Oh, I almost forgot...

I almost forgot to mention the coolest thing about this weekend - THE RETURN OF HOT WATER!!! I feel so fresh.
And by the way, I figured out how to call my cell phone from skype (I knew there was a way). Normally when calling Russia from ouside the country, you must use 8 as the country code. But if you lucky devils with skype are trying to reach me on my cell, you must enter the domestic country code - therefore making my phone number +79500035886 (if you are having trouble getting in touch with me using the +89500035886, maybe this will solve the problem). Crazy if you think about it - why have two country codes? Just to confuse us foreigners I guess. Because I finally figured this out (drumroll please) that means I was able to set up the call forwarding thingy on my SkypeOut account - which means for those of you unfortunate souls who don't have skype (or don't care), all you have to do to reach me is call 254-230-1818 (my skypeIn number) and it most likely won't cost you a dime.
Also, on a slightly more random note, I found a British couchsurfer living in Irkutsk - yay for random searches on random networks. Now I have someone who speaks English to show me around when I get to Siberia (btw, thanks to Inez for reminding me to join CS).