A Riga special edition...

So last Tuesday night, equipped with a packed dinner of kasha (Russian dinner-time porridge/gruel??) and some tvorog (translated as curd cheese, but it isn’t, it’s sweet??) juice and a pillow I headed off to Riga on the bus. It was to take 13 hours, and it did indeed take that long, but because of the pillow, I was absolutely fine. The policeman at the Russian border tried to give me hassle, but I talked my way out of it and flashed him a smile! So woke up in Riga the next morning and couldn’t contain my excitement to be out of Russia and into this lovely looking Germanic place with charming cobbled streets and dappled sunlight!

When I got the hostel in the morning, the dorm wasn’t ready yet, so I helped myself to a cup of tea, dropped off my bags and went for a wander. It is just a lovely city, it isn’t big at all, but it is just lovely to walk around and get lost in all the small meandering streets. I had seen in the hostel that Swan Lake was on that evening at the National Opera House, so I checked how much tickets would be, and to my surprise they were only about £4! So I bought myself a ticket for that evening! I was glad to get back to back to the hostel though, Riga was a lot chillier than St Pete and I wasn’t dressed for it! After showering and putting warmer clothes on, I went for lunch in a cafeteria style place and had pretty much a plate full of boiled potatoes and some lovely meaty sauce, I wasn’t complaining, it was cheap and filled me right up! I then went to the central market, which is apparently a must see for any tourist in Riga. (I found this out from my Russian guidebook, which was a bit rubbish, but invaluable in the end as it had a map, I got myself lost all the time!) So, back to the market, I was shocked to find that everyone there was speaking Russian. I just assumed that everyone would be talking Latvian. I will come back to this though. So I then bought my return bus ticket, which was apparently going to be a ‘lux’ version of what I had came on, but in fact was pretty much the same, maybe a bit less lux if anything! But anyway, it was a steal at only about £18, so again, I wasn’t complaining! I then walked through a lovely park to the other side of the city to visit the State Art Museum. I got there a bit too late though, so was told that as it was only open for another 20 mins, it would probably be a better idea to come back the next day. So I left and then went across another park (Riga is big on parks!) and went into a Russian orthodox church, which to be honest was hideous! It had neon lights especially for Easter, and they were especially tacky! After basking in the sun for a wee bit, I went in search of some food and found this amazing pelmeni (small dumplings, quite like ravioli) shop, which was incredibly cheap and you could get all different sorts of pelmeni. Mmm, so good! Then after downing a red bull, as I was pretty knackered, I went to the ballet. It wasn’t a stitch on the Swan Lake I saw in Moscow, but still it was pretty good, and I still got that giddy excited feeling when all the music starts each time. There were just far too many intervals and each time a piece would finish, there would be a pause for applause and it just went on a bit too long.

On Thursday, I made the most of the free breakfast and even made myself a cheeky packed lunch too! It was a lovely crisp morning, and I knew the sun would come out later, so after a wander around town, I visited the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia. It was a fantastic museum; I spent about two hours in there. It was all just so interesting, and even though I didn’t know anything about it before, it was still very good and informative. I sat in the sun and ate my packed lunch after the museum and then went up to the top of St Peters Cathedral. It was pretty cool; I only then managed to get my bearings properly though. I saw a nice looking square from the tower and decided to go and sit there with my book. So that is exactly what I did. There were lots of little cafe’s, so I went into one and bought the most delicious little berry muffin and a cup of tea and occupied one of the tables outside for about two hours. It was just so lovely to sit there basking in the sun with my book. I had been handed a flyer in the street about some Latvian fashion event that was happening, so I went back to the internet to check it out, but it was an evening event and didn’t really appeal. So instead, I went to both the film museum and the museum of photography (they were both very small museums!). The film museum though had an exhibition on Eisenstein, one of the great Russian directors, so that was good and then in the photography museum, as I was the only person there I kind of got a little tour which was nice. There were some fantastic photos on exhibition, mainly of Latvian fishermen. In the evening I met up with a Russian girl who is a friend of my new housemate. Anyway, so I met up with this girl and we indulged in some cocktails! I picked her brains about the Latvian Russian divide and she was telling me that the whole city is pretty much divided in two. She is Russian, but has lived her whole life in Latvia and she speaks Russian and has Russian friends and knows Latvian, but is very reluctant to speak it. So there is some hostility there, but they just seem to get on with it. Wherever I went, I would speak in Russian and never experienced anything hostile. When I asked at the station whether they spoke English, she said no, but Russian was fine. Anyway, Daniela and I had a lovely evening, we went for dinner after the cocktails in a very typical Latvian place, which was yummy, and then wandered around town. We went to one of the cinemas to see what was on and managed to stumble into a concert of an American Cajun/country and western band! It was pretty random, and there were even some women at the back line-dancing! Very odd, but fun! After some more bars and drinks, I went back to my hostel to bed.

