My new brother!!!

If you don't already know, my parents are in the process of adopting Edgars Schuberts, a 12 year old boy from Latvia http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifSimply for Latvia who found us via an e-mail sent to my aunt. I went to visit him last weekend and had a wonderful wonderful time staying with him where he lives at a sort-of foster/children's home.

Highlights:

1. Just sitting and talking to Edgars and playing computer games with him.
2. Going ice skating!
3. Helping him with his homework
4. Seeing Riga with "Big Natasha" - his foster mother. (The name Big natasha is because there is another girl who used to live there before she got adopted to america, and she was little natasha.)
5. Going to 3 Pushkin related events! Russians really just love love love Pushkin. I'll make a blog about it sometime...

Novgorod Part II!!!!!

My favorite things about Novgorod:

1. Its really really beautiful in the snow
2. It feels much safer than St. Petersburg
3. It is older, more historical Russian than the very westernized St. Petersburg
4. Everything in Novgorod is cheaper than in Petersburg!
5. It is cleaner than Petersburg

I had a really good time there in Novgorod, the only thing negative about it was that I was really missing my friends from last semester!! The people this semester are much crazier. Not that the people from last semester WEREN'T crazy...

The photos on this e-mail:

- Looking at historical Novgorod from the bridge
- A few churches in Novgorod. There is a "tradition" of running around the church on the left 3 times in order to secure a good husband. No news yet...
- An old wooden church at the museum of wooden architecture