an accidental five day weekend

See, my class yesterday (Friday) was cancelled, and today and tomorrow is actually the weekend, and then Tuesday is a holiday (May 1) so clearly Monday is a pre-holiday. Add it all up and you've got...an accidental five day weekend!

I don't have too much planned, but that's okay because it means I can get some more astronomy work done. One thing that's definitely going to happen is an orchestra concert Sunday afternoon at 5pm!! I just hope I can find the library we're performing at...I have a small piece of paper with a scribbled map of where to walk from a metro stop, but there was much debate as to which was the best way to get there. Oh boy.

I'm hoping to meet up with Snezhana on Tuesday. She was the Russian Language Resident at Oldenborg at Pomona College my sophomore year. It would be neat to see her again.

Yesterday my big adventure was Ramstore. Honestly it wasn't too much of an adventure, but it is interesting how I've seen the Ramstore mall change since I've been here. A very odd way to mark the passage of time, but there it is. A bunch more places to eat have opened up in the food court. I can't quite figure out why McDonald's is so popular here, either. There were a bunch of other fast food-ish type places when I was there yesterday, yet everyone was lined up at McDonald's! It's nuts. Admittedly I've had McDonald's a few times here (whereas I basically never eat there at home). One nice thing in general about food here is reasonable portion size, I've noticed. Even at fast food places, a regular fries and coke is...well, reasonably sized. When I eat at the cafe in the main building, the portions are just right and I am usually full when I have cleaned my plate. There's an idea.

I've gotten most of my summer and fall sorted out, which is good. It's a pain trying to coordinate with people back in the States when I'm 11 hours ahead and they sometimes expect things in person or on paper. Then again, now I see why it was impossible to know anything about the schedule or plan in Russia before arriving. Everything here MUST be done in person and on paper!! I finally received HMC's fall registration packet in the mail on Thursday (my registration had been two days prior). Thankfully I did everything via the internet. It made me quite happy to have a colorful piece of paper in my hand detailing the next academic year's schedule, though. What a concept - a schedule! :)

I think in May, (maybe?) we'll be going to Kiev one weekend and St. Petersburg another. After all, there are really only two weekends left (I'm not counting the last one since that's the "pack up and tweak out" weekend). But it's all a bit uncertain because some of the people who travelled independently outside of Russia had the wrong papers taken when they reentered or had a stamp put in the wrong place or heaven knows what.

That's all for now. I haven't taken hardly any pictures since the Vladimir and Suzdal trip, but hopefully I'll get a chance to take some this weekend.