The two weeks I spent in Russia with my best friend Ivey were the greatest of my life. The trip changed me so profoundly that I find it hard to retell stories that truly capture the spirit of Russia, and what it meant for me to be there.
It can be isolating, traveling to an unfamiliar country halfway across the world, especially when you don’t know the language or the customs and for the first time are living with families who see the world in an entirely different way. I stayed in a relatively poor area of the city of Novgorod, where there was no cable, no internet and only one bed to fit three people. It was culture shock as I’ve never experienced it before, and I don’t know what I would have done if Ivey weren’t there with me.
Whether trying to bridge a seemingly endless language barrier or hiding the food that we couldn’t possibly eat Ivey was always there beside me. When we had Russian students declare with absolute certainty that all Americans had pools, and all pools contained live dolphins, Ivey helped set them straight. I can’t imagine a moment in Russia without Ivey there, and I would gladly endure more of the caviar we tried so desperately to avoid, or the droves of awkward linguistic struggles if it meant that I would get another opportunity to see the world with her.