so she has come over a couple of times to translate a few things.

We got up the next morning and Costas took us to the school. A lot happened yesterday so I can’t remember everything in exact order but it went something like this…We had Alla with us and she took us on the metro to a different part of the city where we got x-rays for TB. Then we went to the school where we will be taking Russian classes. Then Alla took us to get lunch at a small restaurant. It was really good! We had salad, soup, bread, fish, potatoes, and these things like cinnamon rolls but not as sweet and without any icing. Then we took the metro back to our part. We went to the mall to get photos for our visas or something and while we were waiting we got to explore the mall. It was so cool! I was in a Russian mall! Once we got that we went back to the school and took a tour and got our blood tested for whatever they felt like testing it for. Then we went back to the head teacher’s apartment for our host families to pick us up. It was an exhausting day filled with a lot of walking and a lot of culture!

Today was very easy going. We went to the school at 1 and had lunch. Then we went to the head teacher’s apartment (right across the street) and waited for her and 2 other girls to come so we could go over a few things. Then our families came to get us and we went home ate, and now here I am! I think I’m going to compile a list of all of the things that our grandma chastises us about and then post them in a week or two. She is seriously the stereotypical Russian grandma. She cracks me up sometimes!

Sorry this has been such a long post! I’ll try to do shorter ones in the future. I just really want to remember the first few days and how everything feels right now. I’ll try to post again as soon as I can! Until then Adios! Just kidding…пока

And some pictures of course

This is me at the St. Pete airport arrival gate

This is my delicious fish from lunch yesterday. I thought about taking a picture of my soup and salad while I was eating it but by the time I got around to doing it I realized I had eaten all of it...oops!

This is one of the two cats that they have. He is pretty much just like a dog. I can barely pronounce his name so I'm not even going to try and type it right now.

The Moment of Truth

I hate the feeling when my insides get all shaky. When I'm nervous my hands don't shake and my knees don't knock, but my face gets bright red and I can feel all of my organs jittering around inside. It is not a pleasant feeling. I get it on rare occasions: when I'm having a really deep conversation with someone, giving a talk in church, or doing something that I know will change my life.

My flight is 36 hours long. A day and a half. That is a lot of extra time to be nervous. The minute I stop being nervous about leaving is the minute I start being nervous about being on my way there. Let me justify my nerves for a minute.

I am going to a country that is 5173 miles away from where I live (not that I've checked or anything...). I do not speak the language in this country. I can say hello and my name is Nicole but that's about it. I will be living with a family I won't know, who may or may not speak much English and who will likely not be LDS. And I've lived in English speaking, very Mormon, Sandy, Utah my whole life. I will be in a city with a population of almost 5 million people. The biggest and closest city to me has a population of a little over 1 million. I am teaching English to children between the ages of 4 and 15. I've never even done so much as taught a primary class. Actually, that's a lie. I taught a sunbeams class once. They ignored me the whole time and discussed one girl's necklace for the majority of the hour. So yeah, nervous just barely begins to cover it.

But, as cheesey and tacky as it sounds, sometimes I feel like Belle on Beauty and the Beast, the Disney version that is. So pretty much she stays at home, reads books, and tries to help her dad as much as she can. Yeah, I'm a home-body, book reading, people pleaser! But for some reason I've always liked it when she sings "I want adventure in the great, wide somewhere. I want it more than I can tell." I want to get out and see and experience everything I have learned about! I want to see that all people are just people, even if they live differently. I want to hear people have emotions when they speak, even if it's in another language. I want to feel that everything I've learned and been taught can still be true 5000 miles away. So yes, I am nervous and scared and terrified and shaky on my insides. But I'm excited and anxious and ready for an adventure. So this is me going into the great wide somewhere!