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.