Ladies and gentlemen, I am officially living in a world where I consider -5 degrees (Celsius, mind you) to be warm. Tropically-dwelling Past-Lucy is shaking her head in dismay, and even Freshly-Arrived-Lucy of three months ago is very confused by my abundant enthusiasm for spending all day outside in such temperatures and not even taking my hardcore snow gear along for the ride. We had a weekend early on in January where the mercury plummeted to -30, and with everything being relative it is hard to take anything warmer than -10 as serious on the cold front. Minus thirty, however, is no joke- despite wearing all of my thermals and stomping Sorrels, by the end of my 20 minute walk to the metro I was covered in ice from head to toe and was pretty sure my thighs would never regain feeling. 'Frosting'  is a fashion fad trending on Instagram over here at the moment, where lovely ladies sport frozen eyelashes for their all-important selfies. Gave this a try completely accidentally on said metro walk, and didn't even realise it had happened until my right eye's lashes froze together and I almost fell into a snowbank hopping around trying to get my eye to open again (graceful as ever). The next day I did end up in that very same snowbank, when I was walking home at the same time as the snow clearing tractor was trundling along- we had a brief face off where I thought he would divert path/wait for me to squeeze past and then the next thing I knew I was thigh deep in the snow and feeling quite indignant about the whole affair. 

Of course though, I was wearing snow pants. As it was still -29 degrees. A truly fascinating aspect of the winter wonderland that is Moscow (for far too many months in my opinion) is watching how the Russians do/really don't change their attire depending on the weather. My dress is strictly regulated by the temperature outside, which means that the colder it gets the more I take my fashion cues from the Michelin man. As I am wandering around like an asexual lump, Russian woman are still managing ice in heeled boots, with skinny jeans and a nice slimming fur/down jacket. Snow boots? Please. Snow pants? I don't think so. Watching the girls get changed before/after my dance classes (because that doesn't sound creepy at all) is a truly jaw-dropping experience- as I put on three pairs of pants, most of them roll on some nice pantyhose and then slide into their daily skinny jeans, pop on some nice dainty boots and shimmy on out of there. The day of the tractor-vs-Lucy (Tractor: 1, Lucy: Snowbank) I also watched a woman hanging her clothes outside to dry. Hanging. Her Clothes. Outside. In -29. 

This country truly fascinates and bamboozles me. 

The bamboozlement continued when one of the Russian girls who works at the university asked me to model for her for a photo shoot. She works professionally as a photographer, and to add to her portfolio she often shoots friends or university classmates. Well. Suffice to say that growing up in a culture where we aren't incessantly photographing each other and practising poses did not prepare me well for my modelling day out. Quite early on in our photo-excursion Olga politely (but firmly) suggested that while I have a 'beautiful smile... perhaps it could be a little smaller?' Pretty comedic trying to smile but also keep my mouth closed, and I'm not surprised that in the end the photo she chose was the one where you can't really see my attempted smile/pout/little smile (it's the first one in the photo gallery attached to this entry). 

Emotions run high in this city. It has been an occasionally rocky road recently, as I slowly come to the realisation that most of what I am proud of about myself Russian society deplores. And while in Australia I may be a little out of the box, it is one thing to be a little left of centre in a society that values independence of thought and breaking the trends and a total different thing to be that way in a country where standing out from the crowd is never, ever, a good thing. At work I am often asked about my children or my partner, and for the Russians I meet socially the idea that I have left a country like Australia to come and study here is so far-fetched we never really get past it. Being a foreigner is my only real appeal to potential Russian friends, and yet while they think my Australian-ness is 'cool' they still expect me to be a Russian woman, and have Russian values and behaviours. My Russian is still at the level where I lose all personality while communicating- yesterday in my dance class my favourite teacher complimented a series of moves I'd successfully pulled off, and while in English I could have found a witty comment that could have been the potential start of a friendship in Russian I could only thank him. Cultural differences run deep, and while they are fascinating to observe it can be quite overwhelming when you have to live amongst them.

