My First Few Days Ever in Russia...

Privet! So I'm here in la Russe which is all fun and dandy though admittedly bit of a culture shock too. So far it's not exactly full of all those cool buildings on you see on post cards...more like very old prison style ones.

However it is very beautiful as there is an enormous amount of land (there is apparently the same amount of land in the territory of Karelia (the republic) as Great Britain but scarily only 750 thousand people (as opposed to our slightly more numerous 1 million)) and I'm staying in Petrozavodsk which is the capital of Karelia. It's home to a lovely massive lake which is so big it has a horizon! And there are lots of trees. I'm staying with a really nice woman called Lena who speaks absolutely no English but we've finally managed to get a bit of communication going.

Anyway... I suppose I better let you all know what I've been up to (aside from embarrassing myself lots...more on that in a bit!)

Day One.
The Journey
So after about an hours delay we finally landed down in Russia...all very excited which I'm afraid soon disappeared when we saw the queue at Saint Petersburg airport for passport control (which was in effect a large white room with some booths at the end) words cannot describe the length of that queue. And us being typically British just stood and queued patiently while everyone around pushed in front of us (though of course we soon toughened up and developed a defensive plan!!!). However, a wee three hours later we conquered all and got through and got on a bus to Saint Petersburg station, all really hot and thirsty.

A Very Russian Train Complete with The Very Russian Army
Now that was interesting, it was a sleeper and definitely no Virgin Train. It looked like something out of a seventies style prison cell. It had 6 bunks to each section and no privacy whatsoever, which normally wouldn't be so bad except of course for the fact we were surrounded by what appeared to be half the Russian Army (who incidentally didn't appear to have seen any women in 15 years) who were also travelling to Petrozavodsk.
Anyway we didn't really get much sleep and the train pulled in at about seven (four English time) and i was met by this woman who was (optimistically) around 50 years old. I had been told I was staying with a 30 year old. Thoroughly confused I got driven to what I thought was her house. After considerable miming and guesswork I worked out it was Lena's mum because Lena was at work. At this point I realised how much Russian I didn't know or understand. Although, I did understand the conversation between the man who drove me to the house (who worryingly appeared to be somewhat intoxicated) and the Mother. It consisted of она совсем неговорит по-русски. She doesn't speak any Russian whatsoever. The Mum made a list of what I eat and didn't eat and then proceeded to feed me two apples. I hadn't eaten in over eight hours and I was starving. Suffice to say those two apples didn't quite fill the void.
I did however get fed properly a couple of hours later when Lena returned and felt much better.
I spent a lot of the day sleeping.

Day 2
Test: a neat little to way to confirm how much we don't know
It was absolutely impossible and I imagine for the teachers trying to mark it was a case of establishing how well written our incorrect answers had been. After that we endured some boring organisational stuff and pottered around the city until the university excursion which was translated by a graduate. Her English was phenomenal. The talk was overly detailed but I found out a lot out about maps, which given my utter lack of geographical knowledge I can't really complain!

Obstacles Abroad: Buses and sitting down
So...later on my way home I somehow managed to get myself in a terribly embarrassing situation.
Just to put it in context: that morning I had been able to stand up no problem on the minibus and I assumed in the evening it would be the same. Though it turns out I hadn't yet learnt the difference between the autobus and the marshrutka! Which it turns out is very important with regards to bus standing etiquette. So I got on the number 17 bus and stood up and the driver started shouting (whilst we were moving) and I of course didn't understand him but I noticed everyone was looking at me strangely and this middle aged man told me to sit down and pointed to this minuscule spot on a chair. This spot was basically between his knees and in what I can only assume was a fit of panic i sat there. Yes, that's right. I sat between a middle aged man's legs. However...sitting there didn't really stop the whispering and the pointing (as you can imagine) because at this point everyone on the bus was looking at me as if I was a cross between a prostitute and an alien. Some would think that getting off the bus might have eased the humiliation but of course this would only be the case had this story been happening to somebody else, and not me, since when I tried to get off the bus not only could I barely make it understood (because there are no convenient little red buttons marked stop to inform the driver you would like to alight. Instead you have to yell STOP PLEASE!). So with the little piece of paper Lena had given me I garbled ostanovitye and tried to run off the bus. I could not open the door. My face was somewhat pink.
Then I got lost on the way home.
Later I ate cabbage and potatoes with Lena and her boyfriend.

Volleyball
After her boyfriend left we went to play volleyball, and now onto my second embarrassment (second being a rather broad term for millionth). We went to play volleyball on a rock face (albeit a small one). Given the surroundings, I will happily confess I had my reservations. Taking a very short person, with a lazy-eye and no hand-eye coordination to play a ball game by a cliff edge doesn't bode well.
just for those who hadn't guessed where this was going: the first thing I did was throw the ball over the cliff edge. Sorry, make that at the second hit of the ball. I was mortified, especially when Lena began to climb down the cliff, taking me with her to find the ball. When we got down she told me to stay where she was and started to look for the ball. There were a lot of rocks. It gets worse. There was even a car wreck. She climbed over them ALL to find this ball. The mortification did not cease but at least I knew how to say sorry in Russian.
Lena then took what I perceived to be a good tactical decision and we started to play again on lower ground.

Day 3
The Lessons Begin
The first lesson was a phonetics so I now I know words like nasal cavity in Russian which is infinitely more useful than being able to get off a bus.

The real fun started when we had our library lesson, it consisted of a woman narrating what could possibly have been her entire life story given the amount of time it lasted and how not-so-young she was. She spoke an awful, awful lot in very fast and complex Russian (at this point any Russian which wasn't "Hello how are you" was very fast and complex Russian). So, naturally I piped up and told her that none of us understood a word of what she was saying so "naturally" she continued, and continued...to drone
So later after being begged (by my lovely classmates) I pointedly reminded her and mentioned our modest 9
months of Russian lessons (i.e. our complete lack of knowledge in Russian). So she just said in Russian well, yes its hard but it will get better and continued whacking out the dictionary only to look up the word for prison-as if that would make us all understand! Safe to say it didn't.