14 December 2008
Yesterday was a ton of fun. First of all, I finished up my Christmas shopping. It is a good thing I am coming home soon, or I wouldn’t have enough room in my suitcase for anything else. (Soren, you are so lucky that I am your sister by the way…☺) The other girls and I played “tourist” taking pictures, hitting all the kiosks, and looking into silly shops with Russia-y things (I know that isn’t a word, but I like how it sounds.) You would think that finding things that said “Russia” in Cyrillic lettering would be very prevalent in RUSSIA, but no. Everything is in English. It was a bit ridiculous to be honest. I guess here, English letters are cool since they are not the norm- while WE are more interested in the “foreign” version. Nevertheless, we had a good time searching.
Afterwards, the real fun began. One of the guys here joined a Russian band (that plays covers of American music from the 60’s) and he had a concert with them in Rbinsk last night. Rbinsk is about an hour and a half northwest of Yaroslavl by bus. So a bunch of us went to be groupies/support our friend. It was an absolute blast! His band was the last one on the venue, so we listened to several Russian bands (with Russian music) first. There was much dancing, joking, and drinking while we were waiting. (Our Russian hosts looked at me like I had another head when I explained that I don’t drink. Even though they thought it was weird, they didn’t force it on me, as I worried that they might.) We also had some super conversations with Rbinskians; Lots of interesting discussions about politics, money, and differences between our cultures. Then the band we were waiting for played their set- and it was absolutely awesome. Such fun!
The coolest part of our evening was the ride home I think. We asked the owner of the club if he knew any taxi services that we could take back to Yaroslavl (the concert got out around midnight, so the buses were no longer running) Instead of calling a cab, this guy offered to drive all five of us back in his personal van, FOR FREE! That is incredible! This means that this older gentleman drove an hour and a half (both ways) in the middle of the night, to drop off five Americans he had never met before, and will probably never see again, at absolutely no charge. He refused to accept payment. (He saved us each probably close to $30) I was incredibly touched, and afterwards I felt like he had renewed not only me, but my faith in Russia in general. Truly the Hand of God at work!
9 days left! OH BOY!
1 comment:
Just goes to show that there are good people everywhere in the world! Last year on Christmas Eve my dad lost a check in the Wal-Mart parking lot close to 9:00 pm.. and he had already signed the back of it. He was going to Wal-Mart to buy Christmas dinner for the next day. He had a huge MS attack, could barely breathe... it was horrible (Yes, there is a silver lining to this story). A nice couple rang our door bell that night. They had found the check in the parking lot, called the police, got our address, and returned the check to us personally. My mom and I cried it was so touching. I will never forget those people. They were from Lusk, so we will probably never see them again either. That is my favorite Christmas story, because it really shows the true spirit of my favorite holiday! Praise God!
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