The biggest Blog update in the WORLD, but so totally worth it to read.

Моre differences between US and Russia

- they cut their melons differently; they cut orange-slice like pieces out of the watermelon

- they have peaches and chocolate a lot; it is their fruit of choice to go with chocolate

- They don't highly value or use doctors and prescription medicine and hospitals as much as in America

- There is no good Russian translation for frustration, to be frustrated, or to be excited

- MTV Russia isn't a cable channel

- Some Russian verbs are extremely extremely specific; they have a separate verb (возненавидеть) for "to have a deep hatred of," and my personal favorite (опасататься) - "to fear and therefore refrain from" and лениться (to be too lazy to do something)

- It costs more to see a crappy USA movie on a Friday night than to see an opera or ballet!

HOST FAMILY NEWS!!!!!!!

I am not switching host families I don't think, they found the family with cats, but I am allergic, and the more I talk with other students about their host families the more I am grateful for my interesting, friendly, and open host family.

I have had a few long conversations with my host mother over the last few days, and this is what I learned -

1. She has four jobs. (She always seems to be at home though, I have no idea when she goes to these four jobs).
2. Those four jobs are actually being a professor of art and art history at different institutes around St. Petersburg!
3. She was born in the Arctic circle
4. She homeschooled Polina, my host sister, until she was 12. This is EXTREMELY EXTREMELY unusual in Russia. You weren't even allowed to homeschool in the Soviet time, because how else would they indoctrinate the children with Communist ideology?
My host sister was not only homeschooled, but homeschooled in the Russian aristocratic sense that she painted, learned French, played the violin and piano, and sang!
5. I think she speaks English and just hasn't told me. Over the past few days when I have been struggling with a Russian word, she says it in English. Also, if I say a word in English that is really similar to a Russian word (or she tells me a word in Russian that I don't know, but it sounds like an English word, so I say it in English) and she asks me to repeat it in English and then she practices saying it. If she does speak English, which I think she does, I would feel/do feel so odd! Like finding out that I was adopted...