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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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new surroundings

Hello from St Pete!

So, I’m all settled in and already I feel like I have been here an age! Our flat is really lovely and very modern. There are two massive bedrooms and a huge lounge and a kitchen. Jess and I have done some heavy lifting to make my room more like a room. We moved the sofa bed from the lounge which is a double bed and then moved one of the three wardrobes in Jess’s room into my room. So when our landlady came round to install the internet she marvelled at our strength! She is really lovely and didn’t mind at all!

Tuesday was a national holiday (Defenders of the Fatherland day apparently!) which is kind of the equivalent of women’s day. So basically men get presents from women and get discounts in shops and there are special coffees/sandwiches in cafes! Ridiculous! So I have only been to classes twice this week, it is the same kind of set up as in Moscow, we have from mon to thurs and then Friday off. The teachers seem very good though, they seem very thorough. I have been put in the 3^rd out of 5 groups, but I think it is a bit too easy, so I may ask to get moved up.

I havn’t really had a chance to walk around and enjoy the city yet, which is a shame, but weather has been very debilitating! When we first got here, there was just so much snow, apparently the most that there had been in 110 years! So walking anywhere was just a nightmare and took twice as long as it would any other time. Cars were buried under about three feet of snow! But now, it has warmed up (to a balmy +2!!) and so everything is melting. I went out yesterday to go to a market and my poor feet have never been so wet. At one point they were actually in puddles in my shoes. There is just so much water and slush everywhere, it is horrible! You have to plan your way across the road to avoid standing in lakes! Also, now there is a constant danger of falling icicles! No laughing matter! You can just hear these massive crashes and a gigantic block of ice will fall from the sky! They are doing something about it though, part of the street will be blocked off and there are just men on the roof shovelling all the snow off, so you have to run past and avoid the snow bombs raining down!

Eva has been in Moscow this week, she did have a flight to Pete, but the company she booked it through went bust. So she had to book another flight and could only get one to Moscow. It has been handy for me though, because she offered to bring back the stuff that I left in Moscow. It has been a nightmare really trying to get the stuff back though. Irina, the girl who we lived with last term has been avoiding our calls and was being really shady for some reason, so we got pretty worried. When we eventually got through to her, she said that she was not longer living in the flat, but was renting out the two rooms. When Eva tried to set a time to go to the flat, Irina just rang her 15 mins before and said she couldn’t make it. But after a few failed attempts, Eva managed to get it all and she is flying up to Peter this evening. So hopefully, everything will be in tact!

So that is all for now, im sure I will have more interesting news next week. Lots of love to you all!

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So... Archangelsk!

After feeling rather jealous of people who went to exotic places (eg. Lake Baikal) in their reading week, my friend Katherine and I decided that we too wanted to go away! I don’t really know why I chose Archangelsk, but it seemed further enough away to be an adventure! Soon after making this decision, I met a girl called Elizabeth. She is a Peruvian girl who moved to Russia, on her own, when she was about 15. Coincidently, she had moved to Archangelsk from Peru to study. She lived there for about 5 years and in that time, married a Russian and had a child with him. She moved to Moscow a couple of months ago and now studies here. Anyway, so she decided to come along with Katherine and I to visit her husband. She also brought along her 4 year old son... this I did not find out until we were booking out train tickets!

