America Week

This was probably my most American week since being in Moscow.

1) The football soccer match.

It started at midnight on a Tuesday, but that didn't deter us. Everyone either went to a sports bar to watch or streamed it at the dorm. I ended up watching it in my room with a friend, and I'm afraid that by the time Bad Things started happening (around 1:45 am here), I may have disturbed some of my neighbors with my yelling. Despite the poor outcome, it was incredibly fun to watch, so I plan on watching the last few matches of the cup as well.

2) America's birthday

The big, public Independence Day party that the American Chamber of Commerce usually puts on in central Moscow was moved to the middle of nowhere for "security reasons" this year, and since I'm not important enough to be invited to the party at Spaso House, I spent America's birthday in the most American way possible: drinking beer in a park with friends and listening to "Party in the USA."

3) Owls in Moscow!

These two weeks are marking probably one of the highest concentrations of Rice undergraduates in Moscow. In addition to the other Rice student on my program, a few friends from Rice are participating in a space studies program put on by the Baker Institute, so we all met up for dinner last night and spoke a ridiculous amount of English. It was fun to play the Moscow experts for an evening.

I also did some Russia-ing between the American events, though.

On Monday, I took a quick walk down the street from my dorm to yet another amazing park. This one features a lot of water and this cool grotto thing.

Yesterday, I decided to Appreciate Culture, so I went to the (old) Tretyakov Gallery. There was lots of cool art from old Orthodox churches, and a lot of very French-looking (?) portraits.