RLUS SUCK 30.9.13

My knowledge of Russian numbers was put to the test today when a cute babushka with rosy cheeks stood next to me at the bus stop to ask me the numbers of the buses as they drove by. I was just shouting numbers periodically hoping she’d eventually flag something down instead of speaking nonsense at me. It was rather sweet so I called her a babe and she said спасибо. It was pretty hilarious that out of all the words in the English language to recognise, it was “you’re a babe.” Anyways I think it was the 27 she wanted and when my 21 came, she got on it with me. Not sure why. Maybe it was the one she wanted. Maybe it wasn’t. Either way, she’s deffo YOLOing all over this town.

When I got home I was welcomed by a group of criminals doing community work by raking the leaves outside of my building. I was too scared to take a photo of them in case I was mugged/beaten up/made to join in, so I went up to the safe confines of the apartment and took a photo from my window. I say safe confines, but I came home after tutoring and for some reason the door was 3 inches open so anyone could have walked in. Either way, the leaves are now back. The weather has turned quite chilly and people are starting to turn to coats, but it’s at least 3-5 degrees most days and once you get walking you don’t even notice the cold. It’s just running by Lake Onega that’s still an issue. Definitey come home drenched a few times after being attacked by the waves. (Why are there waves anyways, it’s a lake)!

This month I’ve decided to pay the extra money and have dinner included. Nadejda finds it hilarious that I don’t eat meat or fish and handed me a jar of baked beans. That’s right, a jar of them. They were cold and all different shapes and sizes. But none-the-less really delicious. Plus she makes these amazing oniony potatoes. This is the 2^nd day in a row that I haven’t stopped eating until I’ve physically felt like I’m about to throw up. It’s not good, but at the same time it’s too good. Problems. Also this look she gives me when she tells me there's no meat or fish in it; it's dodgy okay. Like I'm starting to doubt her. 

The University are also being jackasses. I want to change 2^nd semester from St.Petersburg to Volgograd because I never quite realised how expensive St.Petes is. Accomodation is £100 a week, plus you need to get the metro in every day. The company we go through, RLUS, suck like nothing else. The website doesn’t tell you anything about the cost of living anywhere here. I’m actually compiling a list myself which I’ve already suggested they put on their website but I got a sarky e-mail in reply from the guy in charge. From what I’ve heard in the years above, they basically can’t be bothered to do any work so they try and be as unhelpful as possible. So many people changed for this semester right now and others in the past so it is possible to do so; they’re just incompetent and lazy. Without wanting to sound like a child who didn’t get their way, they are actually very unhelpful considering the extortionate amount of money we have to pay for everything. Extending our visas and extra HIV tests this week are another £40. THEY SUUUUUUUCK at the complete misinterpretation of life thing they got going on.

Anyways tutoring is really cute. Anna found my article on the US credit limit pretty difficult but she totes agreed with me when I made up some nonsense about it helping her learn more financial words. Trololololol. She paid me for 2 classes in advance so I guess I’m not doing that bad with her. Although again we did her homework, plus prep for her next lesson so she can come prepared. What a babe. I also told her that if her teacher tells her that something I said isn’t right, it’s just because my English is more colloquial. Basically I’m so unqualified to teach it’s insane. I have no knowledge of English grammar and I speak nonsense most of the time. I don’t know how I don’t give off this impresssion to Anna but I’m rolling with it. 

Any Excursion Starts with a Water Feature 25.9.13

On Sunday we had a cheeky little excursion to a place called Ruskeala. It’s basically a marble canon and it’s filled with water. The marble is supposed to make the water look really pretty. Unless it’s torrential for the whole 4 hour ride there and back plus our 2 hour stay there, then it’s just very puddly. It’s the sort of sight that’s very pretty for all of 5 minutes and then it’s just more of the same. Rocks and rain. We did have a lovely little walk through it, under caves and over bridges. It cost us £30 for the transport and then tickets there, but on the way back we stopped off at a restauranty –type place to all use the bathroom. So we’re sitting nonchalantly in the dining room all crowded around a table and sharing chairs, waiting; when suddenly the waitress comes and starts putting tables together to make us all comfortable. Then food is brought out. Not just food, courses are brought out. No-one’s really complaining, everyone’s eating, thinking that the price is included in the extortionate price of the trip because we got little apple dumplings on the way in for free. So once everyone is fed and full we head onto the coaches to start the rest of the long journey back. We sit down,  put our seat belts on, seats are reclined when suddenly the lady sitting with the driver demands 250rubles (£5). We were like wtf, but money was handed over because food was indeed consumed whether it had been voluntary or not. But outrage and venom filled the air until we all fell asleep. Then it came back when our teacher brought up the excursion on Monday morning and sudddenly we’re all fluently protesting why anyone would order food without even asking and then having the cheek to ask that they pay. In the end we’re getting 400rubles back so life is good.

One of the ladies in charge also gave us rocks as souvenirs. I felt rude so I put it in my pocket and it scratched my phone. It’s now on my desk taunting me.

Today I had my first 2 tutorings. I tell you what, these Russians are keen beans. I was discussing with one that I could teach her and she was so excited she arranged it for the following day. I was so excited at the thought of someone actually wanting to pay me for speaking English that I jumped straight on board. Had a mare trying to find something to teach her without any form of lesson plan. Luckily there’s a news by level website where the same article comes in varying levels of English. My first girl is called Katya and she’s far prettier than her Vkontakte photo makes her out to be. Is it acceptable to stop teaching someone because they make you feel inadequate? Anyway she picks me up in some flashy car and we head off to her house, not much further than the University. She’s speaking a mile a minute and I have no clue what’s going on; just praying the words I heard weren’t actually human trafficking. Turns out she lives with a friend and the friend has a cat. Absolutely adorable, tiny little grey kitten. Adorable that is until it poos on the bed. The friend comes into the room, goes skitz, she’s shaking the cat’s head in its own poo and I’m taking personal bets on whether its gonna have to eat it. Turns out it just gets a good shaking and thrown out the room. Literally thrown, this cat is airborne for a solid 3 seconds longer than natural. Katya doesn’t speak any English really apart from what she learnt at school so some things are vaguelly familiar. It’s kinda cool starting from scratch except teaching her even the most simple of sentences involves me having to take a massive diversion on something else. She’s pretty keen though so I end up teaching her how to tell the weather, say some adjectives about her familiy, definite and indefinite articles and to be. She’s going to Finland tomorrow though and apparently we need to have a lesson by skype. She did pay me for 3 straight up so I’m not complaining.

