Moscow. Round 2.

In 3 days I will be back in Moscow. And... I’M SO EXCITED!!!!

Phew.

Yes I’ve got to the point that everyone said I would get to, even though I protested it would never happen. I miss Moscow.
I miss the metro.
I miss the thrill I get every time I remember that I live in Moscow!
I miss being able to push in front of people in a queue without being shouted at.
I miss the potatoes.
I miss sushi.
I miss walking past Red Square and feeling no excitement as I see it everyday.
I miss wearing so many layers I look like the Michelin man.

Of course I know I’m going to miss my friends in the UK loads, but I really want to make the most of living in Moscow for the next few months. Instead of sitting in my room feeling sorry for myself (which I did way too much last term), I want to explore everything Moscow has to offer. I only have until June left now!

Fortunately I have help in my quest to see everything in Moscow in the form of visitors who will surely want to be tourists. The first of these being my friend Simon, who I’m going travelling with for the first two weeks I’m back in Russia. Here’s a picture of me explaining the cold to him…



LOLZ.

My parents and other family members are all also planning trips this term, so I’m sure through them I will see a lot more of Moscow and a lot less of my bedroom walls. Simon has already suggested we should go somewhere I have never been before… a cat theatre. Russian culture at its best.

To say I still have a day left in Huddersfield I am scarily organised. I’ve packed my bag a day earlier than necessary. A sure sign that I am growing up.

Everywhere you go, always take the weather with you

Since being back in the UK I have been inundated with requests (ok… two people asked me) to write another blog whilst I’m in England. I don’t want to let my two hardcore fans down so here are some more thoughts of Sarah, from England.

The first thing I need to comment on is… THE WEATHER. Seriously England what is going on?! For those of you reading in Moscow, when I arrived back in the UK on 23rd December it was snowing in the UK which was very exciting for everyone as we were actually going to have a white Christmas! However… it is now the 13th January and it is still snowing. People are on the verge of having meltdowns. Britain is just not equipped to deal with snow. Schools have been closed, there is a major salt shortage and (worst of all) I’m not allowed to drive my car so I’ve had to get THE BUS. It’s only -2 here and everyone’s gone mad, in Moscow I still had to go to school when it was -26! The snow really is making me angry! I haven’t seen a landscape without snow for months, I’ve had to cancel so many plans, I’ve got stranded at the opposite side of Huddersfield to my house AND I can’t blame anyone for it so I’m just sitting in my house being angry! Today I am literally under house arrest. My car will go nowhere, the buses aren’t running and it’s too icy to walk down my street! ANNOYED.

Phew… there were a lot of capital letters in that last paragraph. To emphasize the anger.

On the other hand it has to be said: I <3 ENGLAND.
I love how decisions are never made because people don’t want to offend each other.
I love how people smile at me in shops, on the street, on public transport.
I love how kids shout GAY at me if I refuse to buy them cigarettes.
I love how I can get from one side of the country to the other in a day.
I love it that in vegetarian cafes they actually serve vegetarian food.
I love how my friends are only a phone call away.
I love how I can eat hummus and quorn once again.
I love it that my parents still have to shout at me to do the dishwasher.
But most of all I love it that no matter how long I’ve been away, or how far away I’ve been my friends are still the same, and that with them it is acceptable to stuff your face at pizza hut, laugh so hard that you snort and to sing songs by the Spice Girls loudly in the street.

I’ve got one month left in England before I go back to Moscow. I’m half looking forward to going back and half completely dreading it! The first two weeks I’m going travelling with my friend which he is really excited about and that makes me really excited about it too! We’re going to go from Moscow to Petrozavodsk (a town in the north of Russia, where I studied last summer) then to St Pete then to Finland. I’m looking forward to being his Russian travel guide and introducing him to Lenin, Marx and the performing monkeys that can always be found around Red Square.

