The Russian weather has, so far, been extremely changeable. One minute it's absolutely lashing it down, then the next minute, the sun is preoccupied with a battle against the clouds to show us a small taster of what we're, for the large part, missing. It's incredibly annoying, as it makes walking anywhere a hazard, not for how slippery things become, but for the ridiculous conditions of the pavements and roads.
I'll never again complain about the "pot holes" you occasionally encounter in England, by comparison, Russian pot holes make them look like bowling greens. Russian pot holes create swimming pool sized puddles, and they're literally all over the pavements and roads.
Aside from weather related issues, things are continuing to go swimmingly (boom). Still nothing has gone very wrong, as many assumed would happen to me immediately after arriving.
I'll gloss over Tuesday and Wednesday, as they were another pair of unremarkable days, spent whiling away post-lesson hours in the bar, but today was a very reasonable day.
After getting up at what felt like the crack of dawn, but was really only 8:30, the group trudged towards the university for a tour of the town by our culture teacher, known affectionately by a select few as Mr Sanchez. The tour was interesting enough, but the rain put a dampener (on fire) on things a little as we struggled to contain our excitement looking at a very old tree.
Below: A picture of the town statue of Lenin, chilling with a hat.
For some extremely odd reason known only to some hideously fat, almost certainly cigar-smoking bureaucrat somewhere in Moscow, presumably getting paid millions for making stupid decisions like this, we all had to have another HIV test. Maybe it's in case I happened to catch HIV in the 3 week interim between tests, who knows, but they charged us a cost of around £15, and some blood for the "privilege". As if 15 English students bursting into a Russian sexual health clinic wasn't bad enough, they made us wear bread bags on our feet, and despite the protestations of a few, I'm not overly convinced it's going to catch on.
Having bowed to the demands of the Russians for our blood, and having also taken in some carbohydrates, a walk around the lake was in order. Obviously it was raining, but as everything's become relative, it wasn't too bad. There were a number of interesting things to witness, including a Lada with racing stripes having crashed into a lamppost, several buildings which looked like crack dens, an aggressive looking dog and, later on, a huge looking shopping centre called Tetris.
Below: A picture of said Lada crashed into a lamppost.
I've gone for brevity for a change today, instead of the usual titanic length of post. Hopefully it's still readable, and I'm still not sounding like a pretentious twat, they are my only two aims. Anyway, thank you for reading :D
Спокойной ночи x
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