Wow! That was a tough, long haul! Friday marked the end of our semester here at the American Home, which meant grading 50+ exams, giving speaking exams, planning last classes, and figuring final grades. Russians love to do everything at the last minute (and so do I), so this last week was a bit stressful to say the least. On top of that, I've been working on graduate school applications (just finished!), and planning my trip to Rome (leaving tonight!). My seven days in Rome will be a well-deserved vacation. I'm going to take thousands of pictures, so I'll be sure to post them when I get back after the New Year. Until then, ciao! 

I've been extremely busy lately with grading exams and all the end-of-semester stuff and with preparations for my upcoming trip to Rome (ya that's right--I'm going to the eternal city on Monday!). I'll tell more about that later. Here's a shot of sunrise in Vladimir. I think it was almost 10:00am when I took this.

I had an extremely Russian experience at the post office last Sunday. I went to get a package my parents had sent and to mail a few Christmas cards. The nice thing about the Russian post office is that it is open at 5pm on Sundays. The bad thing is that it is the Russian post office.

I went to Vladimir's main post office, which is the main post office for the entire Vladimir Oblast (basically Russia's equivalent of a state). There was almost no one there, so I assumed it would be a short trip. My first stop was the package room. In Russia, packages aren't delivered to your door; you get an notice, and you have to go pick them up at the post office. There were two very bored-looking ladies sitting in the dingy room, and the calender on the wall announced that the today was December 6 (in reality, it was the eighth). I gave them my notice, and, with a sigh and an eye roll, one of the ladies went back to the storage room and retrieved a small box. She lazily put a the box on the counter, but it was addressed to someone name Ivan, so I told her that it wasn't the right package. She let out an even louder sigh, retrieved the notice from where she had tossed it, and went back to the room, all the while complaining to her coworker. She shuffled boxes around for a few minutes and then finally threw my box out of the room. The impact of it hitting the floor shook the little room. Good thing there wasn't anything too fragile in it.

I gathered up my slightly-battered package and headed to the main room to send my cards. There was one other person in the long room, and there were two ladies sitting behind the desk. I went up to one of the ladies and said I needed to send a few cards. The lady, who has served me before and has been quite friendly (for a Russian post office worker) in the past, gave me an annoyed look and told me to have a seat and she would call me when she was ready. She went back to doing absolutely nothing.

At this point the other person in the post office, an intense-looking man in his 40s or 50s, came up to me. He said, "Young man, can you swear?" I wasn't exactly sure how to answer this question because I, of course, know a good number of Russian swear words (I need them to be able to understand what anyone says at my gym), but I don't usually use them in my speech except to add some extra emphasis every once in a while. I told him yes. He then asked me if I can swear poetically or just rudely. At this point I was trying to figure out some poetic way to tell him to go away, but I said, "rudely." He then asked if it is acceptable that guys my age swear on the bus in the presence of older people. I told him that swearing is just a part of the language, which prompted him to tell me to read real Russian language like in Dostoevsky.

All the while this was happening, he was pacing the empty post office hall, which was bathed in soft illumination from old incandescent lights and the last rays of the setting northern sun. The man began to get very philosophical, posing the rhetorical question, "what is worse--swearing or smoking?" He reasoned that, while smoking harms the body, swearing harms the soul, and, while the body is transient and curable, the soul must remain pure. When I finally told him that I was foreign (I think he was so lost in his thought that he didn't notice that all my answers were very short and not exactly Russian), he huffingly declared that things must be really bad when even foreigners are using the worst parts of the Russian language.

After some more pontification, he shuffled out of the post office, and the lady finally got doing nothing and helped me send my letters. Never a dull day here in Vladimir.

With the onset of cold weather, icy-window season has returned to Vladimir's buses. The heaters on the buses can't do much when the temperature is below about 10F, so the windows frost over and stay that way until the outside temperature warms up again. Last year, that period lasted over a month. This year, though, has been warmer so far.

In all my travels, I take and share lots of pictures of the cities I visit. But recently I realized that I almost never take pictures here in Vladimir. So I went out this afternoon for a walk around the center of the city and snapped some pictures of Vladimir in all its winter glory. The city is much prettier when there's snow.

The American Home

Sledding on the centuries-old rampart

The Golden Gates

The main drag

A side street

Front of the historic main shopping center

An old church

The new-years tree on the main square

The traffic police

Walkers in Pushkin Park

Snowy historic Vladimir

Looking south onto the Klyazma River

Carriage ride anyone? 

Lenin is looking a bit forlorn  

The main post office

One of the most frustrating things about Russia is its road system and the rules that "govern" it. There are legions of jokes about Russian roads ("There are two problems in Russia: roads and idiots," and, "You don't swear--start driving and the roads will teach you."), and those jokes are not undeserved: Russia's road system is woefully bad. It is way underdeveloped and very poorly maintained. Rough winters are bad for roads--any Clevelander is well acquainted with pothole season and its beloved successor orange-barrel season--but roads here in Vladimir can't even survive the summer. This year all the locals were impressed because the roads were actually being repaired in the summer (it was an election year), but that involved scraping off the top inch of deteriorated pavement and laying an inch of new asphalt on top of that broken-up base layer. They paved one of the biggest stretches during a heavy rainstorm--the USDOT would not approve. That new pavement is already falling apart.

The rules of the road add another layer of frustration. Russia uses the European signage and the European system of priority roads, which more or less makes sense when you get used to it. The problem is that the roads are inadequate for the traffic volume and that a lot of intersections are totally overburdened. Russia is a

country of strict rules, and so a lot of traffic-aiding policies that we have in US are illegal in Russia. For example, it is illegal to make a right on red, illegal to turn left on a green light if there is no specific left-turn signal (this prevents left turning in front of on-coming traffic, which is admittedly somewhat dangerous, but we Americans seem to do okay with it), and illegal to cross a double centerline (this means that you can't make left turns into driveways or minor streets--you have to continue on until you reach a special area where U-turns are permitted and double back). Break any of these regulations and you'll risk losing your license for at least six months.

Another really draconian traffic regulation is the policy that cars that have been involved in accidents must
remain exactly where they are until the accident investigation is complete, and this goes for both serious accidents and minor fender benders.And, given the overburdened roads and Russians' propensity to throw caution to the wind, accidents are extremely common. Theoretically, the fact that vehicles remain exactly where they were makes for a more fair and complete investigation. The problem is that these damaged vehicles block roads for hours while the traffic police take their sweet time to complete their accident reports. Other drivers are forced to squeeze around these wrecks, often causing

huge traffic jams and, sometimes, other accidents. In the US, the first priority is to get damaged vehicles off the road to ensure safety and smooth road operations--the investigation comes second. Here in Russia, if you move your car before the investigation is complete, it is the equivalent of leaving the scene of the accident. No concern is given for other drivers or their--and your--safety as their try to find a way past your car. The ultimate irony is that the road police are notorious for being crooked, and accident investigations are often a bidding war between the two drivers: Who can pay the bigger bribe and get off scot-free?  

It's been snowy here!

Americans love convenience. We love to move. We love to eat and drink. So, by the associative property, we love convenient ways to eat and drink things while we move. Americans get everything possible "to go," buy fancy containers to sip hot (and cold) beverages while on the go, and have reduced meal times to the amount of time it takes to fill up a to-go container and run to the car. Why waste all that time sitting and eating when you could be doing something/going somewhere/talking to someone/buying something/checking your email while eating and drinking. And are there any doubts why we lead the world economy?

Russia, on the other hand, isn't so convenience-oriented. The idea of filling up a motor mug with coffee or tea and setting off to get something done is, well, unheard of. I can only imagine the concerned/perplexed/annoyed stares I would get on the bus if I was sipping on some coffee during my morning commute. For Russians, having tea or coffee is more of a ritual, involving sitting, waiting, eating overly sweet little candies, and gossiping. The same goes for food. Russians might derisively acknowledge that businessmen in Moscow mindlessly quaff coffee but point out that it's not something the average Russian living in "real" Russia would do. So I try to blend in and pretend that I too can do my morning commute without a nice cup of coffee, but I'm starting to have dangerous thoughts. Maybe on my next trip to Moscow I'll buy a motor mug at Starbucks and set about shocking Vladimir by enjoying coffee on the bus. Maybe I'll start a new trend.

We did it! Our Thanksgiving dinner yesterday was a success, and we did it all without a working oven at the American Home. Actually, it was a much less stressful affair than last year's dinner, and we served dinner almost on time (only 15 minutes late). We had an ample amount of food, and it all turned out really well.

