Пока!

So, I just ate all the remaining choccies out of my advent calendar, that can only mean one thing….I'm coming home tomorrow eeeeeeek :)

Has been SUCH a good 4 months but I am so looking forward to Christmas times at home. I love this little place and I already know it's gonna feel so odd being back - just got out the English money I have here with me, were notes always so small and stubby and coins so heavy?!

This week has mostly been exams (I passed wooooo), saying some goodbyes, eating ridiculous amounts of chocolate, watching many films, being told off by an old lady on the metro, oh and accidentally setting fire to my babushka's oven gloves. After lots of nagging, I finally packed up my room and took down our Christmas decorations, feels oddly sad to be leaving, but ROLL ON CHRISTMAS TIMES, cannot wait, or sit still for that matter.

lots of Лиза love, see you in England!!

xxx

Moskva

Oh hello,
Had a lovely lovely snowy time in Moscow this weekend (it felt more like Narnia if I'm honest), and definitely disagree with the people who say one time in the capital is enough, but, of course, it's got nothing on St Peteys (although this city does need to sort itself out, minus ten but pathetic snow, what's going on?!).
So, the highlight of the weekend for me has got to be ice skating on Red Square, so much fun, I'm still in one piece and so is everyone who was skating near me (phew), it was just incredible to be right there by a snowy St Basils, the Kremlin, Christmas market etc etc. The only down point was seeing the three-year-olds skate past doing spins and other things I've only ever seen on 'Dancing on Ice', ah well maybe one of them could teach me.

We also went inside the Kremlin after spending about a year finding the ticket office, oh Russia (signs are very much lacking in this country and getting lost features highly in my life), but it was totally worth it, despite not seeing Putin. Oh, but I did see Lenin so all is not lost…surreal. Back to being lost… the 'hotel 'we stayed in was cheapy cheap and we knew there would be a catch - they lied about how near it was to the metro stop (15 minutes was more like 25, and in the deep snow this was more like 40) so we tried different methods of getting there/back each time. On one occasion we managed to get on the totally wrong trolleybus (don't know how this went so badly) which was just taking us in a big ring around the residential areas…after about half an hour I thought I'd check with the driver about when we'd arrive at a metro, he said we never would and would tell us when we were within walking distance to one (ended up being dropped off very near to our hotel) the driver asked us a lot of questions about where we were from etc and then gave us each some sweeties as he felt sorry for our failure of a journey. Well, actually...I still don't know if they were in fact sweeties as he seemed overly kind for a bus driver here and I didn't wanna risk it being my gullible self in the middle of nowhere.
Anywhom, the hotel wasn't awful, and it included a free breakfast so you can't complain. Unless you don't really like the buffet selection of muesli, tomato ketchup, sour cream, mayonnaise, peas and questionable porridge.

Actually, I have a fair bit to say about questionable porridge as the standards are definitely slipping here on that front. Take these examples…

This one could be held upside down above your head, just to give you an idea

One thing that Moscow has to offer which St Peteys does not is Dunkin' Donuts, now I'm definitely missing all the goodness of British puddings, but when you're midway through one of these, all that goes away, yum. (I may or may not have eaten three in one day).

While I'm on the subject of british food (CANNOT WAIT), the lady who was sleeping on the shelf above me on the night train back to Peteys came and sat down, casually got a Tesco's chicken and stuffing sandwich out of her bag and put it on the table… I just glanced between her and the sandwich etc like I was watching tennis (actually, no, I don't care all that much for tennis, but you get the gist) I then asked her where on earth she got this from and it turns out she was an unusual Russian who loves British food and was on her way back from London and proceeded to pull out mince pies, pasties and BACON from her bag and said in a jokey way "this is all for me, no sharing" only, it wasn't jokey, she did not share. Not that I blame her. Well.

Now onto last week in Peteys - I had a (fairly successful) haircut! I won't lie, the technique used to dry my hair was a new one and I did look like a cross between a poodle and a mushroom when she finished with me, but I am not bald, so all is not lost (quite literally, ha ha). I like to think I'm quite the actor now after situations like these where acting is all I have, maybe I'm doing the wrong degree.

