From Russia With Love

Well anyway.  This whole week I had been really frustrated because of paperwork and just lots of stressful things at school but then Friday happened and it was a really good day.  I did leaf rubbings with my 5 year olds (I know, real creative, but this is why I should work with older kids) but oh my gosh.  When I did it to show them how, they started freaking out because they loved it so much.  One boy blew me a kiss and grabbed some leaves and started doing it.  And another girl kept going, "Leah!  Leah!" to get my attention and giving me thumbs up and another was like "ochin kracin!" (very beautiful!).  OMG it was hilarious.

So last night me and Becca and Jeff and Sonya, my Russian friend, went to dinner at this place called Starlite Diner.  It is this very American, 50s looking diner with a jukebox and English menus and everything.  So as we are being seated, we see this group of about 10 middle school/high school age kids.  I hear one say, "wait guys!  Where are you going?"  So my ears perk up and I look at them and one of the boys has a North Face jacket (only in America) and another one has a KU jacket and basketball shorts on.  So we asked them what they were doing in Moscow and they live here and go to the American school (and the kid acted like it was not a big deal to be meeting other Americans in this tiny diner in the middle of Russia)!  And there were so many of them! It was so crazy because what are the chances?  We had these huge burgers and chili cheese fries and milkshakes (it's the only place to get real milkshakes in Moscow).  Oh it was so delicious.

Today Becca and Julie and I went out for some groceries and other things that we needed and we had to go to the metro stop by the school.  On the platform there were all these police and military guys and we thought it had something to do with the Russia vs. Germany soccer game because everyone was out wearing their soccer scarves and a lot were drunk after the game (at like 2 in the afternoon).  But we walked out and there were tons of military people everywhere and they had this area surrounded by their vehicles and news crews around and there was this protest-rally type thing!  It went on for awhile and we had no clue what it was about or for but there were flags and some had the pictures of the communist symbol.  We had to walk the long way around it because we couldn't go through but it was pretty exciting.  And we wanted to ask someone what was going on because there were a lot of younger people and we figured that someone spoke English but there were mostly just big groups of boys so we decided we would just google it later (but then I still couldn't really find anything out).

Oh I just saw a magazine with Brad Pitt on the cover (that Mom sent me :)  I love getting all the gossip) and that reminded me.  I was talking with some of my Russian friends asking them their favorite movie stars and they said Brad Pitt (of course) and I told them how Brad Pitt was born in the town where I went to college (yes in Shawnee, Oklahoma!).  They couldn't believe it and it was funny because most of their favorite actors and actresses (and movies for that matter) were American and a couple were British.  It's pretty crazy how big of an influence American pop culture has on the rest of the world.  Even my 5th graders talk about how they are reading Twilight and saw the movie and watch the Disney Channel.  I don't know if Americans really realize how influential we are on the rest of the world and it's not that big of a deal that Brad Pitt was born there (well ok it is a pretty big deal) but we take it for granted that they're all American!  I just thought it was pretty interesting.