Salsa in Volgograd

September 21, 2008
Yesterday was a pretty long but really fun day.
I went to the school at 9:30 to observe the class of 8 year olds I'm to teach. They are certainly energetic, but they seem like a lot of fun. They don't know much English and it is hard for them to wrap their heads around the fact that I don't know Russian (and wouldn't speak it in class if I did). There was one little girl in the class, and she was so excited to sit beside me and hold my hand. The little boys also seemed to enjoy having me there as the other teacher is a lot older and probably not as much fun. Her teaching style is not what Language Link considers best practice. I then had my individual lesson, which was fine.
We had decided to have a taco party for all the teachers as sort of a house warming, so after I got out of class we headed to Real, one of the biggest supermarkets in the city. By odd chance Sarah had found taco shells in another grocery store called Gourmand and we already had Mexican seasoning, but we were hoping Volgograd would have salsa, corn chips, and avocados somewhere. We were very pleased to find the first two items, as well as a number of other things for our apartment, in this store, which is a lot like a very, very badly organized Walmart. The salsa was near a bunch of Lays potato chips while the corn chips were across the store nearer to the toilet tissue and dog food. One aisle would have flour and the next would have shoes. It was hard to find things, but we did and were happy. Avocadoes don't seem to be here.
When we got back, we had plenty of time to get ready. The party went off well and was a lot of fun.