Passageway to...Sheffield (Part 2) + My Russian Birthday

Right, having already recounted the way into England, here comes the (possibly) eagerly awaited second of this blog post.

Having arrived in Sheffield once again, time to reacquaint myself with literally everything which had become a complete impossibility in Russia for the past two months. Sandwiches and bacon being the most obvious things. A couple of awkward linguistic slips of the tongue later, involving addressing people in Russian for a brief period of time, and I was finally reunited with bacon.

The scale of things I just haven't done for the past two months were quickly apparent. I hadn't actually cooked anything for myself in that time, nor had I had anything like a lounge to chill in. Five pound notes suddenly feeling like a novelty. And takeaways, yes, Russia hasn't latched on to this concept yet, let alone Greggs. I obviously won't go into any depth actually describing Britain, as that'd be somewhat pointless, you all know what it's like.

Seeing everyone again was brilliant, I couldn't really have asked for a great deal more to be honest. A good time was had by all. In fact, several good times were had by all. In fact, I'm pretty sure by the end, I'd just got used to being there again.

It was "Dress up" Sunday of course.

Once this time had run, and after witnessing perhaps the most disappointing football match ever witnessed, it was time to make the epic return back to the motherland, this time, via Estonia rather than the disappointing Riga.

When my Dad said to me that he'd take me to the airport, I'm not entirely sure if he realised he'd just signed up to take me to the airport at literally the most inconvenient time of the day, traipsing over the M65 at 3:00am in heavy fog. For that I'm grateful. Anyway, being at Liverpool airport again at such a time was tiring in itself, regardless of the titanic distance I still had to cover.

Wasting time on Liverpool Airport's wi-fi provided an ample way of passing the couple of hours until the flight left. In fact, wi-fi was generally a bit of a godsend all over the place to be honest. And another of Stelios' tin boxes took me to Tallinn this time. Step off the plane, instantly realise how incredibly cold it is in this part of the world...usual drill.

Suddenly, 14 hours to kill in Tallinn, no biggie... Riga had sort of tainted my appetite for the Baltic, so I wasn't really expecting anything particularly impressive this time around. Wrong. Tallinn is absolutely amazing, definitely the most under-appreciated European capital city in my opinion. The old town, which takes up a huge chunk of room in this city, is one of those places you can walk into, and just turn in any direction down its winding, heavily cobbled and narrow streets. Then you work your way gradually uphill towards to various important looking old buildings, wind your way round another few corners and suddenly, the whole of Tallinn beckons before you as you peer over the edge.

This was maybe the best spot.

Whilst 14 hours was a long long time to kill, and, truth be told, was probably too long to be walking round with a ridiculous bag, I definitely want to return to Tallinn sometime to properly do it justice, and to be honest, being in St Petersburg for a whole semester next year, it's more than likely going to be a case of when rather than if.

Another problem soon emerged whilst sat in one of the many bars surrounding the old town, that being that I realised I had absolutely no idea where the bus station was, I'd completely forgotten to actually check. As it turned out, free wi-fi to the rescue once again, and a two mile walk was the net result.

Ready to drop dead into an Estonian bus going in anything like the right direction, I found one. Then quickly became a victim of my own downfall once again as I was turfed out of my own pleasant window seat by some girl who wanted to sit there, requiring me to take the middle back seat. The WORST seat on any bus, so no sleep there, as St Petersburg approached from the other side this time.

8:00am and a pitch black St Petersburg. No idea where to go, so went to Moscovskii train station to book my train home that evening, secretly praying that there were free spaces on the earlier trains going to Murmansk via Petrozavodsk. Not a hope, so ANOTHER 14 hour layoff in St Petersburg, granted, I loved St Petersburg the first time around, but this was a different test, before I even live here.

Somehow, 14 hours were killed, partially finding the British Airways office and changing my flight home date (now the 12th December, if anyone needs to know...), costing significantly more than previously anticipated...

Arriving at the correct train station in St Petersburg an hour and a half early, and about to have my first ever experience of the Platskart class of ticket. For those of you who are unaware of this, essentially, Russian trains have a mysterious third class. First and second class represent more or less their English equivalents, and then they have scum class below these, a barn attached to a normal train if you will, looking like a big climbing frame full of pissed up Russians.

After a surprisingly peaceful nights sleep (probably because I'd been waiting 3 days to actually get any sleep), the train pulled back into PTZ. At 6 in the morning. Finally getting back, and after knocking on the door and waking everyone up because my keys didn't work, time to be brought straight back to Russia with a thud with a bowl of porridge and tea without milk, followed an hour later by going back to school.

After slowly, bit by bit getting less and less tired through the week, and after forgetting this myself numerous times through the week, Friday was time for my birthday, probably the only one I'll see in Russia.

And so starts the second part of my blog. I really wasn't expecting much from my birthday, maybe a few happy birthdays here and there, and the odd Facebook message, but no. My host family went all out for this one, and to be honest it was quite overwhelming. Waking up and walking in to the kitchen to see a huge cake, and numerous banners adorning the room, then the unfortunacy (spell checker is saying that's not a word, but it definitely should be if it isn't) of having my birthday on a weekday. Once this had passed though, back to work, so to speak.

The Russian hospitality I was on about.

It was really nice to know that my birthday actually meant so much to a family I'd only met 2 and a half months previously, but that's what I've learnt Russian hospitality is all about.

Time to go to Neubrandenburg, armed with a table reservation, and an insatiable appetite, which was the start of another huge success, and the large turnout was very much appreciated. After this it was time for FM, although that remains understandably a little hazy.

With such a disregard towards choice of drinks the previous night, Saturday was the biggest waste of time ever. Ever. As much as I tried to persuade myself otherwise, a second consecutive night out was always going to be a ridiculous idea.

I've recently realised that there really isn't very long left on the Petrozavodsk clock, and even though I've been home quite recently (the start of this fairly mammoth blog post), I've still got mixed emotions about the fact that there isn't long left, whilst I do like the place, and it's more than adequate, I wouldn't say I'm not looking forward to being back home again, with all the comfort it brings and everything else. Coupled with the fact that after two years of English university life back home, being here just feels strange, and I find myself unoccupied for huge patches, obviously decreasing motivation all the time. Leaving me in a strange position of actually wanting to do academic things, and even feeling ever so slightly envious of friends back home battling through third year, something I never in a million years thought would happen after last Summers IC marathon. But anyway, for three months back home, I've got a lot of Russian to forget in that time...

After that, I think I've covered everything that I needed to. The temperature has definitely taken a turn for the worse recently, and the days are getting shorter and shorter. I've pencilled in this weekend to buy a hat. Fun times ahead. I'll update as and when news becomes available.

Спокойной ночи :D x

Passageway to...Sheffield (Part 1)

Right, brace yourselves, it's time to do the reading week update. So much has happened in between now and my last update, that I should really split it into three or even four bite sized blog posts. But no, two it shall be, it's a good job I don't have a dissertation next year...

I'm going to largely gloss over what happened between the last post and my journey. Actually. No I'm not. I'll begin with my trip to the Russian hairdressers; this was something I've always known was going to happen, but prolonged and prolonged until I looked completely ridiculous. Armed with a photograph of what I WANTED my new hair to look like, the woman grunted in agreement, and asked me to sit down whilst she attempted to recreate it. As it turned out, my new hair looked nothing of the sort; I'd just been through the Russian Haircut-o-matic 2000 and come out with hilariously short hair. Short hair which suddenly made my ears extremely cold.

Later that day was a great night at Lucy's/Zoya's flat. I'd spent half a week intrigued as to exactly this was going to entail. In the end it was a really really good night. Zoya had laid out a really good spread of proper Russian food and then we spent the rest of the night listening to the accordion player who'd come over for the night. That and a long and heavy karaoke session with Rob's guitar. After we'd done with that, we naturally decided to go to Begemot for to continue the night.

I must admit, recalling everything that's happened so far has been pretty hard, even though it was all on one day. But I'll skip to the good bit.

With as much Russian vodka as Estonian import law would permit (one litre :@), and a fully packed bag, it was time to set off. After a brief visit to the bar to say goodbyes and wish everyone good luck on their respective travels (some very impressive places), I boarded the bus from Petrozavodsk Avtovokzal and departed for St Petersburg. My ambitious plan of purposely getting only 3 hours sleep the night before "to make it easier to sleep on the bus", I can see only in hindsight, was totally and utterly flawed from the outset due to the fact that, as I've learnt, it's impossible to sleep on buses anyway. In short, I'm an idiot.

