Post birthday message

Receiving birthday wishes from Tom. We had to sit in the outside bit of the bar because there were too many of us! It was cold!

The view from Irina’s flat. It’s the business district of Moskva.

Birthday cheesecake from Sveta and Maja

Ice sculpture museum.

So, this week has been a lot busier than last week... the best news is that Eva and I have found a flat! It is about four stops away on the metro from our university, a five minute walk from the metro and really lovely and modern (very uncommon in Russia!) Eva and I will be sharing a really big spacious room which has a big double bed and a desk and a humungous wardrobe! The room is separated a big by the desk, so there are two areas to the room which is really good. Also the flat has a big living room big kitchen and bathroom. We will be living with a 22 year old girl who is studying English. She is married to a Canadian, but he is doing a PhD at the moment, so lives in student halls. She is really nice, within about 5 mins of meeting us she had already invited us to go to her dacha (holiday home) at the weekend! Also her English isn’t brilliant, which is good for us as we can speak to her in Russian and also teach her English!
So, we told our babushka that we are moving out and she has been a real bitch ever since! So we have decided to move out as soon as possible. We spoke to the accommodation people at uni and they said that they would make an exception for us. Normally we would have to pay for the next month, but as the bab is being so rude and nasty they are going to let us go now without paying for October. As of Thursday, Eva and I will be in a new place! Woo hoo!
Some more cultural things I have been doing. I went to the Tretyakov gallery on Monday. There are two of them, we went to the old one which is full of portraits of wealthy, fat people! It was quite like the national portrait gallery in London, similar kinds of paintings. But also it had (obviously!) lots of Russian art, which I really liked. Lots of peasants with gruff looking faces, hungry looking children and of course lots and lots of icons and religious art. Today a friend and I set out to find this ice sculpture gallery that she had heard about. It took quite a while to find as she had been told the wrong metro stop, but it was a lovely sunny crisp day so it was nice walking weather. Anyway, so when we got there, this ‘gallery’ was in fact a single, fairly small room in the back of a very non-descript garage type building! We had a fun time though because you have to wear these gigantic duvet like coats over your clothes and fleecy little booties!
Thank you all for the birthday messages! I had a really nice couple of days actually. On the Thursday, Eva and I went round to our friend Irina’s house to watch a film. At 12.00pm, Irina came in, blindfolded me and took me into the kitchen where I was greeted by a big apricot sponge cake and some of her friends! So we all had some cake and wine and then at 2.00 decided to go out for a walk! Anyway, we stayed at Irina’s that night and then in the morning Eva made me chocolate blini’s for a birthday breakfast! On the evening of my birthday a group of us went out together and had a really nice evening! I got lots of texts from people from my class wishing me happy birthday and in the evening even got calls from Kate and Helen! So all in all a good birthday!
Love you all loads and missing you!
Next time you hear from me, I shall be in a new place!
X x x x

It's getting cold!

Hi....
So its getting cold here, but at the moment, its really nice and crisp and makes you feel refreshed! The weeks seem to fly by because we are pretty busy in the day with lessons and then in the evening we are either going to meet someone, doing something cultural or doing homework! Eva and I had our first theatre experience this week. We went with a friend who is an actor so were able to get in free. However, that is where the good news ends really. I got the general gist of the play but that was pretty much it! There were only three actors on stage doing monologues, so after a while of not understanding, I started to nod off a little! So in the end we left half way through because neither of us were understanding anything and our friend thought it was awful as well! We tried to watch Master and Margarita the other night, but all the tickets were sold out which was a shame. The new plan now is to watch it on the 27th.
The main news of this week is that Eva and I have been looking for flats to rents, or rooms in a flat. We want to move not only because of the crazy babushka, but also because it is so far away from everything and Eva won’t be able to afford to pay to stay here for the whole 4 months. Its really funny, every time we tell any Russians that we are living with a babushka they think were crazy! So our flat hunting hasn’t been a major success as of yet, though there is a great website for expats which has loads of rooms available. We went to see one the other day and it was lovely, though she wanted us to move in straight away which was no good because we have already paid until mid October. But I’m sure we will find somewhere!
We went out last night to a party of a friend of a friend of Eva and it was really good actually. A lot of the people there were really interesting, one of them was a Philippino diplomat, another was writing a book which he hoped to turn into a screenplay and loads of people from all over the world! So I had a great time networking and talking about films! After the party we went on to a club and they had brilliant music, lots of jewish and folk music and lots of foot stamping, clapping and spinning around!
I’m starting to get more confident with the language and have remembered a lot of things already. Though it is still really frustrating and a lot of time I find myself being really quiet and listen to other people talk! But with practice I will be fine!
Anyway... will keep you updated!
Lots of love to you all and missing you loads!

...

