"How Can You Teach When You Don't Speak The Same Language"

I get the question all the time (before and even after I've gotten to St. Petersburg) "How can you teach the kids if they don't speak the same language as you?" My answer is this: "Very carefully." Teaching someone you have no common language with is so extremely difficult. Teaching is much harder than I ever anticipated it being. I figured I'd just come here and speak English and everything would be great, and while there's some truth to that, it's a bit more difficult than just doing that.

We have to plan lessons, we have to be able to talk for the entire time we're teaching and keep the kids engaged, even though they don't know exactly what we're saying. It's a difficult task, we also have to keep them from misbehaving and not speaking in Russian all while only speaking English - a language they do not know. Lesson planning was difficult, having enough things to talk about for the entire class rotation was difficult, talking and being interesting enough to these kids even though they have blank stares because they have no idea what you're saying is difficult.

Victoria drawing with the kids

At first this was a super daunting task, now it's become pretty easy, perhaps it's because we've gotten to know the kids better or perhaps it's because we're actually somewhat successful in our English teaching abilities. All I know is I think I could be considered a charade master. It's an amazing feeling when the kids want so badly to be able to communicate with you that they try super hard to act it out and you figure it out and can give them the words for them to be able to express themselves.

Kelsey with some of the kids

Half the time these kids still don't understand what I'm saying, and almost all of the time I have no idea what they're saying. (Except you Gleeb - I heard you cheer after you asked the Russian teacher if you had to go to English class and she told you no). 

Before I set out for St. Petersburg, Russia to teach I was told that I'd end up loving each one of the kids, even the naughty ones. I've had times while I've been here that I've blatantly said those people are liars, I will never like those kids. As I've been getting closer to leaving all of these kids though, I realized while I may not love each and every one of them, I've grown fond of all of them - yes, even the naughty ones.

I've loved my time here in Russia, and teaching English to kids who don't know English has been extremely difficult and trying (as you can imagine), but it's taught me a lot of patience and I really am going to miss all of these crazy Russian kids when I go home.

MOCKBA

Moscow was a trip I think we have all been looking forward to (I mean, why the heck not?) We've all been holding out on buying souvenirs from Russia until this trip because the market in Moscow is so much cheaper than it is in St. Petersburg. I won't lie, I was definitely nervous about this trip - we were told that the people in Moscow were much more Russian and that they would probably be more rude and dislike us more than we're used to in St. Petersburg (which is crazy because some of the girls have been spit at for speaking English). I'm pleased to say, that was not the experience we had in Moscow, everyone we met was so nice!

Our journey started on the night of the 27th (Thanksgiving back home), we went around 10 pm to the airport because public transportation here shuts down at midnight and doesn't open up again till 6 am and our flight left at 5:45 am, so another night of sleeping in the airport. And by sleeping I mean browsing Facebook and playing solitaire on my phone. Once we boarded our first flight I was completely out, I don't even remember taking off, I remember waking up and they gave us half a sandwich and some apple juice and I was a happy camper because I was starving. We got to Moscow a little after 7 am and it was dark and cold, so we decided to wait in the airport until it got a little bit lighter out (we couldn't check into our hostel until 2 pm anyway so no rush).

Once the sun came up a little more we found the bus (after a little bit of asking around) and we got on, luckily there was a lady on the bus that spoke some English so she told us how much the fee was and we gave the guy 200 rubles for the four of us, but then he kept saying that we only gave him 100 rubles so we needed to give more money. The lady was frustrated and confused but we told her we paid him the fully amount and then everyone on the bus started speaking in raised voices to the bus driver and he stopped talking and the lady said it was fine, we didn't need to pay more. I'm pretty sure he was trying to take advantage of us. It wasn't a good first impression that was sure I remember thinking "oh great, that's a good start to the trip".

We got off the bus and took the metro (which is way more confusing in Moscow, but still manageable) to Red Square, we were sort of turned around and weren't sure which direction to go in so we stopped and were looking in my notebook when a nice older lady came over to us and gave us directions to Red Square! I was very grateful for her and she was just so nice to stop and ask us if we needed help.

