Respected readers!
Many a good news are to be shared now!
We have moved out!
Into residence!
Close to downtown!
Life is better!
When things started moving, they moved very fast. We finally got the phone number of the contact person at MGLU (linguistics university), two days later we met with her, two days after that our Russian got half-assed assessed, two days later we moved into rez and started our classes.
We are taking only 4 hours of classes a week, since we are working full time at the center. And since there always needs to be one of us at the center, scheduling is one big big puzzle. What makes this even more complicated is that no one at the university seems to know which group we should be in, since no one knows what the level of the different groups are. So we go to one class, figure out if it’s right or not, if it’s not, we randomly try another one. Fun fun fun. I’ve only been to one class so far, mostly made up of Germans who speak almost without accent and really really well at that. They know very long words. I don’t know any very long words.
The German girls invited us to a little party in their room yesterday, and we got to know everyone. Everyone happens to be a girl and a nice one at that. We are liking life in rez. Especially since everyone actually speaks Russian with one another! Not English! Or German! But Russian! Which is just fantastic. We are sharing a room, and we share our bathroom and fridge with a girl from Finland who’s very nice and quiet.
After weeks of having no other entertainment than taking the metro, we are finally very busy. Tonight, our friend Sasha (the good Sasha) is playing with his band. Friday night, we have been invited to a party at the British Embassy.
We’ll be travelling soon with the center to other Russian cities. As they don’t have enough money to bring both D and me every time, we’ll have to take turns. D is going to Kursk (on the border with Ukraine) next week for a interethnic training seminar for the police. Then in April, we’ll both be going to Petrozavodsk (capital of Karelia, close to Finland), and we hope to be able to meet up with Sasha (our friend from Kostamuksha). That will also be for a training session with the police. I’m really excited, I can’t wait to see what the training seminars are like!
Otherwise, life is good, it’s +12 degrees here, the sun is shining and Moscow is starting to be much more pleasant.
Now, I shall shut up and show you the few pictures I’ve taken so far. Worry you not, I shall be taking more and posting them more often, since I am the proud owner of a brand spanking new USB cable.
Our Old Life (ie. apartment in Lyublino)
When we arrived here, we lived in the apartment of our coworker’s son, whom we still have yet to meet. We shared one bedroom and had a cozy little kitchen.
We also had a strange washing machine, which destroyed any item of clothing with much gusto, from underwear to jeans.
Here is how the machine works (well, that’s what I understood from the instructions manual) :
Put the machine on top of the little wooden plank on top of the bathtub and break your back in the process.
Plug in the machine (make sure you’re not stepping into a puddle of water, as sparks do fly from electrical plugs in our apartment!! I know it from experience)
Somehow try to get water from the tap into the machine’s tube.
Add clothing and soap.
Put timer on machine for 4 minutes.
Empty water, fill again. Repeat process, but for 8 minutes. Since the machine’s timer only goes to 6 minutes, wait for 6 minutes, and then add two minutes to the timer.
Empty water, fill again. Repeat process for 2 minutes.
Empty water, fill again. Repeat process for 1.5 minutes.
Empty water, fill again. Repeat process for 1.5 minutes.
We quickly determined that it was easier and safer to just wash our clothing by hand. Since it is a long and tedious process, we basically wear dirty clothes and hope it doesn’t smell too bad.
Our apartment was located in a very nice neighbourhood with lots of families, young children and little in the way of alcoholics, crackheads or seedy-looking men. The only bad thing in it was the most miserable stray dog I have ever seen in my life, a mother with dangling tits and no more hair on her body, but she still managed to seem happy begging for food for her little puppies. Also, at the market close-by, they sell meat out of the trunks of cars. We didn’t try.
This is the view we had from our corridor :
The snow has since melted, and the snow field you see on the bottom right is now a disgusting muddy open field junkyard.
This is another view from the corridor :
« Mym, I never thought I’d tell you that, but in the hallway, next to the garbage chute, there’s a naked headless robot baby holding a vodka bottle.
Our friend Roma braved the weirdness of our apartment bloc and visited us.
But the apartment was most definitely too far from the center, so we moved.
Views from the city
I haven’t taken many pictures from the city yet. Here is the obligatory red square shot.
These shots are from an afternoon walk around Kitai Gorod. The juxtaposition of nicely restored builings and other run-down buildings and streets is pretty striking.
In other news, I’m sad I didn’t take one of my film cameras with me, as point and shoot pictures aren’t quite my thing. *tear*
More pictures can be seen by clicking on the « impressions » tab.
And below is a video showing the view we had from our kitchen. I don’t know if it works, as my computer is pretty uncooperative.
Many a good news are to be shared now!
We have moved out!
Into residence!
Close to downtown!
Life is better!