The winter coat competition is in full swing here, it has become my game when I am on the metro on my own, and there have been some great contenders - one time I actually thought a lady had a small dog on her head, and it seems that as the weather gets cooler (I found an icicle in my hair the other day - proof), the coats become more and more fascinating. On the other hand, all of the women here are still wearing six-inch heels and gracefully walk along the icy streets, I am wearing sensible boots yet still manage to slip up every now and again which I try to turn into a skip I was trying to do on purpose (feel a lot like Miranda at these times).

I like to think that by now my Russian isn't as pathetic as it was when I first arrived, but it does appear that I have a very strange accent when I speak it - in the space of three days I have been asked if I am Slovakian, German and Italian, how do I take this?

Well, this has been a shambles of a blog as usual, hope you're not lost in it somewhere.

See you in less than two weeks my friends. 2 little weeks. (I should probably find out how to get to the airport sometime soon)

Love,

Лиза

xxxx

Porridge

Hello :)
IT'S DECEMBER TOMORROW! (I'm a little bit excited for Christmas, can you tell? I may or may not be watching Love Actually as I write this, is that acceptable?)
Even though Russians don't celebrate Christmas until the 7th Jan, the streets are starting to light up and there are huge Christmas trees on Nevsky Prospect (the main street) which are gorgeous. Add a bit of snow to the scene and it's a lovely place to be! Still, really can't wait to be home now, roll on roastdinnersfishandchipscurrybaconsausagesanwichfullenglishcupsofteacakebiscuitscadburyscobbler oh and seeing family and friends, eeeee :)

Anywhom, things are going pretty well here, coped in -4 so there is hope for me! Our babushka is in a fairly good mood but told me that I need to work on my pronunciation of some sounds so that Russians won't think I'm a foreigner (this will never happen, ever) but anyway, she chose breakfast time to give me a masterclass. Apparently I was getting it all wrong, but it was quite the stressful situation as she was constantly switching between "quick eat your porridge, it's getting cold" and "say this word, now this one, come on!" what does a girl do in this situation? I've always been told not to talk with my mouth full, and even so, pronouncing new sounds is quite difficult with a mouth full of porridge.

I don't have much exciting news for you from the last few weeks I'm afraid. Still very much enjoying life here, teaching is a lot of fun and I'm not skiving TOO many lessons at school so that's always a positive. Went to the cinema here for the first time last week to see the 'Hungry Games" as it's called here! I really enjoyed it but it took a while to get used to the dubbing (at points I tried to lipread to work out what was actually going on - need to work on that skill) Turns out cinemas are cheaper than home and have really comfy reclining seats, might go back there when I need a good nap.

I've decided it's high time I had a haircut and next week will be the week! I am very much hoping I select the correct vocabulary and do not come back looking ridiculous...wish me luck!

Potentially off to Moscow next weekend, but we'll see!
Hope all is well and that you're excited for Christmas time too!

Лиза xx

Estonia

Privyet :)

Yep it's been a little while but we did return from Estonia on Saturday as planned so don't worry,  I wasn't stuck there all this time. (I may or may not have forgotten the password to my own blog, whoopsie, turns out it's not good to rely on the "remember my password" button). Hope you've had a lovely week - now that I get Fridays off I keep forgetting that other people in the world don't share my three day weekend and the weeks seem to go past so quickly, I'll be home in 5ish weeks, craziness!

Tallinn (the capital of Estonia) is a gorgeous little place, we spent a few days wandering around the medieval old town (stunning) and other parts of the city, visiting some museums (yep I've changed), having a tour on a little train complete with  Russian schoolchildren singing songs the entire time, and just having a fun little time in Europe - EUROPE! It felt that little bit closer to home - people all spoke a bit of Russian and English so all was good on the language front, and I found squash and hobnobs so I was very happy indeed. Discovering a bit of the history of Estonia was also so so interesting, I learned loads and would definitely recommend reading a bit about it. After all the hassle of crossing the border on a coach, entering into St Peteys felt like we'd come home, and it was such a strange but lovely feeling. (Don't get me wrong, it's never gonna feel like Birmingham, but I'm feeling nicely settled!)