My second lady was Anna and we had to take the bus to get to hers, but again not crazy far away. She lives in what used to be a hostel with her husband so it’s not all that nice (her words), but she speaks great English. She’s actually an English teacher and she’s studying for the Cambridge English test so I think she wants me to basically do her homework. I tried to be all profesh and give her some of my own assessment tests but she was too clever for them so I did the homework she couldn’t do for her. She also has a cat, legit the softest thing I’ve ever felt in my life. She was bemused by me not starting the lesson for at least 2 minutes to stroke and meow and also kinda talk to her cat. But when something’s that soft how can you say no?!

Anyways that’s 5 hours a week of lessons, hope they have some friends who also want to learn because I might have to start some sort of business. I already told Katya she can have a discount if she wants 5 hours a week. Had a mare pretending not to know my numbers while I figured out what to charge her.

So I'll give you some rubles, and we'll win the game right? 21.9.13

Robin had been telling me that his host’s daughter may be slightly in love with me. I kind of exaggerate but in a few lines you’ll see why this is actually true. Apparently she’d been saying all sorts of nice things about me at dinner and had to end the conversation with an я не лесбиянка, just in case there were any doubts in anybody’s mind. Apparently when I do my karaoke it’s just breathtaking and to be fair I’m in complete agreement with her. Naturally I was curious as to whether this was all a joke at my expense because it definitely happens more than is customary with the average gullible person. So we all met up to go to Sigmund and Froid for karaoke on Friday, ignoring Sasha’s warnings and threats about our 9:45 Saturday morning meeting with Grace from RLUS. If were not gonna be there, we’re just not okay Sash. We basically just turn up to see your gorgeous face every week anyways, lessbee honest. Part of the way through the night I do a pretty solid rendition of Stacey’s Mom with Olivia. We rock it, and as with every song of the night it was so totes класический. Now that our Russian’s improved we have the confidence to choose a word and repeat it frequently in large crowds. After this I sit down and Leah comes and shares the chair with me. She whispers into my hear “I fell in love with you when you were singing there” and pulls a bottle of cream whiskey out of her bag and asks me if I’d like some liquour. Never one to turn down a free drink and not wanting to disappoint this lovely Russian girl, I obliged and the two of us are necking whiskey in front of the stage in the middle of a bar. Stay classy ladies. Since then we’ve basically just been besties. She gave me all the goss on the people singing on stage. Some are members of the most famous pop band in Karelia, and some think they’re hot, but they’re not.

At the start of the night we had the pleaure of meeting some lad who called himself MC Bagel. If you have the guts to call yourself that, you gotta respect it. So we chatted to him for a while. Of course he was high as a kite, not really sure of what was going on around him but managed to make it on stage for a few numbers; where he proceeded to repeat the chorus for the entirety of the songs. Then he tried to steal the limelight of a few other singers. They didn’t seem to mind until he started hitting one of the guys with the mikestand in the face. That led to him being forcibly removed from the premises. For someone who was having difficulty standing without support he sure did throw a mean punch.

A brilliant night was had by all; I got asked by a boy to dance. By asked, I mean I was dragged from the chair to dance to Make Me Wanna Die by The Pretty Reckless. This led to me screaming in his face that he makes me want to die and I’m willing to bet he didn’t understand as he took his jumper off halfway through the song to get even more into this dance.

We had Grace come from RLUS today to make sure we’re all okay here. She’d taken the midnight train from St.Petersburg overnight and we had a meeting with her at 9:45. It was over by 9:53 and that was with the small talk too. Basically just to make sure we’re all doing good, and we basically are. We entertained her for the day. Hung about in Kivach for about 6 hours having breakfast and lunch. Had a mare with the ordering. You see the waiters and waitresses here aren’t like in England. They will do anything not to serve you. I find that at home you catch someone’s eye and they’ll come over. Here you have to call a woman over by going девушка which means woman and to me it’s like going “bitch” and then snapping your fingers and them coming to your beck and call. But for men you have to go молодой человек and it’s pretty cringy to be honest. So yeah, we didn’t get served that easily. Plus they still don’t have anything on the menu in stock ever. I’m determined to have зелёный равиоли by the time we leave. Then we went for a walk to the lake and then to Lenta to get snacks for our trip to this marble pit and ostrich farm tomorrow. I hope the ostriches are in cages or on leashes because apparently they do chase and spit and kick. Although this could of course be another joke I just believe.

Most people had gotten tired and left by the time we got to 5 o clock, but me, Maddie, Robin, Grace and Connel headed over to the football stadium because there was a free football match going on. FC Karelia against some other team. Our team were in this horrid lime green kit so I decided to support the others which were in burgundy and that’s my favourite colour ever. I switched half way through when I realised it probably wasn’t very socially acceptable in this particular crowd. Mostly full of old babushkas yelling давай and then leaving halfway through for the lack of давай from the players. It was exactly as you’d expect a Russki football game to be. You’ve got the refs coming out from half time with only one team. Clearly some money had exchanged hands for a tactical advantage. Potentially money was exchanging hands during the game; the ref kept shaking hands with random players and then putting his yellow card away. I counted about 11 yellow cards and there were 4 red cards. The last red was to a player that had already been sent off or wasn’t even playing to start with. One red card went to a player from the opposing side who decided he didn’t want to leave the pitch so we did a sassy walk the long way off and stopped a metre before the edge to tie his shoelaces. Basically a jackass so we booed. Everytime a goal was scored a fight would break out. One of the poor players hurt his back so he’s just laying on the ground in agony whilst everyone else is having a bit of a punch up. Yellow cards are flying and the medic is some random guy from the crowd with a tiny blue box. Not big enough to hold a bottle of vodka, let alone a stretcher.

