Weekend trip to Baikalsk

10 March

I had been fully prepared to miss ski season this year on account of me being in Siberia and all, but luckily, I didn't have to! My friend Jean Jacques along with a few of our new Russian friends planned a trip to Baikalsk for the weekend. We went by electrichka (electric train) and arrived around 10 pm to our hostel. In true Russian fashion we spent the night at the banya, jumping into the snow in our bathing suits about every 10 minutes (the usual temperature for the sauna in a banya is around 110 F). A «becherinka» (party) of course followed and we stayed up late talking with our new Russian friends.

In the morning I set off for the slopes with my Dutch friend Ana who had been a ski instructor in Austria (I was a little intimidated), Mark from England, Gosha from Poland, Marie from Belgium, and our Russian friend Tolya. As we walked past the lodge I wrongly assumed that this would be the place where we would rent skis, but as usual this was not the case and we instead walked another kilometer up the road where we came upon a small indescript shed. But it wasn't until the door handle fell off when Mark tried to open the door that I really began to question whether or not this place was legit. When we walked in there were about 15 pairs of skis and boots to choose from, which were surprisingly of good quality (though a little outdated), and it only costed $15 to rent skis and boots for the whole day. From there we took a taxi back to the slopes and purchased our lift tickets for about $40 (a process that was significantly prolonged by the fact that most of us paid with credit cards and most Russian businesses aren't credit card-savy yet). When we finally hit the slopes I was a bit nervous that I wouldn't be any good (it's been way too cold to run outside and the «gym» at our university only has soviet-era lifting equiptment that isn't worth the 50 rubles to use), but as soon as I started going down it all came back to me (and if I do say so myself, I gave the Dutch ski instructor a run for her money). The skiing was decent, although the only strange part was the fact that there was only one chair lift while all the others were t-bars that went the entire way up the mountain. It felt so good to get on skiis again and by the end of the day I didn't want to leave. When we went back to ski-rental hut, the owners offered us homemade cognac to warm up. Ana, Gosha, Marie, and I let the boys accept the offer and took a cab back to the hostel (they returned a few hours after us in not the best condition). Before the end of the evening, our friend Oleg surprised all of the girls with a bunch of cakes that he had bought in celebration of International Women's Day—yes, another holiday, and we did not have school on Monday, again.

The next day everyone was pretty tired so we just spent the day taking a leisurely walk around the lake and stopped at a local café for lunch where I had the most delicious borsht. We didn't get home until about 10 pm and I tried to do as much homework as I could before falling asleep. All in all, it was a great weekend that costed very little considering that for about $70 I stayed in a hostel for 2 nights, rented skis and boots, bought a lift ticket, and round-trip fare for the train. It's going to be hard when I go back to the US and everything is expensive again. So there sums up another week! It feels like time is flying by so fast, and it's hard to believe that I've already been here for 6 weeks!