We had our Christmas party today at the American Home; it was a lot of fun. About 40 students showed up,  and the party lasted for over two hours. One of our teachers dressed up as Santa Claus, and we put on a skit (Russians love skits), danced, played games, sang Christmas carols, and decorated cookies. It was a little slice of America, and everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves. Here is a pictures of the whole teacher group at the end of our skit:

Tomorrow, I'm planning to go on an excursion around Vladimir to find and take pictures of Lenin statues with one of the other teachers. There are at least statues of the old guy scattered throughout the city, and he even still has a major avenue and a square named after him. Hopefully I'll get some good pictures.

I'll definitely have to dress warmly for this excursion because the high tomorrow is -1F, and the low is -11F. I went to the gym the other morning, and, when the trainer asked how I was, I answered cold and tired: I hadn't had my coffee yet, and I had just slipped and slip across the icy, unplowed parking lot to the gym. He chuckled and said that he's from Siberia that this kind of weather (it was probably like 10F that morning) is still warm. He told me to wait until it gets to be -40 (fun fact: the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales converge at -40)--then I can say it's cold.