Arriving in St Petersburg at 6am, and already exhausted was not an ideal start, but I'd arrived into the city I'll be living in from February, might as well see if it's alright.

As it turns out, it's more than alright, it's brilliant. It has everything you could possibly need (including thousands of Subways). Sometimes this can be an issue though, as when the Russians sense that you are English, they seem to forget all of their Russian, refusing to speak to you in any language other than impossible to understand properly English. It's literally like talking to someone from Leeds.

The centre of St Petersburg was absolutely brilliant. I was finding it hard to keep myself and my heavy bag occupied for long enough though. Then I remembered that the Hermitage was free with a student card, kind of like a significantly more impressive IC. It was possibly the single most impressive building I've ever seen from the inside. Chandeliers and golden ornaments all over the place. A pretty good way of spending a few hours.

Journey to the centre of the Earth...on an escalator

After part one of St Petersburg came to a close, and once I'd navigated the St Petersburg metro system to Baltijski station, where my bus left to go to Latvia, I still had a bit of a wait left. The St Petersburg metro is absolutely ridiculous in every way. No underground system in the world has to be that deep, it takes literally five minutes to get from the top of an escalator to the bottom, that's just a waste of time, and by which point, the earth's core is presumably about to melt you, so trains arrive almost every thirty seconds. They're also the most ridiculously decorated metro stations I've ever seen. How about keeping your underground stations as shitholes and making Petrozavodsk mint? One thing I'm adamant about from my time so far in Russia, is that I think Russian and Economics is perhaps the exact degree Russia needs as a country.

The absolutely stunning Church of our Saviour on Spilled Blood in St Petersburg...at a stupid time in the morning...

Once on the bus, facing the prospect of my 14 hour journey to Riga, it set off, and I thought "Great, two seats to myself, ample sleeping opportunity". Absolutely not. 5 minutes down the road some hideously fat man took his seat (and most of mine), and all hope was lost.

The most interesting bit of my trip so far happened at the land border with Estonia at Ivangorod-Narva. At the Russian end everyone got off, took their baggage and got it x-ray scanned, all in the presence of numerous guards in winter camo gear and fucking stupid hats. Then when going through passport control, something strange happened.

The mardy woman at the counter took a few looks at my passport picture, me, and my visa picture. Granted, they're all different, but that shouldn't have required a lengthy interview, entirely in Russian for me to somehow try and persuade them that I am all those people on all those pictures. I knew a Russian haircut was a stupid idea, but I didn't think it would have THIS many knock on effects. Slightly terrified, very tired, and wanting to get back onto the bus, I did just that. On the other side of the border in Narva, the Estonian border guards were comparatively very nice. Just one man came round and collected all of our passports, not needing us to even move. Then we were back on our way again.

Arriving in Riga at a ridiculous hour in the morning was probably part of the reason why it was so shit. I was expecting good things from Riga, having heard quite a lot, but I was left thoroughly underwhelmed. Granted, I in the centre of the town for very long, about 3 or 4 hours, but it was probably enough. The English have well and truly taken hold here, for the worse. I can see how it probably WAS a very nice place, but when literally everything is either an Irish bar or a strip club, it's always going to lose a lot of its character.

Feeling very very tired by this point, I arrived at the airport, ready to be shipped into Liverpool on one of Stelios' orangey chariots. The flight felt like it passed in about 5 minutes. The safety announcements were sacked off at about the bit where they said "Even if you've heard this before".

I'm not going to lie, the Scouse accent was quite a welcoming way of reintroducing me to everything after 2 months of Russian. As was the man in his 30s protesting to the non-plussed bus driver that he was only 15.

After a lengthy, and unwanted run from near the cathedral to Lime Street, made the train with about a minute to spare. Then Sheffield beckoned.

I'll leave that there for now. over 1,200 words is far too long for "half" a blog post. More to come later, and I'm sure you'll be on the edge of your seats until then :D

До новых встреч x