I got up late today. I badly needed a few hours to relax as I was exhausted after yesterday. My head doesn't hurt any more but my legs are sore and weak. Lunchtime completely undid the lie-in. Tamara Aleksandrovna's meals are always unpleasant. Sometimes the conversation is light hearted so I notice it less but this one made me angry. The table is only big enough for one. While I am eating she circles me - looking over my shoulder, telling me what to eat and when, how to eat, what she has bought and how much it cost, where it [View Full Entry]

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My appointment at the poliklinika was at mid-day in a building between ulitsa Tolbukhina and Yaroslavl Glavnyi train station. I met Valentina Ivanovna in a big winter overcoat, and we walked there together. On the way we stopped at a menswear shop, so I could help her choose a jacket for her son's birthday present. The building was exactly how I had imagined a Russian clinic: cold, grey and dull. The room I was taken to was medium sized which was shared by two doctors. Valentina Ivanovna explained that I was "the student-Englishman" and that I probably had Ostrochandros. They made [View Full Entry]

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I still wasn't well enough to go to classes today. I could open my eyes, but there was a horrible pain behind them, and my head was still very sore. I felt dizzy and couldn't think clearly. I went to Yartek and told them that I needed a doctor, so Valentina Ivanovna made some phone calls. I waited for an hour on a sofa outside one of the classrooms. When the class came out they all asked how I was. Chris J thought my skin was grey, Sarah said I looked yellow. They were really concerned for my health and I'm [View Full Entry]

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I couldn't even get out of bed today. There was a sick feeling in my heart and my spine hurt. I had a very sore head and it was painful to simply open my eyes. I can honestly say I have never been so ill. I lay in a pool of sweat and tried to sleep as much as possible. My classmates were worried about me, and sent me a lot of 'get well soon' texts which meant a lot. [View Full Entry]

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I didn't sleep last night. My eyes and head ached and my heart and shoulders were sore. At 4 in the morning I was worried that I had picked up one of the Moscow metro diseases that Lena had warned me about. What made me feel worse was that I went to bed full of dinner, and the heating in our flat is on so high that my room is uncomfortably hot. My chest was burning on the inside. I didn't feel any better when I got up, but I went to school as usual. As I walked through the door [View Full Entry]

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Back to school this morning, but it was a day I was looking forward to. All of Viktor's class was taken up talking about what everyone had done in their vacation -especially the fun parts. 'Old' Chris shared a train carriage to Naberezhnyi Cholnyi with a man who (by mid-day) had polished off a 2 litre bottle of beer and a 2 litre bottle of vodka. He then tucked into some meat and bread from a rucksack, with a big knife before falling asleep. Not wanting to be alone in a compartment with a large drunk stranger with a weapon, Chris [View Full Entry]

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My 8.30 wake up call came at 9.30 this morning - Tamara Aleksandrovna still has not changed her clocks. I finished unpacking my bag, uploaded my Moscow photos onto my laptop then walked to the internet room on prospekt Lenina to write up my weeks' travels. How I had missed my life-line! It took five hours. By the time I had finished writing it was dark; today is warmer than when I left but the evenings are getting much shorter. Rain has washed all the snow away, as if it had never happened. I bumped into Chiara and we walked back [View Full Entry]

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I took the metro with Ana to the station and said goodbye. I feel good that we have finally met and it will certainly give us more to talk about in our texts and emails. Moscow is an amazing city. I hope I will be able to see more of it (the Kremlin, museums, shops) but next time I will take the easy route: I had a lot more bad moments than I planned for my week away. When I got back to Yaroslavl I realised I had barely spoken English for a week. Perhaps 100 words in 7 days. I [View Full Entry]

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'Leningrad' is one of the biggest nightclubs in the city. The music was a lot better than Joy Party and the people are in a much better mood. Every hour or so the DJ would stop the music and six people would come up on stage for a 'konkurs', more often than not a game of strip musical chairs. I almost went up myself - I didn't quite understand what Anya was inviting me to do! Myself and Ana stayed on the dancefloor until half past 3, then left her to her crazy dancing and found a sofa to collapse on. [View Full Entry]

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I woke up to the sound of Anya making animal noises. When I opened my eyes I saw a child looking down on me, not quite knowing what to do. Alissa is about eighteen months old and looks a lot like her mum and her grandmother. I entertained her for the morning in the universal language of silly faces and piggy-backs, then went for a walk around the neighbourhood with Ana and Anya. It was a bleak experience. I went to 'Koffye Haus' with Ana for the afternoon. We had ice creams and drank coffee for hours. As spoiled as it [View Full Entry]

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