Just Like Winter...

Yep, just like the winter, I'm settling in and finding my feet, albeit on icy ground sometimes.

Let me see, I arrived on the 10th of November and it's now the 4th of December, so I've been here about 3 weeks. Everything is going well, in stark contrast to my first 3 weeks in both Korea and Sicily. On the job training in great, although I have been swamped with lesson planning latley and will be for the next two months apparently. But after that it gets much, much easier, so I'm told.

I won't bore you with the details of the teaching method, but in short, my job is to check the students have learned what they are supposed to by giving a lesson covering the grammar and language in various exercises and assess whether they are good enough to go onto the next level or need to do it all again. On top of that we have to design lessons called 'Social Clubs' which are more of an opportunity to practice speaking in a natural environment. Yesterday I did a lesson about the Jack the Ripper, to use deductive language, for example.

The students are generally nice, sometimes a bit crazy, sometimes a bit scary. This is probably highly illegal, but I couldn't help but chucke when this students name appeared on my schedule :

Overall, the teaching is fine and probably the easiest i've ever done.
But enough of all that!





Moscow is pretty cool (poor choice of words!). I've been out and about a bit, unfortunatley, to the detriment of my feet :

That one has cleared up, but I now have one on my other foot! Oh, well, the joys of breaking in new boots.

 Of course, the metro/subway/underground is the easiest way to get about. I don't have to use it to get to work, I'm just about a 15 minute walk away, but all teachers get a monthly pass, paid for, for the tube, so it's no bother using it whenever you like. I haven't managed to get any god photos of the amazing architecture in some of the stations yet. I don't really want to be too obviously a tourist. There can be some suspect characters down there. (That's just reminded me, I've been asked for directions about 5 times now! Maybe I really do look Russian? Braynski has a certain ring to it.)

Anyway, :

This is Sokol station, my local portal into the vast, mysterious madness that is modern Moscow. 

This is Emma and Andrew, two other teachers, both from blighty, on the way back from Ikea I think , or maybe a pub?? Not sure.

 And this is a rubbish photo of an average station. Still, I quite like the marble and the equilateral descent into tinyness (new word there I think).

 And this is how good it can get! Imagine that at Bank!!






 Of course, the Kremlin is a must see, but my first day off it rained all day and most of the night, so I only went out about 8pm, and my camera isn't that great in the dark, hence the poor quality of the photos. It was also mostly closed and my blister was giving me hell, so I just did a little walk around. Next time I'll goin the day and there's talk of a big group of us going, tickets n'all so we can go inside and see all the crazy Soviet gubbins.

This was at the entrance, I think. Bit blurry but you get the general idea, y'know, that kind of grandiose Soviet style.

Am I in Moscow or Oz?

This is called GUM (pronounced Goom) and it's basically Harrods but bigger and beter lit!

Not exactly sure, but looks pretty cool.








So that was the Kremlin/Red Square, the Buckingham Palace of Moscow if you will, something you have to visit while in Russia. "What, a bit like going to an ice hockey game?" I hear you say. Exactly!! And that's what I did next.

David, the other teacher in my school, kindly invited me and a bunch of other hooligans to CSKA Moscow vs Amure (from Siberia).

I'm in no way interested in ice hockey at all, but thought it would be worth a watch. Turns out it was pretty good, even without knowing the rules. Here are some snaps, and a little video.

Aforementioned hooligans, Emma, Andrew, Glenn, Lauren and Jen (an Arsenal fan from Texas!!)

The teams line-up....



















.....the score-board says something...

.....the teams play....

....Police watch on....

At half-time, it's 2-1 to CSKA!












Cheerleaders....

 

 Fattest Russian so far seen.

The game ends 5-3 to CSKA!

Happy winning team!











Final score-board.












By far, the best bit of the whole game was at the beginning, when this happened :

It reminded me of Rocky 4 or something!


Well, it's Sunday evening now and I'm pretty tired. Last night me, Andrew and John went to what we thought was going to be a kind of dingy jazz club. Turned out it was quite a swanky affair reminiscent of a Poirot scene, very art deco and really rather posh. But it was reasonably priced and the music was fantastic. A Russian band, by the name, Funky Soul, with a lead singer we christened Tomski Joneskaya for hs remarkable resemblance to the similarly aged Welsh crooner. Unfortunatley I left my camera at home :(

Great stuff!
I have a very busy week or two coming up, but I hope to have some good adventures along the way and maybe get some photos to boot.

TTFN...

Journey to Moscow and First Impressions

I'm in Moscow! All the waiting is over and another adventure has begun.
At 3:45am on Wednesday morning I got a taxi to Heathrow terminal 3 for my 7 o'clock Scandinavian Airlines flight to Moscow via Stockholm. The taxi driver was nice chap who had, funnily enough, lived in Moscow around 1993-94 and he reckoned I would have a great time. Good stuff.

The flight was probably the most simple and stress free flight I've ever been on. Something to do with the unflappable Swedes and the fact that the last 4 or 5 flights I've been on have been with RyanAir (never, ever again!).

