Women's Day!

Women's Day is probably the greatest holiday ever ever ever invented. No really, it's fantastic. If you so desire, you can read a little more about it here. It's basically a combination of Mother's Day and Valentine's Day. And all the little boys give the little girls presents and say, "Congratulations." Congratulations for what? I do not know. Being born the superior gender. Just kidding, of course of course.

I definitely wasn't expecting Women's Day to be any big thing. Buy some chocolates for grandma, say it casually to my fellow teachers. That's about it. So very wrong! On Saturday (yes, we taught on Saturday because Women's Day was on Tuesday so the Russians worked Monday through Saturday on the previous week and then took Sunday through Tuesday off) when I was teaching my elementary class, Andrey, my not favorite student, gave me 3 tulips and a picture of a cat. He also gave the two girls in the class one tulip each. Okay, that was pretty cute. I now hate him less.

Then the Principal of the school, Ludemilla, gave all of the English teachers these little bells that say Saint Petersburg on them. And our Native Coordinator, Alla, gave each of us three tulips. Woah, super unexpected! We were all caught off guard! But there's more!

On Sunday at church, after sacrament meeting all of the men sang a special song to the women. Then they passed out the most amazing coconut chocolates I have ever had to every female in the ward. On Monday our other Native Coordinator, Sveta, gave us ice cream to celebrate. Then today we went to a cemetery and as we were buying our tickets the lady was so excited to tell us all Happy Women's Day! Oh, and Lauren gave us all Chupa Chups to celebrate.

And to top it all off, we had a huge feast with our host family. Grandma, Grandpa, their two sons Sasha and Costa, and their wives Yulia and Anya, and their kids Mark and Alicia. Plus Grandma gave Sarah and I special presents of chocolate that is shaped all awesome like famous things in St. Pete. I have officially decided that when I go back to America I am going to instigate this holiday. March 8th everyone, put it on your calendar for next year!

Super detailed chocolate!