As quickly as I am plunged into the depths of despair by rampant sexism or my inability to communicate on any level of sophistication, I am pulled out again by the everyday joy to be found in this city- a cafe advertising free hugs, a special New Year train running on the metro absolutely laden with fairy lights, its Tram of Joy counterpart patrolling the streets looking like a Christmas tree on the move, a man chasing his dog lamenting, 'heyyyy where are you running to??', ice skating with my Russian friend and realising we'd hung out for two hours and only spoken Russian and I hadn't even noticed, days of blue skies and ever-longer sunlight hours.

Sometimes, it's the little things. 

A very happy holidays to all! I'm finding it very hard to believe that December is already coming to a close, and that 2017 is looming just days away. I hope everyone is having a wonderful festive season and enjoying some family time or simply relaxing time in the sun or the snow. 

Trying to gather my thoughts and stories for this entry has been a bit overwhelming- in only a month so many things (good bad and plainly ridiculous) have happened that is hard to know where to start! But I suppose there have been three major events that have taken place and drastically influenced my December- Firstly, I've started working, secondly, I starting taking dance classes, and finally I bought ice skates. I also cried watching the new Disney movie (Moana, dubbed into Russian) (there's something about being away from your family that really raises the emotional vulnerability levels) (also I wasn't the only one crying Emily I'm looking at you), braved a Russian beauty salon to have my eyebrows/eyelashes tinted and then was somehow surprised when the result was not quite as expected (read- somehow my eyebrows became the main feature of my face can I hear you say DEFINITION) and tried to take a vocally led yoga class and of course couldn't understand anything (we haven't really been working on yoga vocab in class) which was both humiliating and hilarious.

The job interview I mentioned in my last entry was successful, and I am now working as a substitute teacher for the Anglo American School of Moscow- a huge international school connected to the American, Canadian and British Embassies that offers a normal elementary, middle and high school program but taught entirely in English. So far I've been a middle school maths teacher, a high school film and photography buff, and a pre-k (3-4 year old) assistant- the last of which was for an entire week. I ended the week with glitter everywhere, and my hair smelling of gingerbread, but actually being paid to more or less play all day is pretty dang cool. Not only is having an income (and a really good one by Moscow standards) such a relief, working for AAS also means I can borrow books from their extensive English/Russian library (I currently have the max loan, ie 15 books) and I can play the pianos in their music rooms- I feel like the luckiest girl in the world. The only downside is that working in English has slowed my Russian acquisition, as there is now none of the survival panic that was fuelling my learning before. I am well and truly back in my language comfort zone and so am working really hard to stop myself from spending too much leisure time in English as well. 

Luckily I have countered this somewhat with Model-357- a dance studio offering classes from hip hop to contemporary, from jazz funk to reggaeton. Dance classes are exorbitantly expensive in Australia, but in Moscow you can find top-notch tuition for an extremely reasonable price. My very first class was a dancehall lesson- which I signed up for, got changed, found a place towards the back of the class, and then was hit with several realisations at once. Firstly, I have never danced dancehall (google it- kinda Caribbean social hiphop), secondly, I hadn't taken a dance class in oh, at least a decade, and thirdly, that the class would (duh Lucy) be taught in Russian. And my dance vocab is similar to my yoga vocab- non-existent. Well! I could just keep up with the moves, and found myself having an amazing time regardless. Since then I've dabbled with jazz funk (great fun), contemporary (way out of my league- filled with complicated floor moves with looked extremely graceful when the teacher did them but just looked like I was having some sort of very active wide-ranging fit when I tried), strip (my most successful class which clearly says something about my normal dance style), and hip hop choreo (about as successful as contemporary aka dismal failure). I'm there for a couple of hours most days, it really is becoming my happy place (and oh man are my muscles getting a wake up call).

