Siberia

It's Sunday and I'm more or less - rather less - enjoying working today... Dear Mr Putin did a little experiment with the holidays and in consequence, Russia is working today. On Thursday we had "Men's day"... a national holiday and in order to have a long weekend they switched Friday and Sunday. Got it? No? Never mind! It's Russia :-)

However, I'm back from my trip to Siberia. I enjoyed the week immensely... Be warned: this is a quite long and big article with many pics ;-)

Going for a walk to "Obskoe More" (The Ob Sea)
I just love the peace of the Siberian forest... It is so quiet there! It is so good for the "dusha" (soul)!





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Obskoe More





The ice seems to be so clean and nice... I just HAD to try it!

Novosibirsk

The bridges at "Rechnoi Vokzal"


The ice city at "Rechnoi Vokzal"


Ms Paparazzo taking pictures of the Ob and the ice city


I simply felt like playing mom for a second :-)


Igor taking a nap after lunch in "Kuzina"


"Glavniy Vokzal" - The main train station


Ploshad' Lenina (Lenin Square) and the Opera


Anna on Ploshad' Lenina


Igor in the Opera with gloriole.
Thanks to Yulya we saw "Bohemia" in the Opera in Novosibirsk! Yulya and I had no clue what it was about and the fact that it was in Italian wasn't really helpful. But we sneaked a program during the 15 min break and figured it out :-)
Igor took a nice nap and woke up just in time to clap!

Friends (in alphabetical order)

Once Masha was my AIESEC-buddy; I didn't speak much Russian, she didn't speak much English. But somehow we managed to communicate with each other, keep in touch and we became good friends. I speak better Russian and her English is amazing by now. We had great conversations and were laughing a lot...
@Masha: Thanks a lot for hosting, entertaining and feeding me!!! I hope to see you soon again! Good luck, but I'm sure you will be successful with anything you do! :-)


Olya is the sweet Russian girl that once took me home to her parents' house over the weekend. It was a 6 h trip on the train to Novokuznetsk and I got to see Russian family life. I loved it! Russians are the best hosts I have ever met in the world!
The picture was taken in Chegevara (a club) where we had fun times dancing... ;-)
I'm glad to know Olya; she is a very caring and sweet person!
@Olya: I had good times laughing with you! Special thanks to you for coming to the airport to see me off after work and a very short night!!! I hope to see you soon again! Hugs!


Yulya is also an AIESECer and we became good friends after some disagreement... At least that what it did for me. I was mad at AIESEC (happens quite often though btw) and Yulya happened to be in ICQ and talking to me... So I had a little "explosion" and sort of yelled at her in ICQ... and found out that we actually have a lot in common. Ever since she has been one of my close friends!
@Yulya: I hope to see you soon in Moscow or Piter... or in Germany for the Championship! Take care and stay happy!!!


On Monday Igor and I were being bold and lazy bugs :-) We stayed at Masha's almost all day long and exploited the Internet connection and the vast number of movies on the server!


Well, we left for a short walk before watching some more movies :-)

XIAG

I went to my old office. When I left it on Feb. 26th last year it was simply chaos... they did a nice job remodelling the place and it looks "prosto" super now!


It was great to see my ex-co-workers again! I still don't smoke ;-) (Zonov - the guy on the right - asked me EVERY day for the first 3 months if I smoke)

Akademgorodok

Torgoviy Center in Akademgorodok: Dad Moroz and his wife


Went to see my old apartment. Unfortunately there was "remont" and we couldn't live there :-( But I couldn't resist ringing the bell and asking for a short tour around the flat. The workers were really nice - relieved to see that I wasn't the "milizia" - and let me in.


Russian kids are sooooo cute! They are so neatly bundled up :-)


The street to the city... Nostalgia


Olya and I went skiing :-) She is very good in skiing and took me on an "interesting" route... I think I'm allowed to say that I fell in every possible way! The best was the "snow-diving" one... My knees look really colorful! But - surprisingly - I didn't care at all! It didn't hurt and was simply fun!


Chilling out in New York Pizza: Igor and I sat there for at least 3 hourse and didn't do anything. I had pizza, a chocolate shake and lots of tea. Simply great!

English Club

I also had the opportunity to join the Tuesday meetings at Nina's! It is true: Akadem is a very special place. In this academic town there are almost exclusively living "brains" who are very intelligent and educated and interested in all sorts of stuff. It is a pleasure to sit with them, drink tea, have a piece of cake (or two) and talk or listen to a violine concert...!!!

Parties

Of course we did some partying! Igor loves vodka and Russian girls (Igor is going back to Germany today, so he can't hit me for saying this :-)))

Before I went to Piter in May last year, I was given a bottle of wine by Stegi. I took it to Russia with me and wanted to drink it at a special occasion. But the special occasion never came or I never realized... So, I carried the bottle to Siberia and emptied it with the three great girls who I'm proud to call my friends: with Masha, Olya and Yulya.
(Poor Igor wasn't allowed to join the girls' event... he had to drink vodka with some Russians...)

Goodbye
Goodbye Akademgorodok, goodbye Siberia! This time it will take more than a year until I return! :-( It sounds crazy: I went on vacation to Siberia in February! But I had a great time!!!




Goodbye Igor! Have a safe flight home and thanks for joining me on my trip to Siberia ;-) I hope you also had some fun... and weren't too annoyed by my nostalgia! Good luck with girls! Stay away from those with "K"! :-)))