Heading south for the winter.

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I got up at 7. After a quick shower I left the flat as soon as possible, after a polite, insincere thankyou to Marina Ivanovna. It was still dark outside, and a very cold minus 12.

I arrived at Yartek at 8, half an hour before Clare, Michael, Chris J, Chris W, Emma and Chiara who were saying real goodbyes to their hozyaikas. Our minibus left at 9. Viktor, Olga, Nina the art teacher and Natasha came to wave us off.

The five hour journey to Moscow was boring, and the heating was turned up so it was also uncomfortable. When we got to the south-west Emma left to go to the airport for her flight home and the rest of us were dropped off at the hotel, which is irritatingly named 'The Central House of Tourists'. We checked in and paid for all our nights at once. For some reason the lady on the desk tried to charge us for 21 people.

Our three rooms are in the same corridor on the thirteenth floor. They are good rooms with a lot of space and the staff are friendly. One lady thought it was fantastic that the group spoke Russian so well. We put our miniature Christmas tree on the table in the Chrises' room and put our secret santa presents underneath it. Then we blew up some balloons and sang along to some festive songs on Chris W's laptop.

In the evening we took the metro into the centre, and found an underground Chinese restaurant. It had the feel of an underground school, with waitresses hurrying into the staff room to bring food out to our tables. The food wasn't great but the night was entertaining; Chris J ordered a spicy dish and struggled loudly with it for half an hour, and the place had no bottle openers so the waiter opened my beer by banging it against the side of the table!

Everyone was tired when we got back so we went straight to bed.

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Photos

On Red Square.
Clare, Chiara, Michael, Chris W, Chris J and myself.