In Which I Nearly Freeze

It's been a fairly quiet week, so I'll keep this short. It's Sunday evening, and I've just gotten back from a long walk through Yaroslavl' that has in a way reaffirmed for me the beauty of this city. Recently I've been getting rather frustrated by this fairly small, very provincial Russian town, and I really was wishing I were in a properly modern, western city. It took was a two hour walk on a bitterly cold (less than 20°F) and windy afternoon, through the snow that has accumulated over the past week, to lift the frustration that has building in me in the past few weeks. Somehow the snow makes the city look much prettier: the 17^th century churches look less shabby, the streets look less dirty, and the people look less bitter and angry.

Seeing as how we have about a month left of classes, my professors have started to load us up with work somewhat – for instance my politics professor expects us to write 3-4 pages in Russian for our papers for every class. So I've been quite busy with school work, and thus haven't had too much time to wander around or waste time. Much of the rest of my time has been spent trying to figure out how I'm going to arrange meeting my big brother Teddy (or Ellis) somewhere in the world in late December. At first we discussed meeting in Almaty, Kazakhstan, but then we decided that would probably be too complicated, though it would make for a good story. Then we were trying to decide between Turkey, and Northern India. We seem to have decided to meet in Delhi on Christmas, though no reservations have been made yet. I am really excited about it, and quite amused by the prospect of boarding a plane in cold, snowy Moscow, and getting off in decidedly less cold and snowy Northern India.

That's actually all I have for now; perhaps I will have more to say next time. Though it's likely I won't have a whole lot to report until I'm finished with classes on December 15^th. Oh, and I put up my pictures from Moscow on Shutterfly, along with the pictures I took on my walk today. Again, it's fromtherodina.shutterfly.com