Side Note: So there’s this delicious salad called vinagrette here and it’s, from what I can tell, beetrout based mainly due to the rich purple colour and of course the bits of beetrout in it. Normally I’m not a fan but they do something or another to it to make it really yummy. I was just thinking that I should find a recipe to make it at home and the one in Lenta doesn’t have pees in it so if I could somehow get hold of a transportable cooling container (battery powered fridge), then I could take some home for my mum and it’d be perfect because she doesn’t like pees. Turns out it does have pees in it, they’re just disguised as berries what with all the beetrout juice everywhere. But the vinagrette in Sigma has green pees in it that somehow don’t get affected by the juices despite being buried deep inside the salad. I wonder what the pees are made of that they repel beetrout juice.

Grace also told us another train website for Russia if anyone else is interested. www.tutu.ru  because Russian trains make this tutu sound. Nod and smile. Nod and smile.  

I’ll have a brick and stab this pizza thanks 19.9.13

Sasha was “out of town” for our class today. He was probably just being a top lad in another city. Making people happy with music and his face. So our lesson was cancelled and we decided to go to Kivach, the cafe across the street to plan our reading week antics in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Unfortunately we’re about a week too early to book train tickets in advance so the same time next week we’ll have to try again. It’s looking to be not too bad though, probably get our trains from Petra-Petes-Moscow-Petra for under £65 and hostels are £5-10 a night so a nice cheap, culture filled week to come our way!

New kitchen

Of course when our first lesson finished at 11:20 it was far too early for lunch so we got drinks. Teas and chocolate milkshakes, which they delightfully call milky chocolatey cocktails here, all around and lunch when it reached the midday mark. Me and Maddie shared a large margarita. You actually get quite good value for money here as when you ask for the plain margarita it comes with olives. Of course it’s not actually proper service because you’re not getting what you wanted but it’s free and I feed them to Olivia so it’s alright. Now most others on the table were basically animals and ate their pizza with their fingers. And although most people don’t agree with me, I still think I’m right that food is definitely not meant to be eaten with fingers and hands because we’re not animals. If I can I’ll cut up my sandwiches.

New kitchen also

So I attempted to ask the waitress for cutlery making the appropriate hand gestures. She was like wtf at everything else we had tried to order. I don’t know why. Probs just the British kids being hilarious and culturally unaware/insulting as always. I only know the word for knife. Or rather I thought I knew the word for knife. Turned out I know the word for brick. So I was going кирпич и and then making the hand gesture for fork, which is basically me just pointing 3 fingers repeatedly at the pizza. I got the Russian stare. You know the one. That blank look where they wish they were dead because foreigners are stupid and Communism is forever. Yeah that one. She’s a babe though and then proceeded to bring me 3 sets of cutlery and 3 mini tea plates. I used them all. It was glorious. Although it may have been easier to just eat it with my fingers instead of asking for a brick and then jamming my fingers into the pizza she’d just bought.

Hallway which has heated floors and a couch

Went for a run this afternoon; I’ve had to change my route now I’ve changed my starting location and this one takes me nicely to the local supermarket, Lenta, across some barren desert-type land also and then down to Lake Onega where the nice breeze is very cooling and draughty on my by-then very sweaty head. It’s basically just glorious. I really like running around a new city. You get to see the layout so much quicker than when you just walk because running is faster. I now have all the efficiency. And by see the layout I mostly mean get the feel for what the ground looks like because I’m normally panting so hard I can’t lift my head and of course there’s sweat all around the facial area so it’s really like being underwater.

The new abode is pretty cool though except for it being quite light in my room at night because the alley to the entrance is outside and well- lit. Although the well-lit part means that your Russki yobs won’t stand there and mug us as we come home. Or maybe it means they will because it means they’ll be able to see if we’re worth mugging/see what they’re doing as they mug us.

You also can't flush toilet paper down the toilet. Upside: there's toilet paper there and not rationed to not flush. It basically just goes in a bin next to it #culturaldifferences. Breakfast is a lovely affair. Me and Sophia have a fridge to ourselves and it's got cheese, bread, pancakey things and there's stuff on the table e.g. donuts and sweets and biscuits to enjoy. It was glorious. I decided to pace myself and just have a cheeky cheese sandwich, hard boiled egg and coffee for breakfast this morning but stuff that. Tomorrow I'm gonna go all out.

Flush and Die

Freedom and Wifi 18.9.13

A very eventful few days to say the least but all is on the up, I have finally escaped from Valentina’s ginger clutches and have a new abode a mere few yards away from the gorgeous lake Onega. I can see it from Sophia’s room; mine overlooks an alley. But an alley that doesn’t belong to a bipolar person.

I should also explain that I am not a medical professional but she’s definitely bipolar. The mood swings, the inability to remember that I’m not Sarah who lived here last year despite the fact that we have completely different colourings.

So happy I managed to snap this of the she-devil before I left. Berry counting anyone??

Valentina left me and Clara to go the dacha on Friday so she left Clara dinner and both of us breakfast for the morning a full 24 hours before we were supposed to eat it. Maybe left in the fridge it would be okay. Except in someone else’s fridge, a neighbour’s perhaps, because hers’ is rank. It was already sliced apple and tomato on bread with “cheese.” I have been inspecting it closer and closer as I’ve got braver and on no level is it cheese. So of course the apple went brown within an hour and the bread got soggy with tomato juice. Then Clara’s dinner turned out to consist of cabbage and a hard boiled egg. Hardly appetising, healthy or worth the extortionate amount of money we pay. And so the bitching began..... insults were thrown about regarding her hiding the toilet paper in the cabinet under the TV. I relinquished said toilet paper and placed it in its proper home; aka the bathroom.