Reading week went very quickly as expected but it was a nice break from the Russian grammar lessons which were causing my brain to explode slightly. This last week back at school was quite a shock, and I definitely massively overslept on the second day back, however I would like to add that recently the sun has only been making an appearance at 10am each day which is a bit unkind if you ask me and causes much confusion! The cold weather has returned and the array of winter coats I've witnessed people wearing has been very impressive, I am very temped to start a separate blog displaying 'coat of the week', but I feel the Russian ladies wouldn't appreciate this - one babushka pushed me half way down the train on the metro the other day, so taking a photo of them may be out of the question. Hmph. 

Talking of babushkas, or 'buskers' as my Nan has started calling them (Hello Nanny :)) mine has been very (worryingly) friendly and pleasant since we've returned from Estonia - to the extent of baking us her version of apple pie ('piroggi' in Russian, what a word!) and various soups which I must say were all very yummy! I am not lying. So happiness all round. We did make her banana cake a while ago which she didn't seem to like - she didn't lie like we would in Britain and say 'how lovely', she just tasted it, kind of huffed and took it to her room then returned without it - very funny. However, we left the rest of the cake on the table that night and her husband snuck in and ate a fair bit of it, so we know someone's a fan and all is not lost! 

Today we went to the zoo. It was fun. Not sure how some of the animals find the Russian winter - surely African animals can't adapt that easily!? And it was really sad to see how little room some of them were given - the lions and leopards were pacing up and down their enclosures and looked a little bit angry - I've never been nervous in a zoo before but I was slightly today (The railings separating people from animals didn't fill me with confidence). Adding to this was that the walls to some of the enclosures which said 'very dangerous' on them seemed nowhere near tall enough, I'm sure some ambitious animals could do a run-up and jump straight over.. hmm. One of the best parts of the zoo were the little cats wandering about, they just popped in and out of other animals' enclosures - definitely looked into the kangaroo section and spotted one, and another in with the monkeys! When one peeped its head into the grizzly bear enclosure I was quite worried and could imagine Crunchie doing something similar.

Also, I have to add that I saw an alpaca today which felt somewhat odd as I was expecting to see some of those in Bolivia but never did - who knew I'd have more luck with that in Russia?!

That's enough blog for today, 

Much love,

Лиза xx

Town square

Museums

Old streets

Old streets

Town walls

Funny looking wallaby

Feeling all Christmassy now

Cat having a cheeky play in someone else's enclosure

Alpaca yay!

Back soon!

This is probably one of the shortest blog posts of life. Sorry to disappoint.
We're going to Estonia tomorrow :) (if we don't have another Moscow-style disaster) and I promise I will update you properly when I return on Saturday.
Love, Лиза x

P.S. Here are some photos to make me feel less guilty about such a short post.

Olympic Torch in Peteys

Russian malted milks - yes they are yummy and yes I had a cheeky nibble before I even took the photo.

Pushkin chilling in the metro station

Here are some photos of this model 'village' of the whole of Russia (things you find after about 10 rainy days in a row!) It was stunning with moving vehicles and people, night-time/day-time effects, lights,  noises and many other fun things (aimed at children but so good!) and I have loads more photos I can show you when I'm back in Inglattera if you'd like to see them! It's hard to describe the sheer size of this model, but, just think about the size of Russia and the size of play-mobil trees and you're nearly there.

Snyeg!!

(Snow!!)

One of my favourite Russian words so, as you can imagine, I was very excited that I could use it in October! The snow didn't really settle and Russians were complaining that it was way too early for it, but nonetheless, it was quite fun while it lasted and before it turned to rain. (and woah has it rained!) I've also experienced my first walk to the metro at -3 and could not feel my face, all is looking positive for when it gets to -20! :)

The last couple of weeks have been pretty good, really enjoying teaching and lessons weren't too shabby; I mostly learned that 'poop' is the Russian word for belly-button, if that doesn't cheer a person up, I don't know what will.

