Temperatures have soared to zero degrees in Moscow, its pretty bad actually because its snowing rainy snow and the rest of snow is melting, meeeeeellting! It nessitates either wearing skirts or tucking your trousers into your boots, not as sartorially dodgy as it sounds, because otherwise your trousers would be turned an interesting shade of pooey brown. I stepped in what looked like ice today and ended up ankle deep in water, my waterproof boots performed admirably though!

Day of the protectors of the Fatherland:


So tomorrow, the 23rd of february, is the 'day of the protectors of the fatherland'. So what does that mean I hear you say? Basically we get a day off which, considering our recent hectic schedule in college, is very welcome. Also its construed as 'man's day' so even though I don't know any actual defenders of the fatherland (nor do I want to judging by their VERY dodgy reputation!) the men that we know have been mentioning that its their day tomorrow. Basically the men of Russia see tomorrow, as they see most holidays in this country, as a day when they should be given presents and as an excuse for public drunkenness and debauchery.

Roll on womens day on the 8th of March!

(Whaddya think of my dodgy propaganda poster?? Does it make you want to defend your fatherland and get drunk in the process???)

29 balloons and two girls in winter garb into the back of a lada zhiguli is quite a snug fit!

Anna sits down in the snow to demonstrate her haul of helium balloons, we're still
not sure how she made it out of the club with them!

We may have crashed a birthday party on friday, we possibly may have ended up in a swanky club that we could never have afforded, there are rumours that we didn't pay for a drink all night but consumed large amounts of vodka and champagne, unreliable witness accounts may have placed us dancing on the bar, speculation abounds that Anna left the party with 29 helium balloons attached to her left wrist and Fiona with a membership card.

Clearly it's all unsubstantiated lies, we were doing our embroidery on friday night!

Yesterday I attempted to buy phone credit at the phone credit shop, they couldn't sell me any credit. Today I tried to buy a baked potato at the baked potato stand (thats their major product!) and they didn't have any potatoes...I love Moscow!

Ok, so maybe we didn't make the snowmen, but there was about one hundred of them on a major street in Moscow...MAD!

We had a bit of time on our hands yesterday so we decided to throw together a few snowmen...as one does.


We got quite a few done before it got dark...

We hauled our asses out of our comfy warm beds this morning at 8.30am (didn't even know that existed anymore!), made ourselves eat a proper breakfast in preparation for the long day ahead, took about ten minutes putting on layers for the -24 outside, were involutarily impregnated on the rush hour metro, managed to make it in to college an unheard of SIX MINUTES EARLY! Unfortunately, Moscow kicked our asses again, and we were actually 24 hours and six minutes early, doh. The first time we were early for something in....ever....and there was nobody there to see it!

Our options were to go home to bed or stay in town....our credit cards didn't know what hit them. Ah retail therapy, works a charm to alleviate the pain of accidentally getting up too early.

We heart Saratov!

These are only some of my Saratov pics, the site doesn't want me to put any more on, sorry Martina I think you are just destined not to see the pictures of Sinead! After many attempts I'm throwing in the towel...damn you russia, you've beaten me again.


Mr Guevara makes exceedingly good cheap wine, can only be bought in Saratov, unclear why! Note the Dunnes Stores bag in the right of the pic, they've made it down south!



The aisle entirely consisting of different types of ketchup in Sinead's local supermarket, the mind boggles, no sign of any heinz though...


Sinead keeps an axe in her kitchen, we don't think she was planning on using it on us, we slept with one eye open all the same.

Our seven-week christmas holiday ends tomorrow, just as we were getting used to being laydees of leisure, tomorrow we have the baptism of fire that is a two hour history lecture and four hours of russian language, score.

Our internet is down at home so still no pics of Saratov but here's a few points about the lovely town on the Volga:

• Going there on the train, expect to be stared at by one man who is bookless, paperless, radioless, basically has nothing to do but stare at foreign girls...for 16 hours!
• The volga, Russia's longest river, separates Saratov from Marx and Engels, its neighbouring towns... it was frozen.
• If you fancy grabbing a quick bite to eat in the town, don't even think of trying it without reservations. You can walk into a deserted restaurant to be told that they have no free tables (but I have all this money and I just want to eat!)
• Don't expect to be able to buy phone credit in the phone credit shop, Sinead's local had run out of credit, the mind boggles.
• If you are going to only have one famous son of your city, you could do much worse than Saratov's famous ex-resident, Yuri Gagarin, the guy who beat those arrogant yanks into space and then snuffed it in a weird, covered-up, air accident.
• There's a cool irish pub (now there's an oxymoron!) there that does amazing steak cooked by their french chef who comes down to say hi to you and which plays very eclectic music such as Mozart (for his birthday, I think) mc hammer and the wolfe tones...nice!

We went to see the Nutcracker in the bolshoi today, after buying our tickets from ticket touts outside, it was brilliant, except for one tiny thing...we were sitting on the far right hand side and all the action seemed to take place on the left hand side of the stage (think about it!) so a good few times we were left staring at a blank stage...nice!

Its -20 outside today, thats a whole 42 degrees colder than the current temperature in the flat.

Saratov pics and news to follow in the next post, I'm a few days behind, sorry! Before my battery goes I just want to tell about the beyootiful irony of the woman sitting beside me on the metro yesterday, she was covered from head to toe in fur (not a rare occurence here) but she was carrying a bag emblazoned with the words 'animal friend'...oh dear!


Josh and the moose try to get over the crippling pain of a broncos defeat....the moose has gone off on a vodka-fuelled bender and hasn't been seen since.


Anna wearing a sleeping bag, all of her clothes and my hat (bobbles are in people, you heard it here first....) in a vain attempt to warm up the next morning.


Clearly the language barrier is getting to Vlad, I don't think he understood the concept of a hair brush...


Josh is clearly delighted at having his hair cut at 3 in the morning after one too many vodka shots!


The free wireless that we were stealing in the flat has dried up so I've had to remove myself to a cafe to rob internet there....it hoits! I'm also way behind with my putting up of pics, these are of Josh's birthday party in his ridiculously underheated apartment, it has warmed up now though!