The next day, I had a leisurely breakfast and snuck out some more packed lunch. I headed back to the State Art Museum, which had this bizarre exhibition of these truly awful paintings, but I had a good time chuckling to myself at how dreadful they were! The rest of the museum was also pretty poor, but there was one room with these great little etchings, which I liked a lot. After leaving there, I retraced mine and Daniela’s steps from the night before as I had seen a few shops that looked really nice. Did a bit of window shopping and then ended up in this lovely little tea shop which was a little wooden gazebo with the seating upstairs all on cushions, so you could lounge to your heart’s content! So I sat with my book and then had to go and get some food and retrieve my stuff from the hostel to get the bus. The bus back was pretty uneventful, I was just so shattered that I was asleep for pretty much the whole journey.

After a long lie in when I got home on Saturday morning, I let everyone know that I was still alive, as contact home in Riga was minimal! I got a bit of work done over the weekend and caught up on my schoolwork. On Tuesday, Claire (our new flatmate) Jess and I went to IKEA and had a good laugh sitting in all the showrooms after a beer and meatballs in the cafe! It was a lot of fun, I had forgotten how much fun girls are, and we were just silly all afternoon! Last night, I cleaned the entire flat and washed the floors, so now no crap sticks to our feet all the time!

But mamma and papa, despite the Volcano in bloody Iceland, are coming tomorrow. So I’m very excited!

Anyway, I will report back soon. Lots of love x x x x x

So, this is going to be a biggie!

