It’s rather difficult to say what season is the best one, however dull and nasty or charming and marvelous the weather may be.

Sightseeing

Sometimes a week or two stay in this or that city can be quite a revelation. Nothing you have read prepare you for how beautiful the cities may be, with lots of flowers and colorful buildings. Any city is a large number of houses, schools, hospitals, theatres, museums, factories and works and other buildings built near each other. All these buildings are divided into blocks by streets. Short narrow streets that join larger ones together are called lanes. The main streets are usually paved with stone or asphalt. Along the streets run carts, cars, buses and trolley-buses. In large towns tramways are laid down the wider streets, along which tramcars rattle with great noise.

There are many beautiful old cities, which were the trading ones in the Middle Ages. They have preserved a great proportion of a walled castles and a walled-in cities and developed the rest of the city around it so that the modern buildings don’t clash with the old buildings. It’s really very beautiful. One thing that impress you most in any city is the variety of architectural design. In Russia, for example, there is a lot of French influence, Italian and Scandinavian, they say.

The cultural life there might be absolutely astonishing. You can go to a combination of opera and dance in the city which is more imaginative that you saw in other places, in New York, for instance, and excellently performed. In Tbilisi you can go to a traditional Georgian folk dance and you can see the care taken in preserving the traditional form of dance with costumes. It can be fantastically executed you know.

You might be also pleased to learn the national food – something you don’t expect, because you might bring along some pounds of granola bars in expectation of tasteless food. And every place you go, they have all different kinds of soups, and a lot of them might seem great to you. Now practically every city is building more tourism facilities and having better services available. Cities in Russia have a range of hotels from 1950s version up to a high-rise hotel like anything you go to in the US.

One can read about a place, hear about it and have ideas about a place, but when you’re her or there, it’s a whole different thing. All your perceptions of it may be out of date. The native people you talk with talk about how quickly the society is changing and that they are happy to see it.

In cities countless pedestrians walk along the foot-pavement. On the foot-paths, close to the gutter, stand dust-bins, into which refuse is put. The ground floor and the first storeys of the houses, that line the principal streets, consist of shops. These shops present most attractive features. The windows are very large and the plates of glass reach almost to the pavement. It’s interesting to look at the shop-windows where the articles on sale are displayed.

In the centre and in important parts of large towns, generally called cities, there are squares, gardens and market places. A city is generally situated near or on a river across which bridges are built. In almost all cities there are places of interest, which a stranger would be invited to see – monuments, cathedrals, museums, etc. A city is governed by a council, the head of which is styled the mayor.

All of us would like to go back to the city we liked most. We would want to go back on vacation, or instance, and take our family members.

Health

One of the first duties we owe to ourselves is to keep our bodies in perfect health. If our body suffers of disorder, our mind suffers with it, and we are unable to make much progress in knowledge, and we are unfit to perform those duties which are required of us in social life. A constant supply of pure fresh air is indispensable to good health. The house and every room in it should be properly ventilated every day. Perfect cleanliness is also essential. The whole body should be washed as often as possible. It “breathes” the way the lungs do. Therefore it should always be clean. There is a great charm in cleanliness. We like to look at one who is tidy.

A certain amount of exercise is necessary to keep the body in perfect condition. The best way of getting exercise is to engage in some work that is useful and at the same time interesting to the mind. It is most essential for the old and the young to do morning exercises with the windows wide open in the room or, if possible, in the open air. Rest is also necessary to the health of both body and mind. The best time for a sleep is during the darkness and stillness of the night. Late hours are very harmful to the health as they exhaust the nervous system. We should go to bed early and get up early. It is a good rule to “ rise with the lark and go to bed with the lark”.

Most essential to our body is food. Our body is continually wasting, and requires to be repaired by fresh substance. Therefore food, which is to repair the loss, should be taken with due regard to the exercise and waste of the body. Be moderate in eating. If you eat slowly, you will not overeat. Never swallow the food wholesale – we are provided with teeth for the purpose of chewing the food – and you will never complain of indigestion. The evils of intemperance, especially of alcohol, are too well known. Intemperance excites bad passions and leads to quarrels and crimes. Alcohol costs a lot of money, which might be used for better purposes. The mind is stupefied by drink and the person who drinks will, in course of time, become unfit for his duties. Both health and character are often ruined.

Thus we must remember that moderation in eating and drinking, reasonable hours of labor and study, regularity in exercise, recreation and rest, cleanliness and many other essentials lay the foundation for good health and long life. But if you feel bad you can see a doctor, of course. The latter receives his patients regularly and he is often a good specialist to help you to solve your problems. Yes, quite an experienced one, who examines patients thoroughly. If you are awfully sick you can call in a doctor or come yourself. It’s up to you to decide. It’s nice if you don’t seem you will have to be operated on, or you’ll feel rather scared. The doctor will check your heart and blood pressure and if they are almost normal he will give you the thermometer and ask you to put this under your armpit. If it’s necessary the doctor will give you an admittance to the hospital.

