Away From Here: Ireland to somewhere...
- Thread starter sijohnston
- Start date
ChubbyThumper
Registered user
Great read Si. Thanks.
PS Did Pietro need much fettling when you got back?
PS Did Pietro need much fettling when you got back?
sijohnston
Registered user
Life in Irkutsk
As requested, a quick update as to how things are going out here in Siberia.
Almost every day is spent devoted to learning to read, write, and speak Russian. I've 3 lessons a week, with a significant amount of homework around them. Besides that, I'm teaching 4 or 5 classes of English a week to keep me going. There's loads of opportunities to teach once here, but since my priority is to learn Russian, I don't want to take my time up with that.
There's not been a whole lot of socialising, owing to the fact that I haven't been able to communicate much. That's slowly changing and I'm becoming more confident in getting out and inflicting my fledgling Ruski on the locals.
On Saturday I was invited to the annual Siberian weight-lifting poser contest (as an observer as opposed to a wild card entry!), and yesterday I took a drive up to Lysvianka (tourist area on Lake Baikal). The temps had dropped since August, but at 0 degrees, the population are all confused as to why it's so uncharacteristically warm for this time of year.
Regarding chubby's question about my bike, yes, it needed a good bit of work done. It's about half way there and I'll complete the rest once I get a proper job back home and have it ready for the spring. I get back into Ireland on the 22nd December and will hopefully start into more permanent work in January, at little closer to home than Irkutsk!
So, that's the craic thus far.
A few photos:
As requested, a quick update as to how things are going out here in Siberia.
Almost every day is spent devoted to learning to read, write, and speak Russian. I've 3 lessons a week, with a significant amount of homework around them. Besides that, I'm teaching 4 or 5 classes of English a week to keep me going. There's loads of opportunities to teach once here, but since my priority is to learn Russian, I don't want to take my time up with that.
There's not been a whole lot of socialising, owing to the fact that I haven't been able to communicate much. That's slowly changing and I'm becoming more confident in getting out and inflicting my fledgling Ruski on the locals.
On Saturday I was invited to the annual Siberian weight-lifting poser contest (as an observer as opposed to a wild card entry!), and yesterday I took a drive up to Lysvianka (tourist area on Lake Baikal). The temps had dropped since August, but at 0 degrees, the population are all confused as to why it's so uncharacteristically warm for this time of year.
Regarding chubby's question about my bike, yes, it needed a good bit of work done. It's about half way there and I'll complete the rest once I get a proper job back home and have it ready for the spring. I get back into Ireland on the 22nd December and will hopefully start into more permanent work in January, at little closer to home than Irkutsk!
So, that's the craic thus far.
A few photos:
