FINALLY!

Have finally got around to sitting down and actually writing something.
So, for the lack of a post whilst here I must apologise.

It has been a weird month. It's hard to really know what to say about starting a new life in a brand new country. The biggest thing so far has most certainly been the massive culture shock.

Although it's been ages since I was at home, the first reaction to arriving in Moscow and dragging my stupidly heavy suitcases into my new room was "oh my god, I can't believe I have to live here". It's all just so massively different. And here's why:
You don't get a bed, you get a pull out sofa.
You don't really get your own room as it's full of the hozyaika's stuff.
Russian flats aren't exactly spacious and most certainly aren't usually decorated in a modern way.

These were my biggest problems when I first arrived, and it was a really horrible feeling. It felt bad because you know that it's a culture thing and that this is how this family lives, and it also felt bad because you really don't want to have to stay there for ten months.

But after a week or so of sleeping on a springy box with a carpet on it and dreading every minute of being at 'home' it was decided that I would change things. I went to Ikea, bought my own sheets, duvet and pillows. I demanded a mattress (which is still really thin, but it'll do) and I forced myself to accept the fact that I was being silly for expecting some sort of Ikea showroom instead of a real Russian home.
I can now say after 4 weeks of living here, that I'm quite happy with my accommodation. It has hight ceilings, it has windows that open (although teeny flies come in during the night and bite me, leaving really itchy bites), it has fast cheap internet it's not massively far from where I study, it's walking distance from Red Square (around about 30 minutes) and it has a washing machine (although you can never use it because the family are constantly using it).

There's not all that much that i can tell you about Moscow at the moment that you can't read on any blog or in any travel book, although I'm sure I'll remember a few stories for the next post.