Fish liver for breakfast

Last night I, Katrina, was invited by a girl, Tanya, about my age from our Sunday group and 3 other girls to come to her apartment to get to know each other and talk about requests we have. I was a little nervous because I had really only talked with Tanya once before. She speaks very little English and I speak very little Russian, so our conversation was interesting. Thankfully I was able to meet up with another girl, Anya, who was also going, who speaks English well and I know a little better. Tanya lives in different city right outside of Moscow, so I took the metro to the end of one of the lines and then Anya and I took a маршрутка (marshrutka-it’s basically a van taxi) to this other smaller city. The total time it took to get there was about 1 hour and 15 minutes.

So we got there and we ate some food then talked in Russian and English for a while, sang a few songs in Russian and English and then talked about different requests we had that we could be thinking about for each other. It was a really encouraging time for me and I hope it was for them too.

Oh yeah! I stayed overnight. We have heard this is a common thing to do here. If you are visiting someone who lives pretty far away from your home, it is normal to spend the night at the person’s apartment who you are visiting.

And I also wanted to mention about the metro on the way back in the morning. So after taking the marshrutka again to get back to the metro, it was just crazy busy with people who live outside the city getting on the metro at that first stop on the line. This line is the busiest metro line and this stop is the busiest metro stop. There was literally hundreds on people on the platform waiting for the next train. So we get behind everyone and while we are waiting Anya says to me, “Don’t be scared, it’s normal if we get separated.” I was thinking… k, thanks. Then when the train arrived everyone, at once, moves forward and starts pushing their way into the open doors. If you don’t move you will get pushed and shoved! Imagine standing in a huge crowd with people everywhere around you, touching you on all sides, and then the crowd decides to move forward, that means you are moving too whether you want to or not. No personal space at all. That thought goes out the window in these situations. It was just crazy and I wish I could describe it better. Maybe next time I will try to get a video or at least a picture.

Here are some pictures of Tanya and Anya and myself from last night:

Oh by the way… about the title of the blog. Yes, I did have fish liver for breakfast. It tasted about like beef liver, but not as strong of a liver taste and it wasn’t fishy tasting either. Sound appetizing?