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Rossiya, where the temperature drops 15 degrees in one week
All the vegetables here are giant. Lucy's hosts have given her a giant sack of giant potatoes, an absolutely enormous cabbage (bigger than a beach ball, no kidding, and seriously heavy) and an oversized relative of the marrow, which we have never encountered before. Mr. Marrow is due to be cooked soon, Вячеслав the cabbage (we named him Vyacheslav for no particular reason) has already contributed approximately one third of himself to two large pans of cabbage soup (which is excellent with a dash of Marmite, if you can't find stock cubes, herbs, Worcester sauce or soy sauce).
The hunt for cold weather clothes has begun, I am in possession of some rather toasty black suede boots with the best grip I have ever seen, and the best bit is they are lined with real sheepskin. Still hunting a coat, with my trusty coat-rifle, and am finding my preferences shifting increasingly towards the shinier, more Russian-style things. The English side of my brain ios being forced to shut up and cope with it. I have found an indescribable purple shiny puffer jacket with a belt and a sequin collar, but it's not long enough, and we have been told, in exactly these words, "you must cover your ass, or you will have problems." I am nonetheless very tempted by the purple coat.
The weather has suddenly got very cold, although I don't think it's dropped below freezing yet (except at night, when I am already wearing a full set of thermals under my pyjamas, due to the centrally controlled heating not having been switched on yet). Lucy and I are actively seeking an indoor gym, which is proving impossible as our hosts have entirely conflicting interests -Elena believes we should use whatever is cheapest and/or nearest, Sasha and Irina are determined we should be chauffer-driven to the best gym they can find. The obvious answer is the cheap one within walking distance, but the last time I asked Elena for directions somewhere, I got a scrawl of 3 overlapping maps in illegible handwriting, which appeared to bear no relation to each other, accompanied by a full five minutes of babble which I couldn't begin to follow. I did, however, manage to ascertain from her that there is a sauna nearby which charges 100r for an hour, which is about 2 pounds. Sweet.
Nikolai (he is never Nick anymore) has finally managed to persuade his ever-eager hostess that he really doesn't need five large meals a day. This came about after he was forced to smuggle a meal out of the flat in a plastic bag and into a bin. The only time I have had to do that (a mince pancake which I really could not force down), Ruth ate it perfectly happily before I could locate a bin. Rosie is still being eaten alive in her flat, but her hostess will not entertain the idea that the horrible cat (I've met it, trust me) has fleas. Philly is still being fed toddler-sized meals, but has learned that if she gets an earlier bus, she can supplement her breakfast with porridge at Lucy's before our classes start.
I don't think I explained before - Lucy's enigmatic host Sasha eventually produced a wife and daughter back from their holiday (he hadn't told us they were on holiday, but simply "in another city", so we assumed the obvious), and has moved back into their flat, leaving Lucy on her own but having supper with them every day, and insisting she doesn't need to pay rent. Well, I suppose if they can afford to have two flats, they don't really need the rent. To further support this view, their very spoiled six year old daughter Anya has an indoor climbing frame and slide in her bedroom. I have been invited (read: arm-twisted) to come over soon to do karaoke with her. Needless to say I am not looking forward to it.
I have bought two geeky books already (Russian proverbs and sayings with English equivalents, and a Russian thesaurus) and plan more. I have also completed the terrifying and very drawn-out process of ordering ballet tickets for us all over the phone, and then meeting a woman in a rather seedy bus-shelter to exchange tickets and money. We are going to see Prokofiev's Cinderella and Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker in October, which is when the season opens. We are planning further trips to the theatre and the opera. Tickets are very cheap - the most expensive being 450r, which is about 9 pounds.
Ways to annoy the Russians: try on everything, buy nothing. This works even better if you take photos.
Note: cheap vodka does not taste any better when mixed with cherry juice made by your hosts at their dacha. Or with sugar stirred into it.
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