Jenny's Adventures In Russia: December 5, 2010: Russian movement to keep the cold away

Two weeks to go, and it's a little hard to fathom all I have learned and all I have left to do. Like a marathon runner in her last miles, I'm running on fumes, exhaustion, and a burning need to cross the finish line. On December 3rd, Steve and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary half a world apart. There are a million things to be grateful for here in Russia, and also a million reasons I'm ready to go home. My heart strings are pulling me back to Steve.

Moscow is covered in snow and filled with snow-removal teams of all kinds: snow-shovelers, men dragging bags of snow off the sidewalk and into the gutter, snow plows, sweepers with brooms, men throwing sand, and even cranes lifting the snow out of monument areas. There was a cold snap last week that slapped us all in the face with how tough Russians have to be. For 3 days the warmest I saw the thermometer was -16 and the coldest was -21. That's Celsius, but that's COLD. Walking to school, I had to cover my face with my scarf in order to breathe, and my breath caused my hair to freeze to my face. I wear 4 shirts every day, and I stay relatively warm. I've noticed that Russians don't smile as much as Americans do, and I think it's because of the Russian winters. When your face is frozen, you can't smile. Cold is a way of life.

I'm going to take more pictures of my movement accomplishments, but here are a few teasers. The hardest for me was the shoulder stand: it took me all semester to learn this, and when these pictures were taken I held it for probably 2 minutes, a personal record by far.