In what seems to be my continuing quest to become a feminine force to be reckoned with (I mean really, dance classes? Beauty salon? A new found affinity for red lipstick? Intervention plz) I also bought ice skates. Of the white, dainty, figure skating variety (in my defence they were on sale but anyway). For a mere 500 roubles (aka about 12AUD) I am set for the winter and many winters to come. Glory! The only small setback to my ascension to figure skating glory is that I'd only skated maybe 3 times in my life, none of which were recently. A fact that came back to me with painful clarity when I donned my skates for the first time and almost took out a security guard just trying to walk to the rink. However, I happily (tentatively)(extremely tentatively) stepped my way around the path (natural rink in a beautiful park in central Moscow) and after about half an hour had made an appreciable distance. A girl at the ice rink alone is a very rare sight (/never seen any other ladies there without their male accessories) and with my baby-giraffe vibe I have met many knights keen to help a damsel in distress- Max implored me to just yell his name if I get into trouble and he'll be right there to help me (and to be fair he pulled me out of my face-plant-into-snow-bed pretty speedily even though due to face full of snow I couldn't really summon him) Makar and Dima collectively caught me when I was on my way to a icy tumble, and Denis (who happens to be an ice hockey coach) has been giving me intensive lessons which have been so helpful (except for when he suggested I practice falling. No Denis. No). The cool thing about all of these interactions is they double as Russian practice, and I can't help but feel a glow of pride when I can answer off the cuff when they ask me questions or just say hi (though they always figure out I'm a foreigner from my accent pretty quick but hey.) And my professional skating debut? Well. I'm glad you asked. Before Denis began giving me skate lessons he roped me into a holiday skating competition, which involved slalom, limbo, and jumping over a pole. All this on my first day skating, where to say I was even skating is using the term quite broadly. I emphatically refused, but then it became apparent that the competition was actually just against myself and Denis was happy to just pull me around- all I had to do was hang on and stay upright, and jump at the right moment, and I was rewarded with a festively wrapped tube of Pringles (see photo below). However, Mum says that now I've won a prize that makes me a professional so I'm off to buy the Olympic uniform now as an investment for future success.

Moscow really dresses up for the festive season, as you'll see from the pics below. The main event is New Year- Christian Christmas isn't really a big deal but ooooh New Years is. Looking forward to some pretty impressive fireworks. 

С новым годом! (Happy New Year! And also I typed that all by myself in but a moment- making hella progress on typing front).

Peace, Lucy. 

In a moment of abundant enthusiasm but potentially not a lot of sense, I've changed the language of almost all of my technological devices to Russian. Which means that I often fail at the use of my own telephone. However, I can still manage to read the date, and therefore note that Wednesday marked my one month anniversary of living here in Moscow- a revelation that came upon me as I was watching the sun set from a bridge over near-completely-frozen water, laughing so hysterically my beanie almost became a sacrifice to the river gods and the Kremlin domes glittered in the last rays of the winter sun. Not a bad place to be having revelations. (Please note I was not laughing by myself like a crazy person (though that does frequently happen) but with a new friend who is as excited about finding raw cacao and/or the Northern Lights as me).

Team, I am getting there on the language front. I've made a serious effort to only listen to Russian music and watch films dubbed into Russian, which was initially about as much fun as trying to save a number in a phone you no longer understand. After some serious digging though I've found some Russian musicians who fit my eclectic tastes (ok not that eclectic, just no more over-produced dance music with no coherent structure PLEASE) and I've started understanding at least a quarter of what I'm watching. I did treat the potatoes in the supermarket to a happy dance last weekend, as an older lady had asked me for help and not only had I understood but been able to coherently answer her question (admittedly it was simply, 'Young lady, does this bottle say December (re. expiry date)?' and I was certainly out-of-proportionately proud of myself but one must take all the victories one can here). And then when I was out dancing last weekend the DJ played a Russian song that I knew and I think my fellow club-ees thought I had certainly had too much of the 'little water' (ie. vodka) when I started singing the lyrics just to prove I could. (Probably didn't need to be quite so loud… also almost certainly mispronounced every word).

