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