moving...er, moved...to the top of the world!

After teaching a year in Diomede, I am now teaching in Barrow, Alaska. Check it out!

moving to the shoulder of the earth

For those of you who have followed my adventure in Russia, you can now follow my adventures in Alaska! I accepted a teaching position on Little Diomede Island in the Bering Strait. Naturally, I'll be blogging up in the arctic.

Here's the link!

snowandmist.blogspot.com

Returning to Russia

No, I have no plans to go back to Russia, but Russia came to me!

My friend Marta, whom I met at English Cafe, is staying in Chattanooga for the next five weeks. I love her to death! She makes me miss Russia and learning Russian.

Can't wait to have some fun Chattanooga adventures with this girl!

for every step of life, for every moment of joy!

Well, I am home! Cathy dropped me off at the Domodedovo airport at 5 in the morning. My plane to Frankfurt left at 7:05 a.m.

So, Jess & I have been talking about whether I would have "culture shock" when I came back to America, and I was thinking probably not. I thought the only way I'd have culture shock is if I were coming from...I don't know, like the African bush or something. But when I got to Germany, I was amazed.....dumbfounded by how nice and friendly everyone was. All the workers had a big smile on their face, and they were respectful and cordial. I was like, "What alternate reality am I in?" It was the weirdest thing.

There was an hour and a half delay in Frankfurt, but other than that it was a-okay. I've been impressed with Lufthansa airlines. The flight to Atlanta was particularly awesome because a) it was during the daytime so I got to see the ocean (unlike last time when I flew during the night), b) the seat next to me was empty, and c) every single seat had a TV with a bunch of different movie and TV options. I watched this German flick called Buddenbrooks: Decline of a Family. I did not like it at all.

Pictures from up above:

A still chilly Canada.

Germany.

I really like this picture.

At passport control in Atlanta, the girl said, "Hi, how are you doing today?" and then checked my passport and declaration form, and she concluded with saying, "Thank you. Have a nice day!"

So completely different from the death glare I got from the Russian chick at passport control. She looked like she wanted to murder me. It was crazy.

As I was going up the escalators, I was completely surprised. My friends, Jess, Amber, and Sam all were there with posters and American flags (hahaha), and my dad, sister, and nephew were there with signs too. Luke, my nephew, ran out past security to greet me, and the security guy thought it was "cute" and let him go. Haha. I was...boohooing like a baby, of course. I was SO surprised and SO glad to be home.

They drew St. Basil's! Isn't that awesome?!?! They're great.

:) I'm glad to be home.

After that I got to choose what restaurant to go to. So, we went to Cracker Barrel. :) Good southern cookin'. I think I drank three glasses of sweet tea. :) Hahaha. Fried chicked, fried okra, French fries... I like fried food evidently. Haha. I read this quote the other day: "I've never heard anybody say, 'Gee, golly, I can't wait to get up to New York so I can have some of that good Yankee food.'"(Paula Deen). Haha. I love that.

It's weird. Now that I am back...Amber & Charles might be moving to the French Alps (crazy people), and Sam is definitely moving to Barbados. Jess is going away to seminary in North Carolina. Michial is moving to Florida, and Michael is moving to South Korea. Dori is going back to Peru in a couple of weeks. Tim & Beth, of course, are staying in Moscow for the next two to three years. People, people, people. Sigh. Such is life though. I suppose it is good to have friends all over the world because then I can just go stay with them whenever I get the travelin' bug.

So, now life is wonderfully slow. It's been thundering and raining all morning, and I have the windows open. It feels/sounds wonderful. I haven't heard thunder or felt rain in four months. I have missed it! Everything smells different here. It smells earthy, dirty, and wet. It's wonderful. Everything sounds different too, namely, bug noises and bird noises...and wind through the trees noise. Except for pigeons and crows, the only noise I heard in Russia was traffic.

I am finishing up my portfolio, hanging out at TFC for awhile next week, graduating, etc. Hopefully I'll get a teaching job in the area for next year. The future is a blur, but it'll be okay. Right now I'm just taking things as they come.

Thank you to everyone who kept up with the blog & posted comments during my time in Russia. I am really thankful that you all took an active interest in my life over there. It was hard sometimes being over there and not having the comforting familiarity of friends and family, but I always had your emails & blog comments to look forward to every time I woke up.

