An interlude of craziness, now it's ok

Hi everyone.  Sorry I haven't written in a while but ... Tuesday is when the caca hit the fan, so to speak.

My school had paid three nights in that nice hostel room, the one I posted pics of. Tuesday morning I checked out, but left my bags in their storage room, not knowing what else to do. I went to work and talked to my director about it that day, then came back that evening and – the room had been rented. I thought wow, I have no place to sleep tonight. What an adventure! But of course I felt stressed about it as well. I thought I could work something out. As it turns out, they had a place for me there, but in a common room.

So I moved to the common room.  No big deal.  I'm not accustomed to luxury.  It's just for a couple more nights.  My director said she would pay it up to Saturday.

Thursday, the lady at the hostel flagged me down ... "you didn't pay for last night, or tonight, and we have no more room.  You'll have to move to another hostel."  Ok, again a feeling of panic.  I guess the school forgot again.  Bummer.  I paid out of pocket and wondered where I would sleep tonight.

Then she said they had a place for me at the other hostel.  Thank God!  They had two, and there was room at the other one.  Of course I had to go for a long, cold, confusing walk with my backpack at night, trying to find the other hostel so I could crash in my exhaustion.

Meanwhile, I had seen one very nice but far out apartment.  The guy said I could move Friday night at the earliest.  I told him maybe.  I was sure I could find something better, closer and cheaper.  Now, I called him back every 5 minutes, trying to tell him YES, BY GOD I'LL TAKE THE ROOM!!!!  I ended up moving 3 times in a week.  No one can live like that.  I think I lost my new shoes, gosh darnnit!  I needed a place where I can actually take a deep breath and get a good night's sleep, for the first time in a whole week!  I really pushed the limits of what I am physically and psychologically capable of.  But thank God I survived, never did sleep in the street, and didn't faint or anything.  Moreover, my place is actually pretty good.

***

At work I somehow got through Thursday and Friday, although I am far from having gotten the hang of this.  How to run English classes for toddlers, especially now at the beginning when all are crying for their mommys all the time?  I need more props and visual aids, but where can I get them for cheap?  I'll work it out.  I need to establish routines, but it's very hard to do when no one wants to participate at all.  I'm going to tweak my lesson plans and perhaps next week will be more smooth.

The day is broken up into a schedule with times in each of the three rooms at the day care center - play room, relax room, art room.  We have for example 45 mins of  "class" in the playroom, then potty, wash hands and tea (snack), then 1 hour in the art room, then go outside, then 35 min in the relax room, then lunch.  The relax room is for reading and nap.  The playroom is for play with toys, group songs and games, and "gym" type stuff, with some basic indoor climbing and crawling equipment.  The artroom has all the art supplies of course.  I'll post pics asap.  Also of my apartment.

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My roommate Pavel (Paul or Pasha) is a keeper.  He showed me the room, allowed/invited me to live there, tells and shows me everything about living there, and helped me move.  He reminds me of my cousin Rick.  The "straight as an arrow," nice, well-dressed, polite, kind young man type.  Somebody raised him right.  I have no idea how I would have gotten all my stuff there if he hadn't come on the metro all the way to the center of the city, taken my huge heavy bag and gone with me all the way to our apartment, which is far from the center and far from the nearest metro stop.

Saturday I woke up and had finally, for the first time since I got on the plane, gotten some sleep.  What a crash course transition!  But I made it with God's help.  I spent all day unpacking, cleaning, and going back and forth to different stores 3 times, getting some stuff for the apartment and some food.

Today, (Sunday), I went to Mass.  It ended up being an all-day thing.  That's the kind of community we have there - very social, lots of talking afterwards.  We had a guest priest today, some guy from the French Bishop's committee in charge of seeing what French-speaking Catholic parishes all over the world are like.  Here in Moscow we have it good.  But in China and other places they are persecuted.  We had a lunch in his honor after Mass.  Then I went to Marie-Helene's to see her place.  It's not bad, and in the center.  But I like mine better :)

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Now I'm at a cafe called Coffee Hous.  It's funny because they are using Russian letters to try to say "house," and it sounds a lot like coffee chaos.  The only bad thing is, people here are smoking.  Is that allowed anywhere in the US still?

Love,

Beth