So the train journey was just under 24 hours, so we packed lots of supplies to keep us going. It was quite an eventful journey. Artur, Elizabeth’s little boy was very, very annoying at times and I think by the end of the journey most people in our carriage wanted to strangle him! But it was fun anyway and we made friends with a bloke in the neighbouring booth. We had lots of beer and then went to bed! After arriving at 6 in the morning in Archangelsk, we went to one of Elizabeth's friends’ flat for a bit of a rest and some breakfast. We then went to go and find a place for Katherine and I to stay. Elizabeth knew of an ‘общежитие’, which is communal living apartment blocks, usually where students live. There is always a grumpy babushka whose sole job is to sit in an office monitoring who goes in and out and trying to make life as difficult as they can for everyone! So after encountering the grumpy bab, we dumped out bags in our room, which was very cosy indeed, very self sufficient, and for only £7 a night! We decided that as we were all a bit knackered, the best plan of action would be to go and sit in a ‘banya’ for a couple of hours and get rid of all the train grime. Now this was an experience! I had never been to a banya before, but knew pretty much what to expect! So, a banya is made up of two rooms, one wet room and then the actual sauna room. In the wet room there are loads of buckets which you fill up with water to cool down after the sauna and then later you scrub, soap, moisturise... when you are finished. So, we walk into the changing room and are confronted by about 10 babushkas of varying shapes and sizes, though mainly short and fat, all of them naked, hot and red! So, we follow suite and get ourselves ready, none of us had a towel and really had no idea of banya etiquette! We got our buckets and had a bit of a splash about and then went into the banya. The women in there kept telling us what to do and what not to do and there were some real bitches, but we also spoke to some really nice ladies who were very excited to meet some young foreigners! So it went like that for the hour or so we were there: sauna, pour a bucket of water on yourself, sauna, bucket... then once you are all sauna’d out, then come the birch twigs! Basically, you leave some twigs to soften and then when you are ready, you just whip one another with them! Its a lot of fun, and also feels amazing. At one point, I was lying down on a bench in the sauna being whipped by a very small, naked, plump little babushka! Amazing! After the whipping, you give yourself a good wash and rub down. When we came out, I felt like a new woman, I felt so clean and so refreshed and ready for anything! It was brilliant!

We then went for some incredibly cheap food and for a walk around the town centre. It gets dark up there at about 3.00 pm and only really gets light at about 10.00 am. So by this point it was already dark. We walked along the river bank, which at this point had already frozen. There were lots of people cross-country skiing and instead of prams, people push their kids around in sledges! That evening, we went to a friend of Elizabeth’s for dinner. At first she seemed nice and normal, but then as time passed, we both realised that she was completely mental! She was 50 and only had a couple of teeth and I have my suspicions that she was an alcoholic! She was really lovely and sweet to us, but she was just a bit mental!

The next day started as a bit of a disaster, as we had planned to meet Elizabeth at 9.30, though by 11 when we still hadn’t heard anything from her we decided to make our own way into town. Amazingly though, she spotted us from the bus and we managed to meet up! We got another bus to this small place outside of the city called ‘Mali Kareli’ where there is a tourist village which has loads of wooden architecture. It was really incredibly beautiful, the wooden houses against the background of the snowy woods was just really lovely. But again, we were constricted by the lack of light! I managed to take quite a lot of photos though before it got too dark though. I just began to get a bit worried of getting lost in the forest! After a couple of hours walking in the winter wonderland, we came back to the room and chilled out for a bit, had some tea and watched Russian cartoons! We went back to Vera’s again for dinner and then decided to experience Archangelsk nightlife. We persuaded Vera to come out with us, this was perhaps a mistake! She disappeared into her room to get changed and about 10 mins later, we heard cries for help. We all bundled into her bedroom to find her on her back with nothing but tights and a bra on trying to squeeze her leg into a pair of too-small purple suede heeled boots! We all had to help her encase her legs in these boots, which was a very funny, if a bit of a disturbing experience! She then put on a full length black evening gown and was good to go! Anyway, it was a fun evening and the club lived up to all my expectations. It was the same as the club in Kazan and Yaroslavl!

The next day, again after a ropey start, we decided to visit the island where Elizabeth and her husband had lived. It was the best part of the trip, we had to cross the frozen river to get to this island and it was just the most incredible thing. The river was frozen, so this little tug boat makes its way through the ice pushing it all apart. It was amazing, I felt like I was on the titanic! You just look around you at all this frozen expanse and it just makes you appreciate the great force of nature! (sorry, that was a bit much!!) Anyway, so about 20 mins later, absolutely frozen, we get to this island and there is just nothing there! You look left, right and straight on and there is just nothing but snowy nothingness! So, I started wondering where the hell we were going to warm up! We walk for a few minutes and start to see small wooden houses and buildings. These houses are the only thing there, why people live there I have no clue. After popping in briefly at Elizabeth’s husbands house, we went to a banya again! This one was very much the same, but with a lot more banya bitches than the other one. I think because it was more rural, they wanted everything done just so! After the banya, we got back on the boat and got a taxi back to Vera’s where we had left our rucksacks. After a quick dinner we headed for the station. It was a very emotional parting (for Vera that is!), but to be honest, Katherine and I were quite glad to be getting away from her! The journey home was pretty uneventful, the ladies in our carriage were learning English and doing their homework, so from time to time would ask us how to say things!

