Snow is falling….(not)

Hello everyone!

Welcome to the last blog post of the term. As you can probably tell, we have no snow, but it does seem to be very bright today, which means that it will actually get light, which is a vast improvement on yesterday and the past few days! It has also been quite cold.

We celebrated Christmas is style last night, with our International Christmas Party, which the Vision team helped us to host. One girl said that she now wants to follow Jesus, which is great news! We had about 50 students there in total. There was a meal, a quiz, and some descriptions of what Christmas is like around the world, combined with lots of general merriment.

After the party, the girls headed up to the banya, which is a Russian sauna, but better. Basically you have the sauna part, and then you have a really cold pool to jump into, and then you go back between the two until your time runs out. You feel so clean afterwards! I made a bit of a prat of myself though, as there was also a shower in there, with another shower joined on which was a special “massage” shower. I tuned it on, to see what it was like, but I only turned one lever, which happened to be the hot one. I got out from under the scalding water in time, but then had to puzzle out how to turn it off – you could barely even see the lever through the steam… I got the ladle for pouring water onto the coals, and used that in the end, but it was a bit close really! I don’t think people are going to allow me to forget that for a while.

On Sunday night, my friend Tanya took me to see a ballet called Ondine at the Mariinski theatre – it was really amazing! I think the standard of even the little kids was even much better than anything we have in England. In the interval, we got to stand in the Tsar’s box and take some pictures. I hope we can go again sometime!

Right, I think that that is about all I can think of for the moment. I’m sure that we have done loads more, but at the moment it has escaped my mind!

I hope that you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

lots of love

Sarah

xxxx

Last Christmas...

Hello everyone!

Today, the world seems a much better place. Mostly because there is snow on the ground, which has been all muddy and ming for the past week or two. We actually saw the sun yesterday, which was also exciting – we had shadows! It might sound strange that that is so exciting, but I don’t think we have seen the sun for about 3 weeks, and it is only properly light between 10.30 ish and about 3.00…

But enough of the complaining. The city is so beautiful when the weather is like it is now! We have had a winding down week really, as we are preparing to leave for Christmas, and for the Vision trip from England which arrives on Saturday. I will be coming home on the 22^nd December, which is very exciting. The Vision trip are coming to see what ministry and life is like here in St Petes, for people who might be preparing to come next year. We are planning an “International Christmas Party” for next Wednesday night, which the Vision team will help us to prepare for. It will be a meal with entertainment around the various courses (no turkey unfortunately), and with description of traditions in various places around the world. We are hoping that around 60 students will come, and that we will be able to share the Gospel with them during the course of the evening.

It is surprising that a place with so many lights and decorations can feel so un-Christmassy, mostly because New Year is the big thing here! But then, I did go into a shop the other day with a rendition of George Michael’s Last Christmas I Gave You My Heart playing. Except it was sung by a woman (I think) in Russian. And the words meant something completely different. But other than that it was the same.

Lots of love

Sarah

xxx

Talinn

Hello from a very bumpy coach, just back inside Russia!

Well, this has been a week and a half with a lot of travel. First we went to see the ancient town of Pskov, a 4 hour coach ride away from St Petes with a group of students, and now we are on our way back from Talinn. It is odd how much more bumpy the road is as soon as you cross the border.

Of course, that is not the only way that you can tell that you are going across – this isn’t like the civilised sleeping you can manage between France and Belgium, with the only difference being the colour of the road signs. Here, you are all turfed out of the bus, no matter whether it is 2pm or 2am, while the bus is searched. Inside a building you queue to go through border control. Then once all that is done, and you are all comfortably settled on the bus, the control on the other side get involved. Specifically to get into Estonia, a lady came on the bus, takes away your passport, and disappears with it. Thankfully she does then bring it back. Going the other way the other night, we spent 2 hours at the border, as someone didn’t have the right insurance so had to pay a “fine” of £1.50 and buy more from them there, and another girl had another problem or some kind. This time, we have gone for a record 45 mins, although we have gained 4 Russian women in border control uniform onto the bus. Not entirely sure why, but maybe they wanted a free ride.

Before you come to the conclusion that buses here have wireless internet, I’m only typing this on the bus. I will post it later. Something very exciting happened last week – we actually got the internet at home. Granted (There go those women – must have just been their lift home) we did ask for wireless internet, and were told that we wouldn’t need anything extra for it, and we have only got normal until we go and get another box, but at least we do finally have it. 3 weeks before we have to go away for Christmas…

Talinn was really beautiful. It was a huge contrast to St Petes. First, there were hills, which, resulting from being at Durham, I really miss. St Petes is as flat as a pancake. Then there were cobbles in the old town, and everything was just so clean. I love Russia to bits, but it is just so dirty – people coming to your flat wash their hands often when they arrive, even if they are not going to eat. Lots of people spoke English, which was good as we don’t speak any Estonian. Also, everywhere was decorated for Christmas, most notably the Irish pub which we went to to get an English breakfast, and also to try out their Sunday roast. That proved not to be so popular given that they had never even heard of Yorkshire puddings, and it was only going to be chicken. They also offered to give us chips with it, which we declined.

They had a Christmas market, which was full of tourists, particularly on Saturday, when we reckon the Easy Jet flight had come in… I tried on loads of hats, as I am trying to improve on the tea cosy look, but I couldn’t find any that were the right size and didn’t make me look like an idiot.

Hopefully the blog site will now be accepting photos again, so I will put a selection up. It will now be time to come back to earth, for the final 3 weeks before the Christmas break – there is still lots of hard work to do, not to mention Christmas shopping!

Lots of love

Sarah

xxx