I woke up at ten and had breakfast with Ana, Lena and Valera. I was nervous talking to Valera to begin with because I have almost never had a conversation with a Russian man. All my teachers apart from one are women, all of my friends are girls and in general there are much fewer men than women in Russia. He drew us a map of how to find things in Moscow, wrote down his mobile number for us if we needed his help and he talked to me about his work. He's quite a successful businessman, and wanted to know [View Full Entry]

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The journey to Moscow took four and a quarter hours. My train was almost luxurious; soft maroon sofa-style chairs, a green marble design table and cream silk curtains that matched the carpet. If Elton John designed Russian first class train compartments they would look something like this. Because it was so early I slept for most of the way but I woke up for a cup of coffee - which a girl took through the carriages in an urn, with the rest of the refreshments in a supermarket trolley. I got to Moscow Yaroslavskaya station at half past eleven and met [View Full Entry]

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I didn't get to watch the film last night. As I was going home from the internet room at the prospekt Lenina house of culture I heard a loud gurgling sound from an alley off ulitsa Nekrasova. When I walked closer I found a man lying in the ice, choking from a neck wound made by a knife or a bottle. The top half of his body was covered in blood, and he was fighting to breathe through a stream of blood over his throat. I asked people on the street for help but - being Russians - they walked past [View Full Entry]

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Now that the play is over I have to eat at the flat more often. I think that Tamara Aleksandrovna has noticed that I have lost a little bit of weight from eating healthily with friends in the evening. I said that I didn't want any cake to go with my tea this morning, so she only gave me three slices. I use meal times to stare out of the kitchen window and switch my mind off. It would be so much more relaxing without having to refuse second helpings of everything in the fridge. Everyone I know has left for [View Full Entry]

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As soon as we had said goodbye to the audience, tidied the room and changed out of our costumes it was time to celebrate. We went back onto the stage and sat on the benches. Everyone was too exhausted to have a big party, so we just played some drinking games and sang songs from musicals. Sara and Chris W knew all the words to every song from Joseph, and the rest of us joined in when we could. People took turns to walk to the supermarket and we drank either Yarpivo or vodka with pepsi. Chris J fell asleep in [View Full Entry]

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The play started at 7 so everyone met at the school at 5 to get ready. My costume was Jamie's grey trousers, a white dress shirt and matching bow-tie, a bottle green butler's jacket and the valenki. My twenty minutes in make-up involved a man squeezing an entire tube of hair gel over my head, combing my hair into an 19th century centre parting and sticking some of my fringe to my forehead with glue. Then my sideburns came out of the box. They were big bushy ones that were also glued to my face - then ripped off and put [View Full Entry]

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The play started at 7 so everyone met at the school at 5 to get ready. My costume consisted of Jamie's grey trousers, a white dress shirt and matching bow-tie, a bottle green butler's jacket and the valenki. My twenty minutes in make-up involved a man squeezing an entire tube of hair gel over my head, combing my hair into an 19th century centre parting and sticking some of my fringe to my forehead with glue. Then my sideburns came out of the box. They were big bushy ones that were also glued to my face - then ripped off and [View Full Entry]

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Minus 10 degrees walking to school this morning. I looked at the digital thermometer on ulitsa Svobody with the same disbelief as I did during the first snow. There was no wind blowing into my face, so it was just extremely cold rather than cold and painful. The snow has frozen into white ice which is slippery to walk on. When I got to Yartek the first thing I did was give my passport photos to Valentina Ivanovna. I'm a good boy for remembering them, but she told me off for not wearing a hat: "It's minus 10 outside, you will [View Full Entry]

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I went out with Katya last night after our rehearsal at the school. I turned up at her courtyard soaking wet, having slipped on some ice on the step outside and fallen head-first into a pile of snow! We took the tram to the cinema but the next film wasn't until midnight, so we stayed in the bar for an hour. Katya examined our tram ticket to see if it would bring us luck; if the first two numbers add up to more than the last two then it is a good sign. And, lo and behold, this evening they did. [View Full Entry]

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Tamara Aleksandrovna's thermometer on the kitchen window sill said minus 2 degrees this morning. After being so cold yesterday I put my gloves and hat on, and swapped my suede shoes for fur-lined horse riding boots. I got to school half an hour early to do some homework, but Valentina Ivanovna our secretary stopped me in the hall to ask a question about my landlady. When she starts talking she's hard to stop; I only made my way into the classroom 25 minutes later! She did say I looked beautiful in my new jumper though. I had a grammar lesson with [View Full Entry]

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