Я НЕ ГОВОРЮ ПО-РУССКИЙ!

I’m writing this blog on 6^th September, but who knows when it’ll end up online, seeing as I have no internet.  It’s so frustrating- I managed to connect for about 15 minutes yesterday and that was it.  It’s like living in the dark ages blerrgh! Just want a bit of contact with home.

Anyway, I started at the language school yesterday, which was good.  We were given an in depth talk about many aspects of our new lives here, including safety, bus routes, food, entertainment etc.  We might venture to the Russian student club called ‘Joy party’.  We’ve all admitted though, that the prospect of going to the club isn’t what scares us..rather the  journey home.  You basically can’t go anywhere on your own here.  And I don’t want to bump into drunk neighbour guy either.  

So after school, we took the bus into town and explored a lot.  The Volga is beautiful and the churches are SO Russian looking and amazing.  Got lots of good photos :)  We went to a cafe to get a drink, and even 7up is disgusting here.  But the supermarkets are so good.  So many different things, loads of odd flavours of juice and stuff.   When I got home, I was given omelette to eat. Although not omelette as we know it.  This was omelette made from noodles, with milk, sausage and cheese.  Natasha always cooks dinner the night before and then microwaves it the next day.  Things always seem to be luke warm which just makes it harder to tolerate!  To be fair, that omelette wasn’t bad and I did actually eat it...but what followed was nearly enough to make me say hello again to that omelette I had just eaten.  Kate had warned me that her babushka made a dessert with Кефир/Keffeer (fermented milk drink), gelatine and fruit and apparently it wasn’t all that.  Lucky for me, it was babushka recipe trading time and I got the privilege of trying this thing.  It was actually vile.  And I had to watch Natasha devouring it quite happily.  It just tasted like sour banana sloppy yoghurt.

My School

So today I went to school again. Got off to a bad start because I realised how good all the Bristol people are and how awful I am at translations.  They were telling me all about the way they’re taught and compared to Exeter, it’s no wonder I struggle.  But things started to look up when I had my grammar class because I have to say, it was the best grammar class I’ve ever had.  Just so nice to have a complete grammar expert teach you patiently and explain things to you properly.  So I have high hopes for my progress this year!  The teachers are great, but the school itself is unpleasant.  Basically, the YRLC is a small organisation for us foreign students and it takes up just a couple of classrooms of a big school for Russian children.  There’s a primary school, middle school and high school in the same building as us.  A lot of poor children go to this school.  Some of them have two alcoholic parents.  Anna told us that we are welcome to leave any clothes behind at the end of our year for the children.  This is so sad, but what’s good is that us lot are all encouraged to volunteer in teaching the children English.  A massive bonus for me is that the other language taught at the school is German! So I’ll be able to go to the German lessons and help out as well.  The school toilets are terrible.  They are unisex loos and you can see over each cubicle.  There are no toilet seats or toilet paper, none of the doors lock and no water comes out of the taps.  So, all in all, they don’t resemble toilets at all.  The canteen is like something out of ‘Oliver!’.  There are dinner ladies wearing socks and slippers and they serve up food which I, personally, cannot stomach.  Today I tried this bun which looked quite plain and safe.  However I bit into it and it just tasted so horrible, with little bits of cottage cheese in it.

 

The shops here are bizarre.  There are no ‘shop windows’ so you can’t tell at a glance what the shop actually sells.  It’s just really hard to find decent things to buy.  Can’t believe it’s so different from home.  I have spotted only three western shops.  These are Mango, United Colours of Benneton and Mcdonalds.  But we have discovered an amazing place called ‘Travellers Coffee’ which is a cafe that feels a bit starbucksy.  It’s so nice to go in there and switch off from Russian for a couple of hours..we’ve been here less than a week and are already regulars.

Now for the really, really bad news.    As people at home might have heard, a tragedy happened in Yaroslavl.  Yaroslavl had pretty much the best ice hockey team.  We were all going to go and watch a game at some point.  Yesterday, the team’s plane took off to take them to Minsk, Belarus.  The plane struck a tower mast, caught fire and crashed into the Volga river.  Forty three people were killed.  This is absolutely horrendous regardless of where it happened.  But I can’t believe the terrible coincidence that it happened in Yaroslavl just a few days after I arrived here.  Most people at home hadn’t heard of this city before but now, under terrible circumstances, it has been put on the map.  Last night a huge amount of people went to the stadium to lay flowers and light candles.   I’m hoping to go along there tomorrow with some people.

Anyway, my mind has gone blank and I can’t actually think of anything else to say!  Hope everybody is fine at home.  God, I really want some roast potatoes. Just a massive bowl of roast potatoes.