The Festival that is My Life Now

this is a really bad pic of me and my favorite girl here, Hannah... you shall see better ones of us soon.

these are all of what u haven't seen so far.





























To be a tourist you see the sites of Moscow but not Moscow itself and while they are beautiful, breathtaking and unlike anything you have ever seen in your life, Moscow can be beautiful without them. Today I think was the first day I felt connected to Moscow as a city. I ordered my own meal and despite the fact that I didn’t speak Russian very well I didn’t hold up the line, like I typically do. The language and their intentions behind their words is becoming easier to understand. Instead of gibberish I can hear unique sounds. Moscow is becoming comfortable and I think that is one of the beauties of the city. While the city and even the people can be harsh and even aggressive there is an understanding of the opposite that they can show you just as much kindness. It finally hit me today that I am in Russia and living amongst people who are nothing and everything like me.
The physical beauty of Moscow is also amazing which we saw on our 3 ½ hour bus tour. It was long and we stopped and got out places but it was worth it. The first thing we saw was St. Basil’s cathedral and the Kremlin which I have never seen and equal to. The cathedral, our tour guide explained, is a culmination of churches which creates a compass of the city. The red dome points north while the green points south. The east looks like traditional Russian hat and the west look like grenades because invasions all come from the west. This is one of the amazing things about Moscow in even the architecture tells the history of the city. Next we went to the overlook of the city by the cathedral Christ’s Savior which I had been to two days before. In Moscow they have a tradition that when a couple get married they write their names on a pad lock and put it on trees on a bridge- Only the picture can truly describe it. At this same bridge they have a bench that is curved and it is said if a couple who is fighting sits on either side and slides to the middle they will resolve their argument. Our next stop was a sculpture created by a French artist as a memorial to all the abused children, “for the children who are victims of adult’s vices.” The memorial is a ring of sculptured vices with two golden children in the middle, their hands reaching out to each other. We continued on to a park next to an old monastery where Stanislavsky and many other great Russians are buried. It was nice to just walk around. The last stop was Sparrow Hill where there is a beautiful panoramic of the city and the Moscow State University, Moscow’s Harvard. It was an incredible building but got the remark, “well that’s not intimidating (sarcasm).”
We are done sight seeing for the week. I start class tomorrow on a normal schedule. We are performing our first etude tomorrow, a short silent scene created by the group, which we rehearsed for an hour this evening. We are ready to have it ripped apart tomorrow but that is good. We were warned that we should expect criticism because Stanislavsky believed it was the way to get better to leave the good and work on the bed.

this is what u get when u order A BLACK RUSSIAN.