Moscow: if everybody lived the same.

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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 how I was planning my career. We ate biscuits in the kitchen while Lena and Ana put on their make-up, and he told me jokes.

He and Lena are in their early thirties and have a modern lifestyle. They both do things that are distinctly Russian - having conversations with Kuzya the cat, making sure that everyone has too much to eat and panicking that we aren't wrapped up warm enough before leaving the flat - but they seem much more European than people in Yaroslavl.

Another metro trip with Ana, to find a restaurant for lunch. Moscow - and especially the underground - is a very busy city that brings together people from all over the world. There are ten million Russians in Moscow and five million of other nationalities. It is twice the size of London, twenty times bigger than Yaroslavl and at any given time there are more people in the metro alone. Tubes are packed but people seem content, reading novels, listening to music or both at the same time while clinging on to anything that will help them keep their balance. Some of the escalators that run getween platforms are a hundred metres high. All of the station signs are in big silver letters and on the walls there are mosaics of Lenin, Communist paintings and plaques commemorating the 1917 revolution. It is like an art gallery. Plump, middle-aged women have right of way on the metro, always finding a place to sit down. Many of them have rosy cheeks, wear red lipstick and are enveloped by big fur coats, or 'shuby'.

We found an Italian buffet and had a pizza and a coffee for lunch. It was the first time for both of us in a big city. The experience of being somewhere so different to home was daunting and sitting together felt strange. At the table I felt half an hour of depression that was much stronger than anything I felt when I first moved to Russia. There were tears in my eyes that I couldn't explain properly. Speaking Russian all day was a strain, especially when I thought I would have a week's break between lessons. I managed to get my control back and we went for a walk, then we took the underground back to Lena's.

We had a meal in the evening then myself and Ana went to a friend of her's flat in another district. They were at school in Ukraine together but Anya moved to Moscow ten years ago. She lives on the sixteenth floor of a sixteen storey block, where she shares a small two bedroom flat with her parents and her daughter. The parents' bed is a fold-out sofa next to the stove, which is oppostite the kitchen table and sink. There was no space and it was very hot. Looking out of the window there are fifty buildings like this in the area, all the same.

I want to see the real Russia this year, but this was a little too real for my holidays.

We spent the night there, me on the sofa and the girls together in Anya's bed.

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