It sort
of wasn’t happening much and now it’s all happening or about to happen. As our
classes only start this week we have been fairly free and as such have spent a
lot of time in pubs watching football or coffee shops with the Winter Olympics
or in restaurants generally enjoying the high quality and, it has to be said,
low prices of life in St Petersburg.
It really is good from that point
of view. You go to a restaurant which is relatively expensive for these parts
(say 600 Barney Rubbles a head rather than 350-400) and it all feels quite nice
and posh and they take your coat and call you sir and bring your food on silver
platters (ok, not quite) and treat you generally very nicely... And then you
leave at the end of a large meal with beverages and you’ve spent the princely
sum of £8.63. Not bad, is it? It’s like being in Zimbabwe with a £10 note.
We’ve done a few useful things in
amongst this merriment. For various fairly minor reasons and a couple of major
ones, a couple of us have decided to move out into a flat of our own. We’ve spent
hours researching and visiting potential places, more or less helped out by our
new friend Andrei at the estate agency we’re using. Anyway, this all culminated
last night in some serious action.
After
possibly two of the most stressful hours of our lives last night, intensely
negotiating with our estate agent (who probably doesn’t like me because I kept
calling him Andrei when that just isn’t his name, as it turns out) in Russian
in his car, we agreed to push through our deal for our new flat. He
untruthfully claimed that some other people were going to sign on it today and
we had to hurry (a subsequent lie detector test determined that this was a
lie). He became increasingly tetchy and spoke increasingly quickly as he became
later and later for his Valentine’s dinner. He even sprung upon us a surprise
new fee in addition what we thought we were paying, changing the nature of the
deal from “seems too good to be true” to “well, it was a little bit too good to
be true”, but with a bit of haggling, we’ve found ourselves a reasonable
agreement and we’ll be perusing a contract on Sunday evening.
It’s a
pretty good situation, actually. The flat is nice and modern and gives us proper
beds and highly comfortable surroundings, as well as finally having some
internet. It’s also the most incredible location in the very centre of
Petersburg but still in a quiet place (just next to the church which I think is
called the Church of the Spilled Blood). Cutting ties with my host here will be
awkward when she eventually gets back from Moscow but she didn’t even know
she’d be having me until the day before I arrived so hopefully she’ll get over
it.
There’s
not a lot else to be said about it, I don’t suppose. It’s a great development
in the Petersburg Adventure and it’ll surely mean we can do more in town,
especially in the evenings, because it’s so much easier to get home.
Actually come to think of it all
that was the second most stressful part of last night. Nick and I decided to
celebrate / recuperate after the dealings with a small meal out in town. For
some reason, two guys having a quick bite to eat together on the evening of the
14th February in Russia seems to be frowned upon in some way.
For now, it’s a case of having a
very lazy Saturday to recover from the trials and tribulations of last night,
before going and signing the contract tomorrow.
Oh, and we also went to the
Hermitage, 3rd biggest museum in the world, culture, art, stuff....
probably should’ve mentioned that a bit more. Impressive.
Otherwise, it’s all just getting started,
for now. We’re all involved in a couple of different English teaching things
starting this week, our classes start, the uni gym and swimming pool and clubs
become available to us, we’ve met fellow football players who are good for
regular games and this will all let us practise a bit more Russian too. I
suppose that is the point of all this.
Up and running.
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