My Last Siberian Post

My Siberians have spent the last week in Rexburg for the second leg of their rural Idaho tour, so I took my parents and youngest brother up a few times over the past few days to introduce my American family to my Russian family.
Here's Greg and I with some of the girls...





...And here we are with Professor Victor and more the girls.


See that guy in the white pants and black beret? That is one of the most obnoxious french people I have ever met. I was planning on repressing all of my memories in which he had leading or supporting roles, but last night I decided to change that plan and snap a photo of him. It will make it a lot easier to find and punish him later when I achieve my goal of becoming supreme ruler of the free world.
When we saw the team last night, they gave me a CD of about 150 photos Vladimir had taken last week. Good old Vladimir started taking pictures the second he climbed off the bus. Here we all are in the school lobby after the team arrived at 12 a.m. Tuesday morning.

Here I am with Marquetta, Professor Victor, and the Rotary Club lady discussing the program for the team's first performance.
Here we are in the boat during the party last Friday. I got my worst sunburn of the summer that day...but it was no wear near as awful as the burn poor professor Victor got.
This photo was taken at the luncheon where all of the teams swapped gifts with different area mayors. Here are the mayors with the costumed dancers and musicians. Here I am with the representatives from Team Siberia, the mayor of Rupert (blue shirt), another Rupert representative (yellow shirt), and some members of the other Russian group at the festival...the Cossacks.
Now that my sunburn has numbed and I have been able to sleep for more than four hours a night, I can officially say that being a team guide was a good experience. I learn a lot about Russia and other countries, about sound checks and rehearsal schedules, about repairing very old Siberian folk instruments, and about running photo exhibitions. I also learned what my limits for stress and sleep deprivation are, information that will come in very handy in the future.