13

The title has changed, for I've moved into my new apartment.  It is, in a word, супер.  Super.  It is quite old, for one, like my university, from which it is only five minutes on foot, but it has aged in a very attractive way and the cares my host babushka has taken with it are everywhere in evidence.  Her daughter and husband are/were painters, and paintings crowd all the walls.  I ought to have some pictures up shortly, but I will hazard a short description of my living space: a small writing table with a lamp stands before a window overlooking Ulitsa Novoslobodskaya, across the street are similar buildings in which people are occasionally seen working, ramshackle bookcases made of furniture odds and ends line the walls under old oil paintings, the walls are some sort of olive, if i recall correctly, an old comfortable irregularly shaped bed not quite long enough for my legs stands opposite the table.  Quite cozy, and a place where I can finally do some work.  

Eleanora Viktorovna has been hosting students for more than seven years, if I heard her correctly, and she has pictures of them all lining the kitchen wall and tales of them all along with breakfast every morning.  Another student, a Polish girl named Monika, lives across the hall from me; we get along famously, for the most part, and she's invited me along to several outings with the other students in her program, mostly British, so my circle of acquaintances continues to expand.  

I feel good.  This week is our fall break, so I hope to make it out to St. Petersburg and some of the small very Slavic cities surrounding Moscow.  Still, expect more from me, because I now have the time.