So that’s that... defiantly an experience!

We got back to Moscow and the following day the temperature dropped to minus 27, so a lovely welcome back present for us!

A quick catch up x

So, I’m very sorry that I haven’t written for so long. I have either been really busy, or had nothing to report! Since I last wrote, I have been trying to think of the things that I have been doing, and it’s not very much! I went on a school trip (only four of us actually turned up!) to Tolstoy’s house. It was pretty amazing because it still had all of his and his family’s things in tact as they were left. I particularly liked seeing his study where he would have written many of his novels. There was a bin underneath the desk and you could just imagine him sitting there and throwing away pages of Anna Karenina that weren’t quite up to scratch! It also had a pair of winter boots that Lev himself made! After the museum, the four of us went to a cafe and sat for a good while chatting away. This was all in Russian as our literature teacher doesn’t speak any English. That was a couple of Saturdays ago and that was the evening that Eva and I decided to have a party! Irina had told us that she would be away for the weekend, so we decided to have a few people round for drinks before we went out. Well, all was going swimmingly, we made brownies and other people had brought snacks and everyone was having a good time. However, then Irina came home and was unimpressed to say the least! There were not that many people round, but I think it was just the fact that we had not told her the complete truth! Eva had only asked if a ‘few’ people could come round for dinner. Well I think a few had been interpreted as only two. Anyway, we cleared off pretty sharpish after that! Things were pretty cool for the rest of that week... but I bought her a couple of smelly things for the bath to apologise and things got better after that!!

The week after that, I seriously have nothing to report! A couple of our good friends left, so we had some leaving drinks at this amazing bar named after Mendeleev. The bar was chemistry themed and all the drinks were foaming and steaming, so that was the excitement of my week! Katherine and I tried and failed to get tickets for the Nutcracker at the Bolshoi. If you want the student tickets, you have to go two hours before the performance and queue up along with the other students! Although we got there with plenty of time, and had a good place in the queue, it turned out that there was a list. We were not on the list! After about an hour of standing in the snow waiting, we were pretty cold, so thawed out in a sushi restaurant!

On Monday of this week, it snowed all day. We were all very excited and couldn’t concentrate in class at all! After class, a few of us went to have a look at red square in the snow! It was pretty cool because they hadn’t cleared any of the snow away yet! The next day, we had the day off school because we were all going on another school trip to the Literature museum. So, Tom, Fred and I decided to meet up a couple of hours before and take advantage of the ice-skating ring that has been put up in red square outside GUM. I was so nervous, because the last time I went ice skating was in Berlin with Tom and I was absolutely appalling! I even fell over and dragged him with me resulting in a black eve for him and nothing for me! But to my shock, I was actually alright! I only fell over once. It was such a fantastic experience as well to be ice skating on red square! The literature museum was actually really good, thought there was a lot of random crap in there such as a photo of Pushkin’s doctor who looked after him after a duel and then a photo of the doctor with his wife’s ex best friends dog!

On Wednesday, Katherine, our Peruvian friend Elizabeth went to Archangelsk... that however, is another story!

Love you all

xxxxxx

A grey Tuesday morning...

To carry on from last time... on Saturday evening, Eva’s dad came and stayed with us for two nights. It was really lovely to meet him and he was really sweet, he doesn’t speak a word of English, but we got along just fine! Half of his suitcase was filled with delicious ham and salami, he hardly brought any clothes, just a hell of a lot of cold meat! We still have enough to last us for about a month! The next day the three of us went for lunch together and then I left them to go to the cinema. There is a very famous cinema which has been open for 100 years and from the 11^th -23^rd there was a film festival on and all the films screened were free! So I made the most of it and have been popping in throughout the week! On Sunday night I saw a film called ‘Mother’, which was based on Gorky’s book by the same name. Then I watched the first soviet sound film another night and the first colour film another night!

