Hard to imagine that only six weeks until I start my leave. I’ve been learning some Russian this past year and a half and am even signed up to audit a class at Front Range this spring. While I am far from fluent, it does seem helpful to increase some vocabulary and pick up on basic reading and writing skills. We have three students in the class (two after I leave), so there is a lot of individual attention which helps.

I also signed up for a three week Russian class in St Petersburg. Hopefully help me pick up a few additional survival skills in the language as well as taking a short break from cycling Europe before setting off across all of Russia. Along the way, I’ve loaded Rosetta Stone Russian language software on my PC. Haven’t used it much, but seems useful in picking up some additional language.

A lot of attention on Russian so I’m not worrying as much about some of the countries I’ll stay in more briefly on the way to St Petersburg. Netherlands (fine, I speak Dutch), Germany (knowing Dutch and English helps me even with some German), Poland (nope), Lithania (nope), Latvia (nope), Estonia (nope). Will see how it all goes…