Well, I've arrived safely in St. Petersburg now, despite being unsure if I'd get into the country due to the inordinate amount of time Russian passport control spent looking at my passport (I think it has too many interesting stamps!). I was met at the airport by Vera, who seemed very concerned by the fact that I had two large suitcases rather than one small one. I'm living here for nearly four months, give me a break!!
The first evening was not exactly fabulous, I was exhausted and couldn't make sense of most of the fast Russian which Vera insisted on babbling at me. But Sunday was much better, although it started with a lesson on opening the door. There are four different doors and five different locks with four different keys, two of which are identical!! Probability of me getting locked out = high!!
Vera took me around the nearby streets on Sunday and showed me various sights, ranging from the cultural (Dom Knigi and the Church of our Lady of Kazan) to the practical (free toilets in McDonalds) to the bizarre (a cat in a haberdasher's). In the Church of our Lady of Kazan, I saw a Russian Orthodox wedding, where the bride and groom were wearing crowns (which is apparently typical) and the bride was in green (which isn't). But my favourite place was Dom Knigi, the House of Books, it was literally full of books in all sorts of languages, and apparently you can take a book and just sit and read, so I think I'll be spending a lot of time there!! On the way back we stopped in the supermarket so that Vera could buy me cornflakes, she was horrified that I had only eaten bread and jam for breakfast that morning!
Today I went to the university for the first time and got my timetable. I have Wednesdays off and very few morning lectures, but I have a horrible day on Tuesday - 9am start and 5 hours of lectures (pity the poor arts student). After meeting lots and lots of Russian lecturers and being shuttled between many different rooms to sign various documents, Rachel, Tom and I went for some 'English time'. We had блыни (pancakes) in a little cafe that Vera recommended - only 100 roubles (like £2) for that and a pot of tea!! Then Rachel helped Tom and I buy Russian sim cards, I haven't quite worked out how much anything costs but still....
Bit of a disaster this evening, I fell over in the shower and brought the shower curtain down with me!! I was really freaked out, but Vera was really nice, I just have to pay to replace it. And then I helped her uninstall some things from her computer as penance!!
Have my first lessons tomorrow, so we'll see how those go...
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