Glory to you, who has called me to life.
Glory to you, who has revealed to me the beauty of the universe.
Glory to you, who has opened up before me heaven and earth as an eternal book of wisdom.
Glory to your "eternalness" amidst a temporary world.
Glory to you for your secret/mysterious/hidden and obvious/evident mercies.
Glory to you for every sigh of my breast.
Glory to you for every step of life, for every moment of joy;
Glory to you, God, forever.

Love,
Meredith

wondering will you ever return

A man said why, why does traveling
in cars and trains make him feel sad?
A beautiful sadness,
I've felt this before
It's the people in the cities
you'll never know
It is everything you pass by
wondering will you ever return?

- The Innocence Mission, "Song about Traveling"

Me & Laura. I am going to miss her so much!

Just a few days ago I was riding a boat and taking pictures of this bridge.





I'm leaving three days before their third biggest holiday. May 9th is Victory Day. The biggest holiday is New Year's, and the second is Women's Day. (Christmas doesn't even make it the top three.)

Gum (pronounced Goom). It's the fancy-schmancy super-expensive mall.

Inside Gum

Everyone is coming out like cockroaches now that the weather is so nice. The city has turned the heat off in all the buildings and the fountains are now on.


One of the several churches within the walls of the Kremlin...



This church had a service going on when we arrived. I lit a candle in front of Jesus and said a prayer. The smell of Orthodox candles is...heavenly.

Sergiyev Posad

On Saturday morning Svetlana picked Laura and me up at 7 a.m. at Konkovo metro. She is so funny. She said, "I am sorry to say that I bought a tree at the wrong time. So, we have a tree in our small car. Also and a cat." So, we were crammed into this tiny car with this tree stretching from the front seat to the back seat. Svetlana's husband, Igor, drove. It took about an hour and a half to get their dacha. Igor and Vasya stayed at the dacha, and then Svetlana drove us to the Holy Trinity Monastery which was about ten minutes down the road.

Svetlana's English is pretty good, but her vocabulary is mostly for everyday conversation. So, she spoke in Russian, and Laura translated it so that I could understand. I didn't realize how good Laura's Russian is until Saturday.

This is the Holy Trinity Lavra (Monastery) in Sergiyev Posad. There are three major Russian Orthodox monasteries in Russia, and this is most important out of all three.

The Assumption Cathedral.

In the early 1600s, Polish and Lithuanian armies carried out a 16-month siege against the monastery. Everyone was locked in, but this well provided a continuous supply of water during that time. It's considered to be a very sacred place now.

The line going into the church. It was no special holiday though. Svetlana said the line is like this everyday.

This is St. Sergius of Radonezh whom the monastery is named after.

This is the czar's palace. I was surprised at how many monks, young and old, there were. The person who took our money so that we could take pictures (100 rubles) was a monk, so even the tourism ticket booths are worked by monks. I used to be annoyed about the stores in the churches and the things that are for sale, but not so much anymore. They have to maintain the grounds and the churches at the monastery somehow. The monk gave us a Lent and Easter CD though with our tickets. One of the surprising things about this monastery is how much interaction I saw between the monks with regular people. Every time I saw a monk he was walking and talking with someone.

The Baroque bell tower.

Peter the Great's daughter, Empress Elizabeth (1700s) ruled Russia for awhile. Svetlana says that people only know about the male rulers of Russia because they are violent. The five women who ruled Russia always brought peace to Russia. Svetlana says, "It is because women are not as ambitious as men." The legend goes that Elizabeth fell in love with a man in the choir here, but she couldn't marry him because that would require her to give up her title. So, she married him secretly in the chapel in the picture above.



After that we went back to her dacha. Svetlana prepared tea and some food, and Laura and I sat in their garden for a long time. It was so beautiful out there.

They've been working on their dacha for four years now. They bought it at a really cheap price because it was burned down. Russian superstition is that you can live at a place that's been burned down before, so no one wanted it.

Igor showed us their banya in the backyard. A banya is a Russian sauna. If you go to a public banya, you will see old babushki whipping each other with banya branches. It's supposed to be good for you.

Igor is really cool. He is a metal scientist, but he works for a bank now. Vasya likes his dissertation title; Igor read the title of his paper, and one minute later he's still finishing it up. It was the longest title ever. Everyone was laughing. Vasya translated it for us. Something about aluminum, magnesium, etc. I don't know. It was long either way.

Vasya is 16. He goes to both Russian school and HCA. He has no accent in English, and he said to me, "You are from Georgia, but you don't have a southern accent." Man, what a gift to be able to recognize accents in a second language. I'm jealous.

