let it snow let it snow let it snow!

So it's started snowing more and we hit -4 yesterday although still the snow has not settled properly.  Getting the kids ready to go outside takes a while as they all have to put their little snowsuits and boots on which can drive you a bit insane but they are pretty good at it to be fair.  I do not have a little snowsuit i'm thinking it would not look quite so cute on a fully grown adult!  So I am surviving with primarni leggings and gloves which i think may have to be replaced with something a bit hardier soon like a polar bear!  ( totally joking obviously i have not lost my animal loving ways even in Russia.)  Mind you one of my friends is a governess for a hugely rich family and she says they have a polar bear rug in their full sized bowling alley. Horrid!  I am encouraging her to drop something unfixable on it like marmite ( if  only you could get marmite here that is).

Had a few nights out which seemed to end up in starlite the diner of heavenly burgers. Hence two week starlite ban which incidentally is up on sunday .. phew was having the withdrawal shakes!

Saturday was fun as it was the 50th birthday party of the owner of our school.  So it was held in a huge fancy restaurant and consisted of all the teachers from the schools as well as our bosses doing lots of performances in between lots of eating and drinking.    We had been practising hard at our school with our dance... it was all going well until i remember standing there in front of like 100 people and thinking oh my god what the hell is the next move?  Anyway instead of doing the sensible thing of watching someone else i just freaked out a bit and stood there for what seemed like a very long time.  Anyway i got back into it and thought hmm maybe it was not that bad.  Then i was telling my flatmate Collette about it ( who was also dancing) and she said something along the lines of 'oh god ,i know i saw you Boe and i had to stop myself looking at you in case i messed up too!   Can't wait to see the video!!  It was also fancy dress with the theme 'back to the USSR' and it turns out fancy dress to Russians might mean more 'fancy' then what it means in the UK.  So most people went in 60,70,80's but a kind of glam and dressy.  I decided to go as a Russian rocket complete with Laika the first dog in space made mainly from resources from the classroom.  Our boss told me she loved my costume and then admitted she had absolutely no idea what it was!

We are now gearing up for Christmas which is a much bigger deal than in the UK.  No rummaging around in the school cupboard to see if the camel costumes still have a hump and if baby jesus has grown mould.  No no we have to perform songs, dances as well as a play and it's all filmed and a really big deal. Luckily the dance teachers do the dances and the music teachers do the songs. ( it would be extremely dangerous to leave that in my hands! So the play is just down to us.  The Littlest Christmas Tree it is and it's 3 weeks till d-day.  Oh god!   Still they are all very good at being in the spotlight as they we are constantly being filmed for this or that... i don't think a week goes by when i don't have the camera man stalking me around the classroom.

I felt a bit bad last week when at lunch one of the children ( the one who said i ate all the smetana! how rude!)
called me a 'silly billy' ( a phrase i fear i may have inadvertently taught them!) because i could not speak Russian.  I calmly explained that the reason i don't speak Russian ( aside from the fact it's ridiculously difficult) is that in English school we learnt French and Spanish normally.  This was my way of trying to convince her i was not a 'silly billy'.  Then one of the boys piped up and asked me what the names of all the vegetables were in Spanish.  Now i can order a beer and i can ask the way to the train station but i fear Mr Hunt skipped the vegetable module!  But not wanting to lose face i just made it up.  So now there are 5 russian children who think the spanish for carrot is caroto, cucumber is cucumbero and tomato is tomatoista!!  

Looking forward to coming home for Christmas immensely I cannot wait to see the sea and breathe a bit of fresh air!!

from Russia with snowy love xx

Happy Holidays in Sunless St Petersburg

So its 2.40am on sat night.. body clock out due to getting in at some silly hour yesterday morning after attending an ex-pat charity night linked to a friend's orphanage charity so my old friend insomnia keeps me awake. So thought i would use my time productively  Many mojitos were consumed.. laying off the wodka for a bit and was a fun night ended nicely at 4am with a starlite burger from the 24 hour american diner below my flat.  I have now put a 2 week ban on myself from any more starlite burgers as I appear to be consuming them at an alarming rate.  Might not be you playing santa claus this year Geffie Pa!!  Anyway we shall see if I make it 2 weeks... they put something in them that calls to me!! Ooh i could eat one now!!

