До свидания, Ярославль!

Well, I don’t think I need to tell you how busy the past few weeks have gone bye.  You can probably tell by my lack of blogging.  Between  papers, presentations, finals, and preparing (and by this, I mean packing and souveniring (yes, that is too a word haha)) I haven’t had much free time.  And to be quiet honest, the time has just flown by since Thanksgiving.  Actually, time started to go faster after our vacation, and it has continued to go faster every day.

I feel that I should mention that I am safe, too (maybe I should have put that first?)  The political demonstrations are actually really interesting, and in my opinion, it is a great time to be living in Russia for a person interested in politics, like I am.  We actually had our own little (and by little, I’m comparing it to what happened in Moscow and St. Petersburg) demonstration here in Yaroslavl’.  But there were easily a thousand people there, so I guess it wasn’t that small.  I took a go first, and then tell them that I went approach with Mom and Dad, figuring this would save us some worry.  The protest was actually great and very peaceful.  They had a fenced off section of a square that we entered through metal detectors with all of the other Russians.  And there were police and militsia everywhere.  Maybe for every 10 people there was at least one police/militsia officer.  There were people with signs and every once and a while, they would chant something or cheer.  And there were different people that got up to speak.  I didn’t understand very much of what was said for three reasons: 1) Vocabulary (I got maybe every few words).  2) They talked very quickly.  3) It was over a loud speaker, so it wasn’t always very clear.  There was one thing that I understood, however, and I even went to far as to clarify with my friend.  The people there don’t want a revolution.  They just want a clean vote.  I just thought this statement was great, and for me, being there, it really was a great example of the power of the people.

Election Poster

Next order of business: leaving.  This past week I’ve been getting homesick….but for my home here.  Don’t get me wrong, I am beyond ready to be home, but I also don’t know if I really want to leave.  Things finally started to click about a month ago.  And it makes me sad to leave my friends, my [new] Babushka and sister, Tanya and Nastya, and everything that has been my life for the past four months.  But, alas, I know that all good things must come to an end.  And I already know that I will be returning, so I have that to look forward to.

Ice fishing on Kotorosl' River (Река Которосль)

And so, this will be my last post from Yaroslavl’.  Friday morning a few of my friends and I are taking the train to Moscow to play tourist until we fly out on Sunday.  And then I’ll be home!!!

До встречи!