When things started moving, they moved very fast. We finally got the phone number of the contact person at MGLU (linguistics university), two days later we met with her, two days after that our Russian got half-assed assessed, two days later we moved into rez and started our classes.
We are taking only 4 hours of classes a week, since we are working full time at the center. And since there always needs to be one of us at the center, scheduling is one big big puzzle. What makes this even more complicated is that no one at the university seems to know which group we should be in, since no one knows what the level of the different groups are. So we go to one class, figure out if it’s right or not, if it’s not, we randomly try another one. Fun fun fun. I’ve only been to one class so far, mostly made up of Germans who speak almost without accent and really really well at that. They know very long words. I don’t know any very long words.
The German girls invited us to a little party in their room yesterday, and we got to know everyone. Everyone happens to be a girl and a nice one at that. We are liking life in rez. Especially since everyone actually speaks Russian with one another! Not English! Or German! But Russian! Which is just fantastic. We are sharing a room, and we share our bathroom and fridge with a girl from Finland who’s very nice and quiet.
After weeks of having no other entertainment than taking the metro, we are finally very busy. Tonight, our friend Sasha (the good Sasha) is playing with his band. Friday night, we have been invited to a party at the British Embassy.
We’ll be travelling soon with the center to other Russian cities. As they don’t have enough money to bring both D and me every time, we’ll have to take turns. D is going to Kursk (on the border with Ukraine) next week for a interethnic training seminar for the police. Then in April, we’ll both be going to Petrozavodsk (capital of Karelia, close to Finland), and we hope to be able to meet up with Sasha (our friend from Kostamuksha). That will also be for a training session with the police. I’m really excited, I can’t wait to see what the training seminars are like!
Otherwise, life is good, it’s +12 degrees here, the sun is shining and Moscow is starting to be much more pleasant.
Now, I shall shut up and show you the few pictures I’ve taken so far. Worry you not, I shall be taking more and posting them more often, since I am the proud owner of a brand spanking new USB cable.
Our Old Life (ie. apartment in Lyublino)
When we arrived here, we lived in the apartment of our coworker’s son, whom we still have yet to meet. We shared one bedroom and had a cozy little kitchen.
We also had a strange washing machine, which destroyed any item of clothing with much gusto, from underwear to jeans.
Here is how the machine works (well, that’s what I understood from the instructions manual) :
Put the machine on top of the little wooden plank on top of the bathtub and break your back in the process.
Plug in the machine (make sure you’re not stepping into a puddle of water, as sparks do fly from electrical plugs in our apartment!! I know it from experience)
Somehow try to get water from the tap into the machine’s tube.
Add clothing and soap.
Put timer on machine for 4 minutes.
Empty water, fill again. Repeat process, but for 8 minutes. Since the machine’s timer only goes to 6 minutes, wait for 6 minutes, and then add two minutes to the timer.
Empty water, fill again. Repeat process for 2 minutes.
Empty water, fill again. Repeat process for 1.5 minutes.
Empty water, fill again. Repeat process for 1.5 minutes.
We quickly determined that it was easier and safer to just wash our clothing by hand. Since it is a long and tedious process, we basically wear dirty clothes and hope it doesn’t smell too bad.
Our apartment was located in a very nice neighbourhood with lots of families, young children and little in the way of alcoholics, crackheads or seedy-looking men. The only bad thing in it was the most miserable stray dog I have ever seen in my life, a mother with dangling tits and no more hair on her body, but she still managed to seem happy begging for food for her little puppies. Also, at the market close-by, they sell meat out of the trunks of cars. We didn’t try.
This is the view we had from our corridor :
The snow has since melted, and the snow field you see on the bottom right is now a disgusting muddy open field junkyard.
This is another view from the corridor :
« Mym, I never thought I’d tell you that, but in the hallway, next to the garbage chute, there’s a naked headless robot baby holding a vodka bottle.
Our friend Roma braved the weirdness of our apartment bloc and visited us.
But the apartment was most definitely too far from the center, so we moved.
Views from the city
I haven’t taken many pictures from the city yet. Here is the obligatory red square shot.
These shots are from an afternoon walk around Kitai Gorod. The juxtaposition of nicely restored builings and other run-down buildings and streets is pretty striking.
In other news, I’m sad I didn’t take one of my film cameras with me, as point and shoot pictures aren’t quite my thing. *tear*
More pictures can be seen by clicking on the « impressions » tab.
And below is a video showing the view we had from our kitchen. I don’t know if it works, as my computer is pretty uncooperative.
MYMETTE
très très contente que tu as pu démenager, ton ancien appartement était un peu effrayant.
Also what is this talk of a party at the British Embassy? sounds too cool that. hopefully there will be something other than macdo for your gastronomic pleasure (lol, don't worry I don't think that you eat Macdo all the time...). Call me clichéd but I like the Red Square shot. Good luck with that and STAY AWAY from that strangely time consuming washing machine (lol).