Vasya is going to Holland for university next year, but he cannot return to Russia until he is 25. If he returns before that, he will be immediately drafted into the army. In Russia, if you are not enrolled at a Russian university, you are forced to go into the army for at least a year. He doesn't want to do that, so he is not coming back to Russia until he is past the age of the draft.

Vasya is going to study electronics and engineering, but his real dream is to be a movie director. :)

Inside the dacha where we had our tea.

This is Dimok. His name means Smoke.

The garden.

Afterward Svetlana took us to the train station, and we said our goodbyes. She kissed me on the cheek and wished me all the best.

Then Laura and I took a 2-hour train back to Moscow...

for every step of life

I went to church with Laura last Sunday. It's a Russian-Korean church. It was....interesting. I'll leave it at that. I didn't understand much, but Laura bought an Orthodox prayer sheet at one of the metro kiosks and translated it for me to meditate on during the service. This is it here:

Ikos 1

I was born into this world a weak and helpless child, but your angel spread his "light" wings to guard my cradle. Since then, your love as shined on all my ways, wonderfully leading me to the light of eternity. I praise the generous gifts of your Providence which have appeared since the first day and up to now (to this day). I thank you and call out (to you) with all who know you.
Glory to you, who has called me to life.
Glory to you, who has revealed to me the beauty of the universe.
Glory to you, who has opened up before me heaven and earth as an eternal book of wisdom.
Glory to your "eternalness" amidst a temporary world.
Glory to you for your secret/mysterious/hidden and obvious/evident mercies.
Glory to you for every sigh of my breast.
Glory to you for every step of life, for every moment of joy;
Glory to you, God, forever.

After church Laura and I went to Novodevichy Convent for the day. It was 70 degrees outside, the warmest it's been since I've been here. Absolutely beautiful. We sat on the steps of the Smolensky Chapel and baked in the sun for two hours, just talking, watching a few nuns here and there, and tourists. It was one of the best days I've had so far. Just sitting inside the peaceful walls, soaking up sunshine.

Smolensky Church inside the convent.

I can't remember which one of the buildings Tsarevna Sophia Alekseyevna was locked up in, but her brother Peter the Great forced her to take the veil because she was a threat to his power. To "torture" her, he had dead bodies suspended outside of the window of her room in which she was locked. Creepy! As Svetlana, my Russian teacher says, "Russia's peaceful times were when the women ruled. You never hear about them, but they brought peace to Russia."

Door inside the outer wall.

Orthodox nuns and monks look very different from Catholic nuns and monks. They all wear black, head to foot. No white at all. No cappuccino brown.

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This week I said goodbye to my students. It was hard. Grace, one of my seventh grade girls (she's in the grey and yellow outfit next to me), wrote me the sweetest letter, and she gave me a Korean "cell phone charm." Haha. Something she said in her letter really encouraged me; I'm not sure why because it was so simple, but I guess it's the simple things in life that move us. She said, "In Jesus I know you will find yourself in the best place where you could be."

This is Tony. I haven't talked much about him. That's because he's quiet and likes to keep to himself. He's half-Russian, half-Zimbabwean, but English is his first language. However, he has this amazing African, British, and Russian accent going on. (He went to school in England for awhile.) So, he's definitely a unique and really cool kid.

This sixth grade. I love how the American boys are adopting the Asian peace sign picture fad.

I LOVE this picture! They are so funny, all crammed into the cafeteria window. L to R: Jin-Young, Ho-Jin, David, and Kang-Wook.

The eighth grade.

I almost felt blasphemous taking this picture. I want to remember her though. Every day she is at this corner near the metro. I have seen her daily for months now, and she is a part of my time in Russia even though she doesn't know it. I don't want to her forget her, her little white money bag, and her icon of Jesus.

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On Thursday I went on an unexpected boat ride on the Moscow river. It started at a metro which I can't remember the name of, but it translates Sparrow Hill. Then we went all the way through the center of the city. It was a chilly and cloudy day.

Russians HATE this statue. A few years ago there was a plot to blow it up. Haha...

Passing the Kremlin...

Cathedral of Christ the Savior.

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Something I am going to miss about Russia are the numerous flower shops. They are EVERYWHERE! And many of them are open 24 hours a day.

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Soon I will post about the amazing day I had today at Sergiyev Posad with Svetlana, her husband Igor, and her son Vasya. And of course their giant of a koshka, Dimok (Smoke).

I will post more pictures of Novodevichy on Facebook soon.

Love,
Meredith