Class continues to race by, and I continue to confound my teacher by failing to conform to the gender roles that are still so heavily entrenched here ('Lucy, when do you want to get married? Lucy, what do you think you will allow your children to do that you weren't allowed to do? Lucy, will you have a big wedding?' … yeah you can probably guess my answers to those gems). We generally have a great time in class though, with today featuring song and dance as well as some amazing examples of Russian disco-style (think big, big hair), though in the back of my mind I am hyper aware of the fact that fun and games is all well and good, but I'll have to study in this language next year and being 'Australia' will no longer count for much. To alleviate my future academic uselessness I've started an online typing course for the Russian keyboard- currently typing at about 18 words per minute and having a great time playing the car racing games that accompany it! Admittedly my car keeps bursting into flames before the end of the race due to all my errors but hey. I also visited my future university yesterday (when I say visit I mean creepily loiter around the premises) and by golly it is beautiful. Smack bang in the middle of the artsy district of the city, about a 15 minute walk from the Kremlin and right by the river. Suddenly my future academic woes seemed pretty dang insignificant and I celebrated with a coffee in the sun, picturing myself flouncing around my neighbourhood-to-be.

Yes, sunshine! We've had three days of blue skies this week, the first I've seen since I arrived and looking at the weather forecast the last I'll see until probably March (joke. I hope). I made the typical coming-from-warmer-climes mistake of, 'oh, it is sunny outside! Therefore it must be warm! I won't need my heavy gloves or hat today!' and then setting off for four hour hikes… in -4 degrees. Looks to be some scary numbers like -15 coming up next week, and I've been assured by every Russian I've spoken to about it that the weather will only get much, much colder. Huzzah!

I've got a job interview this coming week, so fingers crossed I will emerge triumphant and employed and able to begin lush activities like eating out and yoga. I'm also going rock climbing this weekend (for the first time in an embarrassingly long time), planning an infiltration into the hipster heart of this city (an island dominated by an old confectionery factory that is now a warren of clubs and coffee shops), eyeing off my first banya of the season (the Russian version of the sauna)(but the version in which you get beaten with branches)(yup) and also planning to get my words-per-minute up to at least 20… or at least completing an entire car race without my car bursting into flames.

One month down. So many to come.  

P.S The lemon-coloured European looking building in the photos is my uni-to-be. I've put captions on a few of the photos to explain what they are! 

And in complete contrast to my previous post this blog entry shall be more photos and less talking (writing?) because my brain is broken and no longer wishes to function in any language other than sleep. Which is totally my own fault, for deciding to forsake my native language for one totally different and also mind-bogglingly hard. I'm pretty sure if my brain was an autonomous being it would remove itself from my head and punch me in the face.

Anyway.

Friday just gone was Unity Day, one of the main holidays in Russia which celebrates, well, unity. All the museums are free for the day, and open until late, so my friends from the dorm and I went museum hopping at about 7pm. Yes, a truly wild Friday night. But before we went and immersed ourselves in all things history we took advantage (well us and the entire city) of a beautifully lit Red Square and snapped some night photos featuring us, very important Russian landmarks, and the ever-present snow. I also had a complete excitement meltdown and scared the beejesus out of a Russian lad who was sporting a Lush bag over his arm- Lush. Is. In. Moscow. (For those that aren’t familiar with Lush, you should probably sort that out right now. All natural, all cruelty free, all amazing products for bath and body. My shower gel literally smells like a hug.)

