June 26, 2008 || Last Day, Karolina; Rock Climbing; My Misha

Today's been such a full day I can hardly remember yesterday!

Yesterday was our last day at Carolina camp, which is a bit bittersweet. Since we live with Robin Hood campers, we've already gotten to be pretty good friends with some of them, and now we'll be spending all of our daily activities with them too, which means we'll probably hardly ever see the Carolina girls. However, this also means that I'm trading Makeup Class, Catwalk practice, and Tea Ceremony for Climbing class, archery, shooting, and such, which is more up my alley.

Yesterday we went to a design class with the girls, and while they designed their kimonos, we made tapochki. I'm actually pretty excited about mine and plan on wearing them around the dorm. Also, yesterday I received a love letter from Misha in the second group of Robin Hood. Gleb and friends came running up to our table at dinner and asked if I had seen my letter. Well, I hadn't been back to the room all day so of course I hadn't, and he told me to look for the pink heart laying on top of the map (he actually meant cards, but the word is the same in Russian). Misha, Robin Hood Misha walked in while I was writing my reply, and he had quite a bit of fun thinking that I was writing my letter to him: "I live right next door! Don't write a letter, just come say hi!" Turns out Misha dictated, and Gleb translated into English--their group went on poxod last night, so I won't get to deliver my answer until tomorrow, and they also missed the disco--for that matter, Desi and I almost missed the disco too! We took our sweet time getting there and only danced for the last half hour, both to savve our clothes and our energy--for some reason we were both pretty worn out yesterday (oh! because we taught sport/aerobics yesterday, and aerobics kind of devolved into Pioneerball with Olga and I dancing to Aqua and the Spice Girls in the background). Later that night, we found out who our "Secret Friends" were--we all gathered in the auditorium and went around trying to guess--I was completely wrong, the music teacher, Svetlana Borisovna had me! I would've never guessed her, not in a million years. And Nadya, who I had, thought that Olga was her secret friend, so I must have been doing at least halfway decently in writing things in Russian. HmHmHm what else...

Oh, enough of yesterday. Today we did rock climbing! It was so much fun--the first class we climbed, to show the kids the right way to do so, and then we helped belay (excuse the spelling). Something that never ceases to amaze me about Russia is the general disregard for safety--Masha just showed me how to thread my lines, pulled my hand back, and then attached a kid to me. Did pretty well though, didn't drop anybody and we all had fun. Each time Igor and Masha would have the kids do amazing stretches, I have some video of them all dancing together. And when they got to the top, you weren't supposed to let them down until they answered a question, sang a song, or recited a poem--my kids all had to say Russian tongue-twisters, and I wouldn't let them down until they fairly yelled it out. We helped with three classes, and by the end my hands were black all over and starting to callous--but it was great. We napped most of Tixii Chas, and then we met at the front gates with a few other children to wait for our ride. We jumped in a truck and headed 30 minutes out of camp, passing hills, forests, at least one monastery, some markets, and finally stopped at a farm.

This was the best part of the day.

We went horseback riding! I can't tell you how excited I was to be there, just to pet the horses and be around them. I can't smell, of course, but somehow the air FEELS different on a farm. And the beauty of this place was just indescribable. The land spread out so far and gently rolling you could watch night walking toward you from miles away, and there were horses just running around, goats and cows and dogs. The kids rode in a general circle in the lone paddock out back, and after Desi and I got walked out to the woods and back. Sure, we didn't go riding like at Mackinac or anything, but just to BE on a horse made a world of difference (especially after that breakneck car ride, thought I was going to die, puke, or do both at the same time for sure. Apparently they don't pass in the other lane here--the car whose butt you're riding starts cruising on the shoulder and you kind of straddle the middle, so oncoming traffic isn't a problem--provided they take to the shoulder too). I'm such a little girl, still going crazy over horses, although it was a skosh scary--I wasn't afraid of the horses or anything, but I'm not used to a saddle without a saddlehorn--it wasn't quite English-style, but it certainly wasn't Western... and furthermore, they had us hold the reins very strangely.

Tonight... well, I plan on showering sometime today, and then Spain plays Russia (like Kat has said). It should be a pretty good match, and I'm sure we'll all be hoarse by the end of the night. Tomorrow, I'm pretty sure we're working in the pool all day, which also excites me, 'cause or Robin Hood that means one game: WATER POLO! ^_^