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It's been a day of firsts. Not something that you would think I could say after 7 years here but it does happen. One thing that's not a first, however, is having your nostril hairs freeze as you breathe in.......it's -23C (yes, -23C!) and it has to be felt to be believed. Cold. The children had their first indoor play of the year because of cold weather....once it gets below -15C then they stay inside. At least we are not in Oymyakon in Siberia; there they stay out until -30C!
I've been helping to cover the morning bus duties this half-term, for a variety of reasons which I won't go into. It is, however, an experience to see how the children arrive at school in the morning. The bus collects me at 7:10am and the first children are collected at 7:30. That means that they are on the bus for an hour and 20 minutes before school starts. Some of them must be up as early as I am! Dima, our driver, collected me and we drove off to one of the nearby compounds to collect our first children. We got there, parked up and he got out of the bus. He then lit a piece of paper and proceeded with a combination of 'heating/melting' the front windscreen wipers so that the spray would come out. Perhaps I think too logically, but I just sat their looking at him thinking 'wouldn't a pin be easier?' But he continued with this until the liquid came through.
On the bus riding back from school to the metro, it was around -15C and the windows were frozen up inside. It made me smile to see some Russian schoolchildren playing noughts-and-crosses in the thick frost on the windows. Our car was very much like that this evening. Although it does work at these temperatures, the Peugeot dealership have told us that we should turn the engine on and let the car warm up for 15 minutes in order to let everything warm up properly.
Another first came this evening as we drove home from Kaluzhskaya (not far from home). We stopped at some traffic lights at the road adjoining Leninsky Prospekt (the road on which we live) and right in front of our eyes a car pulled up at the lights. Seconds later, a Zhiguli (Lada Riva to those of us from the West) slammed into the back of it. I've never seen a car crash before - it happened so fast that I didn't have time to think about it - but it happened directly in front of a GAI officer (state car inspector) and there was no doubt whose fault it was.
Russia is certainly full of experiences! At the moment we are waiting to see whether or not we will be able to leave for Christmas. The unwelcome news about BA's Christmas strike means that we are going to be watching the news very closely for the next week.
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