12 Days

Привет!

What happens in 12 days? THAT'S RIGHT! I WILL BE IN DC! Which means the first leg of my journey to Nizhny Novgorod, Russia! We spend approximately a day and a half-ish there before boarding the plane to Moscow (still not clear on how we're getting to Nizhny from Moscow- I'm guessing taking a train or something- but we have a direct flight to Moscow from DC.) I think I'm as excited for the orientation as I am for actually going to Russia, just because it's the start of it all. Yesterday I got a memorandum thing in my email all about the NSLI-Y orientation, and today I got my final flight itinerary/e-plane-ticket to DC from my home city [classified because this is a public blog, though probably the only people who bother to read it know me personally.]

Last week I made a photo album online with pictures of my town/life in the U.S. to show my host family, and it came in the mail yesterday. I'm really excited to show it to them, because I'm guessing it will be a good conversation starter. Unfortunately, I still don't know anything about my host family. I've been stalking my email like a crazy person for the past week because I think all the other American Councils Russia summer groups have gotten their family's information already, but the Nizhny group still hasn't yet. I would kind of like to have an older host sibling, since I'm the oldest of two in my house (my sister is 2 years younger than me). It would also be fun to have a much younger host sibling, because I love little kids. But I don't really have any preferences. I'm sure I'll love whoever I end up with, and I know I'll feel bad later if I go into the whole host family thing with any strong set opinions before I even know anything about my host family. So I'm keeping an open mind, but I desperately want to know! I just checked my email again. No, really.

The good news is, I now officially leave in less than two weeks! Which means I can't be more than a week away from getting my host family information.

Cheers to staying positive!

-Nina