After this week we'll have a reading week which is exciting, currently planning where to go as there are sooo many options; sadly had to rule out Siberia as it would take the whole week to get there(!), but Finland and Latvia are the current contenders - will keep you posted. Love how it's such a huge country but it's actually quicker and cheaper to visit a different country than travel around Russia!

They are currently kind of refurbishing this block of flats which is quite a health and safety risk here to say the least (they randomly but bits of board or bricks or slippery paper all over the place and it seems to have no purpose whatsoever apart from to trip people over) my favourite part of the current obstacle course to get in and out of the flat requires a little drawing...

..so basically I am very glad I was looking where I was going when this appeared otherwise it could've ended very very badly for me with some sort of see-saw effect (if you can understand my drawing!). 

(Also, how odd is it that here squared paper is way cheaper than lined?! Maybe the Russians are really good at Maths or something, I really don't know)

Anyway, this leads me to my embarrassing story of the week which I'm sure you'd like to hear...I was on my way into the block of flats when I was confronted by a few builders all pointing to different places where I could and couldn't walk and speaking at the same time, I tried my hardest to follow their route but then definitely put my foot down right into some cement (so clever I know), they were of course very angry and started shouting at me which just made me laugh as I felt bad but didn't have a clue what they were saying (could perhaps guess some words!?). And well, I guess my foot print will be in the entrance of the flats for quite some time! Quite cool really...

Our babushka has gone of to her dacha again this weekend giving us a much needed break (and also a sneaky chance to hand-wash some cardigans without being told off for wasting water) so this was a bonus. The other day I dropped something under my bed and when I looked underneath it I was surprised (or maybe not all that surprised by now!) to see jar after jar of jam etc stored up for the winter...only in Russia.

But yep, it's been a good couple of weeks including a pancake party, a soviet doughnut cafe, some more fun times in the Hermitage (including a little bit of ancient rock-measuring - oh yes) and meeting lots of nice Russians. Also, I feel I forgot to mention last week that our neighbour has started playing "Rockin' around the Christmas tree" on repeat which either means they don't understand the English lyrics and don't know it's a Christmas song OR they think Christmas isn't too far away (I prefer the latter). 

Love, Лиза X

Little park I found near us - making the most of pretty parks before the rain came

Inside the Church of Spilled Blood

Ice hockey!

Puskin and a person with a leaf hat - soo cool!

Autumn

Hello :)
So, after a week of winter, autumn decided to make an appearance in St Peteys making it a very pretty place indeed. Last week was a bit wobbly, including a cash machine trying to eat my card,  a pigeon hitting me in the head (no word of a lie!) and ended at quite the low point when we managed to miss our night-train to Moscow, this was very VERY frustrating, more-so because of the queuing this involved. So, before I start my little rant, I'll just say this - I was warned about some aspects of Russian culture, like for example customer service, but thought 'hey, it can't be that bad, I'll see for myself', and now, my friends, I have seen it for myself. Firstly, we went to print our tickets at the machine, (as you would in England, lovely lovely) but this failed, so we had to join a queue to sort out our tickets, we queued for a good half an hour and it was getting very very close to the time the train was leaving, so I quickly ran over to a woman at an information desk and explained the situation, she then sent me to another queue, where I was told to go back to the first queue. Fun. Got to the front just in time but were told we had the wrong booking number, and were sent to another queue, sorted this out, but had missed the train by this point so had to join another queue to refund tickets, and then another queue, la la la (you get the gist right?) all in all, we were sitting in a coffee house at 3am deciding what to do.

But, it all ends happily. We made it to Moscow on Friday morning and had such a good time. Made friends with the people we shared a cabin with on the journey (oh yes, this was second class, the return journey was third class with no such luxury as a cabin, just shelves to sleep on), the lady we met loved talking about Prince Harry (Garry in Russian!) and asked me if I thought he was on drugs, interesting, she also said that it was a shame her son was married as she would've liked him to marry a young English girl, ha.

