On Sunday we didn't do much of anything, just sat around for the most part because of the heat. Little did we know that Monday would be worse. Monday set the record for the hottest day in Moscow since 1930 at 99.7 degrees, and it felt much worse thanks to the smoke in the air. The peat bogs and forests around Moscow are burning, and the ash and smoke in the air is nearly unbearable. Thankfully, Benny got me a mask, and I've been trying to use it, though it makes things much hotter. As a result, we really didn't do much, save for going to the grocery store and so on.
Tuesday night we all got together to watch Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, since we'd all been watching the trilogy together. It was a fun night, though we tried not to stay up too late, because on Wednesday we had an excursion to Sergeev Pasad in place of our lecture.
I didn't feel very well from the get-go on Wednesday, but I tried to fight through it. I threw up once on the way to breakfast, but I foolishly hoped that I was over the hump, and it wouldn't happen again. How very wrong I was. After our ham and cheese sandwiches for breakfast (of which I ate half of one piece of bread), I trooped on over to the bus and got on, hoping that I would feel better by the time we got there if I took a nap. Again, very wrong. Thankfully, I had sensed that my bread might not be staying down, and so I took our lunch out of the bag it had been packed in (our lunch consisting of a Mounds bar, a Snickers, a Kit-Kat, and a chocolate cookie of some sort) and managed to throw up in that. I still didn't feel better by the time we got there, and asked to stay on the bus, but Elena freaked out so much about it that I finally just decided to go into the monastery with them.
When we reached the interior of the monastery, I found a bench to sit down on and half-fall asleep while they waited for the tour guide. I was awoken by a half-crazed Russian woman (who I subsequently discovered was the homestay mother of one of the girls in our group), who insisted that I follow her. I did so, and though she first told me I should drink some holy water, she wanted me to wash my face first. So she led me over to a woman watering the flowers, and proceeded to have this woman hose me down. Shoulders to toes soak me with a hose. I kept trying to run away in between dousings, but she was very insistent, and eventually I was suitably drenched for her purposes.
I escaped her and wandered off to find a bench to fall asleep on in the shade. This was a difficult task, given how crowded benches are, but I found a spot next to another woman who was already asleep, and managed to doze for a couple minutes before she woke up and woke me up in turn. I discovered at this point that my once-shady bench was now in the sunshine and much too hot to stay on, so I got up and started walking again. I went to the holy water fountain and splashed some on my face, thinking it couldn't hurt, and then wandered around some more until I found a shady grassy spot under a tree. No sooner had I sat down than a crazy Russian babushka came up to me and started yelling and reciting a poem about me killing myself and my unborn children by sitting in the grass because Russians believe that sitting in the grass without anything under you will shrivel your ovaries up.
Rather than argue with her, I got up and started searching for another place to lie down. Eventually I found a building in the corner with a large, three-sided staircase. I hid on the hard-to-see side and fell asleep on the stone stairs. Luckily, only 12 people asked me if I was alright. One was a priest, who told me that he would be working in a nearby building if I needed him and also blessed me.
Eventually I went to McDonald's when it was only about an hour till we were supposed to leave, and was fine until I entered the building and the smell hit me. At that point, the nausea returned, and when we left I threw up again. An employee brought me a cup of water, but since I wasn't really sure whether he wanted me to drink it or pour it on myself, I just threw it away.
I slept all the way home, and felt much, much better, and it only got better after that.
I was completely back to normal on Thursday, just in time for our final class and our graduation ceremony. I took our test on verbs of motion and managed to make an A even though I didn't study at all. Ludmila informed me that I made A's in everything, and our graduation ceremony passed as most do, with much handing out of papers and so on.
Friday, Anna and Bart and I went to the bookstore to get a couple of things I'd forgotten to get, and then we went to Red Square for a group picture. Afterwards we returned home, and mostly chilled out all night.
And that brings us to today, which I have spent doing nothing. I was supposed to meet up with friends, but they were too tired after the souvenir fair to do so, and so I was stuck here. Still, it wasn't terrible, and Anna made dinner, so all in all, I guess it was good to relax.
I can't wait to get home on Monday, and I'm praying for a safe, uneventful trip.
See you all Stateside soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment