Third time's a charm

I'm back for another summer in Vladimir. Each time feels familiar, but different in its own way. A lot of that has to do with what's been going on in my life during the year. But that's a different blog altogether.

I've been in Russia since June 15. I slept pretty much until 5 pm on the 16th, and then caught a train for Nizhny Novgorod. A student of mine had planned to study there next year, but he won't be going. So I went for him. I stayed with my colleague's family, met their adorable 7-month-old cat, Styopa, and got taken around town. I came back to Vladimir, almost over my jetlag and ready to get to work.

The group of students I'll be taking care of arrive on the 21st. So this week has been 3 days of finalizing plans: adjusting the schedule, getting the local staff on the same page as the DC staff, buying a ridiculous number of SIM cards and charging that same ridiculous number of cell phones. I have an assistant, who is super. She programmed all these new phone numbers into my phone while I worked on my orientation presentation. Speaking of phones, Russia never ceases to impress with the improvements. 

I got my old SIM card switched out for a micro-SIM for my iPhone. Easy. I'm on a pay-as-you-go plan that's about $15/month and comes with apparently unlimited data. They just lower your speed. It's actually not all that clear, but it's working fine for email and facebooking. And today at a one-stop cell-phone and technology store, I saw laptops for $500. Amazing. Now, if the sign outside my building promising that the hot water will only be off for 5 days is telling the truth, I'll really be impressed. (It's usually two weeks. In 2010 it was two months. So who knows.)

No real socializing yet. My sleep schedule is still funny (about to made even worse by the 5 am departure for Moscow in the morning), and as such I haven't gotten back into my running yet. But I did yoga this morning. I could feel that it had been a while, but it made the day all the better. With the beautiful weather we're having, it's not that hard. And, there's a McDonald's in town now, so I can get a decent-size coffee in a paper cup to go. Seriously, where am I?