Anyway, after Lyosha drove us to the stop and a speed which probably broke the limit, we managed to catch our bus, and we were on our way! The bus was hilariously slow, and sounded like it had a scooter engine, but it managed to get to us to the next bus stop, where we waited for the marshrutka, (a minibus), which was to take us to the edge of Moscow. When we arrived, we had some food in the amazing Coffee House (where they sell the greatest selection of cheesecakes ever), while Sergei looked to see if there was a bus which could take us to Red Square. He decided however that it would be easier if we got on the metro instead, and we finally arrived in Red Square about 3 hours after we left!
Red Square is a pretty place, full of historical things, such as St Basil’s Cathedral. There is also the centre of the city there, which you can stand on, as well as the grave of the Unknown Soldier, which is always guarded by soldiers as a mark of respect. Red Square was a lot less busy than the first time I visited back in 2007, but still as nice. We actually went inside St Basil’s this time, which was amazing; it’s full of intricate paintings and tiny churches (small rooms), and it’s very easy to get lost in there! It’s a very religious place still, unlike some of the cathedrals and churches that I visited in St Petersburg; there was a service happening while we were there, which was interesting to watch.
St Basil’s
Next, we walked through гум, which is a huge shopping centre, full of designer shops. We popped into one, and tried lots of cheese, which was good since we were pretty hungry by this point…!
We looked at going into the Kremlin, but the prices and queues were ridiculous, and we decided that we just didn’t have the time, since we were only there for the day! We then went to the Arbat, which is a famous street in Moscow, where we had lunch in Teremok. We were planning to find some kind of Italian food, but we were so hungry that Russian pancakes sounded fine! We then had Dunkin’ Donuts, which I’ve never had before since they don’t exist in the UK, so that was pretty awesome. I also bought a bottle of my favourite raspberry flavoured Lipton’s Iced Tea, which is amazing and I don’t understand why they don’t sell it in the UK!
After that we went to a massive market, which is near the hotel I stayed in when I last visited. When I say massive, I mean that I’m glad Sergei was there, otherwise I don’t think we would have found our way out again…! We managed to buy lots of souvenirs, which was good!
After all that we were completely shattered, so after a quick trip to a bakery for some food for the long journey, we got back on the marshrutka, which took us to Voronovo, where Lyosha was waiting with the car (not sure why we skipped the second bus, no one explained this!) and we drove the next hour back home.
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We spent Monday helping the kids make Christmas cards to send to their Godparents (people who sponsor them), which put us in a festive mood! I even made one for my family as well. We had to do some translating for the older girls as well, so that they could write longer letters.
We’ve done a lot of log moving this week, yesterday Yura took us into the forest, but not that far (we could still see the village), to show us the logs we needed to move. He made sure we understood, then left us to it. However, we are not Russian, and do not often walk around in the forest, so after picking up some heavy logs, we tried to make our way back and inevitably got very lost. This was hilarious, and was even more hilarious when Vika found us and couldn’t understand what we were doing…
Today it has snowed, hailed, been sunny, and been windy – wish the weather would make up its mind! However, it’s set to get even colder next week, so maybe the snow will start settling then?
This morning I was told off by Galia in front of everyone, which was embarrassing, especially as I didn’t understand all of what she said, so I couldn’t defend myself! Basically, 2 adults are assigned to do the evening duty every night, which is to clean and mop the floor, and to do the larger pots and pans that need washing. I turned up and did an hour’s washing up, which included the disgusting fish trays which were covered in fish scales (bleeee I really hate fish!!!). After an hour, the guy that was scheduled to work with me hadn’t turned up to clean the floor, so I left, thinking he’d come later, but of course he didn’t turn up at all, so I got the blame! Then he apologised to me, and said it was ‘partly’ his fault. Umm, no, it was completely your fault!! Also, Galia’s door was open today, and what did I see in there? Oh yeah, my missing slippers!! Cheers Galia! We were hoping that she might get sacked today, since last night there was drama in the village; Dimitri Morozov, the creator of the village, yelled at her (banging his fists against the table and everything) in front of everyone – we couldn’t understand exactly what she’d done wrong, but it must have been bad to annoy him, he’s normally so mellow! Also, today we were cleaning the tables and having a laugh, and she told us to shut up because she couldn’t hear herself think. This job takes a few minutes, she couldn’t handle us talking for just that long?!
There’s this guy Han, who’s helping to teach maths and physics, who we think is from Vietnam, who is literally the complete opposite of Galia. The other day, he did the washing up for us, and he offered to do it today as well, only Galia stopped him (cheers again Galia – I don’t think she realises how much work we do……). Today we cleaned Sergei’s house, where Han is also staying, and he made us some really nice coffee, and refused to let us clean his room too, saying he could do it himself. But we did it anyway, to return the washing up favour!
We had to give the 6th form a test today, just to check what they had learnt, but it felt mean and really weird! But they need it, since they haven’t been taught how to conjugate the verb ‘to be’. Also, I have seen many many variations of ‘one’ from the fifth form, but none of them were right, which is worrying! We taught them 10, 20, 30 etc, but we didn’t know they didn’t know how to write numbers 1-20. My star pupil Vanya actually stayed behind at the end to ask me how to write these, and today he made me give him extra work! So cute.
After lunch we were set a mountain of potatoes to peel, which was a bit more fun today since instead of the lovely Radio Dacha, which only plays incredibly dull Russian music, we listened to probably the equivalent of Radio One or something, anyway there was English music, as well as Russian club music, which was pretty funny.
On Wednesday, the craft people who we made the tote bags with came again! This time we made soap. We made friendship soap first, only me and Lois misunderstood, and put scent in, which we weren’t supposed to do, as if everyone did that, it would’ve been a disgusting mixture! But now it just smells like peach and biscuits, which luckily go together relatively okay….! (oops..) I then made a watermelon smelling soap, which has a bright red and bright green layer, and a mandarin and vanilla soap, which is gold and blue. It was good fun, but made an absolute mess (there was glitter everywhere, even in my hair – thanks Lois haha!!).
Our soap
That evening we had another ‘party’ for being here for 2 months! This meant more beer. We also had beer in order to be able to face the cat poo on the carpet like men. (It was still gross). We played the Fifty Shades drinking game, which was funny, and even funnier once the Ana and Christian had chavvy accents…
And yesterday, we had pizza for dinner, which was awesome.
We were going to celebrate a month til we come home today (being the 26th), but since tomorrow is a work day, we decided to put it off til tomorrow evening, when we won’t have classes the next day! This means more weird Russian beer and zephyr (the actual name for the squishy marshmallowy goodness), and Chocopie!
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