Today has been surprisingly warm and sunny (am I really in Siberia?)and we were treated to a storm.... I laughed at all the glam women who had put skirts and sandals on, 'not so glam now are ya?!' I yelled at them from across the street.... no I didn't really.

My friend and I upgraded to a more sophistocated summer tent yesterday evening (this is the location of my tri-weekly Russian lesson), as our usual place had been over-occupied with drunken karaoke-seeking merry-making Russian folks. We were not pestered by one-legged babooshkas in this classier establishment but I felt the general atmosphere suffered for the lack of such things.

I met the Aussie woman who is technically my rival, but it turned out that she's got some books that will assist me in my complete lack of understanding of Business English, which is nice. She has only been here 3 weeks and already she is much more adventurous than me.... perhaps this whole 'experiencing a different culture' just isn't for me, and I felt embarrassed by my cynicism, and lack of ability to adapt to my new surroundings. Even when I mentioned the food, she casually said, 'well I just made spag bol the other night'... and I was left wondering to myself, 'why did I never think of doing that?'.... I didn't come all this way, suffer all those hardships at the hands of the Russian Embassy, just to eat spag bol!!!

I came to eat baked beans...