Karaoke and wolf-rapists

We've been spending a lot of time in the last few days sort of wandering around Petrozavodsk, exploring various places and discovering new and exciting things (like bread that isn't dry and fur coats for the equivalent of £800). During this, we have encountered a few things: 

-dogs
-water in various forms
-karaoke

So firstly, we're all a little bit anxious about dogs here, because there is always the possibility of RABIES. None of us have had our jabs for rabies, and there are a lot of dogs that either aren't on leads or don't even appear to have owners. I tend to roll with the idea that you can't let the dogs know you're scared, they sense your fear, so you have to pretend you're not. That doesn't go for everyone, however, and while we were walking along one day, after passing a dog, we discussed what dogs really are. Eva stated that dogs are 'wolf-rapists'- i.e. small wolves, and like rapists, because they don't pay attention to you saying no, they don't get away from you when you want them too etc. I think this is possibly an extreme reaction to the dogs, not sure about the rapist part, but definitely sure about the wolf part. Anyway, we'd definitely prefer to not encounter dogs. Also, on the way to Lenta (a big supermarket) me and Nadia saw a dog that definitely appeared to be lying on the street dead. It was a bit strange. 

Anyway, a slightly more enjoyable topic is the sheer amount of water in Petrozavodsk- not just the obvious Lake Onega but also lots of little streams, lakes, fountains etc. Turns out that a lot of us really love water, and that it makes us sad when we're not around it. We might have a problem when it all turns to ice though :( :( :( 

The most hilarious thing so far in Russia, however, is karaoke. Russians do karaoke about a million times better than in Britain- probably something to do with the fact that they're not embarrassed about it, and also because they're ridiculously drunk. It was great seeing people sing songs when they definitely don't know what the words are supposed to be, and ending up just making a mumbly singy thing. The atmosphere was fantastic, and I have already planned songs I intend to sing next week (I think we have an advantage just by having english as our first language). One of the most hilarious songs was 'моя бабушка курит трубку' which we thought meant 'my grandma smokes weed' but disappointingly only means 'my grandma smokes a pipe'. Whatever, it was a hilarious song and I think we'll all probably be secretly downloading it....

For some reason pictures aren't working here but I'm uploading onto facebook as we speak!