Unity day gave us a four day weekend, so today I went on an adventure to Sergiev Posad, a town about 80km north of Moscow. Sergiev Posad is about as holy as you can get in Russia, founded in 1340 by St Sergei of Radonezh, and him being the most revered saint around. The Monastery is the spiritual centre of Russian Orthodoxy, and full of pilgrims and monks. And in typical Russian Orthodox style, it is absolutely stunning. Gold abounds, and of course some star-spangled onion domes, crazy tiling and salmon pink walls.  The dusting (/foot) of snow covering everything made it just that much more beautiful, though my hands would certainly have begged to differ… if they had had any feeling left in them. I did feel slightly better about my inability to deal with how cold it was when I saw 'White Pond', which was pretty much entirely iced over (leaving all the ducks corralled for children to throw bread at so quite convenient for all I suppose). If the pond is iced over, then it is actually cold right? Right!? (Is this the time to mention I'm planning a trip to Murmansk (located above the artic circle) in January? Brrr but also Northern Lights yes please).

This week will feature Lucy-tries-to-find-a-job-despite-potentially-not-being-allowed-to (thank you obscure visa policy) as my much anticipated 'allowance' is actually only about $50 a month. To be fair, that is about two weeks of groceries but still not quite going to cut the mustard especially with forementioned arctic trips planned (TUNDRA YEEHAA). But that probably does mean I won’t be leaving mother Russia for Europe adventures… y'all just have to come have adventures here. Trust me, we've got plenty. (Unless I find exceptionally well-paid and somehow legal work. Stay tuned.)  

I'm going to put this brain of mine to bed before it stages a coup. Stay warm troops! 

P.S First photo is of my 16th floor Lucy nest, then Moscow centre until you hit the gold domes. From there, Sergiev Posad until the final photo, which is one of the many elaborate metro stations... all marble, all the way. 

Здраствуйте from Moscow! I'd really love to say 'from sunny Moscow!' or at least, 'from unseasonably warm Moscow!' but this morning I woke up to snow so I'd say my chance to bask in the European sun has certainly passed.

I flew in on Wednesday, at about 4am Moscow time- some would say an incredibly inconvenient time to arrive, however by the sheer bulk of people moving through Domodedovo airport it seemed to be THE time to be arriving. However, my being-swept-along-in-the-human-river was put to a pretty abrupt halt quite early in the proceedings, as my visa had a technical issue- turns out it was suggesting that my gender was actually that of a man. Problematic. I was quickly quarantined, lectured to in Russian (yeah so two years of not practicing and 4am didn't help my understanding much) and left on my lonesome to wait. Luckily there was a consul on site who could issue me yet another visa (I have three and counting for this trip) and I could be on my way. In the end a useful delay, as I didn't end up leaving the airport until around 5:30am, which meant the taxi deposited me at my dormitory at the almost reasonable hour of 7am.

Dormitory, I hear you ask? What exactly IS Lucy doing in Moscow, again? For those who need a little catching up, I have arrived to this snowy city to begin my higher education, on a Russian State Government Scholarship. While it all seems a little too good to be true in my mind, I am essentially on a free ride here- my tuition, accommodation, text books etc are all paid for, and I also receive an allowance every month that is sufficient to live comfortably and also save for some adventures. Initially I am staying at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, taking part in a preparation program of Russian Language. I will be here for about the next nine months, just studying Russian to be able to then take my Masters in Linguistics at Moscow State Linguistic University, which will be another 2-3 years. During my Masters I will be able to incorporate some other language study as well, but initially it is all Russian all the time.  

All. Russian. All. The. Time. Something I conveniently forgot about the time I've spent in this beautiful country is that the level of English here is non-existent. Dormitory? No. University? No. Anyone, anywhere? No. For the first time in a long time I experienced the utter frustration of being completely unable to convey what I need and want- all very well being able to ask someone to help you but if that is where the communication breaks down there isn't much point. Come about 11am on that first day you'd have found me wandering my university campus, choking back tears as yet another security guard yelled at me and turned me out of the building I was trying to enter, all in the hope of finding the incredibly elusive Faculty of Russian Language. Security is very tight around here (to enter my dorm you must satisfy a fingerprint scanner) and you need a student card to buzz through the turnstiles upon entering every university building- which of course I did not have. Contemplating the next plane home, I finally stumbled upon the International Student Office, where with my halting Russian and a student's halting English I finally obtained the correct directions and made it to the semi-legendary (half the staff of the uni I met didn't even know it existed)(or my accent was really that bad) Russian Language Office. The typically stern greeting soon melted into welcome, a hot cup of tea, and, if no English, at least no yelling.  Able to sit down and have someone else fill in the complicated Russian forms for me while I nursed a hot mug allowed my rattled nerves to settle, and I finally felt like this may have been the right choice after all.

