Christmas in Russia

Jiae, Cristine, Hyo Eun, Changmin, Mikyong, Elizabeta, Minji,
Kkotsul, Soojin, Yoonah, Heijin, Jakob and self

I've not been updating the blog much of late - I've been a little bit ill, so nothing much happened which inspired me to write a blog post. Nonetheless, a quick recap over the last week is now needed... Thursday was our last day of lessons for the year, and also the last time that Jakob will be gracing the class with his presence - he will be returning to Belgium fairly soon, and so this just leaves Cristine, the Koreans and myself in the class, at least for now, although I asked Rima, and she doesn't think anybody else will be joining our class next semester. Our last class was with Elizabeta - we had another exam - multiple choice... I was quite pleased to get 90% on this, although some of the Koreans got higher scores. I blame this on my being ill and have only, as a result of this, only managed to sleep about five hours over the preceding two days! Friday, I had been looking forward to, as almost everyone else on the corridor was meant to be singing in an event organised by the International department - fortunately, as a class we decided we weren't keen to do this - understandably the idea of public humiliation is not very attractive to us! However, being a bit sick, made me decide that going to watch the others singing wasn't that much of a good idea, so I stayed in instead, feeling sorry for myself and watching series one of 'Dexter'.

Christmas meal - take 1

The next two days were spent mostly in bed, but on Saturday I went out with Britt to buy presents for the 'Secret Santa' we had decided to play on our corridor. Firstly, however, we went to the Commercial Centre next to the Central Market and bought some more wool - Britt has now started knitting, and I have finished my second scarf, so had to buy another ball of wool in order to start up again. Afterwards, we went to a bookstore where I bought a map of Russia and one of Irkutsk/Baikal - the former being one of the two presents I got for Dries. For fun, Britt also bought a pack of Tarot Cards which we played with that evening, although the instructions were bizarre enough that we didn't understand what was going on... That evening, whilst I stayed in bed and watched the first episode of 'A Game of Thrones', having already finished reading the fourth book, a lot of people were cooking and preparing the meal for Christmas Eve. We did have a massive meal, and loads of people came, but we all agreed it was a bit odd, as there were people whom a lot of us didn't know, and it didn't have much of a Christmas feel to it!

Emily, Danya, Sara, Lara, Eline, Britt, Maria, JungHeum, self, Sanne, Dries, Katrien, Lara
with our gifts from the 'Secret Santa'

JungHeum, Danya, Maria, Dries, Lara, Lara, Sanne, Eline,
Katrien, Sara, Britt and Emily at Chrsitmas meal - take 2

Yesterday, we had a lot more of the family atmosphere (we did all skype parents at some point over the weekend) - we all handed out our presents in the morning, as JungHeum was going to a goodbye party for a couple of the Koreans on the fifth floor that evening. Afterwards, I once more lounged around, feeling sorry for myself. The dinner was also a slightly smaller, but still quite a large affair, with a lot of different, but all equally tasty foods - afterwards, we enjoyed Danya playing the guitar - songs which had been given to her in her present - a book of all the songs which Katrien enjoys singing along to, and played Maria's new board-game - 'Life' in groups of two - Danya and I came together in one group and came gracefully second after Katrien and Sanne, the only two who had decided to skip the 'going to University' part of the game.