On Monday, feeling pretty blue after tom’s departure and with nothing better to do I dyed my hair. That is the only thing to say about Monday! I decided to pick myself up on Tuesday, so I went round to a friend’s house in the evening. He cooked us all dinner and then we watched The Devil Wears Prada in Russian and then chatted away. So I was feeling fully cheered up by the end of the evening! His house is brilliant, his host sounds a bit crazy though! There are frogs absolutely everywhere around the flat and every inch of space is filled up with something! We found an old copy of a lonely planet which was from the late 70’s for the USSR. I had a bit of a read and it’s fascinating. There is a lot which seems to have changed, but there is a lot which is still ingrained into society today, all the grim elements of society such as corruption, and mafia etc.

On Thursday, as is tradition we went out in the evening. We went to my favourite club which is called Gogol! They had on brilliant 40’s style swing music on so we were all jiving away! It was so much fun, though having had a drink, I thought I was a master at swing dancing, and kept trying to get my friend to swing me round his waist... needless to say this was not successfull. On Friday evening, Katherine and I went to watch the first colour film. It was a very strange film which culminated in a scene with hundreds of female factory workers pelting soldiers with plates! But it was still quite good and I understood the majority of it!

On Saturday, a friend and I went to the souvenir market (this is seriously the last time for me; I think 5 times is definitely enough!). I bought a few things, can’t tell you though, because they may well be little Christmas pressies! In the evening, I went round to my friend Nathans house again. It was supposed to be a party, but it just ended up being Katherine, Nathan and I! We had a great evening though, it was very Russian inspired. We had ‘zakuski’, which are little snacks to have when you are drinking (we had olives, gherkins, pickled tomatoes, some salami on toast and some crisps) and then because zakuski would be no good without the drink, we had some Soviet Champagne and chilled vodka! We ended up playing Russian scrabble, which I was surprisingly good at considering that I am absolutely terrible at scrabble in English! I came second, Katherine first and Nathan last! We had to give up eventually as no one could think of anymore Russian words! The next morning, we woke up to a beautiful day, the first show of the sun since mum and dad had left! So we went to Cafe Pushkin for breakfast. It is this incredible restaurant which is in this beautiful old building. The cloakroom and toilets were downstairs in an underground cellar with candle lights lighting the way down! It was all ever so romantic! Katherine and I had fried eggs on toast, though as you have never seen them. It was like a plate sized fried egg with squares of toast cooked into the white of the egg, with three sunny yolks in the middle. It was delicious! We felt like royalty because the service is amazing and they really look after you, which is a huge change from what usually happens in a restaurant!

Anyway, that was my week!

