Friday - Post #2

Ok, so there are times when you wish you had your camera...that was today. Let me start this off by saying that there are a LOT of manholes in this town. They are everywhere. I am very aware of them because as a child, I once fell in one. Not a pleasant memory but anyway...so two things...first, one of the manholes has a huge hole broke out of it. It is in a very public space and even though I know it is there I fear I am going to fall into it. (I think that might be residual effects of my past experience, just guessing here!) So what I really was going to comment on is that today I saw at least 4 people crawling out of a manhole. At first I thought, "oh they must be workers who were fixing something" BUT then I saw a young women come climbling out wearing her very nice Chartroose (sp) jacket. Very odd I might say. A bit alarming if you are me running by, but odd to say the least! .....Today I used the washing machine...Now that might not seem like a big deal but everything on it is in Russian so it makes it a bit more of a challenge. I had no idea what cycle I was using but the one good thing it did have was the water temperature was in numbers (30) so I errored on the conservative side and went with the coldest water setting. On top of that, there was laundry detergent in the apartment. Again, not as easy as it sounds since it too was in Russian. The real question here was: Is this bleach or is this detergent? I went with the smell test and guessed it to be detergent. A conservative person would have washed their whites first, but not me....I went for it and stuck in the darks...So what do you think happened? ............................I was RIGHT!!! Thank goodness because I would have looked awfully funny wearing my clothes once they were bleached and like I don't already stick out enough, this would have accentuated it. So now I am off to visit Iris and her family, an American familyliving right here in Krasnoyarsk. Very exciting. I will get to practice my English on her! And the highlight might be me attending aqua-aerobics with her and her friends! I am a bit hesitant on this one for two reasons: 1) I don't do aqua-aerobics even in the US 2) I don't have a swim suit and so Iris is planning to loan me one. She is a bit smaller than me, so that could be a challenge! And after two cinnabon rolls this morning, even more of a challenge! I will let you know how that goes.