Week 2

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It's been a while since I've been in touch but things have been busy and internet sometimes not an option...

Last Sunday we were going to go on a picknick combined with some swimming in a beautiful lake but this got cancelled after they'd predicted a thunderstorm. We didn't see one drop of rain all day so we simply had another boiling day in town. We went to the biggest book shop here in Riazan and headed straight for the children's section - which is still far above my level of Russian. I bought some children's books and the typical Russian fairy tales which are always illustrated with beautiful prints, and on top of things I bought Garry Potter! I thought this might be easier as I've read the story before - and I could always cheat with the English translation next to it when I'm back home...

All week long we've had Russian classes in the morning. The 'click' still hasn't come; not for me, not for any of my classmates. We're still holding on hoping to wake up one morning and magically understand this crazy language! The classes are still ok and we are communicating in Russian but as soon as classes have finish we go back to speaking English with the people from uni or simply Dutch between the 9 of us. We always try to speak Russian with the guys from uni but it's so frustrating not knowing most of the words to construct a proper sentence or to be able to get your ideas across...

On Tuesday this week I got a runny nose and by Wednesday my throat, ears and head were aching so much I had to take a morning off from school to have some extra sleep. I've been taking some medicine to make my soar throat and ears better and I'm feeling much better today. I'm still horribly snotty and breathing is a little difficult... The weather has gone cold and we're now somewhere around 18 degrees. It's horrible to have a cold shower in the evening because you're absolutely freezing when you get out!!

The biggest news for this week is my crazy plan I came up with half way through the week. I was reading my Lonely Planet Guide in preparation for Moscow next weekend and saw that there's a night train going from Moscow to St Petersburg... Because I'm not able to take the Trans Siberian Express this year to China as I've wanted to do for quite a while now (I have a wedding to attend on the 4th of August) I thought this train trip to St. Pete might be my 'little' train adventure instead of the big one. Half of the class thought I was absolutely crazy, the other half kind of warmed to the idea. We went to the station and found out prices and to get from Riazan to Moscow, then Moscow to St. Pete on a sleeping train and then the whole trip back came to 65 euros. Not bad I say.

Five of us are going - Liesbeth, Sarah, Petra, Cedric and I - the other four are staying in Riazan for the weekend. It was vital for me to get out of this city this weekend and explore some more of Russia. Going to St. Petersburg is about the right adventure for me this weekend. We're leaving at 5pm tonight. We'll be in Moscow by 9.30PM, the train to St. Pete leaves at 10.30PM and gets us there by 5.30AM on Saturday morning. (little bit of a bad timing I know but there were no other coupe's left where the 4 of us could all sleep together - Cedric doesn't mind sleeping with Russians in a different coupe!) We've booked a Youth hostel for 9 euros for Saturday night. We'll be returning on Sunday evening 1AM (bad timing again - for the same reason) and will get into Moscow on Monday around lunch time. We're hoping to get back to Riazan by Monday evening 9PM. (and what a shame, we will miss grammar Monday morning...)

The people from uni thought I had lost it when I first told them we wanted to go. Russian people like to get everything organized preferably 3 months in advance, and me changing things 2 days before hand wasn't making them too happy. You should have seen them stressing out - it made me laugh rather. They's not a lot of spontaneity and last minute changing going on in their life. And the excuses they came up with why it was better not to go - even the G8 meeting was going to be a serious threat to our journey... I had to sign a form saying I was going to take full responsibility for the group and we have to send them messages each day to let them know we are ok. (I'm older then most of the people at uni and my teachers which makes me laugh even more) But if that's what it takes, I'll do it.

So that's about it from for now. I'm going to head off on my adventure and will write again once I'm back in Riazan early next week!

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Comments

[David A]

Have a great trip to St Pete's sounds like fun (not) more like an experience. Enjoying the blog and I swear I can smell that kitchen from here! BR David