I will now inundate you with pictures, ok?

Inside Red Square, and not entirely sure what this is. I will find out someday...

This is the Bolshoi Theater. It sort of jumped out of nowhere at me and I wasn't ready for it, but it is gorgeous.

Inside Red Square! This was the most optimal place for me to be blatantly foreign but I still felt like I had to take pictures very furtively.

On the left side of the photo is GUM, the gigantic and very expensive mall (with an Armani Exchange cafe and Louis Vuitton, Moschino, and many other designer stores)

GUM, again. Also a Baskin Robbins stand.

The part of the wall where Lenin's tomb is. We couldn't see it that day, but soon!

St Basil's from the side...

...the front...

...and the back!

This piece of prime real estate is the location where I spent the wee morning hours of my birthday extravaganza

The walls of Red Square from the bridge

A really cool statue in a park a little ways away from Red Square...

...whose title has something to do with the sins of adults and their impact on children....

...and featured such sins as "War," "Theft," and "Prostitution," among other things. This particular statue is "War" and it freaked me out

Then we came to a bridge full of trees with locks on them....

...and written on the locks were names of couples and the dates they hooked the locks on the trees. It was adorable/

Then we went on a river tour and this is Gorky Park. The amusement part of it, at least.

Under a bridge

I think this is part of MGU, Moscow State University

The old Olympic training center. We ended up walking right next to it the next day trying to find the monastery/cemetery we were supposed to visit.

The weather was so weird that day. It was either drizzling and gray and chilly or sunny and warm-ish. Also, the rare green part of the city!

The financial/downtown district from far away

From up close(r)

Proof that I was on the boat ride. I was actually super psyched to be there even though I look less than enthused.

We came upon another boat that was really slow-going. We passed them. When we passed them, we saw that the deck was filled with dancing, drunken business-people who were probably on a staff lunch cruise! They waved a lot.

Mysterious pirate ship.

This is just a bank. But it's a really nice-lookin' one.

I suspect that this might be some sort of EU or International Relations thing. And also the metro station.

Anyway, those are all the pictures I have uploaded for now! But I took a lot more when we visited the cemetery and the city's birthday and that night. I will work on taking more when I can visit more places in the city.

Nothing much is new, although classes have started which is exciting! The bad news is that I woke up today really sick to my stomach and didn't make it to class. (I may be erring on the side of over-cautiousness, but I had an unfortunate experience with mononucleosis this summer and am terrified of a relapse...no more drinking for me for a while!) Fortunately, the professors here are really understanding and I'm not missing too much since it's only the first week. Classes are all in Russian, though, and it can be really intimidating but I know that it can only help my language skills develop. In one of my classes we need to present a 20 minute presentation about a topic of our choosing. 20 minutes!! It's crazy and intimidating but our Conversation professor is extremely nice and helpful.

Also, our French-Canadian roommates arrived this evening. The timing was less than optimal because of my nausea but my roommate seems nice although we might have some trouble communicating. Unfortunately, the students from Canada aren't as far along in Russian as we are.

Cooking has been a fun experience so far, and I have discovered that ice cream can come in tubes (like sausage but with dairy products!) and salmon can come cheap and delicious. Also, fresh fruit is expensive and hard to find fresh, so I'm missing that because I haven't eaten it in a very long time.

I will try my best to experience the city more and to work on my Russian skills so that I have more stories to share! But first, I must get over this stomach problem.

Do svidanya!

Emily