Spent the afternoon and evening watching cartoons in Russian and being with Valya's family. Her grandma and aunt came to tell us good bye. Valya just told us the bus isn't 18 hours but 20. So we have a 20 hour bus ride 8 hour wait at the airport 10 hour flight to New York another 4 hour wait 2 hour flight to Columbus and a 3 1/2 hour drive home so we will be home in about 48 hours!

~Abby and Cassie

We're still alive! We went to Toma's (Valya's friend) and played a soccer game called "Amerikanka" which means "The American" (Which is kinda funny because we have never heard of it) and then had shish kebabs which were very good. After that we went inside and played twister (I won!) and then cards. Cassie went back to Valya's at about 1:30am and at 2:30am I finally told Valya that I needed to go home too because we were supposed to leave for our suprise at 4:00am. We all packed into Valya's uncle's car (Valya, her uncle, her boyfriend, Cassie and I) and made it about ten feet. His tire had popped. So we got out and Valya's uncle, boyfriend and dad changed the tire and we went to a small car service place and woke up the man sleeping on his little bed outside (Remember it is only 4am) and they found us a new tire and put it on and we left again. Valya says that we are all Ch'je (Unlucky losers) because everything we ride in breaks down. About ten minutes later Cassie, Valya and her boyfriend (Sitting in the back seat) all fell asleep. Four and a half hours later we made it to our surprise, a small cabin on a branch off the Volga river. We took a boat out to see the Lotus flowers. There were hundreds of them and it was very beautiful. We swam and laid around, spent the night and did the same the next day. We had fish soup (Ooha) and fish of which I didn't eat any (Because it still had the scales on and kind of scared me) but Cassie had a little bit. We got home at 1am this morning then got up at 10am, ate some Borsht and did some shopping before we head home. Tomorrow is our last day at Valya's house. We will leave on a bus (Pray it only last 18 hours like it is supposed to!) at 8am on the 11th.
See you all soon!

~Abby and Cassie

Kalmikya

Slept a long time Thursday morning! Got up and ate breakfast/lunch, watched a movie and rested (Russians are very big on resting all the time!) and then went to "Chess City" where they have many, many chess tournaments (I guess if I played chess more I would know that). The chess hall was closed so we when to see the temple (The biggest buddhist temple in Europe) which was also closed so we just took pictures of the outside. There is a little park not far from there where everyone meets that we went to where we bought carmel popcorn and cotton candy (The cotton candy is only 20 rubles here which equals about 70 cents!) after walking around the park and taking, of course, more pictures we walked back to Valya's house where we were met with more food (Another things that Russians are big on!) We ate and then Valya's friend Toma (Artome) and her cousin Zoola came over and we all played cards (Plus her brother) until four in the morning, which really isn't that bad considering that it was only eight o'clock at night in America!
Today we went to the Museum of Kalmikya and learning about how they all came from Mongola and went to a small market. For now we are just resting (Again!) and later we will go to Toma's house where we will have Shashliki (Shish kebabs) and play soccer.
Tomorrow we are going to a surprise from Valya's grandmother and uncle.

~Abby and Cassie

Lots of things happening!

We went rollerblading in the park and went on a huge ferris wheel. The next day we went on a river boat from which we could see the Kremlin and St. Basil's, very beautiful.
On the 3rd at 5 pm we headed to the bus station to catch a bus to Valya's house, but our bus had decided to go back that morning so we had to run and find another bus which ended up NOT being the express. After a breakdown, what would have been an 18 hour ride on the express bus turned into a 25 hour ride. It was still neat though. We had two funny old bus drivers that liked to try out their English. Which consisted of 'Hello' 'Marballo' 'people sleeping' and 'cowboy.'
We are at Valya's house now. Her family is wonderful, they stuffed us as soon as we got here and took a shower.
Better go, it's already 11 pm here.

Love to all,
Abby and Cassie

Here we are!!!

Left Columbus at 4:30 am and made it to New York fine. We arrived in Russia at 1 am, American time. Went to Valya's aunts and took a nap. After that we went out on the town a little bit. Came back played "Dork" and had supper. Valya, her cousin, Nadia and I talked until 2 in the morning!

Got up today at 10:30 and went to the Red Square and St. Basils. We also saw the outside of the Kremlin and played in the fountains. We are now at a mall and are going to see a Russian movie! This is going to be interesting.

We don't have much time because we are at an internet cafe.

Love to all!!!

~Abby and Cassie, 

Almost there!

Less then 24 hours and we will be on a plane to Russia! We are going to stay the night in Columbus because our flight leaves for New York at 6:30 am!

The count down begins

Only six days until we leave! We are trying to get all packed and make sure we still have room to bring home some of the things that the kids miss.

~Abby