So, this is going to be a biggie!
It has been a busy couple of weeks, one of Jess’s friends arrived in the middle of last week and then my friend George came last Friday, so I have truly exhausted myself being tour guide, but I’ve had a great week. Last Friday, we went to one of our friend’s gig. He is in a punk band and was playing in this dingy little bar. It was a lot of fun, not really my kind of music, but still it was good. Afterwards we went to an after-party (yeah, we are living the rock star lifestyle!) This after party was in another bar across town and there were these two Belorussian guys playing. One of then had an accordion and the other a ukulele and they were absolutely incredible. I even bought their cd after the gig! I left shortly after they finished, as I had to go and get George at 6:40 the next morning. So after a very wee sleep I picked up George and we had a nap for a few hours back at home. When we got up, I took her for a walk around town, but it wasn’t a great day and was incredibly foggy! That evening I invited my friend Chris over and made a big pasta bake for everyone and after a box of red wine, we turned out kitchen into a disco and danced until about 4 o’clock. Chris left at about 12 though, I think it had all got a little bit too girly for him!
The next day George and I had planned to go to the Russian museum, but because it was pouring down, I think everyone had the same idea as us. So instead of waiting in a que in the rain, we went to the museum of erotica (George’s idea, not mine!!). Anyway, it was an awful ‘museum’ very distastefully located in an STD clinic, so definitely not recommended! After that we went for lunch in one of my favourite bars and when we emerged a few hours later, we found that the rain had stopped and the sun was even out! We walked home via a lovely little church, where there was a service going on which was nice. The next day we actually succeeded in visiting the Russian museum which was really nice. As I walked in I realised that I had actually been before (during the week that I visited St Pete after Kazan). But I didn’t remember much of it, so it was still very good. We had a great time in the museum, mainly being a bit stupid, taking photos and getting told off by the museum attendants! Afterwards, we enjoyed the sun by walking around town and taking in the Church of Spilled Blood in all its gold, gaudy glory. We met Jess and Hannah in this lovely little cafe which specialises in the most delicious pies, so we all indulged a bit too much. We then went up to the top of St Isaacs to get a view of the whole city. That evening, we treated ourselves with some amaretto and then went to a bar round the corner where a few of our friends were.
On Tuesday, George and I went to the train station to buy tickets to go to Moscow. I still didn’t have my passport (Russian beurocracy, don’t ask!) so our original plan of going to Finland for a few days was no longer an option. So we decided to do a whistle stop tour of Moscow instead! So we bought our tickets for the overnight train on Wednesday evening. We then hopped on the metro and went to Petrograd, one of the many islands of Petersburg. W visited the Museum of Political science, which was a pretty odd little place, but it was located in the actual building used by the communists and where Pravda was written and printed. We walked over to another of the islands, Zayachy, to see the Peter and Paul fortress. After this, we walked off the Trotsky bridge, which in mine and George’s opinion is the coldest place in the city!! So what better way to warm up then with a pot of tea in a bar!
After feeling guilty about not going to school all week, I went in on Wednesday for grammer and left George at the Hermitage. We met up in the afternoon and I took her to have an Uzbek lunch, which was very tasty and then did a spot of shopping! We got home, made ourselves a packed dinner and then walked to the train station to get our train. So complete with dinner and a Gin and Tonic (in a can!) we got on the train to enjoy an 8 hour journey. It wasn’t too bad, we had gone for sitting places, as they are cheaper, so it was a lot more uncomfortable than the sleeper carriages, but we were saving money! Most annoyingly though was that a lady had brought her cat with her and the little thing squeaked and meowed throughout the whole journey. At first George and I though this was cute, though it did get very irritating! So we got to a very sleepy Moscow at about 6 and after buying our return tickets for that evening (sleeper carriage this time!), we headed straight to a 24 hour cafe to get tea. After rejuvenating, we headed off to see the sights. I took her to my two favourite metro stations and then got off in the centre of town, where I took her though some back streets to then suddenly come out and find yourself being smacked in the face by red square and St Basils in all its splendour. She was suitable impressed and I was just so happy to be back in Moscow that both of us were just grinning like Cheshire cats! It was amazing, because it was so early, we had the whole place to ourselves. We then walked up though Alexander Gardens and up to the Lenin Library and then up to the Church of Christ our Saviour where there was a very impressive Easter celebration going on. We then went to the Novodevichy Monastery and walked around the surrounding cemetery. By this point, it was only about 11 and we were both knackered! So by accident, we both fell asleep basking in the sun at a bus stop! We then got the metro to Arbat and had lunch, which was really unimpressive, but did the trick for energising us! We then walked back down to red square and did a bit of window shopping and then ended up in GUM where we managed to fall asleep for an hour! We tried to go into St Basils, and usually students get in for free, so I just showed the women my student card, but these horrible women on the door wouldn’t let me in and shoved me out of the door after telling me that they had no time for idiots! So that was a failure, and George and I were too cross to argue with them, so we wandered up to see Lubyanka. After that, feeling thoroughly exhausted, we went for dinner in another of my favourite hang outs and then went to the train station to get the train home. It was so much nicer to have an actual bed on the way back, George and I fell asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillow!
The next day, we got home at about 6, went back to sleep for a bit and then went to buy George’s bus ticket to Helsinki. For Georges last night, we all went out to this great bar and danced the night away and then the next morning George and I went to the banya and got rid of all the impurities of the last 10 days. It was amazing, again we were told off by banya bitches for not having flip flops, but that is all part of the banya I think! We took lots of goodies with us and had a sugar scrub, moisturising creams and of course some birch twigs to whip ourselves with! We went to this amazing burger place after and majorly overate, but we were very happy and full and sleepy so went home to watch a film!
And that is the end of that. I took George to get her to get her bus this morning and then had a very sad bus journey back to my flat!
Lots of love to you all... x xx x

An eventful week?

