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