We had a very traditional Thanksgiving menu year, featuring turkey, stuffing, gravy, cranberries (two types: sauce and orange-cranberry relish--my grandma's recipe), biscuits, tossed salad, orange-glazed carrots, maple-walnut green beans (with real Ohio maple syrup sent from the US), cheese balls with crackers, and two pumpkin pies. We were able to get most all of the ingredients we needed here in Vladimir. There was a minor panic last week when the Russian staff told us to run to the supermarket and buy the last four turkeys because, in typical Soviet fashion, who knew where there might be turkeys again (and they were right: the turkeys haven't been restocked). We needed steak sauce for the cheese balls, and Russia doesn't have your regular AI sauce, so I ended up buying something approximating meat sauce that was made in Japan. One teacher brought pumpkin filling with her from the US because she knew that it's impossible to buy here. Cranberries are available here no problem, but I asked my Russian students, and they told me that people don't usually make any kind of sauce with them but rather boil them to make compote.

Here's a few pictures of the preparation and the feast (we decided to pay tribute to America and buy some Bud--gotta love those global corporations):

Happy (white) Thanksgiving, America! This is a tough day to be abroad, but I'm thankful for my supportive family and for the fact that I have the opportunity to travel and experience another culture. I do miss a good Thanksgiving dinner, though!

Today is, of course, a work day here in Russia, but we Americans will have our celebration on Saturday. We're making a Thanksgiving dinner for ourseleves and the Russian staff of the American Home. This is a tradition that goes back to the start of the AH 22 years ago, but this year's celebration is a bit more complicated because our old Whirlpool oven (imported from America 22 years ago) is on the fritz, so we're making do and doing our baking and turkey roasting at people's apartments. That means we'll have to lug 25 pounds of cooked turkey on the bus--boy, we'll sure be popular people.

I hear the US is having a wintry Thanksgiving, and, as it turns our, we are too. Today we had our first real snowstorm. Here's a view of my neighborhood. In counting my blessings, I'm can say that I'm thankful that I grew up in a beautiful neighborhood of architecturally distinct single-family houses sorrounding a picturesque lake.

Snow! We finally had our first appreciable amount of snow here in Vladimir last Thursday. The snow melted within a few hours, but I snapped this picture on the way to the gym in the morning. You get a nice view of scary garage land and an industrial area off in the distance. The weather forecast is calling for warmer temperatures (upper 30s F) for the next week, so who knows when we'll see snow again. That's making everyone here nervous--usually there is snow on the ground by this time, and Russians love snow.

Here's a song from the Russian punk rock group Sektor Gaza that I heard today on the bus ride to work. The video is a compilation of scenes from the Russian movie 9 Rota, which is about the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Enjoy.  

Here's a picture I snapped on the way to the gym this morning. Okay so maybe it wouldn't win any photography awards, but it shows a pair of heat pipes snaking through the courtyard. This is a really common site in Russia, but it was one of the things that surprised me the most when I first came. Heat pipes--ranging from big, city-wide distribution lines to little feeders serving individual buildings--usually run above ground here in Russia.

Well I should back up. Why are there heat pipes snaking around the city in the first place? These pipes are part of a district heat system that serves the whole city. Soviet urban planning was all about centralization and standardization, and so it is fitting that heat is generated in one central plant to distributed around the city. In Moscow, 96% of buildings are connected to the central heat system, and I'm sure the figure is similar here in Vladimir. These systems exist in American downtowns and on college campuses, but America's spread-out pattern of development and strong concept of private property ownership preclude the development of district heat systems on a large scale in the US.

It's not surprising that these pipes look a little on the shoddy side. Russia also faces serious infrastructure problems. How do you maintain infrastructure that is rapidly approaching the end of its design life? How do you privatize a pattern of land use and service delivery that was designed not to be private? How do you oversee utility companies operating in an environment of serious corruption and cronyism? Russia's infrastructure--and city utility systems in particular--is a playground for corrupt businessmen: They defer system maintenance, raise rates, and use cheap materials, and then they export the money to foreign bank accounts and bribe government officials to look the other way. The result?  Utility system breakdowns are common, and it's always a last-minute scramble in October to patch up the last holes in the heat system before the winter. Russians really dislike utility companies and see them as a bunch of money-grubbing crooks, which might not be too far from the truth, at least as far as the top management is concerned. While all those managers are relaxing in Thailand with money kept safely away in their Cypriot bank accounts, regular Russians are stuck with crumbling infrastructure. 

