Okay more updates.

So I've been talking with this girl about helping us volunteer at a children's home. We met this group of girls a couple of weeks ago, they said they could help us out (they're also in their 3rd year at the mezhfak). So two weeks go by, I hear nothing, I send a text message, we agree to meet on Monday. Note, this is a new girl (Anya) not the original girl I was talking to (Alyona). So I meet Anya at the bus stop near the Linguistics Department. She tells me we have to find some other girl, who's at the theater right now (why she didn't tell me this first I don't know, I mean, it's not like she didn't know we'd need her, or that there was a show going on). So we go to the theatre, and sit, and for like an hour watch these people singing and dancing. Though amusing, I have no idea what this whole spectacle was for. I think for the teachers of the university, or something. So then after the show I talk to this girl. She talks really fast, says she has a list of homes but not with her, why don't we meet on Thursday. So...after 2 hours, I have no new information, and head home. This did not do much for my mood in general.

Nana (the head of the Middlebury School in Russia) came to Irkutsk this week to sit in on our classes and just generally see how things were going. In our Baikal class, Elissa gave a presentation about the Celtics. For, like, 45 mins. I had NO idea how this related to Baikal, or even Siberia, but thought that maybe something was lost in translation. Ha. Anyway, Pavel Alexandrovich (our teacher) asks her the same question, she doesn't know. So then for a really long time he talks about clothes or something, I have no idea, but at the end of the class I still have no idea what is the connection between the Celtics and Baikal. But LATER, at dinner, we were talking with Nana and it turned out she ALSO didn't understand what he was talking about. This is thrilling, because she IS Russian. Therefore, maybe I didn't understand NOT because of my lack of language ability, but because what he was saying was entirely incomprehensible (this is not actually true, had what he said made sense I still wouldn't have understood). But it made me feel better knowing that an actual Russian didn't understand either.

We had our group dinner at this cafe which was quite good, actually. I'd like to return. It was called "Old Cafe", and had a sign that said "since 2007". We all found this to be quite humorous. What was strange was that they didn't bring all of our food out at the same time, they sort of brought them in shifts. So they sort of brought out everyone's food over the span of, like, an hour. We were there for 3. But it was fun, and they played ridiculous music (children singing "We Will Rock You", Christmas carols, etc...all in English. But also "Living on a Prayer" and "This Love". I was excited). Sonya and I tried some of what Elisabeth had, which was SO good, and basically the reason why I want to go back. Anyway.

Okay I'm out of time again. More later.