I had a lovely day at the beginning of the week; I walked from school down to Alexander Nevsky Monastery and took plenty of photos, one especially nice one of pigeons! (Photos will come soon, but I left my camera at my friends’ house.) It was a lovely crisp sunny day, and I was able to march properly, as the road was almost ice free! I had a wander around the grounds and was followed by a homeless man, but then made my escape into the church! I lit a candle for you all (though only had 5 roubles, so you all had to share one!) I then met up for coffee with Eva, which was really nice as we haven’t been able to catch up properly without living in each other’s pockets. Our friend Janine left to go back home on Thursday, so on Wednesday night we went for cocktails which was really nice. Wednesday was also St Patrick’s Day, which I was pretty much unaware of, though when I turned up to my lessons the next day, I was the only person there! All of the people from my class had gone out to celebrate (despite any of them, being Irish!) and hadn’t come in. So I had a day of private tuition! It was pretty awkward, though it was fine!

I seem to spend my life hurrying down Nevsky at the moment. I think that it will take me half an hour or something to get somewhere, and I just always seem to get my timing wrong! So, I always seem to be marching, against the wind rushing to meet someone! After rushing to meet my friend Chris, who I was studying with in Moscow, and grabbing a pirog (little pie type thing) on the way, we climbed up to the top of St Isaacs Cathedral. It was such a lovely day and you get such an amazing view form up there of the whole city. We could even just make out people walking across the Neva!

On Thursday, Jess and I went to watch our friend Pasha DJ; it was a really good set, though there was no one there, so we didn’t want to dance on our own in the middle of an empty club. We were then introduced to his friend, who was pretty mental, and the four of us went on to another club. My friend, who I studied with Moscow, came up from Yaroslavl on Friday. So on Friday night, my friend Franky had a house party. It was a bit of a disaster really! (House parties in Russia, just never seem to go as planned!) Firstly the light in the kitchen went out and then Chris popped out to get a beer, and as he was walking back with the bottle, he slipped on the ice and the bottle smashed in his hand. He just came back into the flat with blood everywhere! It was awful. We helped him clean it up with what was on hand, vodka obviously! The cuts were really deep, but luckily there was no glass stuck inside and to everyone’s surprise, Franky had a whole first aid kit on hand complete with bandages and all! We wrapped him up pretty well and he went off to get stitches the next day.

Here is an exciting bit of news, a couple of weeks ago, this lady called Lizzie commented on my blog saying that she really liked it and was wondering if I could write something for her website (thirdyearabroad.com), it is aimed at students either going on their year abroad, or already there. So I had a look at the website and she had actually put a link to my blog and said how good it was!! I was pretty embarrassed to be honest, because I never assumed that anyone other than family would ever read it! So I wrote up a bunch of stuff about Moscow and sent it to her. She said she liked ait and would put it up that same day! It is not up at the moment, but hopefully it will be soon!

Jess and I were really excited at the beginning of the week because it looked as if spring had well and truly begun... alas, we were wrong. On Thursday night, it snowed for 24 hours and now, just as a lot of the snow had melted and the pavements were walk-able, Mother Nature just dumps a whole load more snow on us! So depressing, I just want the snow to go and for the sun to shine! I may well have to invest in a pair of wellies! This is quite an exciting prospect in Russia though, as they have every pattern under the sun to choose from! Ankle length, or calf length, with or without felt lining, floral print, animal print, plain, or camouflage... the options are endless! So I’m going to go for the leopard print ones with the felt lining! I found a guy selling them for 450 roubles, which is about £6, so not bad at all! I’m just a bit worried about where all the snow will go when it melts! There are just mountains of the stuff, and the walk to school is especially bad, so I think wellies are a must!

Well, that is pretty much it for this week. My friend George is coming to visit next week, so I will fill you all in on what we get up to! I have written up some stuff to do, though it is nowhere near as rigorous as what I put Mum and Dad through in Moscow! I’m so excited though for her to come!!

Anyway, lots of love to you all. Miss you lots x x x x

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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