Monday 20th - back to lectures.

Those of us that had been to St Petersburg for the weekend had been traveling all night, not reaching Moscow till 9:07 that morning. So lectures today were going to be challenging. Fortunately this had been allowed for, and it was going to be a short day, with lectures starting at 13:00 and finishing at 16:10.

Lectures today were to be held at the faculty, however a scheduling problem meant that at 13:49 we were still sitting in the lecture room waiting for our speaker to arrive. As my camera did not a have a sufficiently wide angle to get everyone into the picture, this is a crude attempt to merge two separate images to give a lecturers eye view of those of us that had not taken the opportunity to go outside for a break.

It was raining outside, and after the lectures we were all pretty tired following our overnight journey back from St Petersburg, so nobody was very enthusiastic about going out anywhere that evening. Kelly an I had earlier toyed with the idea of doing some improvised home cooking with the facilities provided in the dorm, and had also tried unsuccessfully to locate the student cinema we had seen advertised in the main building. So...

FILM NIGHT

	Now Showing The Alternative Cinema Room 503 Sector D Moscow State University

we decided to invite the rest of the dormitory dwellers around for dinner and a movie.

At the dormitories there is a modest kitchen area provided on each floor. This includes a pair of gas cookers, some bench space and a sink. I was too busy to get any pictures of the kitchen activity at the time, but here is a picture taken a little later showing the spartan facilities at our disposal (including my steel cup on the left hand cooker - the one piece of cooking equipment I had brought). Fortunately I had souvenired some matches from the hotel room in St Petersburg, and Lena had agreed to loan me some cooking utensils for our extravaganza..

It took quite a bit of re-organizing to get nine people into one dorm room, including rearranging of furniture and dismantling of beds to make the seating. At one point Kelly got a bit carried away and started taking doors off, but was able to be restrained before he did to much damage... The dorm room that we shared consisted of a small entry way with four doors leading off. Two to our respective bedrooms, and the remaining two to our shared bathroom and the toilet. Kelly had even gone to the trouble of making up little signs for the doors so that people could find their way around. The bathroom was labelled 'pool' because of a slight plumbing problem that we had.

	At 20:14 the guests had arrived and the meal was underway. On the left is Lena, who had loaned me some pots and pans so we could do the cooking and also helped me with the shopping. Next to her is Risto, then Patrick - who was providing the use of his laptop to give us a bigger screen on which to view the movies, then in front of him is Natacha, Jennie, and the top of Marisa's head.

I caught Risto eating in the last shot, so tried again. But this time caught Natasha. Obviously the food was so good that people couldn't restrain themselves long enough to get a good picture...

	Chef appears from the kitchen bearing the next course, which is promptly served in our finest paper cups..

Natacha and Jennie reclining in the cinema foyer while Ulf browses the selection of films on offer.

	Kelly and myself standing by the door - it looks like we were making sure none of our guests could escape. I also seem to have managed to get more than just the top of Marisa's head for a change.

After the banquet, at 21:15, we have ushered everyone into the 'cinema', where the final selection of films consisted of a double matinee of 'Metropolis' followed by 'The Dish'.

Here is another one taken with the flash (given that cinemas tend to be a bit dark) showing how me managed to squeeze all nine of us into one small University dorm room. From left to right, in the back row is Ulf, Natacha, Kelly and Jennie and in the front, Lena, Marisa, Patrick and Risto. And of course I am taking the picture... I'm not sure why Marisa needed quite so many cups. Most people seemed happy with just one. She must have been very thirsty.

Tuesday 21st - IBMP Tour

The tour starts with a presentation on the treadmill developed to give astronauts/cosmonauts a workout on the International Spacestation. Note the metal arms on the side to keep the user in contact with the running surface rather than floating off in the absence of gravity.

	Next a presentation on a form of recumbent execise bike.

A clearer view after the crowd had moved on to the next presentation

	The 'Dry Immersion' unit used for bedrest studies.

This provides the even distribution of weight associated with floating on water, but without the problems of getting water logged or drowning while asleep. It is a bit like a super soft water bed.

	A mechanical counter measures suit used on the Mir space station. The suit is fitted with adjustable elastic straps which provide a degree of resistance to movement so that the cosmonaut gets some exercise during normal activity even in microgravity.

Lastly we have a tilt bed for studying the effects of varying degrees of skeletal unloading, as produced by different levels of tilt from vertical to horizontal to inverted.

	Kelly volunteers to be the test subject for our demonstration..

This one rather reminds me of a scene from Frankenstein.

	Checking for life signs..

"Its alive! Its alive!..." It was now 17:37 and time for our bus to take us back to the University.

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