For the non-Russian speakers among you, the last word of the title is pronounced 'prepodavat', and it means 'to teach', which is how I spent the first hour and a half of Tuesday morning. I can't say that I was especially delighted to be getting up at 7.30 to teach English to a class of unknown Russian students, but despite their English being, in Vera's words "very bad, like your Russian", they were lovely, and really willing to learn. They weren't that impressed with my description of my town though, when I tried to tell them about Reading Fest, they said that "it's not interesting for us, we only like R'n'B". So much for being down with the kids...
I've had quite a few Russian lessons now, and I'm definitely improving, if very gradually... For one thing, Vera only has to repeat herself once to get me to understand her, not seven times!! There are some nightmares though, I came out of a lesson on Monday, which had focused entirely on listening (never my best skill in any language) nearly in tears and convinced that the teacher was out to get me. Actually, she was really lovely, and in our lesson on Thursday went out of her way to help me with listening!! We're getting lots of homework too, if one thing's improving, it's my knowledge of the Cyrillic alphabet from the number of times I've flicked through the dictionary!!
Marianna (one of the Russian lecturers) came to check up on us on Friday, and became possibly the millionth person to be concerned as to how I was getting on with Vera. Apparently she tried to teach one of her previous house-guests to speak better English! Mind you, given my experience earlier this week, I'm not entirely surprised.
"So, if there are four brothers, this one will be elder, yes?"
"Well, probably eldest...."
"Elder!"*scribbles it down*"And this one will be middle?"
"No, if you have four, there isn't really a middle..."
"Middle!"
OK Vera, have it your way, you usually do... Seriously, if they all know that the woman's crazy, why do they let her take students? Tonight, when I got home, Vera wanted to know what I'd told Marianna, and when I said I was happy here she seemed very surprised. Maybe she's never not been complained about before... Still, she's been being really nice to me ever since, so clearly going with the crazy pays off!
We've done a couple more day trips this week, to Peterhof on Wednesday and Pushkin on Saturday (two more Ps, in keeping with the theme). Peterhof was something we really had to do in September, because they'll be switching the fountains off soon, and we definitely didn't want to miss them. The first view of the palace from the hydrofoil dock, with the Grand Cascade and Marine Canal in front of you, is definitely one of the most breathtaking I've seen here (and after two weeks in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, that's saying something!). The palace has over 150 fountains, and 4 cascades, and apart from the Grand Cascade, our favourite had to be a fountain featuring a dog chasing some duck in an endless circle, complete with sound effects and water jets spouting from their mouths! The autumn colour was just coming to the trees (while some remained stubbornly green) and fallen leaves were everywhere. Autumn is short in St. Petersburg, and we're told it will soon be grey and gloomy, so we're enjoying the beauty while it lasts. We took a wander in the park, contemplated paddling in the Baltic (and then decided against it due to mud), and ate pizza in a "preventive" restaurant (quite what how the restaurant should really be described we'll never know). Then (and this is a first!) we managed to catch a bus back to St. Petrsburg with barely a hitch!
After that stroke of good luck, something was bound to go wrong on Saturday, and so it did. We were sat happily in our marshutka (not matrushka as I told Vera and was nearly laughed out of the kitchen - that's a Russian doll, folks!) driving into Pushkin, when we realised that we hadn't the faintest idea where we were meant to be getting off. Ah, there it was, that stop that was now a good kilometre behind us. But no worries, it was a nice day, we'd just get off with this lady. Or not, as the bus was already driving away! By the time we managed to get off the bus, a sign gleefully informed us that we were 2,6 kilometres away from the palaces - and this was definitely a case of 2,6 kilometres plus or minus 66% (apologies non-DUSAGGers for the blatant in-joke!). But, after walking round what felt like (and indeed, probably was) the whole of Pushkin, we arrived at the Catherine Palace, better known as Tsarskoe Selo. As the palace was closed between 2 and 4pm we took the opportunity to briefly collapse, enjoy our packed lunches, and then wander around the lake (nearly tripping over the omnipresent newlyweds - wedding photos are definitely a bigger deal in Russia than in England!). Inside the palace (which is beautiful, blue on the outside and lots and lots of gold on the inside), we were treated to a guided tour entirely in Russian - until Tom found a Spanish tour guide behind us and helpfully offered to translate! My favourite room was the Amber Room, which featured a sign stating that it had been restoring with help from some German fuel company, which did a lot for German-Russian relations. What it failed to mention was that German-Russian relations were in need of some restoration work themselves, after the Nazis ransacked the room and made off with the priceless paintings and amber frames within!! Perhaps the fuel company weren't so selfless after all....
We've seen an awful lot of palaces and parks now, so we're looking for something a bit different for next weekend. Who knows where we'll end up - knowing us, probably not where we intended to go!!
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