The Story of my Weekend

An email home:

"Here's the story of my weekend.

I didn't end up going to the dacha as planned, which turned out to be a good thing because Colin and I met some new Russian friends that we spent the weekend with.  Ivan, who is Russian, and Damir and Eerick who are Tatar.  Ivan and Eerick are programmers at some Japanese company, and Damir was laid off recently.  We spent the better part of three days hanging out with them; they're really really nice, and want to improve their English.  So it's not exactly great for my Russian skills, but I do speak Russian with them and they help me.  It's a win-win.

Yesterday (the 4th) we were going to go to the lake, but it rained all night and into the morning.  We met at 1:30 (about half of our group, plus Ivan and Damir) and decided to go to our RD Leslie's apartment.  She had brought marshmallows from home, so we made s'mores and played charades.  We followed this up with McDonalds, because hey, it's America Day.  After this Colin, Ivan, Damir and I went to a cafe to hang out.  Lots of laughs, fun conversation.  They're great, as is Colin.

That's about it for my weekend.  Masha comes home (from summer camp) tomorrow, Anatoli left (for Minsk on business) yesterday.  I'm going to try to find a camera for skype today, not sure if I'll see the guys.  I'm tapping this out between classes.  There's a computer lab in the institute.  I just had grammar and will now have practicing speech. 

I'm really starting to miss you guys.  I would be ready to come home.  But, five more weeks.  It'll fly by, I know, but I miss my folks.  Especially Wyatt, since I haven't heard a PEEP from him in almost four weeks.

I love you guys, and I'll talk to you later.
XOXO Jane"

Normal week ahead, more updates to come!