Hi
So, I have been here a week now and am feeling a lot better. I have just got back from a walk around the centre and I feel like I am slowly getting my bearings (I did it all without a map!) I STILL haven’t seen Lenin yet, I tried again to go into the Kremlin, but it was closed, again. But I had a lovely walk and it has been really lovely weather. Took some pictures of Gogol and the house he lived in, walked down to the Lenin library which is pretty impressive. I also got very excited because in one of the films I studied last year, a young woman goes to the Lenin library to look for dateable men! I then walked to the Kremlin and watched the guards being changed. Then to Revolution Square where there were two men dressed as Stalin and Lenin that you could have your pictures taken with. I did not have my picture taken!
Anyway, onto less recent news...
We have had our first week of lessons, and we have Friday’s off which is great! As we have been doing an intensive week of study we have also been having lessons outside the classroom as well to take stress off a bit. On Tuesday we had a task where we were given envelopes which had a place, or statue or something that we had to find. We would then meet someone at this place. So, we went to the metro station, opened our envelopes and our secret destination was revealed! I had to end up at a statue of a Russian general whose name I can’t remember! So, I asked the metro babushka if she knew what station it was near. She had no idea and neither did the lady on the information phone! Eventually we found a babushka who knew, so off I went. When I got to the metro station I was told to go right. But I then came out of the station and went right, but no statue! So, 5 mins walk and a trolleybus later, I found the statue. I waited and waited, but no one came! Next day in class, it turned out that I had managed to find another statue of the same man, miles away from the right statue which was next to the Kremlin! Ah well, I managed to find a statue even my teacher didn’t know about! Yesterday, we went for a ‘biiznes lanch’ (fixed lunch menu) with the class and had to speak Russian the whole time. Then today, we were given pieces of paper which had items that we had to find in the shopping centre near the uni. Our teacher had tried to think of things which we wouldn’t know... she succeeded. I asked around and people were miming things like shorts, so I went to a clothes shop, no luck. I then went to a sport shop, thinking they were maybe lycra shorts. In the sport shop they looked very bemused. We worked out though that they were just for women and were something to do with underwear. Went to the underwear shop and discovered that they were stockings! That explains the bemused embarrassed men at the sport shop!
We have made another new Russian friend. He is the brother of a guy who Eva stayed with when she was in Moscow for a week 2 summers ago. We met him for the first time yesterday and him and a friend took us to the botanical gardens by MGU. They were really beautiful and it was a really nice day as well. We might go out with him tonight to a Cuban bar. But if not, Eva and I might just find somewhere to go on our own!
Anyway, lots of love x x x

1st week

Hi...

So I arrived safely here in Moscow! Eva (the girl from SSEES who I am sharing the appartment with) and I managed to bargain with a taxi driver to bring us to the appartment block. The only problem was that we didn't have our host's number, so we couldn't get into the building at first. But we managed in the end. She is a nice lady, not the typical Russian babushka though. She has perfectly manicured toenails and swans about in bejeweled flip-flops. She also goes to bed in the early hours and doesnt get up until around 12.00! She is a bit crazy as well. We attempted to go to an internet cafe, though 10 mins later she realised she had left a pan of oil heating on the hob! Oh dear, lots of mess, the pan had to be thrown away... she blamed us! She is also very fussy about turning of lights and tidyness. Though its her house I suppose, I would be fussy too!

On the second day we were here, we had to do an aptitude test, which was pretty terrible as I havn't really thought about russian for the past 3 months. But i'm not in the lowest class, so thats something to be glad about! We are doing an intensive course at the moment for the next week. So, a lot of going over things and getting back into the swing of things. We have two classes a day, they are an hour and a half at a time and we have only a 5 minute break. I find myself drifting off at times as it is quite hard to pay full attention for that long at a time! Im finding it all a bit stressfull at the moment and am really tired at the end of the day. But it will get a lot easier.

At the weekend we had a chance to relax, which was definately needed. Eva and I walked along the river to the Kremlin, though it was all closed of as it was 'city day'. There were lots of performances in the evening, though tickets to get in were very expencive. We had a look at St. Basils, saw GUM and then walked about for a bit. In the evening we met up with a Russian guy called Dima. He is a friend of a friend of Eva. He was very sweet and came to meet us at our metro station with a bunch of flowers for us both. We spoke mainly in Russian, though also a bit in french. He is from Kazakstan, and only moved to Moscow a year ago. We went to an area called Арбат (Arbat) which is famous for its street performers. The streets were teeming with musicians of all kinds, students from the conservatoir, folk musicians, children playing instruments and I even saw a couple with a hand held karaoke machine! Dima is a an actor and acts in lots of the theatres around Moscow, so he will be a good cultural friend! He and I also had a converstaion about Russian film , which he seems really passionae about and he said he would lend me some good modern russian films.

What else... Moscow is huge, I think it will take a while to get my bearings! Sadly, Eva and I live really far from the centre and from Uni. It takes about an hour to get there every morning. The only way for us to get around is by metro and the last one is around midnight, which is a bit rubbish if we want to go out in the evening, but we will manage! (maybe stay out until they start again in the morning!! Apparently the first one is around 5!)

Keep watching out for more blogs, though I will have to use internet cafe's, as we are too far from the centre to use wifi.

Lots of love to you all. Miss you already.
xxxxxxxx
ooooooooo