The weekend is here

Hooray! This is the second to last weekend I’ll be spending in Kazan until August. My visa was renewed last week so I am legal until next May. The weather has been great the entire week, but of course, since the gang is going to do a 30-mile bike trip tomorrow, it’s raining tonight. Too bad. We are going to ride to Blue Lake anyway to swim in the frigid water (Think Stony Brook times 3.)and it’s still a go. We’ve decided who is bringing what for the picnic and let‘s see how many of us will make it there! We are all renting bikes. Since my bike doesn’t have any gears, I’m not riding 30 miles on it. Today was a good day in school. Ali, one of the custodians, turned over a small plot of land on our playground so that we can plant our garden. We have beans, carrots and pansies growing on our window sill. It’s time to get them outside. And it will give the kids something to do all summer. The nursery school goes year round, but I got hired on the elementary school schedule so I’m taking every bit of vacation that’s coming to me. Besides getting our garden dug, I found out that our bike rack had been ordered and that the guy who is planning the bike path around the school will be in next week to get things laid out. According to the principal, we are going to let the kids paint all the traffic signs right on the path. This will be a great project for the older ones. And the funny thing is, who do you think I ran into last night when I rode downtown to meet with Fattah, the guy from Iran that I met last week? Artyom, the guy who is doing the bike path project for us! He was just coming up from the subway underpass with his bike and I was just headed down Wit mine. It turns out, he has several bike rental and repair shops in the city. No, we’re not renting our bikes from him Tomorrow. Ravil knows a shop near his place and that’s where we’re going to get them from. So cross your fingers that we have reasonable weather. I should have some neat pictures to post tomorrow night.