First Real Day. And Locomotives.

(Tueday 13th, written up on Wednesday 14th)

Beautiful autumn day. Here is the view from my window. On the way to school I saw a poster advertising an exhibition: "Siberia through Chinese Eyes".

This was the first day of real work. I don't know if something has gone wrong (or right), but I'm getting something more than I expected. I (thought I'd) booked group sessions with some additional tuition. What I seem to be getting now is individual attention. There is no escape! No hiding at the back while the class swat answers all the questions, or while the naughty student distracts the teacher. There is only me. It's relentless, but rather fun!

The morning was spent doing revision exercises. Revision of what I've covered, or maybe not covered, in other places:

• What questioning words correspond to answers to which parts of a sentence (who, what, where, whither, what-kind-of...)
• Plurals
• Parts of the head (hair, eyes, nose, mouth...)
• Parts of the body
• Months and Seasons
• Animals
• Antonyms (North-South, Morning-Evening...)
• Posessive pronouns (my, his, her, our, their...)
• Choosing the correct question to elict something about an object or person (difficult to explain in English)
• This and that (but for different genders: masculine/feminine/neuter)
• Cardinal numbers

My head is spinning!

Then there is a load of homework to be done by tomorrow.

It's a beautiful day outside, so I decide to go on a trip, organised by the school to the "Transiberian Railway Museum". I uploaded the pictures yesterday. Only just managed after the homework. It was a terrific day: Metro trip (15 Ru = 40c), Mini-bus trip (35 Ru = .87c), Admission (200 Ru = 5 Eur), Bus-trip home (14 Ru = 35c). That's an afternoon out for 7 Euro.

By the way, "Euston we may have a problem here". A money problem. It's not that prices are higher than I expected, but the credit card I planned to use to get money doesn't seem to work, and the back-ups don't work either. Time to try plan's "C" and "D". No point in worrying yet.

The metro ride was what I expected: clean, efficient, fast. I will go back when I have more time.

The minibus ride to the Museum was exciting. The roads are busy.

The museum is just amazing. There were just the 3 of us: 2 students (including me) and our teacher/guide. The entrance is a the side of a busy road. Our teacher bought the tickets, but we paid.

Once inside there are loads of things to see. These are just a sample:

• Impressive locomotives
• Industrial equipment (reminding me of my time working for British Steel)
• Snow clearing equipment
• Soviet motor cars and trucks and tanks and tractors.
• Wagons for carrying prisoners, or first class passengers
• An "Elektrichka" local electric train
• A maintenance wagon (can you spot the motorcycle engine to drive it?)
• A metro train
• Even refrigerated tanks for carrying wine. The were great to hear about but boring to look at, so no photo.

That was just a fraction of it. I expect any train-spotters are drooling. All you have to do is come here!

The ride home was exciting as well. A crowded bus in the rush hour!

From the bus terminal in Novosibirsk I decided to walk home. Partly to save money, partly because it was such a nice day and partly to explore a new bit of the city which I had seen from the internet. On the way home I passed an interesting looking church. Later research shows that it is dedicated to St Alexander Nevski.

Just when I thought I was safe, I get home to find that my landlady's boyfriend is visiting. While she cooks my tea, he tries to engage me in conversation. He is friendly and helpful. This is what I came here for, but boy is it hard work! I'm relieved when they go out.

Then it is time to do the homework, which takes almost all of the rest of the evening. There is only time to upload and annotate the photos.

And to bed.