Aliona's farewell

Used syringe we saw...

Today, got up fairly early and went out to the shop to buy some more cereal and food - once that was out of the way, I waited around - the guys from upstairs came down to see if I was keen to go to Baikalsk, but I decided I'd rather stay here for this weekend and see what they think of it. Also, this was the last day that Aliona will be here, as she's going to Belgium for 5 or 6 months to study French there - we all went out to lunch with her to a vegetarian restaurant just off of Karl Marx street - the food there was really really good, and almost certainly going to go back there at some point - relatively cheap as well, I thought! Little dampener on that affair was that as we went up the outdoors stairs to the restaurant, we saw a used syringe lying on the steps, with a couple of droplets of blood on it too - unpleasant to say the least, no idea what someone had injected into themselves, but can't have been something good, and almost certainly unsanitary, doing it in the middle of the street. Also found an outdoors shop which sells sleeping bags and rucksacks, so I may buy a sleeping bag at some point if the weather turns very cold (although the prices seemed a little on the expensive side!).

JungHeum, Aliona, Sara, Katrien, Dries and Maria

Dries, Maria, Katrien, JungHeum
and Aliona with Alexander III

Afterwards, went for a walk around the town - was a really nice day, with weather between 14 and 21ºC!! Wish I'd worn short sleeves, but wasn't to know! We then went back to the dormitory on foot and I washed all my clothes (haven't done washing for a week, so had to do it in three goes - so awkward not being able to access a washing machine. Oh well, I guess its an experience - I may, however, do what Dries has been doing and just do a little bit every day so as not to have a massive wash every so often! Aliona then came up to say goodbye to us and gave us each an Alëna (Aliona) chocolate bar, which was really sweet of her (no pun intended). Maria and I then cooked the 'pelmeni' and vegetables we had, and as we were eating them (the belgians all ate at the same time as us - Danya and Corinne have both gone back to Baikal as part of the American group, they have to go on these excursions, even though they went last week), Ruslan and Radmir came to see us and asked us if we fancied going out tonight.

Ruslan, Andrugs, Sara, Radmir and Katrien

Went out with the people from my corridor, JungHeum and Amanda, who we met on the way to Harat's. We settled down there for a quiet chat and drink with the two guys we've met and Radmir's brother, Andrugs. Was quite pleasant - spent most of the time burning tooth-picks with Lara and then putting them onto the plastic of a cigarette pack which was lying around. Afterwards, most of us decided to go back to the residence, but Dries and Katrien along with the locals decided to stay out to go into town... lets see how that turns out..!