Home-Stay

We finally have some interesting news to write about again: Ross and I have moved . . . into a homestay with a Russian family!
Details: When we were first applying to come on this program, we had heard from people that it was possible to live with a Russian family while studying here and since Ross had such a great experience living in a homestay when he was in Quebec we thought it might be nice to try it out here in Russia. However, at the time of applying, the coordinator informed us that it would be next to impossible for us to find a placement where we would be able to live together and so told us not to bother trying. Since we arrived in Russia however, more and more students started moving in with families and we were getting very frustrated/jealous, so we decided to give it a shot and at least ask what our chances were. We spoke with our coordinator at school and she quickly set us up with our new host person. On Thursday we came over to visit her and she showed us our room and the rest of the house and we sat and chatted with her over some tea. We still cannot communicate all that well but she is very nice and we just flipped through our dictionary every now and then to come up with a word. So the next day we confirmed with our coordinator that we wanted to live here and that we were planning to move in on Saturday.
Saturday came very quickly, Friday we had a good buy sushi dinner with Laura (earlier that day two of our other roommates had eaten sushi already, and Jessi was out to a concert) and the next morning we packed up a few bags and our backpacks and with Jessi and Laura’s help made our first trip over to our new place which is located much closer to the school than the Gostinitsa. Instead of walking from the school to the metro, taking it a stop, connecting to another metro line, going three more stops, then exiting and walking 20min, we now live four stops away from the school (one metro line only) and only three minutes from the nearest metro station! All in all a much shorter commute. We are living with a middle aged woman (she has a daughter who is married and now lives in Germany) and her elderly mother, who has some medical problems and so has difficulty getting around and so stays in her room most of the time. Apparently, on school days they will provide us with breakfast in the morning but the rest of the time we have to prepare our own meals (which is fine by me since I like to cook anyway)
So Laura and Jessi helped us to bring a load of stuff over, then Jessi headed out for a day of siteseeing while Laura stayed with us and came along to scope out our area. We found the Lenta (supermarket) which is only 10 minutes away and bought ourselves some staples then returned home to drop them off before returning to the gostinitsa for one last dinner and another load of our things. Unfortunately, we are not able to get back any of the money that we spent for the four months at the gostinitsa but it is ok since our room their will remain ours so that if at any time for whatever reason we wanted to return, we could. We have left some of our things there which we didn’t want to move over, souvenirs and books which we will not need until we go home, summer clothes and things we won’t need for the next few months, etc. Ross realized when we got all the way back to the gostinitsa that he had forgotten the key for our room there, here at our new place! So he came all the way back here, and then when back to the gostinitsa so we could get into our room there, poor guy he made too many trips back and forth.
At any rate, it is now our second night in our new room. It is at least twice the size of the tiny room we had at the gostinitsa, has a good sized and comfortable bed, a television, lots of closet and cupboard space, two comfy chairs, a desk that folds down from the wall which we can use for doing homework on, tones of plants (much to my liking, as Ross calls me the crazy plant lady) and two large windows which look out onto the courtyard of the building. I had a somewhat restless sleep last night, since I am not used to being here yet, but I think after the next few days it will begin to feel like home.
I think this experience will be really beneficial to our Russian. I am still sometimes nervous to speak, because I feel so silly and awkward sometimes and as though all the Russian words I know are falling out of my brain. I freeze a bit still, but it will get easier and easier since our host people speak no English so every day I will be forced to speak to them in Russian. I don’t think becoming fluent is necessarily realistic, but I will be one step closer after the end of the program in two months. And who knows maybe one day we will be able to come back here for a longer period of time, and then we might just become fluent. Final note: even though I miss our Canadian roommates in the gostinitsa, we will still see them at school and outside of school when we visit them, living in a home-stay is going to be great too.
Coming Soon: Ross and Leah go to the Opera!