more visuals; it is cold

It is cold.  Very cold.  Temperatures went down to -20 celsius– that’s about -4 fahrenheit, which I’ve only experienced a few times in my life.  Russians put on their furs and went “eh” but I’m kind of a little shocked by how cold it is.  Luckily, my long North Face coat is actually as warm as promised– folks in Minnesota wrote in online reviews that it was warm enough for them, and I thought, Minnesota’s kind of like Russia, right?  But I’m going to need some better gloves and a warmer hat soon.  And preferably a scarf to cover my whole face.

I took some pictures:

view out my apt. window after snow

back at school

there's one of those play pods in the background so kids can play outside when it's freezing

train stop at Saltykovskaya

direction-- east of Moscow

fur coats abound

my neighborhood

i made miso soup

my window frosted over

bonus picture of Kot

I’m home today because they don’t want me at baby lessons with my lingering sickness and my cough and nasmork–that’s a stuffy or runny nose.  I’m trying not to think about how much money I’ve lost by being sick and looking on the bright side.  I have a ton of time to work on The Idiot today. The book is truly fantastic so far and very readable: you stay with the hero almost the entire time with very few digressions for descriptions and back story, and the plot is very very interesting.  I’m reading at quite a clip and it makes me feel like I’m just enjoying a novel.  What a feeling.  I chose this book for two reasons.  One is that I haven’t read any Dostoevsky in Russian yet, and the other is that I was very intrigued by the concept behind the book: Dostoevsky had wanted to create a portrait of a perfectly prekrasniy chelovyek— a perfectly good and excellent man, or a beautiful human being.  Other than that, I had absolutely no idea what the book was about, and it’s really quite a great experience to go into a book, especially such a great book, blind like that.  Anyway, time to start blogging and start reading.