Anyway Halloween at school was fun especially the cooked spagetti mixed with  cold porridge and red food dye!!  Then it was a much needed week off for half term.  Luke arrived on Sunday and after introducing him to the starlite burgers we caught the high speed train to St Petersburg the next day.   Lovely lovely hotel and unfortunately  when i booked they only had the deluxe doubles available instead of the regular so what can you do!  Breakfast in bed and double sinks ooh er fancy stuff!

St Petersburg is very different to Moscow as it is on a kind of grid system a bit like New York i think so just long long roads so very easy to navigate.  It had some very beautiful buildings compared to the more grey concrete boxes in Moscow although for some reason I like Moscow better I think because it's more like London and has lots of different kinds of areas and you can get a bit more lost in it.  St Petersburg def had more of a European feel though. So we spent two days doing the old cultury thing interspersed with eating lots of lovely food at some wonderful restaurants especially a Ukranian one with amazing borsch which had some very cool chappie on his casio keyboard banging out classic cheesy 80s rock songs!

The Hermitage was enormous and beautiful so could only saw a few bits and pieces of our choice and quite frankly my ability to walk long distances appears to be diminishing rapidly since i hit 30 .. give me a nice old coffee shop or bar any day!  Got ripped off by a cab driver whose meter read £20 after about 2 minutes literally in the car. Got out tutting and giving evil looks then read in the guide book to never get a taxi if you have not agreed a price before hand.  He saw us coming!

Weather was a bit iffy i don't think Luke saw the sun once in his 5 days which was a shame because Moscow in the sun I love love but without it its a bit dreary and grey.  It came out the day after he left though!

We had to go first class on the way back though on the train as no normal tickets left.  It did cost 3 times the price but was worth it was like being on a plane. Free drinks and they brought you a yummy dinner. Just before we boarded the train that evening we had tried to go for a massage that was advertised at the hotel.  However when we got there they only had room for a facial so while i went and had that Luke said he would go for a wander and be back in half an hour.  Half and hour later and he was not back and i had a text saying he had wandered into the jagermeister bar across the road and had accidentally ordered a liter of beer and would be there asap. So it turns out he did accidentally order it due to his total lack of russian but felt the need to drink the entire thing in half an hour just to save face!  Men are weird!
So he is obviously a bit merry as we board first class.  Then  this woman sitting on the other side of the aisle from us decides she is not happy about something and starts apparently having ago at the really nice stewardess who just stands there politely taking her torrent of abuse. No idea what her problem was think her bottled water might have been the wrong temperature!  So then Luke in his cheery state decides to give her the thumbs up!! This is when my eye defenders were put into use!

Last night in Moscow and we went to a club which was packed.  On returning from the toilet i found Luke sitting in our booth with two men.  He politely introduced me to Sergey and er forgot his name so lets say Vladimir.  Turns out Sergey may not have had all his faculties about him that night  for whatever reason and apparently took a shine to Luke and kept trying to stroke his leg interspersed with picking up our drinks and drinking them!    Sergey rapidly became very unpopular and we left him in his happy world soon after!
 Anyway so it was a fun week which went way too fast and i a have now been back at school a week.
We are on the countdown to the christmas concert which is a BIG deal at our school.  Obviously with my singing and dancing skills we have nothing to fear. chuckle chuckle! Hoping my more musically talented TA's will save me!  

I went to the cinema today for the first time after Hannah checked the film was in english.  Except when we got there it was not.  So i watched Straw dogs entirely in Russian with Hannah translating the main jist of the story  every now and then and actually it was pretty easy to understand due to it being a very visual ( and crap ) film! I have nearly learnt the russian alphabet and it had made a lot of difference in getting around.  Feel confident on metro now which when i arrived was a terrifying maze of weird words!

The first snow has fallen although not really settled yet and last week we got to -2.. but still wearing my heels and above the knee dresses!! Not sure that will last much longer!
Its funny the parents at my school don't like windows open in the classroom due to drafts but happy for children to go out in freezing temperatures!

from Russia with Love xx