Yay! Made it through the first week of intern training! It has been intense and intensely boring by turns - there are only two of us in our training session (while the first session had thirty-two people), and coincidentally the other girl is also named Hannah. So the two Hannahs have been having a rough time of it, since they really can't fob off answering questions to someone else in class, since there isn't anyone else in class (that's the intense part), but they're also having trouble staying awake because the grammar review is quite basic (can you give me a past perfect continuous verb? I'm sure you can. But can you tell me why you used it where you did? - and English professors reading this blog don't count!- :) so that's the intensely boring part). But I have my first real class this Monday, so I'm excited about that.
Last Sunday my flatmate Laura and I went out with some friends to see some of the city. One of them is a native of Moscow, so she showed us all the sights at Red Square, and then we all went to the Zamoskvoreche district for lunch and spent the rest of the day in the beautiful Kolomenskoye Park, sitting in an apple orchard playing cards. It was a great, relaxing way to spend the day. Red Square is quite impressive - it was neat seeing in person all those buildings I'm used to seeing in pictures. They were setting up an outdoor stadium in the middle of Red Square for a military display the next day, and as we walked past we could hear a huge choir practicing. It sounded like recorded music because it was so loud and grand, but then you'd hear it stop and the repetiteur would say over the mike, "Ok, this part one more time: la, la, laaaa," and they'd be off again. I think I enjoyed Zamoskvereche and Kolomenskoe better though - I like quiet places and green places better than the middle of the city.
the inside of GUM - why can't our malls look like this???
I didn't have much time during the week because our intern training lasts a good bit of the day, and there's an hour commute by metro to get to the central school, but this Saturday I made it to the large forest-park next to Mitino. It was pretty, though wet and cool, and I enjoyed wandering around through the trees for an hour or so. It was neat at first, because although it was raining up above the trees, I didn't feel it. It was romantic to walk through all that quiet green space and feel the cool rush of air from the rain and hear it pattering on the leaves above you but still stay quite dry. Eventually, though, the leaves got wet through and started dripping generously on the path beneath, and at that point I opted for my rather unromantic umbrella! I saw a birch grove at one point, and the trees are beautiful; I can see why so much of Russian poetry and music speaks of birch trees.
I also came home and saw a rainbow, and that was a wonderful end to my day. Rainbows always make me so happy - they're such reminders that God's watching out for me and everybody.
I know that this is a rambling blog, and I apologize - I'm a bit tired, but I'm teaching all day tomorrow so I know if I don't write now I'll get swept up in the week and will have to do two week's worth of writing next week! Hopefully the pictures make up for it!
Wish me luck on my teaching this Monday! :)
Last Sunday my flatmate Laura and I went out with some friends to see some of the city. One of them is a native of Moscow, so she showed us all the sights at Red Square, and then we all went to the Zamoskvoreche district for lunch and spent the rest of the day in the beautiful Kolomenskoye Park, sitting in an apple orchard playing cards. It was a great, relaxing way to spend the day. Red Square is quite impressive - it was neat seeing in person all those buildings I'm used to seeing in pictures. They were setting up an outdoor stadium in the middle of Red Square for a military display the next day, and as we walked past we could hear a huge choir practicing. It sounded like recorded music because it was so loud and grand, but then you'd hear it stop and the repetiteur would say over the mike, "Ok, this part one more time: la, la, laaaa," and they'd be off again. I think I enjoyed Zamoskvereche and Kolomenskoe better though - I like quiet places and green places better than the middle of the city.
I know that this is a rambling blog, and I apologize - I'm a bit tired, but I'm teaching all day tomorrow so I know if I don't write now I'll get swept up in the week and will have to do two week's worth of writing next week! Hopefully the pictures make up for it!
Wish me luck on my teaching this Monday! :)
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