But then I have to return to Moscow and reality. Eurgh. I’m hoping that once I get back to Moscow I will remember just how much I love it there. Next term the weather is going to start off rubbish and then gradually get better so hopefully my mood will also change accordingly!

And to end this blog on a high, here is a picture of my attempt at sledging. Even though the snow is doing my head in it’s been fun to play in…



Literally ROFL.

When it hits -26, then you know it’s time to go home.

I now have 3 days left in Moscow before I return home for 6 whole weeks over Christmas! I can’t actually describe how much I want to go home! I’ve think I’ve been ready for the last 4 weeks (definitely had to restrain myself from packing my suitcase home at the beginning of December).

Over the last two weeks I really feel like I’ve just been existing, waiting to go home rather than really doing anything! The weather has turned completely crazy. It went from being around +5 to -15 overnight. A major shock to the system!! The coldest it’s been is -27. I’ve never been so cold in my life… walking to the metro felt like I was being hit repeatedly in the face! It’s a weird feeling because obviously everyone dresses warm (my standard outfit is tights, jeans, thick socks, 2 t-shirts, jumper, hoodie, coat, scarf, hat, gloves, boots) and so my body is never cold – it’s just my face! I really wish a balaclava was an acceptable accessory.

Here's what my street has looked like for the past 2 weeks:




Because it’s been so cold we’ve all just been going home after school and staying in all night. This has helped my Gossip Girl addiction (nearly up to date with the UK!) but not really made these last few weeks any easier. I’ve just kinda been sat at home really REALLY missing my friends and family. I totally understand Mariah now in that song All I want for Christmas is you. I don’t care about any of the rubbish surrounding Christmas – presents, decorations, massive meals... blahblahblah. I just want to see my friends and family more than anything else. I’m slightly concerned I’m gonna cry my eyes out when I meet them at Heathrow (in fact let’s face it, I totally am). I am however going to LOVE the fact that I will be doing a Love Actually style arrival. Hopefully Colin Firth will be there.

I’m a little worried that I will get too comfy at home and find it really difficult to come back to Russia. Fortunately my friend is coming back with me for a bit of Russian style travelling at the beginning of my term… so I will HAVE to come back! But as I look back over my blogs from my first term here I remember how much fun I have had here, how living abroad is helping me to grow up, have amazing experiences and probably most importantly trust God more than I ever have done before. So even though it is hard right now I think it’s just because I’m homesick. 6 weeks at home should refresh me to face Russia again in February!

Huddersfield, prepare the red carpet. Brier is coming back.

Stories from the metro…

As you all know I love the metro. It seems so simple yet so effective (yes I know it obviously isn’t that simple but to my naïve eyes it just all seems to run so smoothly). I spend at least 1 and a half hours on the metro everyday just getting to school and back. From this have developed my new favourite hobby: people watching.

Now I don’t do this in a stalker-ish way. I just love looking at people and making up their life stories based on what I see. Some may call this judging. I call it observing. For examples on Sunday I was sat opposite an old woman who was completely covered in fur. Her hat, coat, scarf, gloves and even her boots were made of fur. Over the half an hour journey I saw her whole life (well my version of it at least). I decided that she was born into a rich family and so could afford fur coats, but then at some point her family had lost money and so now she had to take the metro with everyone else but she had still held onto her fur clothes so as not to completely lose her past. This could be the influence of Gossip Girl. But it’s a fun game… try it!

On the metro you see all walks of life. Moscow is a huge, vibrant city full of different kinds of people and everyday all those people use the metro. This means travelling on the metro makes you witness all kinds of events. Sometimes I see things that break my heart, and other times I see things that fill me with joy…

Recently a man was on my metro in a wheelchair. The Moscow metro is NOT wheelchair friendly. Too many steps and escalators and no ramps. This man had some friends with him who carried him up the stairs but he was obviously uncomfortable. People were staring and even pointing. It made me so angry. Then I started thinking about all those people who don’t have friends to help them through the metro and it made me so sad. There must be people all over Moscow stuck in their homes just because the main mode of transport in this city is not wheelchair friendly.

