Hey, I’m (almost) famous.

This morning was the school’s winter festival. Paul, Sonia, Jen, Adam, Jake with his dog, and I all walked along the path in the forest to go to it. It was at the same place where I led the bike trip in September. At that time, the kids got to climb along the wires and boards strung from tree to tree. Now the paths in the woods around the place are coated with ice and you can skate through part of the woods. They also had a skating rink, cross-country skiing and tubing, as you can see from the previous picture. There were about 100 people there and everyone had a really nice time. We foreigners only went tubing. But afterwards they cooked pilaf for lunch over an open fire. It was fabulous and of course we were hungry from all our activity. By the way, pilaf is a very common dish here. But this was probably the best I’ve ever had. We hung around and talked to people for awhile, then the guys headed out to the ski resort to do some downhill, Sonia and Jenn headed back home, and I went to the bank and shopping.
I got home, did a wash and then studied. Sonia met me at 6 and we went up to check on Jake’s dog because Jake wouldn’t be back until late, and then We headed out to the couch surfing meeting. It was a pleasant gathering and I met an 80-year-old guy from Iceland who lives here. Later,as we were all sitting around talking and drinking tea, a girl that we know came up and told me she had seen me on Instagram. I asked what she meant, and she said the meeting that was held last night about the new park in the woods was posted on Instagram and they had me in there as the foreigner who was making suggestions to improve usage of the forest. Since I don’t do any social media except WhatsApp, I never hear about this stuff unless someone tells me.
I didn’t stay at the couch surfing gathering too late. I went out to wait for the bus. It wasn’t coming and wasn’t coming. Finally I asked a lady and she said that bus wasn’t running anymore but she would show me where to get another one and she had to catch the same bus. The great thing about this is that we had a pleasant conversation during our wait and it was entirely in Russian! I am ecstatic that I could get so many sentences together and that she understood me. The studying at the kitchen table is paying off.