Posted by Ksenia
Hello!!
I hope that everyone had a great Christmas and New Year as well. Mine were great - I had some time to do a bit of everything - even to open my chemistry book. For the rest of the time it was a complete relaxation - just reading some fiction books (I got a bit tired of scientific ones during the term time), listening to music, meeting friends and relatives and watching new movies.
With a friend I’ve also been to a very interesting exhibition called "The Silver Chamber". The exhibition itself had no connection with silver at all - it was like a competition for the best photographs about our dear capital. The photos were really interesting - some of them funny and amusing, others quite sad and thought-provoking, a lot of beautiful ones and several totally disgusting. The photos were about absolutely everything you can see in Moscow and it was almost impossible to decide on the best one, though we voted for the one about Moscow underground.
With my parents we went to see a comedy in one of the Moscow theatres. It was a very unusual play with only three characters and two professional ballet dancers from the Big Theatre (the most famous theatre in Russia). Ballet elements were inserted in the story itself and were helping to understand better and more fully the characters' feelings. I really like this play as the actor’s game was very emotional and one of the characters was extremely funny. The plot itself was a very touching love story about the relationships between two people from different generations. The story obviously had a happy ending- that's one more reason why I love comedies!
At first it was really warm in Moscow, even warmer then it was in Brighton at the moment. But then, towards the New Year Eve the cold weather arrived and temperatures dropped to -15 (not too cold for a Russian winter but impossible to imagine for English people).
In Russia we do not celebrate Christmas very much (definitely not as in the UK- Russian Christmas is on the 7th of January and is mainly a religious thing). But the real celebration is on the 31st of December - the New Year - there are lots of parties, fireworks and everybody is eating (there is even a special salad in Russian cuisine which is cooked in almost every family for the New Year Eve) and drinking too much and staying up till very late.
We exchange presents at 12 o'clock and they are lying under the richly decorated Christmas tree (even though in Russia it's obviously not called Christmas tree). I got lots of nice presents including biology books ( my relatives know my interests really well), some computer stuff, jewellery and lots of chocolates of course! (remember, I am a chocoholic!). My relatives seemed to be quite pleased with the presents I gave them as well – lots of English tea, of course, some sweets and some others usual kind of presents.
On the 6th January I had a ticket back to the UK. Now I am back to Brighton and the new term has just started. And as I am doing my A2, the time to study really hard for the January exams has begun. Unfortunately, I still can't get the revision started very seriously because I spend almost all of my time chatting with my friends, telling and listening to stories about the holidays. I am so happy to see everybody so it prevents me from concentrating my entire attention on studding. But I will do my best (at least I will try to!). I wish everyone who has exams (including myself) lots of luck and let’s hope for the best!
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