But through generations things like this could change. A few days ago I saw something that completely filled me with joy…

I saw a little boy pestering and pestering his mum. He obviously wanted something bad. I thought perhaps he wanted sweets or toys, he had the same look I gave (ok give!) my mum when we walk down the sweetie isle in Sainsburys! He was not giving up until he got what he wanted… so the pestering continued. When she realised he wasn’t going to stop she reached into her pocket and gave him 10 rubles (20p). I watched him carry it to a homeless woman who was begging. He gave it to her, smiled and ran back to his mum. All that pestering was because he had wanted to help someone who he realised needed something more than him.

We could all learn from this little boy. Unless WE pester those who appear wiser and more powerful than us then none of the injustices in the world will change. I will end with such a cliché of a quote, but that doesn’t make it any less true: Children are the future. That fills me with hope.

I feel like a celebrity. Get me out of here?

I’ve always wanted to be famous. I don’t deny that I love being the centre of attention! I don’t want to be ridiculously famous, I think just being friends with famous people would suit me fine. But here in Moscow I’ve been experiencing what the celebrity life must be like…

As English speakers wherever my friends and I go we immediately become the most interesting people of the moment. We get stared at, pointed at and talked about everywhere. When we’re in a bar people want to talk to us. When we’re on the metro people stare at us. When we walk down the street people point at us.

If I’m fed up and having a bad day I do NOT like this attention. I just want to go about my daily business without being stared at like I’m some kind of alien. But sometimes I love it! Being the centre of attention just because of who you are is always fun!

One of my favourite places in Moscow is a café/bar called FAQ. It’s made up of four small, cosy rooms and you have to walk through these little tunnel things to get to the next room. I’ve had two ‘celebrity’ moments in there: one bad, one good.

The first time we were sat in a room that is basically one massive sofa that goes all around the room. Me and my friend were just talking away in English and suddenly realised that everyone in the room had stopped talking and were all listening to our conversation. Someone said ‘Are you from America?’ (Standard. Everyone thinks America before England) When we said we were from England everyone started asking us all about England and we talked to them for at least an hour. I felt like I was being interviewed in a press conference. Loved it!

The second time was less fun. I was with two friends, one who I haven’t seen since June and I just wanted to talk and catch up. The guy next to us asked if we were English, we said yes but carried on our conversation. He then said to my friend (who fortunately is a boy – and so can protect us from any danger. Maybe.) ‘These girls are so beautiful. Do they have boyfriends?’ Sigh. Apparently not only did he think we were beautiful but that we were also deaf. We knew we weren’t going to get away from him no matter how much we lied. Even after telling him three times that we had boyfriends in England (major lie – but I’m getting to know my imaginary boyfriend very well. Russian guys really don’t give up) we realised that he wasn’t going to leave us and we just ended up leaving the bar. The trials of being a celebrity…

Still totally want to be famous though.

