Here are some pictures of my new home! It is pretty cute I think.
We are about a 15 minute walk from the base and I have discovered all the quiet shortcuts through the parks. There is a little market just around the corner and the bus stop is right outside our pantry window.

View from one side of our building

Living room (door in background goes to a small enclosed balcony from which previous photo was taken.)

Closet/foyer (Door to the left is to the living room, unseen door to the right is to our bedroom.)

Bedroom with me in it! Can you guess which side of the bed I sleep on?

Awesome kitchen!! Window goes to a small pantry.

Notice there is no refrigerator. We are still looking for one…

View of the other side of our building from our pantry. That's a huge, strictly-traditional, Pentecostal church.

I have found an apartment and am sharing it with a dear friend named Marichka. Marichka does not speak or understand English well. It has already been an interesting first few days together! Just last night we had a few fun misunderstandings that did not help the communication gap!

Scenario #1
Marichka enters asking if I want chai (tea in Russian). I said “yes, I would love some.” She asks me which kind of tea I wanted in Russian but with a tone of uncertainty. In my attempt to affirm her in my understanding Russian, I said “yes which tea.” She said “which?” I said yes. Hooray, English has been learned… or so I thought. Five min later, I finish what I was doing and go into the kitchen to discover Marichka looking at all my boxes and tins of tea. She looks up and says “Meggie, I no find which tea. I looking and looking, I no find.” Poor Marichka was looking for the fictional tea called “Which.” When I explained the misunderstanding we had a good laugh.

Scenario #2
Marichka wanted to use my laptop for a skype date with her friend. My laptop is a little slow and so I told her to wait, but I said it in what I thought was Russian. Marichka, very confused, stood up from the couch. I looked at her very confused and she looked at me very confused. Apparently I said the word meaning ‘to stand.’ So when I was saying “wait, wait” I was really saying “stand, stand.”

Scenario #3
I was going through my Russian vocabulary cards and came to the word car. I proudly said, again, what I thought was the word for car, but I guess the word for car and man are very close. I mean very close! Marichka just laughed at me.

Oh, the adventures we will have!