This indoor Indian market we visited inside a pyramid.

 She returned on Saturday night as I was watching the Russki version of Dancing on Ice and all was good. She was calm. She was nice. I began to wonder if I’d imagined the whole thing until she tried to tell me I can’t leave my chocolate milk in the fridge. Like what even is that? Just because you drink milk with bits in it out of a jar you crazy lady and claim to not even like it. You craaay.  I also ventured into the kitchen. I wasn’t allowed in there before for some reason. I found her ashtray. Lol joke, not an ashtray because the ash is all over the floor. Just the tray of cigarettes she smokes when she thinks we’re not looking. But we are. And smelling. Smelling the disgusting smell she leaves everwhere.

Monday afternoon: Clara goes to her lectures. Clara tells her teacher, Anastasia, all the problems with Valentina. Her crazy moodswings, her standing at the front door talking to you until you’re late for school/karaoke. Anastasia says she’s surprised Clara didn’t complain sooner. But Clara is a brave soul indeed; she tried to put up with it, but of course she is staying until June and it just can’t be done when you want to give the woman a good shampooing. (She doesn’t wash her hair because shampoo is expensive...)

Clara managed to be gone by Tuesday morning and I only managed to speak to her on the phone today. Valentina received the call at 21:00 that Clara would be sadly departing us and Clara was meant to leave at 11:00 the next morning. But appaz, Valentina barged into her room at half 10 and hurled abuse at her, calling her every horrid name under the sun and kicked her out. I’m definitely sure that’s not okay. We legit just rent rooms from these people and get food. They don’t have to speak to us at all if they don’t want. It’s definitely not okay for her to go into the room you pay for without permission and swear at you because you’re a crazy old hag. Back off k?The same Monday afternoon I return home and asked Valentina if I could have the second key for the front door. She locks it from the inside when she’s in so I have to ring the bell and she yells that she’s coming for 5 minuntes before she gets there. When I asked for the key that unlocks this (which she has for herself only), she asked me if I thought I was the Queen of England or not wanting to wait. I made some sassy comment about Lizzie which didn’t go down to well and she said she was going to call my friends to tell them something or another.....

Mess with me, be deported....

I e-mailed my company RLUS and spoke to our rep on the phone (who lives in St.Petes), and today Sasha came and called me out of class to ask me about my problemos. I explained she’s legit insane and I’d call the men in the white coats. They said they know and they found me a new home, and not to go back because Valentina might kill me. Nice to know they are aware of this. Not nice to know that they sent me there anyways.

It looked so proud.

Side note: I can actually call her a bitch because she used to try and pitch me and Clara against eachother. We came home late once from karaoke and at various other times and we were sooo quiet but she’d tell Clara that I like to party too much and this makes me have a плохой характер when in reality Clara had come home with me AT THE SAME TIME. Then she’d tell me that Clara blows her nose too much. Like what even is that??? Who says stuff like that? I’ll tell ya who, crazy bitch lady from Petrozavodsk who no-one likes.

To continue I was banished from the flat until 5, huddled in a street corner all afternoon praying she hadn’t destroyed my room. Lol jokes we went for lunch and then a walk around the dodgy end of town. I met Andrei (our teacher who teaches us a subject I don’t actually know how to translate) and some woman outside the flat and we went up. I have never packed my stuff up so quickly. Clothes were thrown in to the suitcase, shampoo retrieved from the bathroom. She asked for her English dictionary back but it was accidentally in the bag I gave to Sophia to take to my new domicile so that was another rant. Valentina talked at Andrei and this lady for the full 11 minutes I took to get the hell out of there and when we went downstairs Andrei packed my stuff up into his massive Silver SUV and they had mints as we got into the car. As the car filled with the scent of minty mints Andrei told me they hadn’t been to her place for 5 years and she seemed kind and nice then. He apologised on behalf of the University for me and said it wasn’t an accomodation they should be sending students and then offered me a mint. I politely declined as the sugar would probably not bode well with my excitement at finally moving to a new home.

New room!

Unfortunately I am no longer a 3 minutes 20 seconds walk away from uni, more like 20 mins but I’m right by the lake and still in the centre of town near all the shops. My new apartment has the gorgeous Sophia, but of course we’re only allowed to speak all the Russki when we’re together. There is a woman called Nadejda (my name!) and man who is basically kept on a very tight leash. Nadejda showed me everything and the man was only designated the job of giving Sophia the key to show me how to use it. It’s lovely and modern here. Sophia obviously has the better room but mine is still lovely. She has the view of the lake, a double bed and a TV but it’s still better than what I had before! Plus wifi! Plus I got my money back from Valentina for the rest of the month even though the contract definitely says you have to pay in lieu of a month. Suckerrrrrrrrrrrrr.

New room, different angle. Oh yeaaah.

Just before I left I also bumped into Katya who is the teacher of the English class that me and Olivia go to on Thursdays. She lived in the flat just below Valentina and didn’t seem too surprised that I was on my way out. All she really says is how glad she was to make my accquaintance and will I be the President of the judging committee of the English competititon they have in December. I, of course, politely and humbly accepted this position. You may now call me Pres Nads, queen of judging English. I bump up the cockney when I’m around her, she loves it. ,

Also I definitely used to have new bug bites all over my arms at Valentina’s. Finally disease and rodent free!

Blending with the Locals 13.9.13

Yesterday was mine and Olivia’s first trip to the language and social science department of the university in a very very red building not too far from us. We had our first ride on a bus, which I definitely think is some guy driving his minibus around the streets and charging people for it because there was definitely a bit of a family affair going on at the front and no-one seemed to know the actual route it was supposed to say. The price is different for each bus, but normally about 20rubles (40p) and you pay the driver when you get off saying один clearly and conscisely otherwise you won’t get any change.