Several years ago there was general belief that “scientific medicine” would in short order obliterate just about all disease. Optimism continued to mount as new antibiotics and tranquilizers were discovered, new surgical procedures devised and perfected. For a while it seemed that if we could all live just a few more years, new discoveries might make us immune to death itself. Looking back, we can see the partly mood began to sour. It was not just innocent burst of enthusiasm. Real harm was done. Drugs, we all learned, sometimes had “side effects”. Needless X-rays were though to promote cancer. But that’s only half of the new perspective. The other half has this to say: even when done correctly, the medical approach to disease is incomplete. Wonderful, yes. But not quite the whole answer. What it ignores is the dimension of natural healing: strengthening the body’s immune system through nutritional and other natural means; physical therapies; stress reduction; diet improvement; and lifestyle change. To ignore these factors is to forgo, perhaps, a much more conservative, perhaps even more effective treatment. The battle against disease cannot be won by medicine alone.

Some people have returned to the 19^th century, relying on herbs, untested diets and unscientific procedures to treat all illness. But today we are in the unique position of being able to take advantage of the best technological medical care and the best natural healing techniques. By using both approaches, as dictated by good sense, we can literally enjoy the best of two worlds.

Meals

Every country is proud of its achievements in different spheres of life. Russia has achieved great excellent results in the national economy and new technologies in the 20^th century. This country is also famous for its Opera and ballet, space research, folk crafts and Russian cuisine.

Borsh, okroshka (which served cold) and meat dumplings are not only eatable and taste all right but are first-class and delicious. Caviare is not half as bad, indeed, and rather expensive. Russian pancakes and thick pancakes with soured cream are juicy and crisp and even nicer with condensed milk or cottage cheese (curds) or mushrooms. I think there is nothing like a Russian dinner. The table groans with food. The usual meals like are breakfast, dinner and supper. Breakfast is really not a big meal, and one would find that lunch is not small. The usual breakfast is porridge or corn flakes with milk or cream and sugar, bacon and fried or boiled eggs, omelette or sausage, frankfurters, marmalade with buttered toasts or even a sandwich of bread and butter with cheese with tea or coffee. At midday-dinner, which is at about one o’clock, some soup, hot mutton, veal, beef or fish with potatoes or macaroni or rice, salad, pickles and spices generally grace the table.

After dinner most people take coffee, though the is the favourite beverage in Russia. They have it with buns and roll with butter or without it, with biscuits and puff-pastry, sweets and chocolate, so they have something for dessert. Supper, which is around 7 o’clock in the evening, begins with what might correspond to a Russian “zakuska”, followed by some cabbage and meat soup, fish, roast chicken, potatoes and vegetables and dessert.

The English are very particular about their meals and strictly keep to their meal times. The usual English meals are breakfast, lunch which is about at one o’clock on the afternoon, tea and dinner. There is nothing like an English tea-party, be it at home or in the open air. Such little at-homes and outings do much to further sociability and make you feel on good terms with all the company an a short time, which is very helpful to a foreigner in England. Afternoon tea can hardly be called a meal. Tea is made at the table. It is very strong and mostly drunk with sugar and cream. It would be an offence to take lemon in your tea. Most English people put milk in their coffee too – this is known as “white” coffee. Waiters will ask you if you wasn’t your coffee “black or white” rather than “with or without milk”.

When outing, that is, on a picnic, the English load their luncheon baskets with all sorts of sandwiches made of thin slices of bread (as thin as a sheet) and butter with meat, ham, raw tomatoes or even cucumber in between. The latter are, of course, more refreshing than nourishing. There in the basket you would likely find, besides cakes and biscuits, some bottles of ginger beer (wine is very dear in England as it is being imported from overseas).

In simpler home the schedule is somewhat different. In the morning they have breakfast, at midday-dinner, which is considered to be the chief meal, tea in the afternoon and supper in the evening. Some people have the so-called “high tea”. It’s a meal taken between five and six if a dinner is not taken in the evening. Usually it’s a more substantial meal than afternoon tea. Almost every meal finishes with coffee, cheese and butter.

Americans usually have three meal a day: breakfast, lunch and dinner. All these three meals are served almost at the same time as in Britain. Usual breakfast in the Unites States is orange juice, toast and coffee, or juice and dry cereal with milk, or eggs. Lunch is usually a small meat – a sandwich, salad or soup, hamburgers and sausages. Brunch in America is a combination of breakfast and lunch that many Americans enjoy on Sunday. It is usually served at about eleven in the morning. Scrambled eggs or omelets are often served along with other regular luncheon dishes. In many restaurants brunch is served from 10 a.m. until mid-afternoon. Dinner usually includes a main course of meat or fish accompanied by side dishes as soup, sald and vegetables. There are two main types of restaurants. A fast food restarant is much like a cafeteria. Items such as hamburgers, hot chicken sandwiches, pizza and salads are typical of a fast-food restaurant. Eating in a fast-food restaurant takes less time and is less expensive than in a full –service restaurant.

It’s nice to sit and talk over a cheerful glass of wine too even if you are a moderate drinker and abstain from taking wine. Here’s to our studies.