changes.

A few changes in the city…
There is finally a dome on the church/monastery being built at the end of the road by my apartment. It still looks far from being completed.

Work on a new metro stop is still underway. I don’t expect it to open while I’m here.

There is at least one new pizza place downtown that I’ll have to check out soon.

Metro and bus fares have increased by 100 roubles for adults and 50 roubles for students. So that is about 4.7 cents and 2.3 cents respectively.

I will have a new Russian teacher this year. A guy named Nikolai Nikolaevich.

It now takes me 18 minutes to walk to the metro. Last year it took me about 12. But I also have the option of taking a bus for 4 or 5 stops whereas last year no convenient bus was available to take me to the metro. While the weather is nice (above freezing) I’m trying to walk and not take the bus.

I have two roommates this year. One of the girls doesn’t speak English. At all. I think it’s splendid. Apartment life is, overall, splendid.

What is less-than-splendid is the seemingly-non-stop disco party going on somewhere below me in my apartment building. I can hear the disco beats at most hours of the day. Mercifully I don’t hear it at night. Like last year, I also have a smoker somewhere nearby in my building. It always wafts in through the vents in the evening. Most people in Minsk smoke, in general.

My soundtrack of choice for the day has been Project 86 and Stavesacre.