Lots of love to you all

xxxxxx

Tom's visit

So, another busy week. Being a tour guide is definitely knackering! I have had a brilliant week with Tom and was very sad to see him go today. But not long until I’m home for Christmas now though! We have had a very busy week. Lots of socialist stuff (concrete buildings, statues, Stalin) but also a very busy social week (lots of drinking, meeting friends and hanging out!)
The day tom arrived, it was snowing really heavily, so that was a nice little treat. We went for a lovely winter walk around the centre and got to see St. Basils, Lenin Library and GUM all lit up and covered in snow. It was very picturesque and a nice welcome. The following day, we had read that there was some kind of procession in Red Square commemorating a procession that took place there in 1941 when the city was besieged by Germans and troops were leaving Red Square straight to the front lines. However, upon leaving the metro we found that red square was unreachable by any means. I have found that this seems to be quite normal and even when you ask the guard what is going on, no one knows or rather just won’t tell you! So anyway, we walked a bit further and stumbled upon a Socialist demonstration. Tom of course was in his element. Lots of communist flags, soviet sounding songs, revolutionary shouting, we were given a copy of Pravda, and there was even a guy carrying a massive poster of Stalin! I was busy taking sneaky photos of people (yes I know I have been told of before!) and a woman started telling me off saying that I shouldn’t just take photos of the old people, but that there were young people there protesting as well. I said that I wasn’t just taking the old peoples photos, but I found there faces more interesting. To be honest, I couldn’t have cared less if it was a socialist protest or not, it was just a good opportunity to take pictures of people without them noticing. She was a moronic woman on her high horse and she really wound me up! We then went to the Contemporary History Museum which is quite good, had lots of stuff from the Tsars all the way up to Medvedev, but really poorly laid out. In the evening, Tom and I went out to a couple of places and then ended back at our hostel at about 6!
The next day we went to the tourist market. Tom spent a very long time looking at postcards trying to find pictures of “workers, concrete or buildings”. We went to the massive supermarket by my house after that, though had to quickly rush home as we were running late for the ballet! We went to the theatre in the Kremlin, which was a pretty special experience, though the theatre itself was pretty grim. It was absolutely massive and very soviet-esque inside, so you didn’t get a very intimate experience. Though, in a way it was interesting to feel like you were a soviet audience in this huge theatre, big enough to educate the masses! We watched Figaro, though as a ballet. It was a bit odd, though there were some dancers who were absolutely incredible. It was like panto-ballet, in the first half, but the second half was brilliant.
On Monday I took tom to a monastery which has this massive cemetary. I think I may have mentioned it before. (I took M&D too.) We spent a while strolling amongst the graves spotting names we knew. Yeltsin, Khrushchev, Eizenstein, Chekov and Bulgakov to name a few... we then went to a bar and had a warm-up drink with a few friends. In the evening we went to see the Nutcracker. It was at the same theatre that Mum, Dad and I watched Swan Lake and again it was absolutely amazing. The dancers are all just incredible, perfectly in time and so graceful.
The next day we went to a sculpture park which houses some of the disgraced statues from around Moscow. So there was a few of defaced Stalin’s and some of Lenin too. Also some of Brezhnev, Dzerzhinsky and other once powerful soviets. After a stroll along the river we went into the same Pushkin fine arts museum that I took Mum and Dad to. We then walked up to red square and went into St Basils. In the evening we met up with friends at a bar, where I am quite embarrassed to admit that you can have as much beer as you can drink for only about £3! So we did.
After we had drunk all we could, it was a slightly later start than usual. But still we proceeded. Tom went to look around the Kremlin while I nipped home to go and get more clothes. We reunited and then decided it was best to go home and have a wee nap! Refreshed and alive, we went watch an ice hockey game. Again, I thought it was brilliant and some of my friends had come along too, so it was a lot of fun. There could have been more fights and at least some kind of serious injury or blood on the ice, but still a good game. Our team however lost 3-2. Tom and I then left the others and went back to the hostel to make spag bol.
On Thursday, for the first time since being in Moscow, I saw Lenin! Very odd indeed! There were about 5 guards in the mausoleum alone whose sole job seems to be to point you in the right direction and tell you to move along and be quiet! After paying our respects to the man himself, we went to a massive park which was full of different styles of soviet buildings, a memorial to Gagarin and the space race and lots of strong looking soviets. Although, today it seems to be some kind of out of town shopping area; inside many of these massive soviet relics would be a garden centre or a supermarket. It was very strange. There was also some kind of theme park. It was like a sad and forgotten place which in its hay day was probably designed to be full of happy, healthy people strolling about enjoying Moscow life!??
The next day was a pretty lazy one, we watched a film and then went to see Moscow State University in twilight. We went for a delicious Uzbek meal for dinner and strolled along the Arbat.
And that is that for Tom’s visit. Sorry if I have gone on a bit. I just wanted to make sure I remembered it all!
Anyway, lots of love to you all.
X x x

