Witches

You'll never believe this, but I am still alive and well..

The flight over was pretty painless, except for that I tried to bring barber scissors on the plane with me cause I didn't realize they were in my bag and.. the lady working there just about had a heart attack. She glared at me and said, "did you know you have a pair of barber scissors in your carry on?" I actually brought them on purpose just to spice up her day.

So we get to the airport in Lithuania.. and I waited and waited but my luggage just never came. Everybody elses did.. but mine somehow got lost. Both of them. At the time, I didn't really care. Stressing out about it wouldn't solve anything. And they said they would deliver it in a day. But as of today it's been a week and I'm starting to get pissed off. Apparantly that airline doesn't fly to Kaliningrad, so it'll have to go on a different airline.. and I want to call and yell, but they wouldn't understand me cause they don't speak no english. If I don't get it soon I'm going to cry.

On the drive from the airport to the camp, there's trees on both side of the highway, and there's no shoulders. Apparantly, the nazi's thought this one up. It's a little bit dangerous, because if you aren't paying very close to the road, you'll ram into a tree and probably die. So the drew white stripes on all the trees, and the headlights kind of light up the stripes. and it looks really crazy at night with all these white stripes everywhere. Kind of "alice and wonderlandish". They should name a band after these stripes or something.

We had to cross the Lithuanian border into Russia which was pretty freaky. It took 2 hours, cause apparantly we had all the wrong papers. But in my Visa, they wrote my name in Russian , which is AMN TEPEZA MNRP. Which is pretty fucking cool. This makes up for the army clothes and the not understanding what the hell was going on for 2 hours.

I have been at Orientation camp for the past week which was in a Zldaviningrask or some other name that I cant even try to spell. No internet access, but there was a place where you could use the phone and send telegrams. Which was handy, cause I like to send alot of telegrams. No sorry that was a mean thing to say. I was tempted to wake up my parents at 3 am, but I decided against it. We're ten hours ahead of you guys. Advanced, if you will.
This town was secluded, but beautiful. Right on the coast of the Baltic Sea.

We stayed at this hotel, but I use the term hotel very loosely. There was occasionally no water at all, and rarely hot water. And the water we did have we couldn't drink because of an Hepatitis A problem. So that was a little shocking to hear that water can make you sick in so many ways..i thought we had it bad..
there was a kitchen, but they had 2 dishes in the whole thing. And the tiles were all off on floor and the bathroms smelled so rank..ew. There were some old guys living there. They were drunk .. often, and one spoke english, so he latched on the one of guys in the group who did vodka shots with him. This guy made the equivalent of $5 a month on a pension. It's kind of a slap in the face to see this country and how people deal with the cards they've been given.. so to speak. What's funny is despite how poor people are, they still wear amazing clothes. They walk to the store and they look like they're going for a job interview. We're such slobs.. ;)

Our group is pretty cool. This one guy, Max, decided that I am witch and he keeps trying to light me on fire, cause apparantly he doesn't like witches. Yesterday he thought we should make a campfire on the beach.. and he was measuring me to see how big my casket should be.. fun times.. unless you're a witch..

We got our Russian counterparts finally. I got the one I wanted, so that's cool. Her name is Galya, and she seems like quite a gal. She's from the Ural mountains and her english is pretty good. From what I can tell, she likes history, fashion, boys, singing and dancing. Seems like a good combo..

We got into our families today, which I was a little nervous about. (little = alot)

Galya and I are the only ones from the group living in a house, one of the only ones with a car and internet access, and a dishwasher and a washing machine. We even have a sauna, dusch and a urinal in the bathroom. there's 9 people in total that live in the house. 4 generations. Babooshka, 2 parents, 2 kids who are grown up, one's wife, their baby, one Russian girl named Galya and some wacky CAnadian chick. One of my "brothers" did the program last year. I've been warned he thinks he's a Casanova. key word = thinks. It should be a good family all in all.

Well there's so many things I want to tell you all about. I will post my adress once i figure it out. I miss you all a ton. Like actually one metric ton.

well, I gotta go explore the city now, and meet the rest of my massive family.