Media Queen vs. Intellectual Scene

Before I decided to study Russian I always wanted to be a journalist. I decided this after I realised that my dream of one day being a member of Steps was just never going to happen, but that I’d quite like to be the person that got to interview them! All through school and college everything I did pointed towards me being a journalist – all my GCSE’s and A-Level choices I made with this in mind and I even wrote a couple of articles for the local newspaper. Then I went to Russia and made the crazy decision to do Russian instead. But my journalistic side never went away and over the last couple of years it has come back with almighty force! Being in Russia is making me think hard about what I want after university. Do I want to move back here? Do I want to do more Russian? Or do I want to go and explore journalism properly, that I didn’t let myself do at university?
I remember before I came to Russia and I was looking at all the journalism courses at universities. This is what I had dreamed of doing for so long but none of them were right for me! I remember looking at the other girls who were applying for them – they were all so fashionable, so pretty and so girly. That was just not me. I think I was scared that I would never fit into that world and was put off so many courses. Then the whole Russia thing happened and that made more sense to me at the time. It’s taken me two years and actually moving to Russia to realise all this! I’m not trying to say that Russian was wrong for me at all, I think Russian is definitely what I needed to do. I needed to experience doing something that I was scared of. I needed to experience not being the best in the class. I needed to experience life in another country. I needed to realise my love of journalism without doing a course in it. But most of all I needed to grow up and get the confidence I needed to be able to take the media by storm!
Being in Russia has been one of the things that has shown me just how much I love journalism and the media. One of the things I miss the most is being involved in the student paper and doing a student radio show with my friend! I also realised that the biggest things I’m interested in from Russian culture is their celebrities, television programmes, magazines, radio stations and music scene. Most people are more interested in the history and politics of Russia. I’m just not and never have been really. People assume that I know a lot about the history and politics of Russia, and most of the time I can fool them into thinking I am actually knowledgeable on these subjects, but the truth is I scrape through in that side of my degree every year. At the beginning of this term we had to tell our teachers what we wanted to learn about from Russian culture, I was saying things like cinema, music, celebrities and the others in my class were all a lot more interested in the academic side of Russian culture. I like the idea of being an intellectual, academic girl who can debate on topics like Russian Foreign Policy. But alas, the best I can do is debate whether How To Look Good Naked is better in Russia or the UK.
I’m trying to figure out how I can incorporate this into my degree and then hopefully be a lot more interested and get a lot better mark! I’m thinking of writing my dissertation on the differences between the media in Russia and the UK. I’ve bought tons of magazines in Russian and every time I read them I know I’m comparing them to their British counterparts!
And then we’ll see what happens after university. Russia? The media? Both?

Recycling SADS

The topic of discussion this week between me and my friends in Moscow has been that of recycling. We have debates in one of our classes and this week the theme has been ‘the environment’. I realised pretty early on that recycling was going to be virtually impossible here. When I asked my landlady where I should put my glass and plastic bottles she laughed and said ‘You’re in Russia now’ and pointed to the bin. When I put paper, plastic and glass all into the bin with the other rubbish I die a little bit on the inside and can hear a voice in my head saying ‘It is YOU that is killing the planet.’ I’ve even considered saving all my plastic bottles and instead of taking clothes home, packing my suitcase full of bottles to recycle in England. But I think that might be a bit mad. There are machines on most streets where you can deposit your plastic bottles for ‘recycling’ but I’m not really sure where they get taken to! And so far I have seen no evidence of recycling bins anywhere. It scares me when I think of how big Russia is and how much waste it creates and therefore how much harm this is doing to the world. I’m not saying England has all the answers – but at least it has recycling bins in every home!

Another thing I’ve noticed the past week is that we have all suddenly at the same time become so depressed! In my Moscow guide book it says, ‘You don’t have to believe in SADS (Seasonally Affected Disorder Syndrome) to feel its effect during the long Russian winter. Anyone staying more than a month can easily get run-down owing to a lack of vitamins, and depressed by the darkness and ice.’ When I read this I laughed and thought how such a silly thing like the weather can affect people so much. But it really does! Now it gets dark so quick in the day, I haven’t seen the sun for weeks and everyday I risk falling over through the slush on the way to school. It is depressing. We’re definitely all feeling it and there have been a lot more tears and fed up faces over the past week. Sometimes it is completely uncontrollable – I was just talking to Anabelle about two of my friends who I miss so much and tears just started rolling down my face! I wasn’t even sad! I tried to stop it but I think we’ve all got to the point where we just need a really really good cry! Truthfully I am quite sad at the moment and so ready for a few weeks at home. But SADS will not defeat me! I am a strong, independent woman – nothing can hold me back! (Hmm. I still think I’m Beyonce) I’ve got exactly 5 weeks left which are going to go so fast – so the best thing to do is to enjoy them. Easier said than done; especially now everyone is running out of money so we can’t go out anymore. But with my new found addiction to Gossip Girl the weeks will fly by!