Coming to an End.

Well, obviously tons has happened in the last 3 months since I have posted last. I really have been bad about this, so for those who have bothered to read, thanks for keeping up with me, and I apologize for not doing a better job if you were interested in what was happening here.

Since I last posted, it has gotten significantly nicer outside (average maybe 70). Everything truely is green and beautiful. I have made much effort to take advantage of the parks here that are so refreshing to go to after being in the big city. My favorite is Tsaritsino Park. There are tulips all over the parks that range in all kinds of colors. There is also a huge fountain in the middle of the rather large grounds. The trails seemingly go on forever around a pretty lake where lately people have been sun bathing in speedos and their underwear. It's a lovely site, let me tell you! Anyways, there really are a lot of great attributes to this park, and I earnestly wish I could transport it back to where ever I end up in the States soon. Oh, and did I mention there's icecream galore there?! Yep :)

Another park that I have enjoyed is Victory Park. We have been there quite a few times, and we even went there during Victory Day, a day where the Russian celebrate their victory over ther Germans during WW2. This is a huge holiday in Moscow. They had a really big parade and people were just going crazy leading up to and especially on this day. The parade was really neat though. We made our way there an hour and a half early and luckily got a pretty good view of everything. Basically, it was just a procession of all kinds of military vehicles, such as tanks and the like. However, the most spectacular part was the planes and jets that flew overhead. One group of jets spelled out "65," and another group let out colored smoke that made the Russian flag. Oh! And I forgot to mention that this day is so huge that they spend millions of dollars to put something in the clouds so that it will not rain. Yep, you heard right!

Something else neat that recently has started to happen is the "second snow" in Moscow. Supposedly, back in the day there was a need for more trees in Moscow, so someone had the idea to plant cottonwoods trees all over the city becausethey grow fast. Unfortunately to most, this makes the city covered in white cottonwood seeds. They are literally floating around all over. They are often even found inside floating around. I, probably strangely, think it's really pretty though!

Despite nature however, school slowly has wound down in the last three months. As I write this now, we are actually in the middle of a two week long summer school. In the preschool where there were 24 students, we now have about 3 that consistently come. We've been going on a lot of field trips and having extended coffee breaks, which has been nice, but I am just getting to the point where I feel like it's silly for me to be here. I am trying to enjoy this last bit of time here though. It truely has been a nice change of pace.

Another highlight of that last few months has been going to Istanbul. After having come back from Egypt, a few of us decided that we just needed a little more traveling before we left to head back home, so we took a few days off of an already long weekend and looked for a place that would be cheap to travel to. None of us new too much about Istanbul but had heard that it was a really beautiful place. Going into it, I was excited to travel somewhere else but I really wasn't sure what to be looking forward to. Yet, the minute we stepped out of the airport, I understood why people love Istanbul. It truely is an amazing city, a gem.

As we drove from the airport to our hotel, we drove along the sea that was lit up with white sails and other large cargo boats in front of a small mountain skyline. Yet, that was just the back drop to green parks that were lined with all kinds of colorful tulips and other flowers. As we got closer to the hotel, we got more and more into the older part of Isanbul with cobblestone roads and little shops everywhere. My favorite shops were the ones with hanging lamps hanging everywhere. I loved them so much that I had to get a small one (Fingers crossed that it'll make it back)! After arriving to our family run hotel, we went for a stroll through some of the areas that we saw driving in and geared up for the next 3 full days that we would get to spend there.

For fear of boring you, I will just mention a few of the highlights. My favorite place that we visited was Hagya Sofia. It was very old and very huge. It started off as a church, then became a monastery, and now it's just a museum, but it was so neat inside. While it was kind of dark in there, there were windows that streamed in huge rays of light. The ceilings were huge and there was stain glass. There were emblems written in Arabic that were really pretty, and it had a balcony where one could go up and look down on everything. I can't really explain it to do it justice, so if you are curious about it, I suggest looking at my album on facebook :).

Another highlight was going to the Turkish bath. I will not go into detail except to say that I grew very close to Leah and Kristin during that time :) It was a really fun experience to "bathe" in such an old traditional bath with such good friends in a foreign country and then to sit all wrapped in towels and sip on the Turkish apple tea.

My final highlight of the trip was walking down to the Marmara sea and sitting on the rocks. This alone would have been absolutely seren, but we got treated to seeing dozens of dolphins playing not far from the shore. We sat and watched them for a good hour and even then had to tear ourselves away.

With experiences such as these, I am really going to miss my time here in Russia. While it's been a hard year, it's been one full of blessings. I don't know how I got to be able to do such neat things, but I sure am thankful, and I will never forget this year that I have had. And not only have got to experience great things, but I have made some really neat friends from Brits to Americans to Russians t0 Turks and Egyptians and Germans and Dutch.

So, now it's about 9 days till home. It's bittersweet, but I'm really excited to go home and be there a while with friends and family.

So, I guess that's about it for now. I'll write once more from the States!