Moscow is a beautiful city (obviously not St Peteys though!), or at least the bits of it that we saw (didn't get to go inside the Kremlin because Putin was having a ceremony for the olympic torch, sad times), my favourite bit by far was inside St Basil's Cathedral, as well as the huge market we found which sold absolutely everything, including lots of old soviet antiques, giant samovars and bear coats. Also got to see a light show on the Bolshoy Theatre building, was absolutely stunning.

This week has been pretty busy, done lots of teaching and lessons as per, also found ourselves in Ikea again (this has got to stop). Yesterday we went to a little town called Pushkin with a Russian girl I met, was basically a lovely autumny land and was fun to wander around. Russians seem to love making giant crowns out of leaves (and I don't mean the children - the majority of people doing this were adults!) which must be some sort of tradition, it's quite a strange site seeing so many people with these hats on as you're strolling along!

Today we went to an ice-hockey match, was a lot of fun, CКА vs Vladivostok, and I definitely learned a lot of new words from the man next to me who was not best pleased about how СКА (St Petes) were playing! They lost 3-1 in the end but i'd love to go back and see them win some time!

On the Babushka front all is well, we're having lots of nice conversations and getting less told off than ever before. However, if you'd asked me mid-week how things were I would've had a different story to tell; Wednesdays drama included her leaving the house and blanking us when we walked past her in the street, whoopsies, and yesterday we were fed what some would call porridge, but oh my, it wasn't good, not good at all.

Hope you've had a nice week and that your babushka is treating you well,
Here are lots of photos to make up for the lack of blog last week,
Lots of love,
Лиза

The market in Moscow

Park Pobedy in Moscow

Autumn in St Petes, yes there's a giant rabbit!

The metro in Moscow

Light show!

The Kremlin

Inside St Basils

Arbat St in Moscow

St Basils

ГУМ Shopping Centre, Moscow

A whole month in Rossiyaa!

Yep, I've survived a month in the motherland, it's gone so quickly, but believe me there is already a whole list of things I miss from home, ranging from bacon (and most other good food, but mostly bacon) to Crunchie the cat.

 It's suddenly become very chilly here, when I last checked my babushka's thermoterything it was 3 degrees. 3! Very much looking forward to the snow, but I think that's still a while away. Heating here is controlled by the government (as far as I understood) so we'll have to wait and see when it comes on which will be a very exciting moment as scarves weren't made to be worn indoors and I left my zebra onesie in Birmingham.

My babushka has gone to her dacha again this weekend which gave us a nice little break - this week's lectures included "Liza, that is not how you cook pasta" to "Liza that is not how you mash potatoes"(both of these were skills I thought I'd mastered at uni...) and "Liza, you should be careful, Russians are dangerous" (my personal favourite). But, all is good here because a) I FOUND MY KEYS and b) we just made apple crumble and it was AMAZING. 

This week we were promoted from rock-sorting at the Hermitage and were actually allowed to greet visitors which was fun, I've perfected "Put your coat in the cloakroom" and "Rucksacks aren't allowed," and it was also very exciting when tourists looked very confused said "English, please?" really slowly and clearly, and I could just babble away. Maybe one day I'll be able to babble away in Russian. That's the dream.

Yesterday, we went up St Isaacs Cathedral in the centre which was incredible as you can see the whole of the city from the top, it was quite cool thinking "Wow, I get to live here" and I will try to remind myself of this next time I see a friend's gorgeous photos of sunny Spain, France or Italy!

Anyway, I'll leave you with some photos as I have a whole heap of homework to do for school tomorrow, I feel like I'm 15 all over again.

Love, Лиза

P.S. If you can find a way to send bacon in the post without it getting mouldy in the three weeks that the postal service to Russia takes, please do give it a go, I'll send you some gherkins or something in return.

Last week's rock sorting - oh yes.

View from the secret room in the Hermitage

Coat sale voucher! Which one shall I get?!

Found Crunchie on the metro - sorry for the blur but an old lady thought I was taking a photo of her.

I do love this city