Day 38, 39, 40, & 41: I Finally Made it to Day 38!
Day 38 was the Monday, the 20th of May. Nothing too exciting happened. Max and I went to work and he finished all the necessary preparations for his presentation on Tuesday. I did what I do best...homework. We left the office around 5:30 and when we got home, Max continued to work on his project until late at night. That was our day. See, told you, not much too it.
Day 39 was Tuesday the 21st of May, otherwise known as presentation day. I stayed home and worked on my homework. Max left all dressed up and looking good to go present to a bunch of people for two hours about Ukraine. I wished him luck, gave him a kiss, and he was off. I began working on homework and then decided to put a load of laundry in since our laundry was overflowing and needed some TLC. After about an hour, I heard the washer banging in the bathroom, so I decided to go check it out. This is what I saw...
The washing machine was completely off the wall. It had moved pretty far, I was surprised. Everything on it had fallen off, even our toothbrushes. Needless to say, we did not continue using them. So, that was my excitement for the day. Later on that night, I left the apartment to have some dinner by myself. It isn't as fun as it usually is with Max, but it was still a good meal. When I got home, I did some more homework and then just waited for Max to come home. He didn't come home until about 12:30. He was out having dinner with his coworkers after the conference (where he gave his presentation). They even did some karaoke without me! But he did make a friend while he was out and I approve...
When he got home, I was practically asleep. He quickly got ready for bed and we went to sleep.
Day 40 was the 22nd of May. The day we left Ukraine. A very sad day. We packed up our things and took an overnight train back to Russia. We were back on the top bunks of the beds. At least this time there was air conditioning. They even provided us with some food. They gave us water, three or four kernels of corn, some rice and chicken, and a roll. It was an alright meal that was unexpected, so we were grateful. We were back in second class, so we talked with our roommates below for about an hour and then went to bed. We were pretty tired,
Day 41 was the 23rd of May. We arrived in Russia at about 6 in the morning. When we got there, we strapped on all of our bags and headed home. We took the metro and walked back to our apartment. When we got there, we had some cereal and then Max went to work for half of the day. I worked on some homework until about 4:00pm. Then, I started getting ready and preparing for my first English lesson that started at 6:00pm. I left at 5:00pm and met up with Max at the metro station. We took the metro and the bus to the apartment where Natalia (the mom) and Sonya (the daughter) lived. I studied my surroundings the best I could on the way there so I could find my way by myself the following week. When we got there, Max walked around and checked out different stores and sites while I went to Natalia's apartment to work with Sonya and her English.
Here are a few things Max saw on his adventure while I taught...
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| He sent this to my mom and said I was somewhere in this building teaching a little girl English |
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| Would anyone like a beautiful little doll? hahaha Ah! Scary |
It was a really great first experience. Sonya is three and doesn't really know much English. My job is just to help her become familiar with English and prepare her for an preschool interview for an international school. I practically just let Sonya lead the lesson. I played with her, drew pictures with her, painted with her, and just talked with her. She repeated what I said and everything seemed great. She even hugged me. When I was teaching her about water, I got my water bottle out to show her another example of water. As I shook it, she was mesmerized. She wanted to know how it worked. It is one of those contigo bottles where you push a button and then you are able to drink the water. I showed her how it worked and she instantly wanted me to give her the water bottle. She looked at it for a few minutes and then I refocused her on something else. At the end of the lesson, I said goodbye and she began to cry. Like really cry. I was touched because I thought she was crying because I was leaving. Nope. She was crying because she wanted my water bottle hahaha Oh well, I wish I could have just given it to her, but I am sure her mom wouldn't have let her use it because of the germs the bottle probably has on it. So, I left and went to meet up with Max. When we met up, he took a picture of me to show everyone that my very first day of teaching was a success!
We took a bus back to the metro that seemed to be a little bit crooked. One side was raised higher than the other. You can't really tell in the picture, but here is the bus...
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| It looks straight, but I swear, the right side was totally deflated! |
On our bus ride (which seemed like forever) Max surprised me with a Russia notebook. I have been wanting a notebook for school because I really don't like working on the computer. I would much rather write things down. I was ecstatic! It is red and says Russia on it! :) When we got to the metro, we rode it back to our stop and walked home. Once we got home, we had some dinner and went to sleep.
To be continued...(almost caught up!)
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