The people who run public transport wherever it is I am

We ended up being in a class with 4 students about our age. They’re doing their masters in social-work-type stuff and they have to do their dissertation in English for some reason so this is why they’re taking the class. We had 2 students each and had to speak to them in English about themselves and us and then they’d have to repeat back what we said in English. Katya (the teacher) made us do the same but in Russian so it was a slight impromptu lesson. The levels of English varied greatly. One of the guys I had could speak pretty well and understand, but the girl didn’t really have a clue what was going on. It made me think that teaching in a different country could be quite a good job actually; it was really sweet to see the words and phrases they’d obviously learnt from a young age, and so repeated insecently.

The class topic was jobs and money and it’s an American book they learn from so one of the examples was having a wage of $60,000 a year. Apparently they recieve more along the lines of 60,000r a year (£1,200). I said you’d probably make close to that in a month in a full time retail job and they were pretty shocked. Katya told us that the only thing she can do is tell her students to leave the country if they want to make any form of money because there’s not a lot to be earnt here. I’m not quite sure how they manage to live with that sort of wage because the prices here are pretty similar to England, maybe cafes and restaurants are marginally cheaper.....

We got paid with chocolate, типичный русский шоколад

After the lesson we met a Russian boy called Ruslan (first Russian friend yaaay) and his English is brilliant. Katya said he’s one of the best students they have and he tries to meet all the Brits every year. We had a general chit chat on the bus home about life in Russia and England and we mentioned the post because it definitely doesn’t seem to be a thing here and he said you could order an i-pad online, but you’d probably just receive a bag of rocks. Sometimes you might get a letter 2 months later, but it’ll probably have been opened. For no reason of course other than ты живёшь только раз.

When I got home Valentina was doing one of her usual cute crazy babushka things. She always wears 2 necklaces and they’d got tangled so they were choking her pretty badly as she was fiddling with them. She approached me and started saying something. I couldn’t really understand so I threw out my standard даs and decided to make the risky decision to help her untaggle it. I have pretty nimble fingers so managed it in a minute and she was so grateful she was blowing me kisses all evening. Turns out she’d done the same scenario to Clara but Clara didn’t offer to help with the untangling because she wasn’t really sure what was being said also. So I’m the hero and probably the favourite surrogate daughter right now yaaay!

This next bit is more of just a vent than any useful information; we were meant to have a guided tour of the city from Sasha (our teacher) today, but he instead decided that the weather wasn’t good enough so we had to have our stupid poopy grammar lesson. The weather was fine okay, just a little overcast but no rain and perfectly warm. He’s just a pooper and never had any intention of letting us have a skive.

Bought myself a cheeky Lenta card today. It’s like a clubcard but tenfold better because you actually get money taken off at the till. For some, no doubt communist reason, the discount changes for the same item day to day but I accept this as normal now. Anyways it turns out none of the discounts in store apply without a card and you can’t always guarantee that someone will lend you theirs so I see this as a very good desij. Now I have a loyalty card, I’m clearly the most local of locals.

The Dangers of Beer and Vodka According to a Babushka 10.9.13

It was a chilly night in the Karelian town of Petrozavodsk. I was sitting in the lounge at the table doing some homework about various differences in the religions of the East and West of Russia (potentially anyways  I needed the dictionary for most of it tbh). Valentina is seperating the berrys, she’d collected from her dacha, from the stalks as she had been doing for the previous 12 hours non stop. Suddenly she looks at me and asks if she can tell me a secret. I jumped at the promise of some gossip and invited her to come and sit opposite me so I could understand what she was about to tell me. For some weird reason, proximity directly correlates to comprehension. She starts a story about Sarah who lived here last year and how she enjoyed her beer. I already know this about Sarah and it’s one of the main reasons I like her. Girl knows how to partaaay. Unfotunately Valentina has nothing celebrotary to say about the fact that Sarah can have 6 beers in one night. She starts telling me how it makes you feel terrible in the morning and makes you do bad things. Car accidents happen, you walk in the street without looking, you talk to people you don’t know. Suddenly she’s started on shots of vodka and how they kill. I kid you not, vodka kills. Although it does also heal according to her (my insect bite medicine). Anyways she told me that at our local cafe there are big, bad men who stand there and look for tourists talking in a different language and follow them home and maybe kidnap them with axes. I was furiously looking up vocab in my dictionary as she got to this bit so it may have been sword or something similar, but either way, not so nice. I assured her that I enjoy Pepsi-Cola and of course the occasional apple juice if I’m feeling craaay as the finger pointing started.

This man sells cucumbers on the street like nobody's business.

 We had our first sushi today and all I can say is that you get ALL the sushi for NONE of the money. They had a brilliant vegi platter that I and Olivia shared and some vegan stuff too for Eva. For some reason, Russian sushi includes a lot of Philadelphia creme cheese and they even have a Philadelphia Mania platter. I didn’t try to explain why this was occuring, just consumed. We’re all used to the horrors of Yo Sushi – basically a lot of money for very little food but for £5-6 you get  a massive platter that legit would last 3-4 meals if we hadn’t eaten it all in 1. I’ve never felt so sick from 1 meal but also oh so satisfied. They also like to put a lot of fried cheese in general. I feel like maybe it’s Amerian inspired – something the Yanks would come up with but somehow haven’t.

All the sushi

Sovietski ice-cream

I came home today to find a cute little lady in our lounge. She was speaking Russian, English and French and the combination of these 3 confused me no end. Turns out her parents live in the flat below and Valentina’s known her all her life (she doesn’t get herself into `situations` with beer or vodka). She explained to us (en Francais bien sur), that she works at different faculties in the University and needs someone French and English (Clara et moi) to help her with some of her politicy-type classes in foreign languages at her faculty. Her mum is picking up me and Olivia on Thursday afternoon to take us to the school. Hopefully this means we’ll make some new Russki-type friends and have something to do with our days after classes finally!

