The irony of enjoying your bath.

I woke up with a headache, and instead of going to Zhanna's lesson decided to do something worthwhile.

But first I wanted to have a bath to freshen up. The water was running warm today but it is almost orange. Splashing it over my face to shave was unpleasant - there was a metallic taste whenever some went in my mouth and the water smells stale. My face and lips are dry from it and I always feel greasy after washing. And this is in the "zdanie innostrantsev", which is said to be better equipped than the obshezhitie over the road because the university bosses are ashamed to show us the flats that their own students stay in.

Water from the kitchen taps rotted our filter in three weeks, so now Michael takes a big bottle to a well on ulitsa Zhelyabova every other day to get clean water for us to drink. Even then we boil it and let it go cold in the fridge.

I sat at the kitchen table for a couple of hours in the afternoon, looking at the weekend's pictures. My work for the day was to write an essay about my favourite place in the world, then translate the first half of Aleksandr Ivanovich's article about the rise of ancient Russia. The part about Kievan Rus' caught my imagination so I translated it almost to the end. Having worked for most of the afternoon and evening I needed to stretch my legs, so I went for a walk with Liisa. There is a catholic church near ploschad' Gagarina, with a mosque almost next door. It is a very empty part of town that was eerily silent. We walked around them, trying not to step in muddy puddles or slip over patches of ice as we peered into the windows. From there we walked along the river and took some back streets to get home.

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