Hm.

Again, don't really know how much I should be writing in here, but whatever.

Update of the past two weeks (or some of it, anyway):
So our group trip to Ulan-Ude was really fun. We took the train at night (I am now obsessed with the train and would like to ride it as much as possible; I'm sure this thrill will fade when I'm on it for more than 10 hours when at least 6 of them are spent sleeping). Sonya and I were together (there and back) and we were the extra two that were stuck with other Russians instead of the other Americans in the group. This was totally fine. Well, for me. On the way there Sonya did not sleep so well, as she got a bottle of water spilled all over her when the woman in the bunk above me closed the window and was woken up like 4 times by the alarm clock of the man in the bunk above her (Each train wagon has a bunch of separate compartments, with 4 beds (2 on top and 2 on bottom) with a table. Also, this guys alarm clock was on his cell phone and wasn't any sort of normal ring tone-when it goes off, it says "OPEN YOUR EYES! I SAID, OPEN YOUR EYES!" (note: although ridiculous, this sounds less ridiculous in Russian.) And then when he hit snooze, it said "okay, 5 more minutes"). I, however, slept very well with no interruptions. By very well, I mean for 4 hours, because most of our time was spent together in Eddie's compartment with a bunch of other kids from our group. Also we arrived at like 6 AM, so, yea.

Our tour guides picked us up from the train station. I remembered two of them (they came to the university the day before to give us hiking boots) but the other two were new. We went back to the hotel, which smelled a lot like cigarette smoke, and slept for about an hour and a half.

A lot of our time was spent eating and seeing Buddhist temples or Old Beleiver villages. While this was very interesting, I don't think it warrants more description.

Also a lot of our time was spent driving and eating. Seriously, we would drive for a little while, stop and eat, drive for a little while, stop and eat, etc. This was entirely unnecessary as we were just SITTING in a marshrutka. Or observing Buddhists. At any rate, no calories were burned, therefore we didn't need any less than, like, 8 hours in between meals, but I think we had no more than 3.

So we were in Ulan Ude for only one day before we drove 300 KM to some village on Baikal. This was fun. We stopped a lot along Baikal. Eddie or Sonya (don't remember who) found I giant stick (much like a softball bat) and then started to hit stones with it (much like the game of softball.) I was more or less thrilled and had much fun with this. Our tour guides also swam in the lake, which I thought was insane because I was cold just standing on the beach and Baikal water is SO cold. Elisabeth and Elissa and Ilana did too. I also thought they were crazy. But then I tried it myself and it was AWESOME. SO cold, but you don't really swim so much as run in, dunk your head underwater, and run out. I would do this multiple times in the next 3 days.

Our first night not in Ulan Ude we stayed at these people's house (I don't know how they had enough room for 14 extra people, but they did, and they were very nice). Our guides cooked for us (mostly Zhenia, who cooked quite well, although I can't say he cooked a whole lot other than kasha, soup, and macaroni. But it wasn't bad. Oh, and omul.) He asked who wanted to help, so Adrienne and I hung around and made a salad while the others walked around for awhile. Our guides then tried to get us to drink...samagon? I think it's called? with them, but we have a rule that on Middlebury group trips no one is allowed to drink alcohol. Which, although can be dissapointing, was sort of okay with me as our tour guides were all men, and all Russians, and therefore sort of, well, somewhat interested in all of the girls in our group. Anyway.

We also sang songs, in Russian and in English, which was much fun, and played "mafia" at 2 in the morning (all of our guides at this point were completely drunk, but that's okay). They also wanted to look at the moon or the stars or something, so played with a telescope outside for a half and hour and then we went back inside because they couldn't figure out how to use it. I'm sorry that these are not sentences.

The next day we were going to go hiking, but couldn't because there were very strong winds in the mountains, making this somewhat dangerous. It's okay, because we went to this village where there were cows on the beach and then took a boat to some hot springs. We were the only people there, and it was actually quite fun. There were two little tubs of hot springs, and then Baikal, so we ran in and out a bunch of times. We then slept in this sort of cabin thing at the base of the mountain we were going to hike up the next day. While we were trying to find this cabin, we sort of went off-roading in the marshrutka, and one of them bottomed out and had oil flowing out of it (bad?). So Sasha drove us and Zhenia to the cabin, Zhenia made macaroni with canned chicken (and Sonya and I made the best, and quite possibly largest, salad ever. It was also NOT drenched in mayonaise because we couldn't find it. This is excellent because the FIRST night I made what I thought was the best salad ever with Zhenia (cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, dill) he then ruined it by drenching it in mayonaise. It's not his fault, he's Russian.) Sergei and Kolya fixed the marshrutka, Sasha went back to check on them, later the boys went and chopped wood with Sergei and Kolya and made a fire. Really quite fun.

The next day at 8 AM I swam in Baikal. It was excellent. We then hiked up the mountain, which was literally STRAIGHT up for like four hours. It didn't help that I am insanely out of shape right now. Sergei and Zhenia are ridiculously athletic. They somewhat resembled mountain goats as they climbed up the sides of, like, cliffs. They also don't think it's healthy to drink water on the way up, because you will immediately sweat it out. I'm totally fine with this, and actually feel awful when I do anything athletic WITHOUT sweating a ton. (Americans in general drink a lot of water, and I'm used to drinking water like ALL THE TIME. So this was somewhat, or very, strange to me). Also Zhenia insisted that we sit on pieces of wood because if we sat on the ground (or worse, rocks) we would never be able to have children. The logic of this is completely beyond me, but whatever.

So we then started going back down the mountain. I'm standing there, thinking this is going to be so much easier, and better, and then I see Zhenia like literally leap off of this rock and start RUNNING down the mountain. Mind you, this is practically straight down with rocks and trees and whatnot and I was SURE he was going to break a foot or an ankle or something. He then tries to teach us, telling us it's a lot like skiing...and then Eddie and I ran down with him. It was ridiculously hard, but ridiculously fun. I couldn't stop myself so I sort of had to grab on to trees when I didn't want to, like, fly off the mountain anymore. I wiped out, and so did Zhenia, but everyone lived. Then at the bottom he felt like running, so he and Joseph and I did that for awhile. We then swam in Baikal, got back in the marshrutkas, and returned to the house we stayed in the 2nd night. I slept a lot (and FREAKED out when I woke up and felt us moving and saw water-Kolya was in the process of driving the marshrutka onto the ferry we needed in order to cross over this little river thing. I thought we were going to die.), and later we went to the banya. Sasha beat us with birch branches, we sweated a lot, etc etc. Elisabeth found MARSHMELLOWS! so we roasted those over the fire (except they were strawberry flavored, which was a little weird, but whatever, they were marshmellows which CANNOT be found in Russia. Also on the way here she made us peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. PB can also not be found in Russia. She made it herself. She is amazing.)

We returned to Ulan Ude train station and had a very sad parting. But Zhenia and Sergei and I exchanged phone numbers, so that's good, I guess. All of the other Middlebury kids on the train (Ivan and Eddie) stayed in Sonya's and my compartment for awhile and we talked to the other 2 Russians. We laughed a lot. It was fun. We talked about being not understood and foreigners in general. Especially our Baikal class, and the anxiety associated with saying "next stop, please" on the Marshrutka.

That's pretty much it. More later on everything that happened AFTER the group trip.