Must try harder.

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I can't remember what Zhanna's lesson was about this morning. In the afternoon Aleksandr Ivanovich taught us translation, stopping for a while in the middle of the hour and a half to guess our star signs. My last piece of homework came back with a lot of red pen on it - there weren't so many grammar mistakes, but I need to learn the proper writing style and be more accurate in the meaning of the sentences I translate.

It was a beautiful evening so I went for a walk on my own, through the empty market to ulitsa Radischeva and along Tverskoi Prospekt as far as the bridge, then home across ulitsa Trekhsvyatskaya.

Just three weeks after I swapped my thick winter coat and scarf for a lighter jacket it is almost 'just jumper weather'. Most of the snow has evapourated - even the heaps at the side of each street - and the grey concrete underneath is dry. The air is fresh and cool, a real spring day. The sky is covered with light grey clouds one afternoon, mostly clear blue the next.

As soon as I got back to the obshezhitie I went out again, to an Arabic café with Liza. Each table has a lamp, and a Turkish rug next to it on the wall. While we were waiting for our drinks I pretended to try to turn the lamp on by pulling on the tassle of the rug. I don't think the waitress understood the irony - she gave me a sympathetic look and switched the light on for me the proper way!

We did our homework in my kitchen until 2.

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Photos

The ice-rink.
Kolya's photo. I haven't been yet, but hope to.