Girl meets world- another Year Abroad blog: June 2013

Hello again! I was debating whether to write anything more on here, because I don’t really see the point unless you are compelled to do it, but then I remembered some VERY important issues that need addressing. Mostly involving food. People who have read this before are just bound to be shocked by that. Aha.

So, here I am looking out of my window/at the wall of photos in my bedroom back in leafy Surrey. It is only half five but I am hungry, and there is nowhere I’d rather be than a place called Corner Burger.

http://www.cornerburger.ru/home/en/

This, my dears, is a place of dreams. The hope it offered kept Charlotte and I alive for a whole week of work.

Is this not contentment? (How can you not be content when you have a strawberry daiquiri cheesecake in front of you?)

Avocado in a milkshake? Who knew? Horizons. Expanded. Waistline also.

DO IT.

Another place you should definitely go to/choose your hotel depending on its proximity to it is ‘I love cake’.

http://www.ilovecake.ru/

Need I say more?

Jamie is certainly impressed. Yes, that is a Snickers cookie you see before you.

In other foodie fun, or fattie adventures:

We made a return visit to the amazing Ukrainian restaurant that is Taras Bulba

Much kvas was consumed, although we didn’t get to see the waiters dance this time.

Ana got violent with some shashlik

And Rhiannon and Jamie showed me their favourite secret spot to eat Indian food and take in an amazing view, including of their Moscow home, MGU.

Not bad for a Wednesday night.

Before you say that all we do is eat, there was time in between all of this to squeeze in a little bit of culture.

I finally made it into the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour or Храм Христа Спасителя (little Russian victory punch in the air)

It was really very beautiful. In that building it kind of hit home for me just how vast and diverse Christianity is. Apart from the words ‘Христос воскресе’ (totally know Church Slavonic) or ‘Christ is risen’, it all seemed quite unfamiliar. Even if I don’t subscribe to the importance of adorning the interior of a church with gold or crossing myself or kissing the feet of the statue of a saint, it was an eye-opening reminder of how many different ways people can express their faith and adoration. Turns out that not everyone is so into this kind of thing:

http://youtu.be/oWGz__5pR0w

Even if it is ridiculously fun. (You should all come)

We also had a wander round the Fallen Monument Park and visited the Modern Tretyakov Gallery.

Something I wish I had taken a photo of is the signs on some less than obvious pieces, stating ‘This is a sculpture’. Oh, it just looked like a bench to me. But we loved it.

Desperately wanted to steal one of these windmills in Gorky Park, but settled for a classic Russian Lakomka ice cream instead.

One Sunday I also went on a solo explore around Victory Park and saw some pretty impressive monuments. Whilst there is also a museum, the park itself is set up like an open-air museum, and is definitely a place worth having a look round.

Due to some rather excellent planning, Charlotte and I took the same flight back to London. A slightly embarrassed, and yet somewhat gleeful, BA stewardess informed us that they could not get the meals out of the cupboard in the galley: “We’ve had three engineers on here!”

Her solution to this was, in her words, “Lashings of alcohol!”

Which is how this happened:

Excellent.

So there it is. The end of my 'official' year abroad. Say what? I swear I just did that teary goodbye at St Pancras with my Mum.

I felt somewhat like this man when I got home.

A bit flat really. Although probably not as much as him, given that his cake looks like it has seen better days. (Moscow life lesson: do not microwave chocolate mousse cake)

The melancholic edge was taken off leaving Moscow as I went almost straight up to Cambridge for May Week.

Suffice to say that Queens’ May Ball was incredible!

Here are some of my most favourite girls.

Bastille!

Not a bad place.

I cannot believe that so many of my friends are graduating on Friday, and thus becoming real people. How on earth did this happen? And why would Cambridge decide to give these reprobates a degree? It’s beyond me.

But look at all their awesome :)

Summer promises to be busy, with some family time in Greece, a return trip to Moscow (hopefully or perhaps unfortunately with the much-needed addition of a Russian language course) and, fingers-crossed, a Paris reunion, not to mention the small matter of writing a dissertation that is worthy of a comment of more than “Ha!” by my supervisor.

Will let you know if anything exciting happens xxx

Privet!

I can just tell that you’ve been dying to know what’s been happening in Moscow and that what has been missing from your life in London/Cambridge/LA/Kiev/apparently Saudi Arabia according to the blog stats (?) is a mini rundown of the events of the last few weeks in my little bubble here.

Well, this is your lucky day!

As I mentioned before, the third best day of the year rolled around (after birthday and Christmas, of course): the high class/quality musical event that is Eurovision.

All I will say is that there were many many empty bottles in my flat the next day, the neighbours hopefully enjoyed the loud singing, and Julia broke out some stunning moves.

In the style of the ESC queen, Loreen. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfo-8z86x80

A couple of weeks ago I was very lucky to visit the SOS Children’s Village at Tomilino, in the outskirts of Moscow. It was the 17^th anniversary of the village, and to celebrate they invited lots of guests and had a concert and party.

The vision of the charity is to provide “a loving home for every child”. The children we met had been taken out of state children’s homes to live in the village at Tomilino, where they live in families and can lead as close to a “normal” life as possible: living with loving parents from the charity, staying with their brothers and sisters if possible, going to regular schools and being able to do the extra things like piano lessons, tennis, football, and going on holiday which wouldn’t be feasible in the state children’s homes.

We heard some beautiful singing, poetry and playing.

And met some new friends :)

It blows my mind that there is an 8-lane motorway running through the city.

Culture?

It is SO HOT and the lawns in the parks are just crying out for you to lie on them!

Gorky Park

Tsaritsyno

Alas, this does result in a huge number of mozzy bites :(

Now, that’s an attractive leg if ever I’ve seen one.

Sadly I don’t have any photographic evidence of this, but rest safe in the knowledge that Joe and I whilst having dinner in a park were interrupted by a very drunk actor who claimed to be “a little alcohol”. Yes mate, sure you were!

Universal truths?

Talking of truths, I was approached earlier in my building by a (strangely too) friendly man who told me that he hoped I would convert to Russian Orthodoxy. Having thanked him for his wishes I hastily said my farewell and scrambled up the stairs only to find that he had taken the lift and is apparently my neighbour- yey! I’ll really look forward to those not at all awkward in excellent Runglish (a word?) conversations happening more often.

On Saturday I got my first electrichka (a suburban train) in Russia all on my own to visit Faye and her friends 'up north'. So much pride to have arrived at the correct destination.

Church is lots of fun and gradually getting easier to understand. Faye and I did pretty well I think this weekend, given that we’d had only about 4 hours sleep.

Hopeful purchases. Something tells me I may not get very far with the Ukrainian text book made for Russian speakers. But it will look EXCELLENT on my shelf next year, and that is the important thing.