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.