I realise that I've not exactly kept this blog as well updated as I would have liked, but the fact of the matter is, that up until a few days ago, there was very little to speak of that anyone would have found remotely interesting. Unless you just really are that interested in my HIV test induced trips to Huddersfield, or the numerous bus journeys I've had to take, I'll skip those bits.
It took a fair while for what I'm actually doing to really sink in. I think it was only really last Monday that the magnitude of what I was doing really hit me, and even then, it was only because I had nothing else to occupy my mind with, and didn't want to start packing quite just yet. In any case, my visa arrived on the Wednesday, and seeing the words "Джош Рук" written on one of the pages sort of confirmed my suspicions...
After taking the plane down from Manchester (bourgeois), and staying in a hotel near Heathrow somewhere (bourgoiser), I arrived at Heathrow Terminal 5 at about 7:00am to say the least fairly confused and groggy, but after working out where to put various bags (only using 13.5kg of the 22kg allowance...) it was through to the checked in bit, and straight to the bar. The flight itself was nondescript, I'm sure you all know what a flight is like. After getting out of the airport and meeting with all the people we were supposed to meet with, we encountered two buses, a nice clean luxurious coach, and a grotty, horrible soviet tin box with about 9 wheels. Obviously sod's law came into contention, and we got the shit bus.
The bus journey to Petrozavodsk was a strange one. For starters, the driver insisted on using the hard shoulder in order to allow cars to overtake in the other lane, putting the numerous wicker basket and fruit selling babushkas at perilous levels of risk, secondly, every time I looked out of the window, it was pretty much the same, trees, trees and trees everywhere, for 400km, there was nothing else to see outside the window other than the odd babushka selling things in the middle of nowhere, or a petrol station. Possibly the highlight of the journey was stopping for someone to go for a piss in the middle of nowhere, allowing some strange man who was stuck overnight in the forest 50km away from his destination to get on the bus for a free ride after shouting at the driver for a bit. I think this was just after the bus started swerving all over the road because the driver pretty much lost control of the thing.
Eventually (an eternity later...), we arrived in Petrozavodsk and separated off into our various new Russian keepers. Thankfully, I've been landed with an extremely nice family. Tatiana is the head of the family, and speaks remarkably good English, which at times can be a godsend, and at times...no it's definitely a godsend; her husband, Sasha; and daughter Liya. I've been given excellent treatment, and made to feel very 'at home' with them. Thankfully, Lucy is living in the flat literally next door to mine, it's definitely helped having someone else to get used to the vicinity with, but neither of us really understood what was happening at that time of night when we were both stuck into the back of a car and driven away somewhere. Getting to the university is something I think I've just about come to terms with, it's 12 roubles for a single ticket (24p), so transport is cheap (as are a lot of things in this country come to think of it). Below is a picture of the street I live on, very soviet I'm sure you all agree, but inside the flats it's much much different.
The weather so far has been absolutely glorious, sunshine all day long, don't really know what people are on about when they say that Russia has cold Winters, take it from someone who's been, they just don't know what they're talking about.
University started yesterday, which was an interesting new experience, all the teachers are incredibly nice so far (whether this will extend to them coping with my lack of Russian, only time will tell). Lessons from people who don't actually speak English is a good idea in that it makes you just get on and try and listen to them, but it does have its drawbacks with absolutely no fail safe if you just don't have a clue.
The town itself is quite a nice one. Parts of it are a bit run down, but that's what you sign up for when you go to Russia. Apart from that, it's got quite pretty surroundings, and the lakeside area is one of those places you can just lose hours and hours without actually doing anything, the picture below is one where I worked out how to use the panoramic mode on my phone camera, but it doesn't give you anything like the sheer scale of the lake we're talking about (2nd biggest one in Europe).
The Russian people are actually nothing like the preconceived notion I had whatsoever, all of the ones I've met so far seem to be extremely pleasant and welcoming. The ones I haven't met, but have seen in some way do seem to be a little mental though, take this one for example pictured below, who instead of sitting behind a car which had been severely cut up by a truck, insisted on taking the shortcut...not something you would tend to see in England.
http://i54.tinypic.com/fly2x3.jpg (HUGE, so had to just link it)
Anyway, we decided to go out on our second night, sort of to see what the town had to offer, sort of to just catch up with ourselves again after that ridiculous journey, and an exhausting and bewildering change of scenery from England. We first went to the student bar, "Kivach", after realising that we couldn't find anywhere which wasn't full, which is a nice enough bar, sort of reminiscent of a Russian version of Interval. Then we moved across to Neubrandenburg, a German themed bar, which was slightly better I think.
I'm currently sat here watching England narrowly edge past Wales in yet another disappointing game of football, some things don't change then, but on the plus side, I have worked out how to use iplayer from here, which as any student knows, is a huge bonus.
Anyway, I think I've used up enough of your valued time, and I'll leave it there for now. I can't think of any hideous detail I've omitted anywhere, but if there is one, then I'll probs just try and include it somewhere later. Word on the street is that we're going to Kizhi this weekend, google it, it looks fantastic, in fact, I'll do it for you http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kizhi, so I'll update at the very latest hopefully after that. I hope I haven't sounded like a pretentious twat whilst updating you, but if I have, I do apologise a little bit. And with that, thank you for reading if you did, appreciated.
Cпокойной ночи :D x
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