“I love Russia! I mean I really love everything about Russia! The food, the people, the literature—EVERYTHING!” I was my usual melodramatic self speaking through clenched teeth to an American teacher in China telling her just how much I wanted to live and work in Russia. It was an insignificant chat with my new friend […]

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Okay, I know that song is about a lover not a city, but when you’ve dreamed of a place for a very long time, hoped and prayed and longed for it as much as I had Moscow, you gotta know it was a thrill to finally be in that city! We rolled in early morning, […]

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They were literally yelling at me—screaming actually—these two babushka, thick-ankled, over-muscular cafeteria ladies. Everyone fears cafeteria ladies, but in Russia they are a whole lot worse; they are EXTREME CAFETERIA LADIES. I was soooo embarrassed standing there in the middle of the crowded cafeteria (café diarrhea was another name I had for it). Students stopped […]

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You know, I always get a little nervous when I hear someone say, “The Lord told me this and that and such and such.” I can’t resist saying, “Really? Did He call you on your cell?” I mean I wish it was that simple. I have never heard God’s voice. Not audibly anyway. And we’re […]

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