21st birthday and other...

I've been a bit lax with the blog over the last few days, so here is a bit on what has been going on then!! Brenda is leaving Irkutsk now - she'll be carrying on her second semester in Saint Petersburg, and so, to celebrate her departure, we organised a small farewell party in 'Amber', a buffet-restaurant in town. Once classes ended, all of us went there, and whilst most of us were collecting and paying for our food, Heijin and Jakob went to find a card and a goodbye cake for Brenda. We stayed around for quite a while, everyone saying in their own different languages how annoying it was that the Koreans and the rest of us can't communicate with each other all that well because of the language barrier. Afterwards, we all got the bus back, and the Koreans went on to the residence, whilst Brenda, Cristine, Jakob and I went to Harat's to get another goodbye drink and then started to dig into the cake. Sadly, my allergy to chocolate is clearly getting worse, and so I think I took a bit too much of the chocolate cake - I've been nauseous for a couple of days since! After Harat's, we walked back to the residence, on the way walking past the shop which burned down that same day - we're still not entirely sure what happened, but there seems to have been an explosion inside, as there is now only the shell of the building, with everything else completely shattered. As we walked past, we could see the figure 2012 standing alone on the ruined building - take your own guesses as to what this means!

View of the fire

Eline, Sanne, Bjorn, Dries, Elise, Lara, Danya, Amanda, Sara,
Maria, Joanna, Emily, JungHeum, Qian Qian and Britt

Friday was the celebrations for Britt's birthday - I stayed in, feeling nauseous both from university and from going out to the club that night, but I did party with them upstairs and help Britt to negotiate the returning time of 03:00 am.. No comments as to people's actions that night, but its best if they're all left to explain them themselves. Almost everyone did things which were amusing, at least to me! After partying upstairs, almost everyone went out to Panorama, but a I stayed in with Eline, Elise, Emily and Qian Qian, and speaking mostly to Qian Qian, which is really good, as it is really helping me to improve my Russian, this being our only real common language! I woke up as the others came back at 02:00 or 03:00 in the morning, which was even more amusing in any case!

Ice sculpture in Kirov square

My birthday was only the second main event of Saturday - the main one being the demonstration which took place towards the centre. Just before 16:00 I went to Kirov square and wandered around it, looking at the ice sculptures which are going up all around it - smurfs, squirrels and birds on the most part, with a small maze for children and a lot of ice-block doors etc. Some of them are really impressive though! After this, I went to the university to meet up with Anastasia, Marina and one of their friends from the lingua café, and walked with them to the demonstration to meet up with the rest of the people from the residence. We got there fairly quickly, but, unlike in Moscow or in Saint Petersburg the demonstration was really quiet, people walking around talking to each other, but nothing really seemed to be happening, and the planned walk to Kirov square didn't happen.

My birthday cactus

Needless to say, I had a great birthday party prepared for me by my wonderful halls-buddies when I got back - a lot of presents, and a good time, despite all of us being absolutely knackered from last night / cake / illness! Still, it was nice to hang out for a while and celebrate, although I need to take a proper look at all of my presents again.  I absolutely loved every one of them, and had a great time with them. Afterwards, a bit of skype, a bit of TV, and we were all pretty knackered, so bed was a very welcome prospect!

The new, fur-lined winter boots

Today has been the laziest of the past few days, but, after a late start, Cristine and I eventually got our act together and went out to the Commercial Centre by the Central Market on the hunt for a new jacket for me and also some new boots for each of us. Very successful venture, and after a few hours of walking around the commercial centre we both managed to find stuff that was acceptable to our tastes - the colour of the coat was also chosen to go well with the colour of my skin, as I was told! Hopefully that means that I'm almost ready for the Siberian winter, although I do still need to buy some warmer trousers for the next couple of months! Today has also been the hundred and second day that I've been in Russia, and marks a third of my way through my time here - its pretty amazing how fast time flies!