Truly Russia. part3

okay. so if you are still here: goodjob! this story is lengthy.
but i just want to have it in my memory.
so that is why i am typing so much about it.

also. please excuse my digressing narratives. thinking is hard.
and writing is significantly harder as well.

okay.
so part three of my day on the volga.
with a would-be camping trip.

after being presented with a  knife by a man who claimed to be the "Russian Bear/"
we sat around and joyfully talked in russian with real russians.

then the time came for us to go on a little ride around the volga.
and this man, who looked like a cartoon character, came up to me,
pulling my arm and leading me, said:
[direct quote]
"you are a beautiful girl. you have a beautiful face. come to the river with me."
[direct quote from me]
"no, and don't touch me."
[man, asking danielle]
"she doesnt like me?"

danielle, becky and i were then confronted by another man:
[don't worry this guy was a good one]
he was very interested in our political views, and views on life.
and every conversation would end in: "girls, girls, girls...i dont press my opinions on you. and you don't press yours on me. lets just be friends."

it was another cool experience to share the gospel.
especially when we talked about the meaning of life.
[side note: we sang russian folk songs. and then they asked us to sing some.
and danielle just told them we have a song called "i am a child of God." and when one of the russians confirmed the name, another chimed in and said, "no, she said "I HAVE a child of God." it was then really hard to get them all to realize what we meant.]

we finally convinced them that we could not stay on the remote island in the middle of the river.

and we decided that our taxi had the potential to be amazingly expensive.
so we were determined not to speak the whole time.

so as we were walking up to the taxi with one of the russian men,
we didn't talk.
and then the first thing he siad was:
"here I have 3 american girls.
you will ask for 1100 rubles.
but they will only pay you 500"
but honestly, my heart just dropped when he told him that we were americans.

but, it did have it's upside.
we were able to just giggle at all the funny experiences we had had that day.
the whole hour ride home.

and this ends my ridiculously long story.