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Published: July 13th 2006
This morning we were picked up from our dorms by Natasha. She's one of the people who guides us around town and makes sure we get to our lessons on time. We took the bus to uni which costs us 6 roubles. (about 15 euro cents!) And believe me, you get what you pay for! There's definitely no shortage in public transport over here. They have buses (which look like they are falling apart - let me rephrase that - they are falling apart), there's trolleybuses, taxis and taxibuses. This was a totally new phenomena for me. Taxibuses are vans driving around, acting like taxis, stoppping at each bus stop and carrying 9 people (it should only be 9 but I've seen ones driving with another 5 people standing up - it reminds me a little bit of "how many people can you squeeze into a Mini?". I also feel the need to express some more of my worries about the conditions of the roads here... It's worse than the drive in Mark Cross!! There's holes everywhere and manholes stick out a foot high on the road which basically means all cars/buses have to manoevre between these - you feel like milkshake by the time you get out of the bus!
When we arrived at uni we sorted out all formalities, passport registration and exchanged some Euro's into roubles. We took a short walk (let me tell you, there's a difference between a Russian 10 minutes and a European 10 minutes!!) to the bank where it took us 2 hours to get all our money exchanged. They checked each note Sherlock Holmes stylie and wouldn't except any note that had the tiniest rip in it.
Because of the weather being so hot I feel so dehydrated even though I'm drinking like a fish. I'm also not that hungry because it's so hot, so food-wise I'm just sticking to salads. They put sour cream with anything over here and also mayonnaise is popular - I even saw somebody put mayonnaise in his soup!! IIIIEEEK.
In the afternoon we had our first lesson - grammar. Great! There clearly hasn't been any communication between the teachers here and the ones back home. We started the lesson with the very basics - yet nobody complained. It's nice to understand something for a change!! By 6pm all of us were fast asleep in class. Concentrating was not an option anymore...
We've bought a Russian sim card so all our parents can give us call - though I must say Stu's pretty much the only one abusing it rather a lot!!
We prepared some light dinner and I had an excellent cup of tea which made me feel a little more at home. Although we were so exhausted, we still didn't go to bed until 1 am. It's simply too much fun living in dorms at the moment!!
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carrie
non-member comment
hi!!
I'm so happy that you have a blog, while we were in the Lakes I was wondering how we would be able to keep up with you! Don't get too busy to keep updating us! Lots of love and we miss you already, Liz :) Speak to you when you're back in the land of internet phones...The Forresters