So most bus stops in Russia don't look like those old Soviet ones. One feature most modern bus stops have in common, though, is the little convenience store that is usually located right at the stop. These stores are nothing fancy. They are little huts, usually painted blue and white. The stores display their wares behind glass, and you poke your head into a little window and talk to the blase lady to make your order. On cold days, you have to knock on the iced-laced glass to get her to open the window.  

These shops sell the basics: gum, magazines, cigarettes, and drinks. Now these shops only sell non-alcoholic drinks; a few years ago, you could buy beer at the bus stop, and, although it was technically illegal, no one cared, so you could drink your beer while you waited for the bus. Needless to say, that really fostered Russia's famously tragic love affair with alcohol. You can also buy some strange things at these shops. They often have toys, stuffed animals, laundry detergent, and dish soap for sale. I've even see men's undershirts for sale, which is a surprisingly practical idea--how many guys are inclined to make a special trip somewhere to get an undershirt? American convenience stores have these little stands beat in terms of odd line ups of items (the neighborhood mini mart--where the bleach is right next to the rotisserie chicken, just down from the diapers, catty-corner from the transmission fluid, and across from the PBR), but they fall into the same niche. 

Here's a typical store in a typical Russian neighborhood: 

 

Every planner is familiar with the term transit waiting environment. It is a fancy name for a bus stop or a train station, and waiting environments are considered to have an effect on the popularity of public transit as a transportation option. A well lit, clean bus stop makes transit users feel a lot more comfortable than a dingy, dark one. Waiting environment upgrades are a part of any streetscape plan these days in America, and there are some really cool designs for bus stops and train stations out there. And why not make a bus stop--something that is too often left as a grimy afterthought--into a showpiece?

That attitude doesn't exist in Russia. In a country where a huge percentage of the population uses transit every day, bus stops are often ugly, unsheltered, unlit spaces that are the opposite of inviting. Some of the bus stops around my neighborhood are really shocking: an L-shaped structure made of bare concrete and covered in graffiti. Add some potholed pavement and a rusty trashcan and you have yourself a bus stop.

There are some interesting bus stops, however, left over from the Soviet Union. These stops are usually out in the country or in little towns, and they feature unique designs and strange murals. Mostly they are in bad condition nowadays, but they harken back to a time of collective labor, futuristic design, and optimistic imagery. Some of them are actually quite cool in a Soviet-kitsch way. Here are some Soviet bus stops from around the former USSR.

  

I'm an urban planner at heart and by training, and, although I'm noting working in urban planning right now, I know that's where my path leads. I do my best to stay connected to the planning world (I never miss the Atlantic's Cities Blog), and I'm starting to plan my next career move--maybe grad school, maybe an entry-level job. But while I'm here, I love to notice the unique facets of the Russian urban experience.

Russia doesn't lead the world in planning innovations, and its cities are embracing many of the same bad concepts in planning that still plague American cities (car-centric design, big-box sprawl, highway-driven development). But Russian cities are very different from American cities. Russian cities very much bear the influence of socialist urban planning, and that means that they are dense.

Dense cities are great for public transportation because there is a high enough passenger volume to make bus, trolleybus, tram, or even subway services economical. Vladimir has about 350,000 people, but its public transportation system makes the system in Columbus, Ohio--a city more than twice the size--look comical. During off-peak hours, you have to wait for at least 15 minutes for a bus on Columbus's main street. I rarely wait more than five minutes for a bus here in Vladimir, even when I'm leaving work at 9:30pm.

A lot is being written right now about young people in America forgoing cars and moving to cities, and it's interesting to think how this trend will influence American culture and the American lifestyle. But still, there aren't many American twenty-somethings who would move to a small city and try to go carless for two years--it still isn't a reasonable choice in America. Going carless in Peoria, Illinois, for example, is something you do out of necessity, not because you want to. On the contrary, having a car here in Vladimir might actually make my life more complicated. It might shave ten minutes off my commute, but finding parking is next to impossible, gas is very expensive (the same price as in America, and my salary is half of a meager American salary), and any car that I could afford (only a used Lada) would be far more trouble than it's worth (Russians joke that when you buy a Lada, the dealership throws in a bus pass with the deal).

So, while sometimes I grumble about the bus commute and I definitely miss driving, I am proud to say that I've made it more than a year without a car, and it wasn't even very difficult. Now how's that for hipster credibility?   

