It's all Sand anyhow.

Three pinatas were finished this week, thanks to the help of Pear, Tamara and Joe. Today, I presented a Powerpoint on Pinatas, which I stumbled on...but nevertheless, we destroyed two pinatas and distributed the candy to the 8th grade class. I found that funny, because American children love to run up and savagely fight over the candy claims, but the Russian students wanted to fairly share and pass on the sweets. I find this to be a funny analogy to capitalism and communism, but really I mean it as a joke.

After the presentation, some AFS students went to Pizzanik. We ate and talked at the cafe. Tasha, Joe and Pear went home early, while Tamara and I explored the bay "zalif". I compared the snow to white sand, and we had a running gag that we were actually in the Sahara Desert, not cold Russia.

We saw people walking over the frozen Volga river, and we wondered how we'd be able to do the same. There was no clear entrance, so we walked around to look for it. We came to the conclusion that we should jump over the gates, and hop on the ice. At that exact time, Meike called us. She wasn't too far from us, and I joked that since she's conveniently tall...if we got on the river, and needed a boost climbing back up the gates, she'd be able to help.

Really, we had no clue if there was an easy exit from the river, or if we had to jump the gates to get out. Either way, nothing really would stop us. We were determined to walk on the river, like the Russians.

And so we met. We revealed our master plan to Meike, who was at first hesitant, but then decided to collaborate. Then I was first to climb down from the gates, and onto the river. It was cool, walking on top of a frozen river, since I'd never be able to do this in my part of California. The weather forbids me this liberty. We walked, then wrote "AFS" on the snow, and we found a road exiting the river. That all felt so easy.

Later, we walked downtown. We hung out until 7pm. I was really interested in know why they chose to go with AFS to Russia, while there were other options such as Rotary. The talk help me learn more about my friends and their home countries.