11.9.13

Had our first experience of a Russian school fire alarm today. It’s this loud bell with someone saying something over the speakers pretty incomprehensible. As the typical foreign students we are, we all just stayed in our seats until the teacher herded us outside where we stood with the rest of the students excited at the prospect of wasting some learning time. We went back into our class and started our second lesson. When the bell went off again the next teacher decided we were to stay and ignore the possibility of fire. Fair play. There’s never normally a fire when the alarm goes off. However when we ventured outside the classroom, there was indeed smoke billowing out from a door about 20m to the left. This did not put of the prospect of knowledge and we perservered with hearing about the news in Russian. Potentially we’ve all inhaled something we definitely should not have today. Hope it’s not life-threatening. 

At least it's not snowing yet

I asked Valentina yesterday about whether the shops close when the snow comes because appaz it comes in October and lasts until about February. She basically laughed me out of the room. I tried to change it into a logical question and ask about the little kiosks which surely don’t have heating, but alas, this also provided vicious guffawing. I told her how the schools close in England when we get snow and she waved me away so she wouldn’t have to deal with such nonsense.

The herds of babushkas selling their vegetables.

Back to Nadinka and Tickles 8.9.13

I believe me and Valentina are now back on after me potentially gravely insulting her integrity, never a good thing to do with someone new. I got dressed this morning and when I came out my room she touched the diamondy thingys on my top and commented how pretty they were and stroked my hair. Then I got a cute (kinda odd) tummy tickle, a number of compliments and I’m back to Nadinka. I say kinda odd, but I do love a cheeky tickle in the morning. Appreciated for deffs.

Donkey rides at the park anyone?

I’ve also noticed that her tv watching habits are slightly odd. She seems to know the words to pretty much everything, and at first I thought oh it’s cool, just her fave episode. Turns out every episode is her fave. Plus she has to comment on everything. There was this singing show and 2 Russki dudes were singing about their own бабушкаs and she then decided to ask me about mine. I told her that I have 2 grandmas and she asked if they were from Africa or England. As tempting as it was to say Africa, I settled for the truth. There’s not much you can really say when someone asks you that so conversation over. She also has a comment to make about everything. 2 people kissed at the end of the movie and that seemed to disgust her, but when they ran away with their children it warranted a молодец.

Me and Clara by the lake

A few of us had our first outing to the cinema to see гадкий я 2 (Despicable Me 2). We were thinking it’s a kids’ film so it shouldn’t be so hard to understand, and it was pretty adorbs. Tickets were only 130р which is about £2.60 but popcorn and snacks are basically as expensive as in England. We went to the москва кафе afterwards for lunch and it’s pretty pricey compared to the other places we’ve been to; as in a dish is £3-4, but we somehow managed to go during happy hour when everything was 30% off. Woooo.

We just watched the greatly anticipated premier of this season’s Russki version of Dancing On Ice. There’s been adverts for it all week and the only way to get Valentina to change to the correct channel at 6 was to ask her if the channel that was on was первыц канал again and again until she changed it so the answer would be yes. The concept is basically the same; celebs learning to skate with professionals. The woman are beasts; one of them was so frustrated that the celeb man couldn’t lift her up that she lifted him up to show him how it’s done. So much emasculation. The costumes are a lot less glitzy and a lot less revealing; not sure I’ve caught even 1 sight of some woman’s underwear yet, even on the upside down lifts. Gotta have respect for the Russki morals. They’re definitely concentrating on selling the Sochi winter olympics merch though. Every single person has something on from the range in different colours and different styles. I’m very tempted to see if you can buy the merchandise already online after an hour of it.

Despicable Me Russkified

Here is my copy of Алиса В Стране Чудес. It’s my absolute favourite book in the world and this one was only 100р (£2). The only thing is that there’s no pictures so I may go buy a pretty one later on this year. I asked the sales assistant if she had it and she bought me 9 copies, so there’s certainly no lack of choice. And it’s brill because online you’d be paying a considerable amount more for any English books in a foreign language.

Алиса В Стране Чудес

Disputes and Rock Karaoke 6.9.13

Locks on the bridge for luuuuurve

 Me and Valentina had our first minor dispute today. She sleeps in the lounge and me and Clara have the 2 bedrooms. One of my friends said she’d feel bad to have her host sleep on the couch, but then again it is only for 16 weeks of the year until I leave and Clara is here by herself for summer. Plus we obviously pay so.... Anyways, obviously all of Valentina’s stuff is split between the bedrooms and because I tend to just go да да да all day long, I’m not entirely sure if she comes in my room to get her stuff when I’m gone because there are various garments and underwear strewn across the lounge. But today I come home to find she’s swapped over my suitcase and the chair and moved bags of my underwear and socks underneath the cupboard and when I came out the shower I was like “nooooo I’m living with an underwear thief.” Thanfully she doesn’t speak English and I can actually make such accusations without making anything too awks. Unfortunately this exclamation caught her attention because it was pretty darn loud, and she came in. I explained in my politest Russian that I don’t particularly like her coming in and moving my stuff. Obviously I don’t leave anything expensive out on display so it’s mostly just bits and bobs but obviously it’s annoying to not be able to find your underwear because she decided she doesn’t like where it’s placed. I was very nice about it and assured her it wasn’t important, but maybe it’s just a lack of communication because she came up to me after and told me I have a плохой характер so now I just feel bad that she thinks I accused her of being a thief or something. And to be honest all Russian words sound the same so I may very well have. We’ll have to see how this plays out and here’s hoping she doesn’t hate me.

