17th October: Everything seems to be going well

This week is flying by, and by tomorrow it will feel like the weekend; tomorrow, we are going to St Petersburg. To say I’m excited is an understatement. The last time I was in St Petersburg, in 2007, I fell in love with it – and I can’t wait to see it again.

But first, I should write about the last few days. I've kept busy – out of necessity rather than principle. On Monday I took a trip to Глобус (Globus, the big supermarket) to buy some fruit for the week, but also to look for a cheap tracksuit to wear to and from my exercise classes. I didn't find one but I think I’ll survive for now; I just need to make sure I find one before the cold really sets in.

That evening I went to zumba again, hoping to buy a subscription this time for the month, as it works out much cheaper this way (1100r (£22) per month, as opposed to 250r (£5) per class). It so happened that I didn't have enough cash on me at the time and the fitness centre didn't take credit cards, so I had to pay for a single class after all. This turned out to be a happy coincidence as I met Sophie on my walk home, who told me about another fitness centre right by where we lived, which charged 1300r (£26) per month for as many classes as you liked, and the classes were different every day and each week – much better than being restricted to zumba twice a week for a month. We agreed to meet up the next day so I could try out one of the classes.

An hour or so later Sophie and I met up again to walk together to the house-warming party taking place at Dave, Rob and Charlie’s flat, which they had moved into that day. Unhappy living with their babushkas, they’d got help from the university to find this place, a modern, three-bedroom flat with minimal furniture but in a good location, costing them only 13,000r (£260) each until the end of term. This really puts into perspective how over-priced the usual system of living with a babushka is, since utilities are cheap here and, as long as you know where to go, you can get food really cheaply over here too.

The house party went on until around midnight, when people started to leave to go home or move on to Cocktail Bar. Charlie, Alexia and I stayed behind chatting for a while before Ben reappeared having forgotten his hozyaika’s bag, and we decided to get a taxi to Cocktail Bar to join the others. It wasn't a particularly late night, with everyone having already drunk quite a lot before we got there, and by 3am everyone was ready to leave.

The next day the university was practically deserted and there were only three people in our group before Ben showed up at 11, and even then we were missing half of our usual set. I decided it would be best to go straight home after class and have a quick nap before the exercise class that evening. By 4.30pm my quick power-nap had turned into a full-on sleep and it was lucky that noises from the kitchen woke me up. The sleep had done me good though and by the time it came to the class, I was full of energy.

This fitness centre was a lot less modern than the one I’d been going to but the hall was huge and full of people, which seemed a good sign. The place was run by one instructor, who has trained in Moscow and is clearly an expert on all things fitness and dance. That day, the class was boxercise, and it was the toughest boxercise class I’d ever done – an intense mix of cardio and strength. After the class, Amy, Sophie and I went to talk to the instructor, Yelena, who invited us to come with her to her dacha in the countryside one of the days. This seemed unbelievably generous and somewhat out of the blue, but the others later explained to me that she had mentioned it to them before – and anyway, they do say that when you know a Russian they’ll really look after you. All in all, the class had been a huge success, so I arranged to go again on Thursday, this time to the Latina class. It seemed like this was going to be a great way to get into an exercise routine and to fill my evenings.

There was no class on Wednesday, which worked out well as we were all going out for a meal for Nell’s birthday. This afternoon I took my shoes in for repair at a local place recommended by our speaking teacher, Larissa, who seems to have all the best contacts. She’s unbelievably helpful and if you ask her anything she’ll do her best to sort it out personally. She rang up the repair shop herself and told them she had a talented English student who would be coming in with some repairs within the hour. After going into the repair shop and deciding I needed my shoes for the weekend, so would bring them in again the next week, I went into town to get some cash out and to browse the bookshop for a book on the Golden Ring (which I was unable to find). Returning home, I caught up on work and emails, including an exciting email thread with my mum, discussing our choices of resorts for our Jamaica holiday the coming January. Now it’s the end of another day and the start of another evening, and everything seems to be going well.