Moved to Moscow to teach English soon as they started letting Brits in. I didn't feel I had a choice - I quit a job I hated (and couldn't really go back to) just before Covid and had spent the intervening months mentally rotting on my parent's sofa. The one thing I had done in that time was get a decent TEFL qualification and one thing I looked forward to was finally going abroad.

Now here and my first month of so in TEFL were hell, as it often is, due to being dumped in the deep end teaching wise and extreme imposter syndrome. Slowly getting the hang of the teaching and quite like Moscow as a city but still being a total recluse and still depressed.

Finally have holiday over New Years. Won't get any again until summer and there was no way in hell I was going to spend it continuing to be couped up with this fascinating new country right outside my window.

So I booked myself a trip to Karelia to visit Kizhi and Murmansk to see the Northern Lights (apparently I might not see them but I've always just had a thing about the arctic anyway and always wanted to go somewhere far north in winter).

There isn't much restrictions in Russia. There probably should be. I'm doing what I can personally but trip won't be affected by restrictions that much practically from what I can gather. And yes I'm looking to it, one glimmer of hope in a few months that have been a struggle. I do feel guilty sometimes but seriously there was no way I was going to lose this holiday to continuing to be couped up. No way. Since lockdown first fell when I was in Britain I've been more restricted than I needed to be. Barely left the house in months.