37 days sounds like a lot of time, doesn’t it? Especially when you reflect just how long has gone into planning this whole year. Put into perspective, 37 days is just under half the amount of time I’ll be spending in Moscow next Spring. Yet, no matter how I try and justify it to myself, 37 days feels like barely anything.

For the next 37 days until I go, I’m going to try and fill you in on my rollercoaster several months of preparation, exactly what has gone wrong and how I’ve managed to sort things and get everything back on track. For my first post, let me take you back to the very beginning: how I decided where I was going to spend 7 months of my life.

Moscow, Russia - big, difficult, busy, expensive but fascinating
 

When I first arrived, most of the people from my home university have been there for five months already, so they had already done a lot of travelling and bonding together. I did however meet a lot of new people from other parts of the world. I really enjoyed the academic side of the stay, as the university offered various classes to do with linguistics, plus the teaching was of a very high standard. They approached every person individually, which is something you don’t get in most universities. The most difficult thing about Russia is that you constantly have to fight against their bureaucracy. If you accidently forgot your student ID at university, the doorman will make you pay to get it back; if you need to go to the library, you have to get at least 3 letters from your university stating you are a student there; if you want to travel, you have to register with police everywhere you go etc. If you can overlook that, Russia and Moscow specifically are fascinating, with a lot of interesting people. I would also recommend travelling to St Petersburg for a few days. Overall, I enjoyed my stay there, despite a few initial hiccups, which are to be expected on a year abroad.