Red Square was pretty awesome, they were in the process of building a carnival thing in the middle of the square (which had a skating rink) so it was kind of weird looking when we went the first time, but still really pretty.

St. Basils Cathedral

Misha Collins at St. Basil's on Oct. 5th(ish)

Had to recreate Misha Collins picture

We headed to a mall right on Red Square to thaw out because it was just so cold in Moscow, I was in awe of all the Christmas decorations everywhere, it was exciting!

Around 1 pm we decided to head out to find our hostel, luckily our hostel was only one metro stop away from Red Square! I'm glad I looked at the pictures on the website for our hostel because it wasn't labeled anywhere! It seemed kind of weird that there were no signs and we just had to go into an apartment, etc. But we got there and when we stepped in I know we were all super confused and weirded out, there was incense burning and jazz music playing and it was just really confusing and the host guy was not understanding why we were somewhat confused. But we checked in, we all gave each other somewhat terrified looks and then we all basically passed out for a few hours because we were so exhausted.

When we woke up it was still pretty strange in our hostel, but everyone was very nice and friendly, the host guy kept asking if we were alright and if we needed anything to drink. Then they came in telling us they were cooking dinner for everyone and there was free beer if we wanted it (from what I saw when we went into the kitchen though they must call any liquor beer because it was like hard liquor). There was a guy from Turkey there and he made us all a Turkish dinner, it was so awesome, and after awhile they opened the windows to cool off the place and all the guys kept putting blankets on us and making sure we were covered up, it was so sweet. Plus we got to meet so many different people, it was awesome! I think our hostel experience was probably the best.

Turkish Dinner

View from our hostel

We were in the shared room so we shared our room with 12 people, so it was us 4 girls and a bunch of guys (from all over the world). We met a guy from America, a guy from Austria, a guy from Slovenia (yes it's a place! He just kept telling us they're small but big in heart!), two guys from Australia, the Turkish guy, and many others. We got to speak to an American girl who's been living in Russia for the past 3 years so that was pretty cool too. The next day we ended up going to the market, which was basically a day long affair (so much to see and buy!) but I won't bore anyone with the details of that, especially since those souvenirs are also Christmas gifts.

That night we became BFF's with the guy from Turkey, we were all sitting in the room just writing in our journals and he was on the phone with someone and then he handed the phone to Kelsey and told her it was his friend from America, so she put him on speaker and we just talked to him for awhile and then he went off again but after a few minutes he came back and had us Facetiming with a different one of his friends. It was pretty hilarious. He also ended up reading Kelsey's journal because he didn't understand what we were all doing or what a journal was. He told us his life story, turns out he used to be a body builder but he lost all of his muscle mass when he almost died after he caught malaria in Africa not too long ago. He even took a few selfies with us.

Then all the guys got ready to go out and we all just stayed out of the way in our beds, the room was pretty cologne-y after awhile. We're pretty unexciting people I guess because we all went to bed pretty early, however, I was also awoken early in the morning to a giant THUD, when I looked over I saw one of the guys on the floor, he had totally fallen out of his bed. It was hilarious.

On our last day in Moscow we headed back to Red Square to see Lenin's Tomb, we were told it's a must see. I mean, when are you ever gonna see a mummified Russian leader in person? So we went pretty early because we were told that the line is huge and we'd end up standing in it forever, we did not, it actually went really quickly. They hurry you along the entire time though, which is kind of lame, no dilly-dallying. You also can't take pictures, but let me tell you, Lenin looks pretty good for having been dead since 1924 he just looked like he was sleeping or something.

Outside Lenin's Tomb

Bolshoi Theater

Double-decker carousel

The Kremlin

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

After that we kind of explored around the Kremlin and tried not to freeze to death, it was pretty fun, and flying home was a good experience too. Moscow was a much better experience than I imagined it would be (I kept picturing the worst, honestly) and people there were actually super friendly and helpful! Unfortunately it was so cold that we didn't get to do as much as I would have hoped, but I still had a really great time.

 I've loved all my traveling so much, but we all just kept talking about how the next time we take a flight it'll be the long haul back to America, which we're super stoked about!

