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So, hello again! Where to start, well I haven’t really done much in the way of cultural activities, but I have been having a lot of fun! I have mainly been going out a lot and getting in at stupid o’clock, but there is not much to do in the day as the weather is so bleak at the moment! As I said in my last entry, there is still a lot of snow which melts and then freezes again. It was getting a lot better, and yesterday all the snow had been cleared from our road and things were looking good. However, it has snowed all today and last night as well, so everything has been spoiled again!! So this makes walking around and exploring a bit difficult as you have to watch your feet all the time! But saying that, I have been walking as much as possible! I often walk home from school, or walk to go for lunch or coffee somewhere. I navigated myself (albeit with a few errors!) all the way from school to Nevsky without a map, so I was pretty impressed! I have really settled into life here, and it feels a lot less daunting than Moscow because it is so much smaller and you can just walk about. Also, it is really nice because a lot of people here are living in rented apartments rather than in a home-stay. So you can just go round to people’s houses of an evening or after school or something. So it feels a lot more like I am actually living here, which is nice.

I had a lovely day the other day. The weather was gorgeous and sunny, not too cold, but very windy. After school, I was going to meet my friend Chris (who studied in Moscow with me) to go to the state photography museum. Anyway, so I got on the bus to go and meet him, but for some reason here, the rush hour is at about 2-3 o’clock, so I ended up getting off the bus and having to walk very fast (despite walking against what felt like a force 5 gale wind!) down Nevsky prospect! So we went to the museum, which was really nice, good photos, some a lot better than other, but it was free and a good exhibition. We then had some lunch in a cheap little Russian canteen, which was good. Afterward Chris had a class to teach and I had nothing else to do, so went for a wander. It was really nice, I walked up to the hermitage and then crossed the frozen, snow covered river onto one of the islands. I walked around the island for a bit and then made my way back home. But it made me really excited for when the weather will get better and I can walk everywhere!

I have in fact moved up a class, which I am really pleased about. It is a lot more challenging, which can be really hard, but I’m glad I have done it because it makes me work harder. I felt pretty thick after a grammar lesson the other day, so I came home, ordered a grammar book online and spent the rest of the evening revising!!

Today was the day when Eva and her friend Victoria moved out! When Eva brought my stuff back from Moscow, she had no where to stay, so we told her she could stay here for a few days. She and her friend Vicky were planning on living together, but hadn’t had time to get a flat yet. So, Vicky moved in with us as well. Jess and I assumed that it would just be for a couple of days... well a couple of days turned into nearly two weeks! But they have gone now and they paid rent for the time that they were here, so I’m not complaining too much!

So that is it for now, I think tomorrow I am going to watch Alice in Wonderland at the cinema with Jess and our friend Franky, who is also from UCL. There is also a mini festival on at one of the cinema’s tomorrow night. It calls itself “A night of good cinema” and basically it is a whole night from 11pm until about 6 in the morning in which various films are being shown. So I may go to that, the films sound quite good, but I may just end up asleep in the cinema, which wouldn’t be so good!

Anyway, lots of love and miss you all

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