As I said I was forced to move to a new apartment and in with two other teachers. I lost the tranquility of living alone as well as my good internet connection and now have to suffer with an inconsistent wi-fi connection. My new apartment is about an hour and 15 minutes from both of the schools I teach at so, obviously, I'm not excited about that; it is a nicer apartment, however.
After my move I finally went to see the Tretyakov Gallery with a friend of mine. We decided not to rush through so we only looked at the icon galleries and the church. I had read that there was a church in the gallery but I though it just meant a part of the gallery that is set up like a church but I was wrong. It turns out that there was a church right next to the gallery which became part of the gallery when it was re-opened. It is a bona-fide church with several priests and daily services (in fact a wedding was taking place when we went in). So we spent about 2 or 3 hours at the gallery and I saw the originals of many icons which I have seen in books and prints, including, of course, the Trinity and Vladimir icon's of Rubloff.
I was put in contact with a man who was looking for an English speaker to tutor his two children so last Saturday I tried that out. This family lives in an exclusive little subdivision outside of Moscow so a car was sent to pick me up for the hour trip. On the way I actually spotted the indoor ski hill which is being built in Moscow (see here). So when I arrived I had breakfast with the children (ages 4 and 7), their father and someone who I had assumed to be their mother (turns out it was their nanny). I was told that I would just be playing with the children and trying to speak English with them so that's what we did while playing with some Lego sets. We next spent some time playing outside in the snow. I was at a loss of what to actually do as I originally thought that there was only one child and that he already spoke English but just needed practice. After a joyous time in the fresh snow we returned to have lunch (where I met the children's real mother) after which I was driven back to Moscow.
Last week was another week of teaching... I started a new class which will be a challenge. That's all I'm going to say about that.
We went again yesterday to the Tretyakov to continue where we left off and saw about 20 rooms (only 30 or 40 more to go). I saw many famous paintings including the ubiquitous ones of Dostoyevsky and Pushkin.
In other news Moscow has been under snow for about 2 weeks but in the last few days it has warmed up a bit so a lot has melted creating many dirty and unattractive streets.
