Saturday October, 30th - Where am I???

It's Saturday! Our day to get to sleep in - and we did! Our bodies still have not adjusted to Russia time. On top of the 8 hour difference, everything here happens at about a 2 hour difference. For example, the sun doesn't rise until around 9am, so it feels like it's 7am. This has almost made us late a couple of times. The day starts later, schools get out later, meals are later, etc... which sounds like it would work in our favor, but it doesn't. Somehow between the hours forward and two hours back, our bodies have defaulted to "it's night and we want to sleep." I figure we'll get it all straightened out sometime on Monday - we're leaving on Tuesday. lol Regardless, we had a blast today!!! We went to a Russia bakery and bought a chocolate cake kinda thing to take to our friends' for desert. I had no idea what they liked, but chocolate for female never seems to be a bad choice. My friend was going to pick us up so I kept looking out the window for him to pull up. Well, I didn't realize that "I'll pick you up" meant that he'd ride 2 subways, a tram, and then walk 3 blocks to the hotel! How incredible that he would do this for people he doesn't really even know! We then repeated the travel process in reverse to get to his family's apartment. We walked in and it smelled WONDERFUL! His wife is absolutely sweet and his kids are so friendly. We were all sitting on the floor of his 3 year old's bedroom when she, in Russian, kicked the adults out so that she could play with the "americana" (aka - Annie) by herself! Their two sons (8, 11) flirted with her in the typical pat on the shoulder and run kinda way. It was fun to watch the kids all interact since they did not speak any English. I helped prepare a salad while we had great spiritual conversations. Dinner was delicious! We had a traditional Russian meal, which was basically a big meatball, mashed potatos, and salad. During dinner, their daughter began speaking French! How in the world is a 3 year old bilingual?! I do good just to be lingual - see! lol Anyway, we then all gathered on the boys' bedroom floor for a game of Memory. I knew before we even started that this wasn't going to be good. Then it got worse...I saw the cards. I can keep picuters of Disney characters straight or Winnie the Pooh, but no.... these cards were from Holland! I was surrounded by little windmills, geometric shapes, and wooden clogs with patterns on them. Okay, I'm an American who only speaks English, sitting in a Russian home with a three year old speaking to me in French, playing a game from Holland...where am I??? The world suddenly became even smaller than it was when I landed here and my awareness of how uncultured I am became huge! We enjoyed a delicious pumpkin pie and the chocolate stuff for desert, and then headed back to the hotel. You won't believe this - I offered for him to just tell me the number of stops so that I could count them, get off the subway, and then walk to the hote, but he refused. He insisted on escorting us the entire way back to the hotel and then he repeated to journey home. God is good. No, God is GREAT! And, I am very thankful to my new friends for extending their hands, opening their home, and sharing their hearts! I can't wait until church tomorrow!