The lucky plane ride and bicycle underpants

Ok, so after a nice week in Germany visiting family and friends, riding my bike and enjoying weather with NO SNOW, I took off for Kazan at 10:15 p.m. Saturday night.  I didn’t sleep during the flight because we had a meal and it just wasn’t very comfortable. Got to the Moscow airport, went through immigration with no problem and changed terminals. Still had lots of time until we were supposed to board at 5:50 a.m. So I did a little emailing and then I just decided to “rest my eyes”. Damned if I didn’t fall asleep and didn’t notice that we had started boarding. I woke up just before the gate was about to close. Yikes, you can’t cut it much closer than that!
As we land in Kazan, I look out the windows and what do I see? Snow!  It must have snowed for three days last week. But of course, now it’s melting so rapidly you almost have to swim across the street at crosswalks. The water just cannot run off fast enough.
After I got back to the apartment Sunday morning,  I found a notice to pick up a package at the post office in my mailbox. I first slept for about an hour, then I went to the post office to pick up the package (Yes, Post offices are open on Sundays here.), went and got my hair cut and then got a few necessities at the grocery  store. I came home and slept again for a few hours, then went downtown to have tea with Ravil at Coffee Bean, then came home and finished up my lesson plans.
School was fine today. We only had nine kids and it was a fun day. I’ve started teaching them Bicycle safety and today we talked about the parts of a bike. I brought my bike inside and we discussed everything. I showed them the seat cover I put on the seat when I leave it standing outside. I asked what they thought it might be called. The answer: “Underpants!” What a classic! The reasoning and thought processes are so sound. The kid just hadn’t learned the right word yet.
Then, when we went outside we walked in the woods. The highlight for the kids? All the piles of dog doo they found along the trail. They were so excited to learn the expression “doggy poop”. One of the kids repeated the phrase and laughed the entire way. So, tonight and tomorrow night are going to be “rest up” evenings before table tennis on Wednesday and couch surfing on Thursday.  And I’ll see if I get some more packing done.