A Productive Day....

I'm feeling as though I am losing the amazing efficiency that has governed my day today... noooo! Yesterday I was productive for approximately four hours, and that's including my swim (and working on my paper.) For the rest of the day I did some stuff online... but entirely without focus, and it wasn't until my eyes started burning that I realized I had been on the computer for WAY too long and in the apartment for WAY too long. I had to get out... and so I did. It was dark, but I went for a walk in the park anyways where I was wondering... is this safe? But there were other women walking, albeit in pairs... I just figure that since I'm twice the size of most women here (in more ways than one - they are skinny skinny skinny! here) potential assailants would go for the two for one grab. No, it's entirely safe. At least it feels that way. The day's malleable slush had frozen into dangerous mini peaks and valleys which makes a walk in the park... uh, something somewhat more difficult that what that expression usually implies. It was fresh air though, and I forbade myself from any more computer use and decided to be more productive. So, I came home, studied... puzzled... read... and went to bed. It was more productive than the afternoon's internet vortex - my eyes and my brain felt better.

SO! My goal for the day today was to be efficient! That sounds SO nerdy... but it was.. and mission accomplished. I did some productive stuff online, finished the rought draft of my paper (yay!) and cleaned! You know when you start cleaning... and realize that over the recent weeks you've had some sort of myopia when it comes to thoroughness?! Or maybe I was just overcome with hyper-excessive attention to detail and ... a sort of over-reactive cleaning mania! Well, it hit me today. So, I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned and even though I think the vacuum cleaner is broken... I did the best I could. So yay, we have a clean apartment.

This afternoon I took the bus downtown to go shopping... even though the shopping here isn't that great. I tried on a pair of shorts that I saw a girl wearing on Saturday night... they're super cute but just didn't fit me at ALL, boo. I was also tempted to ask about boots... to see if any stores had my size but all of the shoe stores I went in were full of frenzied women and I just didn't feel like dealing with the language issues and the no-we-don't-have-your-huge-size looks. So once again all I came home with was a bag full of groceries... but, oh well. Oh! And I also came across the Maison d'Amitie de Poitiers et Yaroslavl... or something like that - a friendship house between the sister cities of Poitiers and Yaroslavl! Crazy! So I went in and spoke with the two women who were working there (en francais)... there's a small library and they offer french language courses mostly to kids... but to adults as well. I've never seen anything like that before! A joint sister city friendship house... chouette!


I just heard from Steve and they lost their game - game seven did not prove to be so lucky - their winning streak has been broken. Apparently their setter didn't travel because he was in the hospital, but it wasn't really explained what was wrong with him... translation difficulties I guess. Strange. So anyways, they are on their way back here tonight, yay! There is only one month left in the season, and time is flying by... as usual.

I walked home from downtown this afternoon, and here are a few random pictures from along the way:

One of the main chuches downtown: the main part was closed, with only a small area with several different icons and statues open for visitors.

People ice-fishing on the Kotorosl - this is close to the mouth of the river, where it meets the Volga...


The grocery store... not very exciting!!