Tip for the day: While it is usually a good idea to use your windowsill as an overflow freezer when the temperature is below zero, beware placing kamikaze pizzas on the windowsill, they would rather take their chances with a three storey fall rather than be baked. Had to retrieve a thin-based mushroom variety from the snow drift under our kitchen window.

Off to Saratov for the weekend to take a walk on the frozen Volga, talk more tuesday.

I really shouldn't have mentioned having good karma in my last post because it has all come back to bite me in the ass ( and elbow!) . It's highly ironic that with the copious amounts of snow and ice around I managed to have quite the comedy snotting taking a corner too fast in our flat in socks (there should be a health warning attached to the little blighters!) on our super slippy floor and now my elbow, my ass and my ego are badly bruised....poor me!!

Back in the USSR

Saturday afternoon I arrived back in Moscow, after possibly the most uneventful two flights ever, I wasn't charged excess baggage for my clearly overweight/small house bag, I got a seat with the most legroom I've ever seen on the flight from Dublin to Prague, saw an amazing sunrise in the morning over Dublin and a cool sunset later that afternoon over Moscow, my bag actually managed to make the difficult transition from Dublin to Russia without needing an overlong rest in Prague (a first for me!) and I got a taxi home, with a seatbelt (shock horror!), for a not too extortionate price...in short, it was all coming up Fiona. (I figured I was owed a lots of good travel karma after the recent horrible travel experiences!)

Saturday night our friend Josh had his birthday party in his flat. You may have heard whisperings that Moscow is a tad on the chilly side at the moment so Josh was a bit worried that the atmosphere in his apartment would be slightly frosty seeing as his heating isn't working. We were all warned to dress for the occasion so when we turned up wearing our layers (some of us may have still been acclimatising and may have been wearing 2 feather and down duvet-coats,a wooly cardigan, two tops, a thermal vest, tights under her jeans, two pairs of wooly socks and three pairs of gloves/mittens, the michelin man look, trust me, its going to be huge!) the apartment didn't seem to be too cold, the kitchen especially seemed to be almost tepid. Josh explained that he had recently had the novel idea of turning on the oven to full heat and leaving the door open, instant heater, just don't stand too close. It actually worked quite well, especially seeing as nobody pays for gas in this country. A good night was had by all, though Josh may have woken up with less hair than he had woken up with the morning before, the result of over-zealous 'I'll just cut off the little curly bit at the bottom....now I just have to even it up...' oh dear! I'll have pictoral evidence in the next post, I promise.

Last night, newly-shorn Josh, Anna and I went to the friendly neighbourhood casino to watch what we were told was a very important american football game - Denver Broncos vs Pittsburgh Stealers. Josh having being born in Denver he's quite the fan and his mum had threatened us earlier in the day saying that we had to go. Unfortunately the Broncos didn't manage to seize victory but myself and Anna now semi-understand American football. Josh was last seen drowning his sorrows in a large bottle of vodka (see earlier post from St Petersburg, that size!!)

Thats all the scandal for now, its actually not that cold here, you just need to wear as many clothes as possible! We are very much enjoying the fact that we have no classes to go to and are spending our time sleeping, reading and watching dvds, not too shabby!

A Belated Post
The wonder glass - is it a square, is it a circle, nope it's a squircle!! Magic!!! (Sorry, I know I'm sad!)

Where else is one to go in January but Paris, especially if one's plane ticket cost less than entrance into a not so fancy club in Paris and one drink! Had a great weekend, which coincidentally happened to fall the same weekend as the start of the parisian sales, entirely by accident I swear! Thanks a million to Caoimhe and Niall for putting up with us and for letting us take over your apartment.


We went ice skating for the bargainous price of 5 euro, and you could stay on as long as you wanted, we actually found something that was cheaper to do in Paris than in Moscow OR Dublin...shock horror! We weren't exactly pro's but two of us managed to stay upright, someone
else who shall remain nameless, got a little too cocky and may have fallen twice!


The lads wait for the in-boat movie to start on the river trip on the Seine, they'd still be waiting there if they hadn't gotten hungry and removed themselves to the classiest of french restaurants, McDonalds (insert snooty french laugh here)

I've decided this is where I'm going to live when I make my fortune studying Europeans (I swear, there's money to be made...honestly!) One simply must have a townhouse on the left bank of the Seine, dahling!

The ubiquitous 'I went to Paris and saw the Eiffel Tower' picture.


Our host and hostess with the mostess for the weekend, the very hard-working Science Po students Niall and Caoimhe. They put us up in their fancy apartment in one of the swankiest areas of Paris, 'tis far from Armani and Dior they were reared!!


This was possibly the tallest man I've ever met, when I was talking to him I didn't realise quite how tall he was, then when I looked at the picture I realised that yes, 6'9" is actually quite a bit taller than me! We were all standing up!!


Some Dublin pics : Ok girls you made it onto the blog, we can pretend this was taken in Moscow!


Richie (the camera whore) and the soon to be Dr Amy, she will be writing prescriptions for all!


The beautiful scarf that Richie's granny knit with her own fair hands to keep me warm in the wilds of Russia, apparently its -26 degrees celcius over there at the mo....ooh that's cold! I'll be back there on Saturday afternoon, in time for Josh's birthday, just look for the block of ice in my next post.

Happy New Year everybody!!


The Conor Pass in Kerry, pretty aint it. Went on a road trip this weekend, froze ourselves on the top of a windy mountain, took a few pictures and then went back to the pub!
The American returns to his spiritual home...


An ice cream called nogger, surprisingly tasty for such an unappetising name, Sinead models her 'I'm so happy to have a four hour stopover in Prague' face.



I miss Moscow and its snow!!!!


Just wanted to put a few pics up, what with finally being in a house with broadband and not having to wait all day for a picture to upload. Hope everyone had a happy new year and has started the post christmas detox. Booked my flights back to Moscow, the updates will start again properly from the 21st of January, I promise!