Its not going to get much colder than this.....
is it????


Ive decided that group emails are too much effort and I'm going to try out this blog idea, I'm informed that it's so hot right now! Hopefully I'll be able to get pics up on to it so anyone who's interested can see how we are getting on. Two months in, I'm still trying to understand Moscow, it's quite the class city but every day it turns around and reminds you that you are never going to understand what the hell is going on. Plus it's getting really cold and it's only October!! This is me and Lui near college, in our snazzy new duvet-esque coats.....freezing our asses off!!

Last week I had my twenty-first here, it was really weird not being at home for it and I had visions of me sitting in a corner on my tod, with a party hat on, singing happy birthday to me. It wasn't quite like that! We have been really lucky here making friends, Russian, American (for that read Mexican, Chinese, Armenian, Cherokee (one of them swears his great great great great grandparents were native americans, I'm not so sure!) and various other random nationalities via America!), Estonian, Polish, German and more Irish people, for some reason we just find each other. There was quite a mixture of people out last saturday night, the spoken language was mainly english and pigeon russian. I refused to get a birthday cake, anyone who has ever experienced the sickly sweet wrongness that is Russian birthday cake will know why, so instead, Sean and Kaspar (our visitors from St Petersburg) made me a birthday watermelon...saturated in vodka. The Russian way, sometimes its the best way!!

Le Birthday Delicacy, dodgy stuff!!

Our next big adventure is trying to move out of our student accomodation, we have our own rooms, they are nice enough but for the low, low price of 300 american dollars a month each we have the privilege of a shared kitchen with no oven that is also the designated smoking area, temperamental showers (believe me, living in Moscow, its never a good time for a cold shower!), sporadic supplies of running water, the woman who is inexplicably either always washing her clothes (we have no washing machine so our communal bathroom always resembles a chinese laundry) or cooking up HUGE pots of food in the kitchen, narky acrobats and assorted other circus people and their offspring, AND, the icing on the cake.....the babushkas! They are supposedly employed to keep the place clean but we really think they are making sure we aren't breaking any rules. Every morning they open our doors, then knock, empty our bins, pick one thing to dust (the top of the tv is a favourite!), give out to us in Russian about whatever's annoying them that day and then leave. They have been known to clean the toilets at about 4.30 in the morning (obviously I have never seen them, I'm always tucked up in my bed by 11!) and mop the clean floor about 4 times a day. Basically they are a prime example of russian overemployment, they could just do an hours work for the day, then leave us alone! There is also a different breed of younger babushka downstairs on 'reception'. They watch tv and smoke all day and if one was to come in late to the building (not that I would, as I'm always in bed by 11 of course!) one has to wake them up in the middle of the night to get ones key, and a torrent of abuse. I have a mother, I dont need about 8 more! Anyhoo, long story short, we are looking for a flat, all we want is three rooms, a washing machine (oh the luxury!), a proper kitchen, proximity to a metro and not too high rent. Sounds simple....nothing is simple in this city! The search continues....



I got VERY excited when I realised I could buy Irish brown bread and assorted other 'cuisine de france' goodies in Moscow, slightly more expensive than home but most definitely worth it. All I have to do now is find the shop selling Irish sausages and rashers and I will be a very happy bunny!


For the record, I was nowhere in the vicinity of Liam Lawlor's accident, honest Guard. What the hell was he doing in Moscow? He made the Moscow Times, described as a disgraced politician.