Last weekend!

I really couldn't have asked for a better last-weekend in Moscow. Here were the highlights:

Just getting into Moscow:
At this point, we all pretty much have workin the Moscow Metro system down. What would usually be a 30-minute ride, though, ended up being almost 2 hours--all of our main connections were closed. We were sort of miffed about this unexpected setback, until we found the reason why this had happened:


Mayhem in Red Square.

Apparently, a memorial was being held that morning for a Muscovite soccer fan, who was killed a few days ago in a big after-game brawl. During the service, though, thousands of the "football hooligans" in attendance (what they apparently call them in Russia) got riled up, and mass rioting broke out. It got so bad that police apparently had to use "shields, truncheons and gas" to try to control the masses. Therefore, apparently wanting to keep more people from getting caught up in the mayhem, several metro stops were shut down. Crazy stuff.

An article about it on CNN:
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/12/11/memorials-for-slain-soccer-fan-turn-violent-in-russia/?hpt=Sbin

Ice-Skating at Gorky Park-
After being underground for far longer than we had planned, we finally worked our way over to Park Cultury for some ice-skating! Gorky Park is a giant park right by the Moscow River, which is most popular for its amusement park rides. In the winter, though, they freeze all of the wide walkways in the park, turning it into a giant ice-skating rink--sort of. So, Whitney took her LSAT, we rented skates for 150 rubles and skated around for an hour. We had such a blast!


Kaitlyn and I skatin along.


Practicin our fancy figure-skating stunts.


And again: Kaitlyn, Dani and I.


A crazy Pepsi ad they had posted up.


The main skating part of the park, complete with Christmas tree and performers singing Christmas songs on the stage behind it. Since we didn't understand the Russian singing, we held hands and skated around the tree singing "Fahoo Forays" very loudly instead. Tender moments.

Having fun at the Moscow Intl. Branch Christmas party-

After skating in the cold, we were excited for some indoor fun at the Branch Christmas party.

Just takin in the Christmas cheer.

We ate tons of tortillas chips (I've missed those), listened to a kid recite the entire Grinch story by memory, played a huge get-to-know-you game (nobody would believe I was 22), and, of course, belted lots of Christmas tunes. The branch here has been unbelievably good to us--having that definitely made adjusting to and enjoying life in Moscow much easier. I've learned so much from the great people in the branch here.

Slumber-partyin in Moscow's "Little Utah"-

Last Sunday, our relief society president, Klynn Lochhead, invited all 17 of the Moscow ILP girls to have a big, last-weekend slumber party at her house in Moscow. Last minute, though, she got the chance to visit some of her kids in Germany, but left the offer open for us to still go over and use her house for the night. While it took those of us who volunteered to Metro to their house almost 2 hours to get there (everyone else caught rides with ward members), we all ended up having such a great time together, playing several rounds of "Ilyousha," eating tons of American food (the embassy, apparently, ships American food over here that people can buy... Ah, how I've missed it!), and cramming way too many of us into one bed and telling silly stories until 3 am. I don't know the last time I laughed that hard--the girls here have been so fun to get to know, gosh. I can't believe this is all almost over!

The community they live in:

It felt so weird coming from Moscow and driving into this--I haven't seen anything else like it anywhere in Russia.

We all made predictions about what the interior of their house would look like:

And we were right, even down to a big globe of the world and a bookshelf full of fat church books and classic novels (not pictured). I think the best parts of the house, though, were the heated, tiled kitchen floors and the 5-ply toilet paper. Oh, and the big jar of Jiffy peanut butter in their pantry (they told us to eat whatever we wanted... don't worry Mom, I didn't go crazy on it).


The next morning: all of us Moscow-Captains. Best group ever, I love these girls.

I can't believe I'll be on a plane home in 5 DAYS!! Where has the time gone?

The end.