2004-07-23 - Tired but very satisfied
A dispatch from Johan Ivarsson:
Will this tiredness never pass? I am starting to get irritated over the fact that we wake up at 5 am every morning and find it is impossible to go back to sleep. I would never have believed that it would be this hard to adjust to the time difference. Even though we’ve been able to add on a couple more hours every night since arriving, we are still knackered during the days. For example: Until we came here we had planned to study Russian for 6(!) hours every day. As it is right now, we can hardly manage three hours without the letters floating together or that we start nodding off. Despite this we have succeeded to learn quite a lot, and from my point of view, russian is far more easier that I had expected.
Today we made a interesting visit to the town museum here in Magadan. Very interesting regarding the horrible era of gulags- koncentrationcamps- in the Magadan and Kolyma and the terrible things that happened during that time. The museum also contained exhibitions about the present Magadan and what makes the town tick. For me, the highlight of the visit was the reaction we experienced from our guide when he realized that we are going to follow the Kolyma river by canoe and skis. He got quiet for a second and then he started to laugh out loud. When he had calmed down he started to mumble something in Russian that probably meant something like “idiots”, “suicide”. His reaction is very interesting since we still haven’t come across anyone, with some knowledge of the area, that believes we will make our trip until the end of Kolyma. There negative reaction due to the cold and the extreme environment. We are, of course, convinced of the opposite ourselves.
Even if this tiredness is not what I had expected, I’m very satisfied with the situation to be here and to be a part of this adventure. An adventure that have just started and that I’m convinced will be an experience for life. |
