Things I've learned in a month

#1 - Eating dinner at 10:45pm is not good at all! Last night, I made myself a nice dinner of pasta with homemade sauce and stir-fried veggies, and had some bread with cheese to go with it. Great meal, and I was nice and full. You know how you always read about not eating big meals before bed, because it disrupts your sleep pattern? Well that's true, based upon how I slept last night. I managed to go to bed around 1:45am, but I woke up a few times, and when my alarm went off I felt like I hadn't slept at all. Previously, when I've been lazy and just had salad and bread with cheese for dinner, I've slept better.

#2 - Temperature is all relative. On Monday, -14C/7F felt absolutely freezing. Fast forward to Tuesday and Wednesday, and it's -20C/-4F! Today, it's -14C again, and it feels quite tolerable. I actually walked around a bit before needing to seek out some warmth!

#3 - I heard more Russian my last month in America than I do here. I get maybe one or two chances to speak in Russian each day, and that's just ordering food, or sometimes giving directions on the street. Mondays and Wednesdays are better, because I speak a bit more, but I find it harder each week, since I'm getting no practice or even exposure. I don't have a TV or internet on my computer in my apartment, so I only get to hear Russian at home if the people that live above us have their TV turned up loud enough. It really sucks, and I've got to find a way to change this!

#4 - I can't get away from Christmas music, even in Russia. I'm sitting in a cafe right now, and they're playing a Christmas song... Russians don't even celebrate Western Christmas!! *edited 5 minutes later* Oh great, now they're playing another... and it's a combination of a Christmas song with a rap chorus... what the hell???

#5 - The joys of having hot AND cold water at the same time. In my apartment, you have to choose :) The water is either boiling hot or ice cold, nowhere inbetween. If we leave the hot water on, the cold and hot taps both run boiling hot. Boiling, as in fill up the electric teapot, and the water is at a full boil in 40 seconds! That's painful. The solution is to turn off the hot water when we don't need it, which isn't perfect, because now the water is like ice, but anything is better than scalding hot! I give myself full credit for that solution, since two plumbers came out to look at the pipes, and they both said they couldn't do anything, and we would just have to live with the hot water only! Perhaps I could have a successful career as a Russian plumber?