Blogs from Tver, Centre, Russia, Europe

Sometimes I get so bored with life I simply cannot stand it, but still I have to get up, cook food, translate various texts, look through the window, think, breathe, put the rubber ring on my tooth, read books, think about home, would-be home, past, present, future, etc, drink tea, write to my friends and what not. It’s too damned boring when the person you think most of the time often does not pay attention to your calls and has so much work we can’t even meet for 11 days, living in the same city (I wish she was not ill, to crown it all). As soon as I had my day of rest, I understood that not to get completely bored I had to go somewhere and do something. Money matters do not allow now ... read more

It all started as a fairly normal day. Mike and I had Russian conversation, Russian grammar, and then lunch. After lunch, we went to Tatar class and worked on conditionals. We then proceeded to McDonald’s for some of their awesome eight-ruble ice cream cones. We happened to see Aygul and Dilyara there and hung out with them for a while before going to the group-sing. There is a teacher at the university who holds a free singing group for foreign students every Thursday. We sit together, she plays the guitar, and we sing along to Russian folk and other famous songs. Following the singing, Trevor, Élan, Mike, Ian and I went to my house to pick up my laptop so we could watch a movie later. We stopped by the grocery on the way to Trevor’s ... read more

Culture Shock: it happens. People tell you how to adapt and ways to cope, but seriously, I still feel like screaming every time people start honking because the car in front of them didn’t start to go five seconds before the light turned green. It doesn’t help, and I want to kick their cars. Plus they all try to hit you. Navigating this city is like a giant live-action version of Frogger where the cars speed up at random intervals. But I’d rather focus this blog on how to avoid detection and blend in with the general populus. A lot of my guy friends are immediately recognized as Americans from far away and can’t fool anyone. Apparently I look Russian though, because people keep asking me for directions. Then again, I have figured out the ways ... read more

Привет, Друзя! (and a translation of the subject line: from Russia with Love ;)) Well, another week has (almost) passed, and I've had more time to process Russia as a whole, after having dedicated much of last week to just figuring out how to survive. Things are going well, as I've figured out how to get by pretty well, whether by speaking Russian or pantomime. And my Russian itself is getting alot better, I've noticed. I can now carry on whole conversations with the english speaking staff at the institute almost entirely in Russian, and I can understand almost everything. There have been a couple of things that required getting used to here, and I'll try and describe them for your benefit. In Tver there are four forms of public transit, of which I've conquered only ... read more

And so begins our Trans-Siberian adventure. The first part of the journey is a 30 hour train journey from Moscow to Yekaterinburg. Its about 1,700km in distance. The cabins are nice and snug but unfortunately we don't fit length ways in them. Your carraige is guarded by a Prodivista who seemed to take an instant disliking to us for some unknown reason. We discovewred we were sharing withmiddle aged russian woman and a quiet Russian man. The journey flew along with no attempt by our companions to talk to us. We had boarded the train late afternoon and had noticed that the Russian man appearedto be drunk. He started to buy 2 cans of beer (And at one stage a fish for Ronan) at every stop and always managed to have them drunk by the time ... read more