Matryoshka in the street wooo

On to a lighter note, we had lunch in the uni canteen today. It’s our 5^th day of lectures and the only thing we’ve seen of the university is the one classroom we’re in for almost 3.5 hours every day. As much as sitting in a different seat next to someone different kind of mixes things up a bit, it doesn’t actually mix anything up so we decided to venture to the canteen. It’s much different to the IC or any of the uni cafes in Sheffield. It’s like at school where there’s big pots of food and you point to what you want and the Russki dinner ladies put it into a bowl for you. If you want meat you’re looking at £2/3 for a meal but it’s not like some crappy meal deal at Tesco; you’re looking at 3 bowls of actual food and a drink for that price. The food is like rice, potatos etc and then a fish or meat thing that actually looks really yummy and homemade. Me and Olivia being the vegetarians did the usual есть что-то без мяса and got the usual blank stares but we ended up with some vegetable and potato stew, she had rice and I had a cheesy pastry thing (potensh a croissant). Mine was about 80p and her’s was 60p which is ridic for what a proper meal it was. Deffo prefer it there to some cafe in town. Although I’m not sure there’s any form of wifi in the university. No-one seems to like to tell us anything.

Pancakes and cheese for breakfast, it's been promised all week!

We also found out that to work in a Russian university is basically a hobby. Our teacher earns £100 a month teaching us which is basically 4/5 times a week; plus he met us at St.Pete’s airport and took us the 5-6 hours to Petrozavodsk. He said he also teaches at 2 other schools where there’s proper money to be made. Bear in mind this is with 10 years of experience, plus he’s hilarious. All witty and full of sass. We only found this out when we asked if there was any paid English teaching available here because we obvs speak English and he, in essence, told us to back off because any good paid teaching work is his. Bet he just thinks of us as a threat! But he did say we can help him with his English conversation classes here “if you are interested” and he asked if we were at least 6/7 times and that was with pretty much all of us nodding furiously. But actually furiously. I think we’re getting to the point where we want some Russki friends

Yesterday I watched what I can only assume was the Russki version of Jeremy Kyle, called пусть говорять, which means Let’s Speak. And boy did these peeps need to speak. I have never in my life heard such tales of tragedy. The main feature was an interview with a little boy and they take him to this little hut in a forest where something terrible must’ve happened because he tells of how some guy told him and 5 of this friends that he was their father, then took them to this hut and they somehow died in this machine and only this boy survived. So this boy is there in this hut covered in blood and crying while some lady is interviewing him about what this man told him and I was just in shock. Valentina stood up and did her usual standing 1m away from the TV whilst pointing and then batting her hands in disgust as she hides in the kitchen to protect herself from the sheer horror of what was occuring, mumbling what I believe to be Russki obscenities. There’s a number of couples sitting there yelling and blaming eachother, social services come along donned in police uniform (or maybe it was police) and fault is dolled out appropriately. Horror doesn’t even begin to cover it, but luckily the Russki “Dancing on Ice” starts Sunday so hopefully that will get me through the winter.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

7.9.13

Last night we went to Rock Karaoke at our local bar and it was potentially the most glorious night of my life, if for nothing else than Backstreet Boys is considered Russian Rock. The place was full when we got there but we managed to blag ourselves the front table with the best view in the house. Our teacher, Sasha, was there and did some singing as the lead singer as well as harmonies for other. Appaz you can just go onto stage and just join in. You get the odd couples that go on stage and have a cheeky dance whilst touching eachother’s bums – just a little inappropes je pense. There was the song about the grandma smoking weed which was thoroughly enjoyed by all and I think next week we’re all gonna have to get up on stage. If for no other reason than to get away from the drunken guy that was asleep on our table with his hand in his own spilt drink. Mare.  

How can I ever leave when this is Friday night?

Lost In Translation (like never before) 5/9/13

 So Valentina just came home talking about how she needs to buy a car because obviously she wants to take me and Clara places. I thought this was slightly weird because Petrozavodsk is so small that you can walk most places without too much effort. This was made even more confusing by the fact that she was saying the car she’d been looking at for ages and paid for was too big. Fair enough, maybe she only has a small parking space. But no, she meant to big for the kitchen. Out comes the 50cm ruler and she’s measuring the door from the hall to the lounge and the lounge to the kitchen. I was like, well yeah I guess this машина won’t exactly fit in the kitchen; cars are quite big. Plus how would you get it up to the 4^th floor. Then she was measuring a scarf with the ruler and the scarf was also too big for the kitchen. I dunno, maybe she wanted to hang the scarf in the doorway, so I helped her measure this scarf and alas it was too long for her usage.

Turns out I was concentrating so much on the машина that I wasn’t really listening to the words she was using around it and she was talking about a washing machine for our clothes. Makes much more sense that it wouldn’t fit in the kitchen. So her daughter is looking in the shops to find her a good, cheap washing machine. German of course, because appaz they make everything the best.

In my defence I was speaking French with Clara last night for a solid hour and a half so all my потому чтоs are coming out as parce ques. It’s a mare. And also quite disheartening that my French, which I haven’t studied for 2 and a half years since a-level is ten-fold better than my Russian. On the plus I’m basically getting a double education for the price of one!

My building

Avoiding Rabies 4/9/13

So the door to our apartment is just rather curious. It locks differently from the inside or outside, so if someone’s in when you arrive they have to open the door for you. Poor Valentina gets so worried about us waiting too long that she yells towards the door я иду, бегу бегу for the full 30 seconds it takes her to unlock the door.

Dodgy door I can't open

Today was second day of lectures and every day we have to take turns doing a little bit about the news and everyone else asks questions. Luckily no-one was too mean by asking ridiculous questions on Robin’s talk about Syria. We had to give in our passports to be photocopied today and I was the only one without my boarding card on me, so I hope it’s not too much of a delay for getting a student card. They get us free into the local museum so we want to do that soon. After school a few of us explored town further and every day a whole new neighbourhood seems to pop up. We found another little shopping centre and finally a shop that sells traditional furry Russian hats and winter coats. For the measly price of £800 for a coat. I’m guessing that’s not faux fur.

