I went to sleep last night dreading having caught some nasty Russian 'flu, so I was relieved to have woken up with just a headache and a runny nose. I got up late for a Russian fry-up - thankfully I can't taste anything - then Tamara Aleksandrovna insisted I went back to bed until half past one. I watched Goodbye Lenin on my laptop, sent some Russian texts and re-read my vocab book. When she allowed me to get up again I had to wear my woolly hat around the flat. Even though my cold isn't serious I still miss the [View Full Entry]

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Not much happened today. I needed some time to relax, so I stayed in my room for most of the day and worked until I was up to date with my homework. Some of our class went on a boat trip in the afternoon, to the monastery across the river. They missed the boat back and almost got stuck there for the night! I went for a milkshake in the evening with Sarah and Bhavina. The café is a type of fast food restaurant, but has a bit more style and some Russian 'chic'. I was quite grumpy and ill but [View Full Entry]

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A friday feeling again. Six of us went to the biker café at lunchtime and ate at a low table in the corner sitting on bean-bags. The real bikers don't come until the evening, and the Russian rock music they play isn't too bad - a few guitar solos never did anyone any harm. It's more like a beer garden, and the girl who works there even puts on some pop music for us. After classes I had my first lesson with Anya. I'm not sure who was more nervous to begin with: I had never taught English before, and she [View Full Entry]

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I went back in time today. In Viktor's lesson he gave us a translation of a speech that Churchill made 67 years ago about Stalin. It spoke very highly of him. We had to weigh up the pro's and con's of him being remembered as a genius. I have studied the 1930's Soviet Union from secondary school to my second year at Exeter, and from what I have read he was evil. Viktor was taught about a man with many faults, but who took the country from a land reliant on wooden ploughs to one of the world's most powerful nations, [View Full Entry]

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Vodka for breakfast - Dawn. Shopkeeper closing door in face, for not pronouncing 'Mars bar' in a Russian accent - Chris W. "Can I stroke your pretty hair?" - man on bus to Clare. What to do with a drunken soldier? Surname changed on library card from 'Chatterje' to 'Foreign' - Precious. Bizarre dreams about landlady - Chris U. [View Full Entry]

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My group is trying to capture the Yartek sense of humour by writing down the sunny things that we say. So my favourites are... "Do you want a bit of my tongue?" Chris J offers Laura some of his meal at the Texan restaurant. She said no, then realised what he meant. "Is it David Blunkett?" Chris U plays 20 questions in Russian with Elly, who is describing Dumbledore from Harry Potter. "Bendy.... like Bhavina". Viktor shows his mastery of English. I'd say she was more curvy.... "Like a wombat, with my hair." That would be me, describing Jamie's landlady; who [View Full Entry]

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I had a good time last night. Natasha took me to the river Volga and we talked as the sun went down - how romantic! My Russian was going ok for about an hour and I understood most of what she said, but when I started to get tired the wheels came off completely. I managed to recover, then walked head first into the glass window of a trolleybus stop - pointing to a photo of Tver on a poster on the other side! Today has been good too, I'm feeling more awake than I have been lately and the grammar [View Full Entry]

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Tamara Aleksandrovna started fixing the sink today. At 5.30 this morning. Having been lying in bed listening to her banging nails in, she made me get up at 7 to go to the supermarket for her. I got ready to write down the name of whatever type of superglue she wanted me to buy, thinking I'd deserved it for doing the damage myself. Her list was "milk, sausages, sour cream and cheese choc-ices". Why this had to be done by me - an hour and a half before I get up - when she spends all day in her pajamas watching [View Full Entry]

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Tamara Aleksandrovna said there would be blini for breakfast. What I actually found on the table was: the boiled sausage and salted potatoes that I would have had yesterday if I wasn't at the match, that had been on the window sill all night, another cheese choc-ice with a strawberry centre, and a boiled egg with a crack down the side. When she saw how little I had touched she told me the way I eat was "wrong". To make things worse I fell in the shower, steadied myself on the sink and ripped it out of the wall, so on [View Full Entry]

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We went back to Indigo, the swing boogie boogie bar, on saturday night. Most of the time it's a real nightclub, so it had swapped ballroom dancers and Frank Sinatra albums for young people jumping around to (more) eastern european disco-pop. I don't think I've ever laughed so much in a night out, the way people dance here is hilarious! It felt comfortable to be on the outside looking in - we have our British sense of humour and there are always cultural differences to talk about. By the time I walked the girls home it was 3 o'clock, but I [View Full Entry]

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