over the river and through the woods

August 10

Today I made some progress on my bank card situation, got a sim card, etc. etc. but I don't want to bore you with the details.

I went to school and said goodbye to Eunice, then I took the metro all the way across Madrid to Rechnoi Vokzal and then bus bus from there to Zelenograd (Green city). Sasha and Nastea picked me up from the bus station and took me over the river and through the woods back to their lovely little apartment in the center of Zelenograd. We had dinner with Svetlana (babushka), Sasha, Nastea, Olesya (daughter, 11, beautiful!) and Mark (4, cute, troublemaker) and then Olesya and I went to bed on our pull-out bench beds in the kids' room and the other 4 went to bed in the living room.

August 11

I have been spending my time here working the children's program for the Christian Associates' Eastern European Connect conference. That is the main reason that I am in Russia, to organize the children's program. I'm having a lot of fun. I made the schedule for the week and I outlined a packet for each of the kids and I will spend the week filling it in with Bible verses and stories, etc.

PS – all the kids at the conference will be and speak Russian. This should be interesting.

Today, Nastea, Olesya and Mark took me on a walk down to the beach! Didn't know there was beach in Russia, did you? It was actually hot today and the beach along the river was really nice. In case you were wondering, Russian men wear speedos and the occasional thong at the beach. There were also, as there always are, accessible gymnastics/jungle gym equipment there with several young men swinging and flipping around, showing off. We had a general good time – Zelenograd is very beautiful and green (as the name suggests). Nastea told me that Zelenograd used to be a city closed off to civilians, only for scientists to live in. They have opened it up and civilians now live in Zelenograd, but the majority population is still high-tech scientists, nanotechnology etc. Pretty cool.