randomness

Between being able to call my mom on Skype pretty easily and keeping up with a lot of other people on Facebook, I don't find myself blogging as much this trip as I have in trips abroad before (and the fact that my keyboard is small and it's easy to accidentally hit the wrong key and delete my post is also off-putting), but I decided it was time for an update.

Teaching is going well. I like my students a lot. Every now and then I'm reminded that they're high schoolers, not college kids, and they're slightly shyer about being quirky than my OU kids (although that may be because my class this past spring epitomized quirky), but their grammar is excellent! And they're generally smart kids who are up on politics and literature (I'm teaching at nerd camp. This makes me happy, because I went to nerd camp once upon a time.).

Last weekend, I got to go to the Hill of Crosses (Google it, it's fascinating), and this weekend, we're taking a trip to Vilnius. Monique, Miranda, and I (two of the other teachers about my age I've gotten to be friends with) are planning to stay in Vilnius two nights instead of one in order to do more sightseeing and go see the final Harry Potter movie. Apparently the movies here are subtitled, not dubbed, which is an improvement over Ukraine.

Today I went to a seamstress and dropped off my dress for Natasha's wedding to get it altered. It will cost me around $10, which I thought was quite good. There was a second-hand store in the same building where everything was 30% off, so I now have a new blue skirt for a little over $4. Second-hand shopping is even more fun in Europe than in the US.

In Y family news, Vitaly and Katya's son David (say it Dah-VEED) was born yesterday (I think), so Viktor and Nadia are now grandparents and I think I'm an honorary aunt. Also, Vlada and her boyfriend Kolya are now engaged and planning a wedding for mid-August. I'm torn between being very happy for them (Kolya's a good guy...he passes my big-sisterly inspection), wishing that they'd waited a bit longer until Vlada had a year or so of college (she just finished high school), and being a bit sad that there is no way I can go to the wedding, since I will already be in the US and can't change my return date, as I have a wedding to be a bridesmaid in the weekend after I get back. Such is life, and there are still 10 more Y family weddings that I can try and be there for after this one.