Dear Grace and Elise,**

i actually kind of miss america. who would have thought?

this was brought on by my incredible sloppiness this morning. went to bed around 7 am, woke up at 9:30 and left for work. i bought coffee to go at mcdonald's and started drinking it on the subway. still wearing the clothes from last night but i had the foresight to bring my running clothes (which i theoretically could have slept in but instead chose to wander around sergei's apartment in my bathing suit bottom (more about that below) and cardigan). the shoes i'm wearing with my outfit aren't great for a lot of walking so i put on my running shoes while on the metro. as i'm sure you can guess, this is a big no-no, and i received several glares of disgust that someone would dare put on shoes while on the metro, sipping a coffee no less.

so then i get to the street my work is on and take off power walking, swinging my arms appropriately. i am now wearing a black dress and running shoes and am holding a cup of coffee. this is a look that i think is pretty chic in america, the connotation being that i have important meetings to look nice for, and so many of them that i need sensible shoes to run from one to the next. the coffee look ("so much to do i haven't even slept yet!") is also pretty mod.

not so in russia. i was intensely judged for the shoes, while the coffee cup brought on looks of curiosity and wonder ("we have that here?!?"). this made me miss america, where my grunginess would be mistaken for chic.

back to the bathing suit part. i haven't been home enough to do laundry and am out of clean underwear. so i'm wearing a bathing suit bottom in lieu. considering buying some underwear on my way to dinner tonight.

**I'm too lazy to actually write a post, so I'm just copying and pasting an email I sent my roommates. Apologies for the absence of the capitalization and eloquence that characterize my usual posts.