I made it!

hey guys-
I just finally figured out that I can get a wireless connection in the room of my apartment (I hope I'm not using some poor family's wireless...hmmm...) anyway, I'm here.

my flight was pretty uneventful except I sat next to a really nice Russian guy who I was able to talk to when I was staring at the back of the seat in front of me wanting to go to sleep...haha. It was cool though being able to see NY from the plane, and even cooler was flying up over iceland because it was barely light outside the entire flight and the ocean was so beautiful with the sun just barely on the horizon making the ocean look red.

Interesting note: The flight was mostly Russians (there were only a few Americans) and I was able to immediately see the difference in people at the gate in NY. Russians are very stylish and seriously all the women were in high heels.

wow! I was the first to get here and I had to wait about an hour for other students to show up (but there were people there to meet me-so no worries mom, I wasn't alone ;) )

driving to Lidya's was about another hour and a half because we had to drop another kid off before me and the taxi driver couldn't find the place. Moscow is HUUUGGGEEE. It will be about an hour commute for me each way to school on the metro (and that is a straight line with only one transfer)...that's how big it is. It was cool just reading the bilboards and stuff and seeing everything while driving but I haven't gone exploring yet because Lidya didn't want to go do anything which was fine, but I didn't get to go to red square with everyone else because I just had no idea where to start on the metro and how to get my pass but I'll probably go there tonight Lidya is definitely a Russian babushka and I can tell that she doesn't leave the house much...she's a collector of things like plastic bags ;) haha, she seems like she'll be fun and she will help me with whatever she can,. It's cool too because she just talks at full speed and I've been able to understand the jist of what she says...I'm understanding pretty well, but I need to get the groove of speaking-I've already started the charades game ;)

food-well, Lidya asked me if I liked chicken..haha, i should have said no! I had a pretty bad stomach ache yesterday after eating it...I watched her pour about a cup of oil (I'm not exaggerating) over some chicken nugget things and some noodles and she let it simmer for about 5 minutes and then placed in front of me and well, I ate about half of it but knew right away that it was a mistake...she was watching me while I ate it too which put the pressure on...

well, we're going to go together to the atm so i can pay her, then she's going to help me get a metro pass, then at 1 I'm going to make my first adventure by myself to go meet up with other students to go to church...so we'll see if I make it-haha :)

well I love you guys!
Mom and Dad, thanks so much for all your help last week helping me get ready, and thank you for this opportunity! I love it already and I'm just getting started!!!

ok, gotta run!
kensie