The dormitory is nothing at all like I had feared. While I am sharing a room, my roommate and neighbours (they corralled the foreigners together) are all the same brand of crazy as me- we have all left our own comfortable countries, lives and families to throw ourselves into the snowy, frequently unfriendly, huge crazy mess that is life in Moscow. We all love Russian, though with little rational reasoning, and are absolutely thrilled to think that we really are living here for the next three or so years. And I tell you, dear reader, I had really, really, really underestimated just how darn nice that would be. As I said to my mother- 'I'm not the crazy one anymore! I'M IN A WHOLE BUNCH OF CRAZIES!' Also I am the only student ever to be from Australia so I am pretty much a minor celebrity- the administration ladies call me 'Australia' as if it were my name and every time a Russian student overhears they pretty much overheat with excitement.  I do preen.

Today there will be no photos (my best stern Russian impersonation) because I have just been super slack with getting the camera out- I've either been hopelessly lost, in a state of bliss, confused, or in complete awe of the beauty of this city as I get to know it again. I've ended up on Red Square almost every day, drawn back to practically the birthplace of the entire country again and again.  I've eaten my weight in black rye bread already, searched high and low for peanut butter (unsuccessful please send help), made Russian book purchases that I do not have the skills to back up, given directions to Russians who asked which I am not entirely sure were correct but at least they were in Russian, and just generally had an awesome time (bar day number one). Right decision? Absolutely. 

This is going to be one nuts adventure.

Из России с любовью,

Луци.


P.S Once it starts snowing properly I'll take my camera on an adventure and get some snaps. And then probably accompany them with a whiny rant about snow being everywah and oh ma gawd so annoying.
P.P.S Just joking. I love snow. I'm eyeing off cross country skiing as my winter sport! Apparently it is just THE way to get around the city.
P.P.P.S I may not love snow all the time and may still whine. Full disclosure. 

This post comes after quite the absence of me writing, so apologies to those who were hoping to hear where I was and what shenanigans I was getting up to there. 

Since writing from Japan earlier this year I headed first back to Cairns and then back to Cocos, before finally finding myself happily ensconced at my parent's house in the North East of Victoria, which is where I am writing to you from now. It has felt like the year of 'backs' that it was- despite fantastic times and beautiful people in both Cairns and Cocos I couldn't help but feel a sense of deja vu- hadn't I done all of this before? Those who have met me will vouch for the fact that I am covetous of new experiences and places and going back doesn't sit too well with me. However, I do believe that sometimes we need a little familiar in our lives in order to stop and take stock of what new adventures we want to embark on next. My year of familiar has drawn me back to the languages I studied in University, and my grand dreams of becoming an interpreter or translator for some large European entity a la United Nations, which has in turn led to a Russian Government State Scholarship to complete my Masters in Linguistics, at Moscow State Linguistic University. I'm leaving next week, and I am a tangled ball of I-can't-believe-this-is-really-happening (said in excitement) and I-can't-believe-this-is-really-happening (said in terror). Luckily my first 7 or so months will be solely Russian Language classes, to achieve a level that will let me study full time in a language so foreign to my own. My studies in University days gone by will certainly help, though there is a dramatic difference between studying a language for funsies and actually having to write academic essays. I wouldn't be me if I wasn't eager for the challenge (though slightly less eager to be arriving at the beginning of winter)!

Consider this fair warning, Europe- I'm on my way, and I've got all my hiking/climbing/yoga gear with me and a multiple entry visa ready to allow for exploring the 30-Euro-flight-to-anywhere situation. Really looking forward to seeing some old friends and new places!