Introductions and Final Night on US soil

I figured some introductions are in order, at least before I fly off to the other side of the world. I had meant for my intro post to be my first one (which seems natural), but I was just too excited when the housing assignments came out. But, hey, as the children's poem goes: Second is the best.

So, welcome to my blog! Or, Здравствуйте! as I will soon get used to saying. My plan is to chronicle my trip, hopefully sealing it to memory, and to also allow my friends back at home to check in on what I'll be doing :D To be fair, this is my first blog. And past experiences trying to maintain diaries have failed tremendously. My hope is that this will be my one English reprieve, and it will motivate me to maintain it. And also take pictures (I'm not that big of a picture taker either.....I'm such a horrible tourist, and I live in Orlando!).

I've been in New Haven for the past 3 weeks, and I have to say it's been beautiful. It was pretty hot the first couple of days, but after some rain it became very nice outside.
I ended up living in Trumbull College, in the potty-court (a place every Yalie should check out). I have to say, besides the horrible phone reception and finicky internet access, it wasn't too bad. Though it did make me extremely excited to move into Calhoun next year :) I stayed in a suite of six, and we actually got really close within these few weeks. Two of them are going to Italy (plus one more adopted suitemate), one is going to Jordan, and two others are also going to Russia (making 3 of us). I'm actually going to miss them all.

The New Haven portion of the program has been intense. Language class from 9-12 every day, and a Russian Literature class twice a week. In addition to that, most of us went to 'русский стол', where we would all gather together for lunch and speak only in Russian. It got to a point when I would say 'извините' and 'спасибо' to the dining hall workers. XP Though I have been loving the Literature course. So far we've read works by Pushkin, Gogol, and Dostoevsky. Lovely, dark, wonderful stuff.

And this past week has only gotten more exciting with the beginning of the World Cup! Point of Note: I'm a HUGE futbol fan, so there will be comments on games within these posts. And I get excited. Can't. Wait.

Tonight, is my last night here on US soil. It's such a strange feeling: It'll be my first time outside of the states since my family came here 18 years ago. I have no idea what I'm doing, or what I have to expect. It'll be an adventure on it's own :D. We leave New Haven around noon, fly out from JFK around 6 and arrive in St. Petersburg at 11 on Saturday morning.

And my day, of course, will start at 7:30 tomorrow morning with the Germany-Serbia game (see what I said about the futbol? but to be fair, it is Germany), and it will be looong.

So, this is where I'll check out, watch the rest of my Doctor Who (who knows when I'll be able to watch it abroad. The horror!), and head to bed.

And I just want to say, I miss you all! See you on the other side.

Пока!

--Н.И--