Per aspera ad astra

Yesterday at the American Home, we celebrated Halloween…twice. After several hours of hanging tacky awesome decorations, setting up the murder mystery, and planning music the night before, we were prepared for both of our upcoming parties.

Molly and I- pre-party. She did a stellar job with my cat make-up.

Considering we’re several time zones away from any countries that celebrate Halloween, we all did pretty well coming up with costumes. I’ll admit, I was lame and grabbed a costume out of the box that a former teacher brought. Molly made fairy wings out of medical gauze her host family had around the apartment, Sara went with the classic toga, Nicole was a hot skanky pirate, Bob brought his leprechaun hat from home and wore all green, Eric was our Pushkin, and Aaron was a slightly frightening man with a gun. And of course, Joanna was a person going to the banya…

Our teacher’s assistant, Zhenya, dressed as a witch and was properly scary by Russian standards. As she plays a small part in our upcoming horror film adventure, I managed to snag a few pictures of her at her best.

Our first party at 2 consisted mostly of students from our “hooligan hour” (4:00 class) and was fairly small and low-key. Out of the 15 or so students who showed up, however, half were definitely my lovely students, which made me pretty happy.

Ksenia, Evelina and Masha

During the parties, we had a haunted house/labyrinth going. Sara and I were unwilling patient and surgeon, respectively, Bob was the tour guide, and if I may say so, we scared the crap out of some of the students.

I’m a REAL doctor.

Our second party was much more crowded and made up mostly of 20somethings from various classes. Several of my ZII students made it to this party as well.

Marina, me Sasha- two of my students from my incredibly awesome 7:30 class.

During the course of these parties, самая beautiful managed to woo yet another Russian. This time, I avoided the drunken 40 year olds and went straight for this dashing young man…

Okay, so he might be five years old, but after spending most of the day chasing me with Aaron’s gun, trying to beat me up, and pulling at my cat tail, Andryushka finally worked up the courage to slap my butt as I walked up the stairs (causing several members of the Russian staff who witnessed the event to collapse in laughter). Oh you Russian boys, you’re charmers. Needless to say, I now have a new admirer.

All in all, the parties were a success. We teachers finished the day at 7:30, exhausted and with an entire table of cookies and desserts remaining for upcoming teatimes (or an entire African country). As the first Halloween I’ve actually celebrated in several years, it was great.

Happy Halloween from the AH!