Latvian Whirlwind

This past weekend was our last out of the country vacation and we spent it in Riga, Latvia. We ended up leaving after teaching on Thursday night and we were on the bus and on our way at 9:40 pm.

This trip was just the three of us, Victoria, Kelsey and I. We got to Riga at a little after 7 am and it was snowing! It was so ridiculously cold, we found our hostel right away and tried to see if we could check in, but unfortunately we couldn't until 2 pm. We had time to kill and not a lot of energy to do so with. (Sleeping on a bus is extremely hard)

We explored the city a little bit, but everything is closed until 10 am so we ended up finding a cafe to stay in and "warm up" a little. I say "warm up" because we never actually did, it was freezing and I'm pretty sure our internal organs had froze by that point.

Once things opened up at 10 am we braved the cold again and went to look at souvenir shops and all that jazz, we mainly walked around and went to shops. The Christmas Market in Riga was opened so that was cool, but there weren't as many shops as we expected I think.

The Musicians of Bremen based on the fairytale by the Grimm Brothers

Laima Chocolate is made in Riga

I loved seeing sweaters on the poles outside this little shop

Around 1 pm we couldn't take it any longer and we tried to go check into our hostel (again) and they told us it needed to be cleaned still but that we could hang out in their common area, so we did, hoping it would be warmer (it wasn't). They had a candle on the table and we all kept trying to warm ourselves up with it. We waited until 2 and then we were let up to our room, it had 5 beds but just the three of us stayed in it, so that was cool. As soon as we got into the room we all huddled around the space heater they had just plugged in (none of the other heaters worked) and we didn't move. We kept trying to lay on it and get as close as we could, we didn't even care at that point if we got burnt because we were fairly certain we would never know what warmth was again. We fondly gave the heater the name Hank.

Kelsey and I passed out in our jackets, hats, scarves, gloves, etc. with our beds pushed up to the heater and Victoria quickly followed suit, we all woke up around 7:30 pm realizing it was finally warm again! It was so nice to feel warm again because we had been so cold for so long, and it had stopped snowing so we went and found a grocery store to buy something to eat and then spent the rest of the night in the hostel hanging out.

The following day we explored a little bit and then we got to meet up with Alisa, a Riga native. We were lucky enough to be put into contact with her through Victoria's brother who is currently serving a mission in Latvia. It was really awesome getting a chance to be taught more about the city by someone who lives there, plus we got to know her and she is such an awesome person! I'm so glad we got to meet her and hear her stories!

Freedom Monument

The Cat House

I want to take a moment to highlight the Cat House in Riga, it's the best story of revenge ever -

Once upon a time there was a man who lived in this house, he was a merchant and wanted to become part of the German merchants Guild next door, unfortunately they told him they didn't want him to be a member. Distraught the man ordered two cat sculptures to be made that he could mount on the roof of his house - just so he could have their butts facing the Guild. THEIR BUTTS. No better revenge than that. The best part of the story is that there ended up being a lawsuit over the whole ordeal because the Guild was really offended by the cat butts and the man ended up being allowed into the Guild so long as he turned the cats around.

The oldest Latvian crest was moved here after the old weigh-house was destroyed in WWII

The Three Brothers are the oldest residential buildings in Riga.

Home of the first Riga Executioner

We really loved being shown around by Alisa and hearing the stories about the city and the different buildings, she also took us to go eat some traditional Latvian food! It was so amazing and we were definitely blessed to have that experience. (If only we could have had it last weekend when the light festival was in Riga, dang it!)

After Alisa had to go to work we went back to exploring and souvenir shopping, we had such a great second day in Riga, we were all pretty sad to be leaving it so early the next day, it was so pretty and we hung our heads out our hostel room window for a large majority of the night just admiring it (and also trying to get people to look up and wave at us)

The next morning we made our way to the bus station and said goodbye to Riga at 9 am, we didn't end up getting back to St. Petersburg until about 9:30 pm so it was a long day riding buses and that definitely wears on us, luckily we don't have to spend hours going through border control again or riding in those crazy buses.

We do have one more vacation planned and that will be this weekend. (We're traveling all over the place in November!) Really glad to be flying as well, our next adventure is Moscow!