I am grateful for:

The Siberian Culture Festival in Pervomayskiy Square.

Right next to the Lenin Square metro stop there’s a little park with a huge fountain that’s been shut off for the winter and you can usually find a man and his three yellow Labradors hanging out there. These details aren’t important to this story but they’re generally important to me, so I thought I’d share.

Anyways, last Sunday was gray and windy. A perfectly wonderful October day. Dozens of people gathered near the shut-off-for-the-winter fountain to dance, play games, drink tea and celebrate Siberian culture. I had my laptop and camera with me and I didn’t love the idea of setting them down somewhere unattended, so I didn’t end up dancing with everyone else (sad!). But I still had the most wonderful time watching everyone else as they learned traditional dances and played old village games. It was interesting to see how much smooching was involved in the games — like, every single game involved strangers kissing each other on the cheek.

It’s something about free and accessible community events bringing people together that really just makes me smile a lot.

A mouthful of dirt.

Another day, another adventure in sports tourism, this time spent in the woods behind my university. For three hours we were out there with the snow and birches, rappelling down ravines and climbing up again. It was some dirty business. The underside of the ravine’s lip was all loose dirt that we kicked up as we jammed our toes in, trying not to descend too quickly.

I’ve been really high-strung these last few days, just sort of constantly nervous for no real reason. It was good today to feel the cold and my muscles moving in new ways and to find some of that loose dirt between my teeth. Talk about a grounding experience in a very literal sense.

And, of course, I’m very grateful for the funny, kind, adventurous people who are patient enough to suffer through my Russian or explain things to me in English when I totally don’t understand what I’m supposed to be doing with whichever carabiner.

“You remind me of my favorite anime character” and TWO bars of chocolate from Kazakhstan.

This is just to say that I get to work with some of the nicest students who share so much with me. I’m so grateful for their positive feedback, compliments and enthusiasm for English. I’ve also received a lot of hugs, done a just-for-fun interview and gotten coffee with a few different students.

One of my favorite parts about my teaching experience so far has been English Speaking Club. It stresses me out because I’m never sure how to plan for it since I don’t know how many students will come or what level they’ll be and I’m just generally a stressed-out-kind of person. But the wonderful thing is that our club meetings aren’t obligatory for students, they all choose to come and practice their English outside of class, and they bring all their brilliance and good energy (and patience when whatever activity I planned to do doesn’t go over very well, which sometimes happens). These gatherings are often the best part of my Tuesday’s and Thursday’s.

Also, Kiki from the anime Kiki’s Delivery Service was the character I was likened to. If anyone has a second opinion, I’d love to hear it.

Snow.

I’m grateful for the intermittent snow we’ve been having, but first this is going to be a little salty. Whenever I make a comment about how much I enjoy the cooler weather and the snow, Russians and Americans alike will say, “Oh, just wait a few months, you’ll be sick of it.” Of course I’ll be sick of it! That’s literally what’s happened every sinle year for the last 22 years! Nobody likes snow in April.

But here in this new-to-me city it looks extra beautiful, and it’s early enough in the year that some of the trees are still losing their leaves. Yellow leaves from the birches and the white snow all around — just a dreamy combination. It’s been a very cozy few days.

An additional tiny Gratitude:

It snowed yesterday morning, it all melted in the warmth of the day, and then froze again overnight. There’s a thin, glassy sheet of ice all over the sidewalk and people are walking arm-in-arm to support and catch each other. I went out to get some bread and cheese because I realized I can’t survive more than a few hours without such essentials. As I slowly made my way to the store, I passed a young man and woman smoking cigarettes outside a bar. The woman was wearing really great platform sneakers and was using the frozen sidewalk as an opportunity to teach the man to moonwalk. They stood side-by-side, scootching backward, the man concentrating on how and when to lift his heel.

So maybe snow in April will be a good thing — this leaves me plenty of time to learn to moonwalk.

Halva.

So I wrote about how I love kasha but let me tell you I am OBSESSED with halva. Like, I get a little heartache every time I think about all the time I’ve wasted in my life not eating halva. Halva is a crumbly little sweet treat that can be made from nut butter. The only kind I’ve tried has a sunflower-seed-butter base and it is delightful.

The first time I tried halva was a few weeks ago. It was the last day of our three-day trek with the tourism club, and we sat by a small river and ate the remainder of our snacks before heading back to the city. At first it looked like Alyona was just dishing out fistfuls of sand, but then someone explained to me what divine gift this actually was.

And as if this wasn’t enough, the next time I went to the grocery store I found out that halva comes in different flavors! I introduced it to Siobhan, and she likes it too. So far our kitchen table has featured pistachio halva, lemon halva, chocolate halva and pomegranate halva. Stay tuned for a definitive list of flavor rankings.