Arrival in/ Travel to Russia!

On 31st of September I started my longggg journey to Petrozavodsk, Russia. I left at 5pm off on the train to London. My family took me to the station, but annoyingly (typically for East Coast trains) the train was late and they had to leave early so couldn't wave me off wahh.

Me and my sisters at the station

I thought I had a super-clever setup for carrying my bags, but as it turned out the one on the top kept falling off while in the middle of busy areas in King's Cross... whoops. Everyone in my vicinity hated me. ALSO there were engineering works on the Northern Line, which I was taking to get to Nadia's and so I had to first get a train to Euston and then a rail replacement bus to Golder's Green, which was stressful and super busy. I eventually got there, and stayed the night at Nadia's grandma's house, which was fun (and a lot cheaper than paying for a hotel)! 

We got up at 5.15, got a taxi at 6.00 and arrived at the airport really early, and managed to meet with other people from Sheffield, which was great. We had an uneventful but fun flight, which involved drinking free wine, and the fact that Roy Bivon helpfully forgot to organise me a veggie meal. 

Here is a photo of us on the plane

When we arrived at St Petersburg, it was quite stressful going through customs cause the guy seemed to stamp about 50 documents but we all got let through and as far as I can tell nobody lost their luggage! We had a long-ish journey to Petrozavodsk but didn't arrive too late, and I was the first one to leave the coach (which was slightly scary) but my hozyaika seems really lovely, her apartment is great, and has internet!!!! and she half-forced tea and cake on me although I wasn't hungry. My apartment (which is coincidentally right next to Robin's, another guy from Sheffield who is also on our course) looks really soviet, but it is great inside- here are a few pics!

My room!

The kitchen

The view from my window

All in all it's a pretty amazing place, although quite daunting, especially because I basically can't speak any Russian. Communication so far has been fun with a lot of confusion and having to be shown what to do!