I am pooped!

Aliya and I busted our butts to get the room ready for Monday. There are still a few things to do, but in general, it looks really cool. I will make pictures on Monday and attach them.

Seems that things are often done half-ass backwards. They painted my room at the end of last week and just left it standing in the middle of the room. Tuesday I had to get them to move all the furniture out of the middle of the room so we could set it up. But they didn't paint the hallway to the classroom. So today as I'm hanging decorations in the hallway, the lady comes along and tells me to take them down and they will paint the hallway this weekend. Huh? Why didn't they do it all at one time?

And with my visa extension, if there is a typo on the form, the guy has to type it all over again and resubmit it. The system is a hoot. I see a lot of vestiges of the old Soviet system. It's a lot of hurry up and wait as well as whose palm needs greasing. Bureaucracy seems to be the same the world over.

So the landlady came to read my meters today. She was so nice, she didn't charge me for the first two weeks. I guess I cleaned well enough. She kept asking the school administrator who came with her where my bicycle was. In the beginning, when he told her I was going to have a bicycle, she made a point of saying it couldn't be inside the apartment. But she apparently didn't get the point that I would be riding it to work every day.

The concierges at the main desk of the apartment building are really nice about listening to my mangled Russian and answering my questions. And the staff at the school is very friendly. My Russian is improving. I listen to a Russian radio station every evening. But today at school I streamed NPR on the computer while I was working. OMG, what a joy to hear familiar voices. I've got to remember to listen to "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" this weekend. I've got to have my Paula Poundstone fix.

I forgot to mention that the school is really big on kids' artwork. I've already been told to make sure I get some up as soon as possible.

And I also forgot to mention that the butter here is wonderful! It has the absolute best test. It's not salted, of course. I love smearing it on the dark bread here.

So enough for tonight. I'll have more adventures tomorrow.