Krasnaya Moskva. To anyone who has spent much time in Russia, this scent will be familiar. It's the smell of dolled-up older ladies on trolleybuses; it's the smell of the 50+ lady in front of you in line at the grocery store. It's the smell of Soviet femininity.

Krasnaya Moskva, which means "red Moscow," is a perfume that was extremely popular in the Soviet Union. To me, it smells like a mix of grape syrup and baby powder, although it has been compared to Chanel No. 5 (which also has a baby-powder quality about it). Maybe in small amounts Krasnaya Moskva would be alluring, but it is never used in moderation. It makes a sickeningly sweet haze that gets into your mouth and brings up memories of old ladies scolding you for not wearing a hat on a cool day. It is definitely a grandmother perfume, and I can't imagine any young Russian women would wear it. But that's okay; the old ladies wear enough of it for everyone.

  

Time for a small history lesson. Maybe you noticed that there are mosques in my pictures of Kazan. You probably don't think of mosques and Islam when you think of Russia; I know I didn't. Russia, however, is never as simple as it first seems. There are many different religions practiced in Russia, although Christianity is the major religion and the de facto official religion. Kazan, however, is located in Tatarstan, a region that is still heavily influenced by the Muslim heritage of its Tatar residents.

Kazan was a center of power for the Golden Horde until the Horde's demise in the 15th Century, and it then became the center of the Kazan Khanate--a Muslim entity. The Khanate was conquered by Ivan the Terrible's forces in the 16th Century, and most of the Muslim Tatar residents were killed or converted to Christianity. But Tatar culture remained, and mosques were even built under the reign of Catherine the Great.

Tatar culture visibly differs from Russian culture. Islam plays a role, and it isn't uncommon to see women wearing head coverings. Mosques are also dotted around the city, although their calls to prayer are much, much quieter that the ones I heard when I was in Istanbul (you can actually get a good night's sleep in Kazan!). Tatars have special traditions for weddings, and they have their own cuisine, which I discovered I like a lot more than Russian food. Tatar cuisine has a lot of savory combinations of roasted meat, spices, and vegetables, and it is all followed by fresh tandoori bread. The food actually has flavor!

Kazan is just one of several centers of Islam in Russia. The Caucuses are another region dominated by Islam, and, increasingly, Moscow is becoming an Islamic city with the influx of migrant laborers from former Soviet republics in Central Asia. I never though of Islam having a role in Russia, a country that is fervently Orthodox, but, in fact, Russia has a long history with Islam, and Kazan is just one of many Russian cities with a large and active Islamic community.

A model of the mosque inside the Kazan kremlin 

I'm back! My trip to Kazan went really well. I've had a long day of train riding--we left Kazan at about 10pm, arrived in the small city of Murom at 5:30am, and took a two-hour bus ride to Vladimir this morning--so I'm going to keep this short. Here are a few pictures of Kazan:

A view of the mosque in the Kazan kremlin

The main building of Kazan Univeristy 

Kazan's main mosque again

The mosque's ceiling 

Mosque interior  

A hotel on Kazan's main square

The skyline as seen from across a lake in the center of town

Our train back 

Vacation! We have a small break from teaching because of the holiday unity day, which is on November 4. The holiday is supposed to be a celebration of the unity between all the different nationalities that make up Russia, although the holiday is pretty new, and people don't seem to have embraced it as anything but a day off work.

Unity day is Monday, and we also have Tuesday and Wednesday off, so another teacher and I decided to do some traveling. We're passing through Nizhny Novgorod to get to Kazan. We're taking a bus to Nizhny and overnight trains to and from Kazan. It will be nice to have a little break from Vladimir, and I'll be sure to take plenty of pictures. 

Happy Halloween! Russia doesn't really celebrate Halloween, but we had a Halloween party last weekend for our students. Everyone had a great time, and I have to give the students props--they made some great costumes without any of the benefits of the commerical Halloween bonanza that we have at our disposal in the US. Here's a link to the American Home Facebook album of pictures from our party:

Halloween 2013

Russia is a stuffy place. We may disagree on our ideal room temperature, but if there is one thing that Americans don't like, it is a hot, stuffy room or car. The minute the air gets stale and heavy, we open the windows or crank on the AC. But this is not so in Russia. Everything is stifling and airless. This surprised me at first; Russia is famous for being a cold country, after all. It would seem that Russians would be hardened to the cold and not mind a pleasant chill or a fresh breeze.

