Apparently I should stop taking quite so many photos out of my window. I haven't taken my camera out of the flat this week, though, so it's all I can offer.
As an update on my previous post, I did go to the comic exhibition. It was good, and free, and featured lots of artists from Scandinavian/European countries, which was interesting. It was actually in the museum of Anna Akhmatova, a famous female Soviet poet. The museum also contained the actual apartment she lived in, which we also visited. I liked how they'd set up the museum, it was a bit more contemporary than the Hermitage, and it was interesting to see an (somewhat) untouched Soviet apartment. We followed up our museum visit with a quick trip to Testo Mesto, an awesome chain of pie shops in St Petersburg. They sell lots of different sweet & savoury pies and you get unlimited juice, and it's rather cheap. I've been there three times already, as their pies are delicious :D
Friday saw the first snow of Winter in Petersburg! It was quite exciting at first because I hardly ever get to see snow in England. It got a little annoying after a while, though, when it's blowing horizontally at your face... And it didn't settle at all. We had a little more snow on Saturday morning, but since then it hasn't snowed until today (Friday). The snow today was heavier and the ground was a lot drier, but it only seems to have settled on the buildings and cars. Guess I'll still have to wait for the blanket of snow I envisaged Petersburg being covered with...
On Saturday my friends George and Seb had a flat party. It wasn't too crazy or anything, but it was nice and fun and their neighbours didn't seem to mind, which is always good. It was a pleasant evening, and I didn't drink too much like I did at the other party I went to before... On Sunday I went to the gig I mentioned in my last post, to see This Will Destroy You. The club the gig was in was really cool, my kind of place in terms of decor and clientele. The support band were Russian, and they were really cool. The main band who I've wanted to see for ages lived up to expectations, and I really enjoyed myself. It was quite hard to see the band, though, as the stage was very small! Next time I'll have to get there earlier to stand nearer the front. Something that was also cool was that the band hung around after the gig. I know they aren't really that famous, but it was really nice to have a little chat with them (I was too nervous to say any more) and to get my gig ticket signed. They're coming back to St Petersburg in the Spring, so I'll probably go and see them again then :)
This Will Destroy You. Not my picture, but I thought I'd break up the waffle with it :P
Monday saw yet another visit to Mega, the huge out-of-town shopping mall, for me and Pippa. I managed to get some amazing bargains in the sales and in Ашан (Auchan - supermarket mentioned in previous post)... I got a nice coat I'd actually tried on and was tempted to buy in England for half the price here at a reasonable £14 in New Look... I also got a pair of lovely brown brogue-style shoes there for a tenner. In Ашан (Auchan) I managed to find a lovely pink flowery pair of wellies for a mere £5! Great for the wet/snowy Winter ahead!
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were good in terms of school... Some schoolkids have come over from England to study Russian at the other Benedict School location, so some of our lecturers had to adjust their timetables with us. This meant I started at 12pm three days in a row! Three lie-ins! Ace.
As for Thursday, well I left the flat at 11am and didn't return home until 6pm on Friday (today)... We (me, Pippa and George) decided to go for a drink in Дача (Datcha), our favourite watering hole, after school. After 'a drink' turned into 'a few', we decided to leave to find our friend Seb, who was in another bar. As we were getting up to leave, three Russian guys who had been sitting next to us for a while stopped us and started speaking to us in English. They seemed pretty cool so we decided to stay and chat with them for a bit. They were getting increasingly drunk and exponentially funnier, so when we left to meet Seb for the second time, we took them with us. We spent a long time trying to find the bar Seb was in, and eventually gave up. One of the Russian guys kept going on about doing his washing, and we were really confused and just assumed he was drunk and crazy, but it turned out he was taking us to a bar which is also a laundrette. It was super cool, really nice decor and you could do your washing whilst you have a drink! I intend to go back some other time... We stayed for a while and chatted to a large group of Finnish students here on holiday, before leaving and finding Seb outside. He suggested we go back to Дача/Datcha, so we did. En route, me and Pippa ran into two Russian girls and a guy, who stopped us and started speaking English to us! For some reason all Russian people wanted to be our friends last night... They thought we were cool and asked if we liked vodka, to which we replied "DA!", and they then produced a bottle from a bag. We drank the whole thing with them on the street within a matter of minutes, and went to Дача/Datcha as planned, with our two new groups of Russian friends. The night wound down a bit after that, and we went to George & Seb's flat to sleep (me and Pippa didn't fancy our chances walking home alone so late). This morning we had a very tasty breakfast of crisp sandwiches, accompanied by watching Jeremy Kyle online. All in all a good way to get over the night before! We went to SPB bar after our non-skiving fellow students had finished school, but I didn't drink any alcohol... And so was my 36-ish hour adventure, with a few new Russian friends made :D
Sorry for the length of this post! I promise I'll start updating more regularly, with shorter posts...
Naomi :)
Haha nice adventure there :p Am so jealous of your Russian trip! Loving that country more and more because of your blog ;)
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