It's been over a month since I last posted anything, and despite the promises of regular updates, something's obviously misfiring somewhere. Anyway, since that point, I've been doing quite a lot, in fact, up until about a week ago, I hadn't really stopped.
Firstly, finally went and had my third HIV test, made possible by a woman who seemed incredibly pissed off at how I was merely wasting valuable NHS time and needles on providing meaningless proof of my lack of HIV status. Even after explaining numerous times of the actual predicament, I think she just ended up not caring and proceeded to take some of my blood whilst grunting inaudibly. More on the HIV test saga later...
Next stop France to see John, which involved flying into Limoges Airport, also known as a shoebox somewhere in the middle of France which planes like to fly near. Limoges seemed a really nice, quintessentially French town, with weird trees everywhere. I'd suspect it'll get hotter eventually, but to leave to snowfall was a little bit surprising to say the least.
Limoges n' 'ting
Back to the UK and a painfully slow wait for my HIV test certificate, initially they seemed taken aback that I'd actually need my results printed on paper at all, but after explaining that the Russian embassy are unlikely at best to be able to accept my HIV test results by text message, they fortunately agreed. I still left without that certificate though, because "the woman who gives out HIV test certificates was on 'oliday 'til Tuesday".
The Guildford leg of Eurotour
Anyway, eventually, everything had worked out fine, and the all clear to travel to Russia was obtained, the immensely expensive 'urgent' visa application being the final hurdle.
Next stage was flying away from Liverpool for the twenty six millionth time this year towards Estonia, heavy bags in tow, at daft o' clock in the morning. Greeting me was the wall of cold I'd totally forgotten about, and about 2 foot of snow, the other thing I'd forgotten about. Following this was that terrible bus journey from Tallinn to St Petersburg via the fairly insalubrious Tallinn bus station.
Being dropped off in St Petersburg in the dark at 8:00am wasn't particularly ideal in the first place, especially considering that I had heavy bags, no idea really where I was headed, hadn't slept on the bus, and oh yes, classes began in two hours. Time for a whistle stop tour of the vicinity I was living in; except I was tired and consequently once again quite pissed off with everything about Russia already.
I wasn't expecting anything of the hotel I was living in really, some of the things I'd heard about it from the previous inhabitants didn't exactly sell it well. From my experience thus far though, I couldn't really be happier with it, it seems to fulfil every purpose I'd expect of it, and I can also rock out of bed 20 minutes before class, it's just like last year in Broomhall all over again.
Anyway, turning up to school on the first day was always going to be a daunting task given how knackering everything had already been, and a test to put us in sets was not the most ideal of scenarios.
I've no complaints about the school either really, minor gripes like having two half hour breaks a day being neither long enough to do anything significant, nor short enough to just be a quick snack break, but lessons are really good, and in a group of 8, it's much easier to actually engage (read: much more difficult to just switch off).
It's at this point I'm going to have to admit that this post has technically taken me a month to write fully, therefore it's difficult to recall small details properly, and therefore the introduction to this post is chronologically inaccurate. But nevertheless, from here I'll attempt to describe how things have gone so far during my stay. Unfortunately, this probably means this post is going to be quite long again, or you may view that as value for money, who knows.
At first, everyone was tentatively getting to know each other, as it usually goes when starting any course, but obviously a couple of nights out tend to add a reasonable amount of 'social WD40' to these kinds of situations, here being no different. Nightlife in St Petersburg is quite clearly, always going to be vastly different to in Petrozavodsk, with markedly more choice. Being in a hotel, rather than a homestay, also helps to make things better, not having to feel enormously guilty turning up at what was essentially someone else's house at a strange hour of the morning.
The next interesting thing I can remember doing is going to the Gulf of Finland, on the edges of the city, and literally walking about a mile or two on the frozen sea. I can't really explain why I found this such an enormous novelty, and this is perhaps an indictment on how childish I am, but I found this hugely exciting.
Walking on the sea, just like Jesus did that time
We've also had an excursion to 'Kunstkamera', officially the oldest museum in St Petersburg, which was initially quite a dull affair, with the standard models of how Chinese people lived in stick huts, until you hit one room, a quite incredible room. Filled almost entirely with dead babies with hideous deformities which have been pickled in jars for the Russian's amusement. Then returned to exhibitions of really old tables. Definitely the strangest museum I have ever seen, and probably will ever see (that is, if I ever summon the energy to visit the, what sounds frankly enthralling, museum of bread down the road).
There seems to be literally something to do all the time here, it's difficult to be bored at all for more than a matter of a few minutes. This probably goes some way to explain why I haven't bothered updating this for so long, thinking about it. It shouldn't go entirely unexpected in a city the scale of St Petersburg, but it's definitely welcome.
On the bridge over the Neva towards Vasilievski Island
The only thing which is quite hard here, is that everything is more expensive here, it's not as if it's totally wallet busting, but obviously here I'm having to pay for all my own food, which sounds like it shouldn't be too difficult, but when there's a pizza restaurant almost built into the ground floor of your hotel, and a Subway just around the corner, it's a temptation too far most nights.
Mercifully, it appears that the weather is finally, extremely slowly, turning itself around. Gone are the days when it would be suicide to go outdoors without a hat and gloves, it's April now, and you don't even have to wear a jumper under your warm coat anymore if you don't feel like it. Having said that, it did actually snow earlier this evening, snow in April shouldn't be on anyone's agenda. Considering I haven't witnessed anything you could even remotely describe as even mild since last September, this Summer is going to be absolutely incredible.
As it turns out, I think I'm going to be leaving Russia for a week or so next week to briefly return home for Sam's birthday + my Dad's birthday + Gregg's cravings, hopefully it's going to be as warm as everyone's been banging on about constantly since I arrived here, but Sod's Law means that the exact opposite is definitely going to be the case.
That'll do for now, and as I say every time, I'll try not to be so rubbish at updating this, it should be an eventful few weeks anyway with John coming over to complete the year abroad experience exchange...thing.
Пока x
