As you may or may not know, this past Saturday was my 20th birthday. So as I am now a whole year older I see my time in Russia in a different light.
Haha just kidding it feels pretty much the same to be 20 years old. The celebration of the day of my birth began with flowers and chocolates from my host mom. Fun fact: In Russia you always give flowers in odd numbers. Even numbers are only for funerals and I'd hate to be there if a Russian received two flowers instead of one or three because Russians are very superstitious people. Then Anna and Ashlin came over and we had a special meal prepared by my host mom on a table they set up in my room. She also gave me balloons that say congratulations in Russian to decorate the room! After the delicious meal, she brought in a cake and Anna and Ashlin sang happy birthday to me :) The day was made complete with cards I received from my mom and Grandmother (Dad I'm still waiting on yours).
On Sunday the celebration continued when Ashlin and I went to tutor for Marina. Marina gave me beautiful roses and her students made me a happy birthday sign and sang in English. It was so cool that they learned to song to sing to me.
Since the completion of two decades of my life, things have proceeded as usual. We had normal classes today and yesterday. And today we met with the Chinese students to plan what song we are going to sing for the holiday festival in the department. Apparently there is a song that has English, Russian and Chinese in it so we are going to work on that. The only really remarkable thing that happened today was that on my walk home I noticed they had decapitated all the trees. They had cut off all the limbs of the trees so that the trees were just trunks. I'm not quite sure why they did this but it made the walk home feel very exposed on the streets that are usually covered by the branches. I'll be interested to see how they grow back in the spring.
I don't have too much planned for the rest of the week but Ashlin's birthday is this weekend so we are working out some sort of celebration. We might go ice skating again this weekend so hopefully I'll have more pictures to post :)
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Haha just kidding it feels pretty much the same to be 20 years old. The celebration of the day of my birth began with flowers and chocolates from my host mom. Fun fact: In Russia you always give flowers in odd numbers. Even numbers are only for funerals and I'd hate to be there if a Russian received two flowers instead of one or three because Russians are very superstitious people. Then Anna and Ashlin came over and we had a special meal prepared by my host mom on a table they set up in my room. She also gave me balloons that say congratulations in Russian to decorate the room! After the delicious meal, she brought in a cake and Anna and Ashlin sang happy birthday to me :) The day was made complete with cards I received from my mom and Grandmother (Dad I'm still waiting on yours).
On Sunday the celebration continued when Ashlin and I went to tutor for Marina. Marina gave me beautiful roses and her students made me a happy birthday sign and sang in English. It was so cool that they learned to song to sing to me.
Since the completion of two decades of my life, things have proceeded as usual. We had normal classes today and yesterday. And today we met with the Chinese students to plan what song we are going to sing for the holiday festival in the department. Apparently there is a song that has English, Russian and Chinese in it so we are going to work on that. The only really remarkable thing that happened today was that on my walk home I noticed they had decapitated all the trees. They had cut off all the limbs of the trees so that the trees were just trunks. I'm not quite sure why they did this but it made the walk home feel very exposed on the streets that are usually covered by the branches. I'll be interested to see how they grow back in the spring.
I don't have too much planned for the rest of the week but Ashlin's birthday is this weekend so we are working out some sort of celebration. We might go ice skating again this weekend so hopefully I'll have more pictures to post :)
Пока
Hi Colleen,
ReplyDeleteDid you not get the card that I sent? I was hoping it would get there in time. Anyway, it should be there by now. I hope you get it :-)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY from us here in Germantown.
Love,
Auntie Cheryl and Tara
Happy new decade you old broad! Love you loads!! Hope you get to do something fun for Ashlin's birthday. 18 more days :) !!!!!
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