The lake

The lake was gorgeous when the sun started shining; for some reason it’s cold until about 13:30 and then boiling until 18:00. Weeeird. We had out first encounter with a seemingly stray Russian dog and you’ve never seen a bunch of foreign students who can’t afford rabies injections run so fast away. Maddie was the brave one and went up closer to take some photos. Lucky for me I have a pretty good zoom on my camera. No need to get too close to a potential death by rabies. There’s also actually a severe lack of dogs here, the only other one is the one in my block owned by a 12 year old called Lila. It’s a sausage dog called Jessie and of no harm to anyone seeing as it can’t actually get itself up the stairs. Trying to work up the courage to pet it from 3 stairs up and slowly work my way down.

Potentially rabid dog

The bites on my arm have gotten pretty large and I don’t think I’m allergic to mosquito bites because I have had them before and they seemed pretty normal. I showed Valentina and she told me that she didn’t sleep last night because of them so she put soap on her arms and that sent them into my room. Not sure how they got through the closed door but I just smiled and nodded and gave the usual даs. But no yeah, I actually do look pretty diseased right now and the only help Valentina has is to offer some vodka and soap concoction so I’m avoiding her until the swelling goes down. Although it does maintain my presumption that vodka fixes everything in Russia.

Disease everywhere

No-one seems to understand the term vegetarian here. I went back to Lenta for biscuits for Sasha (our teacher)’s birthday tomorrow and asked which of the salads were без мяса and the look of confusement was pretty astounding as I went through 4 sales assistants, including one on her break, as it turns out they don’t actually know what is in the food they sell. Luckily they have some salady bits that look like cabbage and carrot and potato/ricey things.

One thing we all noticed here is that no-one really goes out for a jog. By the lake there’s a kids park with some exercise equipment, but it definitely looks more like kids toys than anything with any resistance. I try and run most days so it was an amusing experience as there seemed to be some rally outside my block and I tried to look really caж as I ran by, clearly sticking out like a sore thumb in my little shorts and bright orange trainers. There’s a lovely flat route to a bridge and back, so maybe that’s somewhere else to explore later on. And of course another McDonalds there too which makes at least 2 within 10 minutes of where I live.

The University of Petrozavodsk

We went into the local shop on the way back from today’s adventures and found some interesting new flavours of crisps. So dill is a herb they put on everything here. Every single meal we ordered for lunch from omellette to fish to salad has dill on it. A garnish in abundance clearly. So they also put it on crisps with cucumber and I’ve never yet tried a crisp that actually tastes of what it’s supposed to. The taste of dill and cucumber is in your mouth for so long you wonder whether you’ve actually had it as a crisp or as a meal. They definitely get their flavours right here and I haven’t stopped eating my giant bag because I can’t quite believe it’s so sharp. The second flavour we tried was white mushroom and sour cream. Again, an acquired taste, but the lack of salt and vinegar means I’m going to have to acquire it pretty quickly.

Buckwheat Problems 3/9/13

Today was our first day of classes and it was oral followed by translation. We basically just spent 3.25 hours introducing ourselves and then translating how our partner introduced themselves. Plus we got homework; not particularly excessive, just a little comprehension and translations.

Sasha got pretty mad today that some people had their passports and some had their passport photos but not many had both (I had both). We went for lunch in the cafe opposite the university again and Sasha was sitting next to us and we got another threatening message to make sure we bring it all tomorrow so we can get our student cards which provides us access into the library. Talking of library, we’re not exactly sure where that is and Clara (my French flatmate) was telling me that she does a private course and they got a full on tour and maps of the city. We got dumped at a phone shop and told to have fun. Except minus the have fun part.

We had our first proper excursion to a hypermarket today. I’m not sure what a hypermarket is exactly but the word was tossed around a number of times today so let’s just roll. It’s called лента and it’s pretty glorious. They have notebooks with different subjects on it in cyrillic so we got русский язик ones just in case we forget why we’re here. Plus only 30p or so. I couldn’t tell how much fruit and veg is because it’s by weight so I’d actually have to buy some, but I’m sure I’ll be craving an apple which isn’t moulding in the corner of my room soon enough. I got some milk, and is always the problem abroad, I had no idea what type of skim to buy so I opted for 2.5% and it seemed alright if not a little funky. When I was asking Valentina if I could keep it in her fridge she told me it’s good for you when it’s warm by leaving it out. I protested and she suddenly changed her tune and decided I should drink a full glass of it immediately from the fridge. As I said, funky. Maybe in small doses but I guess I’ll be working my way through the full milk range this winter. They also have Soya milk for the vegans out there. Bread is weird, it comes in full loaves but really small slices so socially I’d have 3, but in reality, probs about 5 in one sitting. Coffee is the only expensive thing here and you can get massive bottles of water really cheap because apparently disease and death follows the drinking of tap water. The only thing it’s impossible to find and communicate to others is a travel adaptor. Lucky I managed to get my cheeky free one yesterday but it’s pretty temperamental and makes a weird vibrating noise which pre-empts an imminent explosion. Hope my laptop can handle it.

Always time for a selfie

I watched давайте познакомимся with Valentina when I got home. This episode was a 27 year old blonde looking for a 28-39 year old man. Some 37 year old came on the screen and he was fat and ugly; turns out also too old for Valentina who I’d aim at 60. She turned away in disgust and begin rant about the lack of buckwheat in England. I agreed. I also have no idea what buckwheat is but she has quite a few packets of it. And apparently so will I come breakfast time. She still hasnt cleared up mine or Clara’s breakfast stuff from this morning and it’s 21:46 right now. She’s also home all day. I’m not entirely sure what to make of this slobbiness. I guess just roll with it because it’s what I pray for in housemates in Sheffield.

The funky milk

Also I have some weird bites all over my arms and I’m the only one. Think I’ll just roll with it as long as I can, whilst praying for no disease.