Russians, however, are terrified of drafts and chilliness, and they prefer a much higher room temperature that most Americans can tolerate. The "healthy" room temperature here is considered to be 23 or 24 Celsius--that's 72 to 75 Fahrenheit. My parents always kept the thermostat at 66F and turned it down to 62 at night; that really makes for brisk winter mornings! Russians, however, start complaining of cold long before I've even noticed a chill, and they take extra precautions to ensure that they don't get cold. Today, it was about 50F, and people were walking around in winter coats with scarves and hats. I don't understand how they weren't dying--I was warm riding the bus in my spring jacket.

There is an explanation for this Russian fear of cold. Russians believe that cold air is a direct cause of illness. My host mom would always scold me for leaving the apartment with "my throat open" (not wearing a scarf) because that will cause a sore throat or a cold (never got one). Or people will immediately protest if someone opens a window on a stifling bus because it will make everyone sick (I feel like the cesspool of germ-filled stale air is probably more dangerous if you want to get technical). Russians strongly adhere to the belief that if your feet get cold, you will get a cold; someone explained to me that there is a direct connection between the nerves in your feet and the nerves in you lungs, and that is the cause for this propensity to illness. I'd be interested to know what the American Medical Association thinks about that.

The most dangerous of all, however, are drafts. My Russian teacher once explained to me how dangerous her apartment is because the desk in her room is positioned on a direct line between two windows. If they are both open, she immediately gets a cold. The cause? The air is moving in two directions and is entering the apartment from both windows, and that is somehow dangerous. Of course, the laws of air pressure would dictate that it's impossible for air to be entering the apartment from both windows at the same time without somewhere else for it to go, but, logic notwithstanding, my teacher insisted that she can always tell instantly when someone opens another window. This draft problem also happens in cars. It's OK to have one window open, but having two windows open at the same time is extremely dangerous. My teacher said that she and her family can't travel long distances in their car in the summer because it gets too hot, which is a problem because she would like to visit relatives in far-away cities. Making the drive bearable by opening the windows, however, is off the table: Her elderly mother can't take the chance of getting sick.

Now that I live on my own, I can freely open the windows and relish a fresh breeze without worrying about impending doom. But I still get a lot of complaints if I open a window or turn on the air conditioner while I'm teaching (it gets mighty stuffy and smelly in a small room with 13 people). Oh Russia.     

Wow that was a big week. It was midterm week at the American Home, which meant lots of questions and giving speaking and written exams. It was also the week of the annual Halloween Party, which our students love but which requires a lot of planning and work. On top of that, another teacher and I agreed to present at a research conference held by Vladimir State University, and, in order to do that, we had to write a research paper and prepare a presentation. Needless to say, I didn't have a lot of free time!

I was all worth it, though. The Halloween party was a success: 60 or so highly energetic Russian students (mostly teenage girls) showed up, and we turned the American Home into a haunted house. They carved pumpkins, learned to dance the thriller, and ate lots of junk food. It was like a little bit of America right here in Vladimir.

The research presentation also went well. Our paper was titled "Inequality in American education: the impact of location," and we focused on property tax's role in producing unequal outcomes in Ohio schools. It was a tough slug to get the paper written, but we definitely enlightened the academics at Vladimir State about a side of America that isn't covered in movies and pop songs (the usual sources of information about American culture). Our presentation highlighted two school districts in the Cleveland area that illustrate the correlation between property-tax revenues and school performance--Cleveland and Beachwood--and one that breaks the trend--Cleveland Heights-University Heights. We presented in English to a group of about 15 people, and, at least from their reactions, it seemed like they understood at least most of what we were saying. We even got a few questions. My favorite was, "Do private individuals support struggling public schools?"--I answered by bringing up the role of the Cleveland Foundation and other philanthropic organizations.

Also, most of my students did well on their midterms. Now I've got to grade a big stack of tests featuring such ESL gems as "I like to do it a lot" as a response to the question "How often do you do your homework?" and a lot of incomprehensible things like "I slip in my bad around until 23:00pm at week." (She means I go to bed at around 11:00pm on weeknights).  One day I'll have to make a blog dedicated to the stuff my students say....

Here are a few pictures from a trip some of the other teachers and I took to Moscow last weekend. We were lucky enough to get a sunny day (what a rarity!), and so it was nice to the capital city in all its glory.