gray day

lovely.

Deadly plane crashes aside, all is well here.

Moscow has basically melted in the past week. There's a bit of dirty snow on the ground here and there, but it got as warm as 45 F yesterday and the only recent precipitation has been rain. It's nice that spring is on its way, but it makes me wish I'd brought something in between a sweatshirt and heavy duty winter jacket.

In the past two days I've had a lot of Politology class. A couple tidbits of recent Russian politics for your amusement:

1) Around 1997-8, the Russians spent a ton of money to spread negative propaganda about this one government guy so he'd resign. Then the government asked him a year or so later to negotiate on their behalf to borrow some money from the International Monetary Fund because they were broke and he was the only guy who had a chance. He agreed, and the IMF said "okay we'll give Russia $20 billion." Then the $20 billion completely poofed and Russia went bankrupt. No one knows what happened to it.

2) There can be no more Deputy Prime Ministers than there are rooms on the fifth floor of the white house. Except for when they decided there should only be 1 or 2 or there could be as many as they want.

Oh, Russia. Today is a lazy gray day and I haven't done much of anything. On the agenda: food, homework, probably going out with Katie and some of her friends to celebrate her 21st birthday. The next two weekends we have planned excursions - one to Vladimir/Suzdal and another to Novodevichy Cloister, so it seems like I won't have too much free time relatively soon, which is fine by me!! Of course, the best part is that Mike will be here in three weeks... :)

I randomly met a guy named Andrey while doing laundry a week or so ago, and he wants to practice speaking English with me (I think Jack from the KEI group is going to join us). It's been a little, well, Russian, trying to coordinate it, though, because every time he'd text me saying he was free I'd be in class and vice versa.

I've got a question for all you avid readers - what would you do if you were in Moscow? Is there something huge I'm forgetting about? A place I need to visit, something I need to buy, a food I need to eat? I'll also entertain requests for souviners, though I can't guarantee anything until the day I pack to come home. :)

I'm hungry so it's time to make some instant noodles! Then I'll see if I can't get my cygwined IRAF to actually reduce some data. (Translation: I'll do some astronomy stuff.)

Oh, just got word from Katie - at 8 we're going to a place called Proekt OGI. Looks like an artsy club of some sort...should be a fun adventure!