Catching Up, pt. 1

Well, the end of our first week here in Moscow has officially arrived, and none too soon, I might add. This week has been a been like a scene from the movie "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" except that we haven't been driving anywhere (If you have never seen the movie, as I recall, it is pretty funny--though I must add a disclaimer, since I last saw it about 15 years ago, and those were the days when I thought that Max Headroom and Alf were cool).

Anyways, to recap, here is what has happened with us. Last week Tuesday (Feb. 7) was our last day at the language school. I must say that it was a bit of a bittersweet time. Tver was very good for us, less hectic than Moscow, with a good language school, and a time to get acquainted with Russia. I really had a great language teacher, who has prepared me well (my current language teacher was surprised at how much grammer and vocabulary I had in such a short time). SO, that was a bit of a downer. However, I would say that we were definitely ready for some spiritual fellowship with our mission team, and I was ready to jump into work as well. So, last Tuesday, our teachers and the staff had a small going away party for us, just nice and simple. It was nice to establish some relationships outside of the context of our work--hopefully these will remain for the duration of our time here in Russia.

Last Wednesday and Thursday, then, were spent packing. It just seemed like we unpacked, and now we were doing it all again. Worse, though, was the fact that we had collected so much so quickly--after all, we had to buy when we got here dishes, silverware, pots & pans, a dresser, a washing machine, microwave, and all sorts of assorted other things. We easily doubled amount of stuff that we have here--it is amazing how quickly stuff amasses. So, those two days were filled with packing, packing, packing. The one thing that I discovered was how difficult it is to find boxes. Luckily, our nanny told us that the post office sold them, so I was able to go down there and buy a whole bunch. The wisest thing that we did was to hire our nanny to come all day for both of those days so that she could watch David and let us pack our stuff--otherwise, I am not sure how we would have been able to pack, unless we had stayed up into the wee hours of the morning.

Well, I am realizing how long this is going to be, so I think that this whole week's events will need to be split up into several posts. So, that is all for now (this is kind of like one of those old cliffhanger episode, the last one of the year, that makes you wait all summer to see what will happen come fall--but I promise that it won't be that long of a wait!!)