Quick catch-up

Sorry that this is so delayed, I have been a very busy bee though!
I am going to start where I left off in the last blog. That was two weeks ago I think. So, the only memorable event that I can recall of two weeks ago was that I went to see a Chekov play. My friend had a spare ticket to go and see ‘The Seagull’ so I went along with her. I’m not a huge fan of Chekov and usually find his plays quite dull. Unfortunately, this play lived up to my expectations. It was a very good production and the actors were fantastic, but just not my cup of tea at all! My friend had a brilliant time though, so I kept my thoughts to myself!
Last weekend, I went to Yaroslavl with three other girls from my course to visit Imogen, who is a friend of Katherine’s and studying in Yaroslavl. It only took us about 4 hours on the train and is one of the towns in the Golden ring. It was a nice little place, but the weather was pretty grey and drizzly the whole time we were there. It is quite similar to Kazan I thought, same kind of size and style. We visited the Kremlin which was really lovely. Apparently though there is a bear chained up there, but we didn’t see it. I’m glad! Imogen had arranged for us to rent a flat for one evening which was brilliant. After walking around in the rain all day, we went back to the flat and crashed out for a bit and then we had a party! Imogen had invited loads of her English and Russian friends and it was really nice. We then went on to a club called ‘Joy Party’!
Last week was our last week of school, so we were all a bit restless! But for our last lesson we persuaded our teacher to have our ‘lesson’ in TGI Friday’s which was fun! But the major highlight of my week was MUM AND DAD COMING! I was so excited all week and spent the majority of my week planning what to do, where to go and what to eat! I met them at the airport and brought them flowers! I’m sure they will tell you all about it but I will just give you a quick synopsis!
The first night I just took them back to their hotel and then we went for dinner at a Ukrainian restaurant. It was good food, though Bapcha’s is far far superior! The restaurant was decorated in full Ukrainian style with lots of red, white and black. On the second day, I took them to my favourite park in Moscow and we walked through the woods to Moscow State University. After a short taxi ride, I took them to this cafe which specialises in hot chocolate to warm up. Then onto an art gallery which had an amazing collection of art, any famous name you could think of there was three or four paintings. We then walked to red square and caught the metro home. That night, after a rather rushed meal at an Uzbek restaurant, we went to the ballet. The restaurant was amazing though, very luxuriously decorated like a palace! We watched Snow Lake and I thought it was absolutely amazing. I was smiling throughout the whole thing! The next day was a bit of a failure. My plan was to see red square and the Kremlin... both of which turned out to be closed for no apparent reason and no one could tell me why! So we went to the armoury which was the only building in the Kremlin which was open. By this point though, we had done a lot of waiting about and standing around and we all got a bit cold. So by the time I got in the armoury, I wasn’t really enthused anymore! Mum and Dad really enjoyed it though! After that we went back to mum and dad’s hotel armed with some cakes and had plenty of tea to revitalise. We then walked up to my house, which is about a 10 min walk from when M &D were staying and I made us dinner. It was really nice for them to see where I live and to meet Eva as well. The next day we went to the big tourist market (where the photos of the fur hats are from), then onto a convent where there is a big cemetery which is full of artists, directors, writers and also a lot of politicians. Dad suddenly started to feel a bit crap and shivery, so we made a swift exit back to the hotel, where more tea was drunk! Dad stayed in bed for the rest of the evening and Mum and I went for dinner to another Uzbek restaurant with my friend Katherine. It was a lovely relaxed girly affair! Next day we took it easy and were actually able to go into the Kremlin. So we admired all the churches inside and mocked the hideous soviet style monstrosities. After a lengthy lunch I sent M & D home for a nap whilst I bought some ballet tickets for Tom and I. We re-grouped in the evening and took a stroll down the Arbat. Unfortunately, because it was a Monday evening, there were very few musicians playing and it was jolly cold too! But we had a really nice meal at a nice little hidden away restaurant.
I left Mum and Dad this morning, as I have started to feel a bit rough now... too much touristy marching around in the cold I think! I am off to Petersburg this evening with Katherine to visit a friend from uni who is studying there, so I spent the day in bed trying to get better. I feel pretty good now after resting, so I should be fine!
I had a brilliant time with them both, although I am just a bit worried that I have knackered us all out! It was lovely to be looked after and taken to nice restaurants and things. I made the most of the Hilton breakfasts as well, often eating enough to last me through to dinner!
Anyway, sorry this has been so rushed but I still need to pack and have dinner! Anyway, I will write again soon, not sure when though because TOM COMES ON FRIDAY!!! Woo hoo, I’m so excited!
Lots of love to you all. X x x x