It was a bit of a tearful goodbye to my family – especially as they put so much effort into me having a nice last day yesterday (I even got a cream soda). But it’s not as bad as it was last time I left them – this time my uncle is flying out on an exchange trip with his school for ten days in early July, and my parents and sister are going on a cruise which stops in SP for 2 days in August. Also, this time I have brought my laptop, I’ve managed to get on the internet straight away, and I’ve brought a lot of DVDs. (This is me talking myself into this!!)
I arrived at Pulkova airport to find someone from Liden & Denz (the company I’ve booked with), and she told me we were waiting for another person as well. When she arrived, she was very smiley and put me at ease… that is, until she started talking to me in German! I was very confused, until I realised she must have seen Düsseldorf on my luggage label… had to awkwardly explain that I was English.
A different woman, and a man, drove us from the airport, dropping me off first. They were quite chatty, but it all got a bit scary when he decided to reverse really quickly down the road (because it was one way) when we were looking for my apartment. I’d looked up my apartment on google street view before I left for Russia, so it was odd seeing it in the flesh! Although the nice green area on the opposite side of the road is not actually green at all in real life…
As I have witnessed before in St Petersburg, the outside of a building has no relevance really to how the apartments look inside. When we were let into the building, I’m not going to lie, it smelt like wee, and it was very dark and dingy. Plus the apartment is on the 8th floor, and there is no lift. However, the apartment itself is quite nice – they have quite a big kitchen/diner, separate toilet and bathroom, and three bedrooms. My room is much better than I expected it to be – I have a double bed and a desk, plus lots of side lights and a big window. They’d even put a little pen pot on the desk for me.
The daughter, Polina, cooked my dinner, which was nice, especially as she was understanding of my vegetarianism! There’s a guy here who I think is her partner, who helped my bring my bags in, and I have just met Galina, who seems a whole lot nicer so far than the previous Galina from Orion! They also have 2 cats, so it’s a little bit like a home from home…
I have unpacked everything, and am ready to face the first day of classes tomorrow – even if I have been a bit tearful and feeling a bit homesick since I arrived (I’m putting it down to lack of sleep…) Basically I don’t want to let the homesick get as bad as it was during my first week at uni!
And that’s all for now… I’ll keep you posted – and thanks for reading!
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