I think we arrived in Stockholm about 10 ish. The airport was nice and it was early so it wasn't too crowded either. I had a little wander around and then went outside for a cigarette where I saw the first of what, I am sure, will be a lot of snow.





It was bloody cold but the fresh air was great after the stuffy, re-cycled airplane stuff and made me feel quite awake again.



I only had a few hours before I had to get the second leg flight so I went and found the departure lounge. Unfortunately I also found what must have been a Russian school football team taking up all the seats near the gate I was supposed to be at. I looked around for an empty seat but no joy.
I did however see Mikael Akerfeldt, just sitting there with his headphones on! For anyone who doesn't know, he is the dude from Opeth, one of my favourite bands and pretty much a pioneer of modern progressive metal. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxaFANthouM

I did a proper double take and then made some terrible attempt at going to say hello but bottling it! Slightly embarrassed I shuffled off to find the smoking room, with it's kind instructions on how to smoke.

Feeling a bit better, I again went in search of a seat. And there comes Mr Opeth walking towards me. Thinking I'm far too old to be star struck like this I, as boldly as possible, said
"Er, excuse me, terribly sorry to bother you, but you are the Opeth chap aren't you, Mikael Akerfeldt?"
"Yes, that's right" said he. And the rest is an embarrasing mix of something like "love the music!" "thank-you" "where are you off to?" "London" "Have fun" "Thanks, bye" "bye"....
Thoroughly nice chap!

So, next leg of the flight was pretty good, got talking to a nice lady sat next to me. She was Siberian and an English teacher! So we chatted all things cold and schlolastic and exchanged emails. Things were going pretty well so far.
We landed safely and did all the boring customs nonsense and went through arrivals where I was greeted by Roman, the driver! Nice bloke, not much English, which was a shame because we spent the next hour in a traffic jam. Eventually arrived at the apartment block, which looked rather depressing from the outside, very soviet as you can imagine, and the inside didn't seem much better, smelled of damp dogs and a bit crumbly.
But the apartment is lovely. Quite small, but very moden and has all the essentials. Good shower, good kitchen, comfy bed. No complaints at all.

My bedroom

View from my room

Lada!

So I got to the apartment about 7pm Moscow time. The person I'm sharing with, John, was still at work so I made myself at home, unpacked and had a shower. I figured John would be home about 10pm or so. By 12 o'clock there was still no sign so I went to bed. About an hour later I was awoken by a loud buzzer which must've been the front door. Unknowingly I had locked poor John out! So it was in a rather confused, half asleep state that I met my housemate. Very nice bloke from Yorkshire but a Liverpool fan, result.

Next day and we trundled off to the school to meet people and have a bit of a look at the city in daylight. I know it sounds daft, but it all feels so Russian! Obviously the alphabet is completely different so I'm constantly trying to read everything, largely to no avail, but occasionly I get something and get a bit excited! There are lots of tower blocks and very socialist looking buildings everywhere and lots of people with hats! The fact that it's late autumn/winter just adds to the feeling of austerity and bleakness too, but I love that so it's great!
Basically all the stereotypes you can think of are true (in a positive sense of course!).  And I could listen to people talking all day. Now I just have to learn a bit of the language so I can talk back.
The people at the school are all really nice and helpful. I know it's early days but to use the first of what I'm sure will be many football analogies, it makes Korea and Sicily seem like Dr Martens league teams, while this is probably somehwere near the top of the Championship. I'm gonna take them into the Champions League of coure!!
Anyway, after the meet and greets, John went off to work and I went shopping. I found a little shop, like a co-op, and went inside. First thing I see is the beer fridge! Typical eh? There's a very nice selection of Russian and other beers but I think to play it safe and go for a couple of cans of Grolsch. So I open thefridge, take a can and.....wait, what's this water doing pising all over me?!? Turning the can around in my hand to find the source of the problem I inadvertently spray beer all over some poor old lady, before hurriedly shoving it back in the fridge, still spraying everywhere, and move on! Bit of guilt and some beer spilt, but hey-ho...
I managed to find some stuff anyway, here's my receipt to give you an idea of prices :

So I went back home, had some dinner and caught up on some sleep.
Overall, very happy and excited to be here. More soon amigos....

New coat, new boots, new city.

Well, nearly there now. Bought some great big boots earlier to keep me old tootsies warm (the rest is covered thanks to some great thermal underwear, thanks mum!).

Sitting here watching LFC TV with a nice cup of tea, still glowing from the 2-0 defeat of Chelsea yesterday, wondering if I'll be lucky enough to find somewhere to watch the footy in Moscow. I'm going to adopt Spartak Moscow as my Russian team after taking them to League glory on Pro Evo and the fact they have a striker called Ari ! Gonna have to get that shirt!They play in the right colour too.

Anyway, this is just to get started. Photos and stuff will follow as soon as I get a bit settled and have something to report....