David-cp10

6/14/2012

Bye Bye Alena,
Today was the day before Alena's last day here and because I was not able to get off of work to come and see the linguistic olympics on Friday this was the last day that my family and I would see her.  I had just finished my project for TELF which was the presentation for our host countries.  I am very glad that I went first in the process because I felt as though every presentation was so good.  I guess we all have room for improvement.  My wife picked me up from class because I was dropped off by a friend.  I did not want to ride my scooter in such bad weather so I didn't risk it.  Upon getting in the car I surprised my wife with the Nutella crapes that I had made her.  (thanks class for awesome snacks)  We headed over to Alena's house to pick her up, but when we got to the driveway she motioned us to come in.  Upon entering we saw that Alena had a friend over that was also from Russia (that happened to speak great English as well as a variety of other languages).  We actually got to chatting in German after I had heard from Alena that she spoke it.  We found out a little about each other but then she had to leave.

My wife and baby having dinner and wine at Alena's

While this was going on my wife was chatting it up with Alena who was holding our adorable baby.  Once Alena's friend left Alena basically begged to make us dinner and even though we were not really hungry we accepted.  While she prepared our meal we talked with her and it seemed as though we had been friends for a lifetime and we all silently dreaded the end to our meetings that was looming like the elephant in the room.  We sat next to a trunk on the ground that served as her table and shared some wine and memories.  We tried to iron our some forms of contact to stay in touch and some more concrete plans on when we could visit her and vise versa.  The whole evening flew by and we took some pictures and bid each other farewell for now.  I am so glad (and so is my wife) that we all got to meet and share sometime together and I am so glad that CIES gives us real experience with foreign exchange students.  I expect we all will be great friends for many years to come.