Weekend rundown

Today is Defenders of the Fatherland day, otherwise known as Men's Day...a completely arbitrary and artificial holiday originally intended to celebrate the Red Army...I haven't heard about any parades or protests so I've decided to stay in for the moment despite beautiful sunny -15 degree weather...a kakaya ona rossiya!

This weekend has been pleasant a tad boring, but such is often the case. Friday night...I must have stayed in...because I can't recall doing anything of note...Saturday was epic...and yesterday was...interesting. The only downside was that I couldn't get the motivation in to plan a menu and then a shopping list..so I'm still running low on products...an unintended consequence of this was eating at McDonalds a few times...and as disgusting as it is, it really can be kinda tasty...especially when you haven't eaten anything else all day...also managed to get to TGIF...where I had the worst burger ever...I need to stop making these stoopid choices.

But...Saturday night...I guess that makes it all right...tell me we what have I got to lose!

Originally we had intended to meet up with the Yaro students on Saturday, but their provincial ways left them unequipped to deal with the energetic demands of Moscow and they reneged on our date. Luckily, one of the students here invited me to a concert - it was kinda ska-like, a French band I think, which I managed to watch a bit of, took down a beer and some lamb stew, and met some of his buddies. After the show we decided to head out because one of the girls we had met didn't want to pay the cover charge for the club and so we set off wandering, but the guy who invited me left and so it became a night of meeting new folks. We went through a few bars, met up with some other journalism students and ended the night at a house party on the 16th floor of an apartment building right next to the Church of Chirst the Savior - ie. pretty damn close to the Kremlin and with a spectacular view. I met some rather friendly Russians, listened to them singing the well known standards, and got one of them to help me find a gypsy cab home...which was not nearly so bad as people try to get you to think. I got home at 3 and went to bed.

Yesterday I finally made it to the grocery store...but only picked up breakfast food (lots of eggs, cheese, tomatoes - they don't understand that you aren't supposed to refrigerate tomatoes!, omelet stuff), some chocolate and a bottle of wine that markets for 3 bucks in the us but 9 here...it's not bad but incredibly boring...it'll be good to cook with if I don't finish it. Anyhoo, I discovered the amazingness of the Charlie Rose Show (I never expected that I would be able to stream video in Russia - it's a miracle) and headed out to the Vanya where I dehydrated myself severely, but it's pleasant makes you feel nice. Lots of singing out of key...I noticed that I have a terrible time remembering words when I'm also trying to fit in the key of the guitar while it seems like the other voices are completely out of tune...it was unpleasant and made for a poor rendition of Lola. But it was funny...I do miss playing the guitar a wee bit, but if I were to start up again I need to take it seriously with a good teacher and frequent practice. But I have bigger fish to fry. So yeah...the banya was warm i didn't drink much other than a glass of wine before I left, but I was completely incapable of walking due to the temperature changes. And I couldn't get to sleep until 5am last night.

So now, I need to do my homework and right letters while clearing out my tabs.

Edit: The wine is actually a lot better than it was last night...I think I just didn't give an opportunity to breath and as such it was pretty flat, but now it's got the acidity and bite that makes me love syrah so much, but still it's pretty unremarkable...even with chocolate...eeee. Red wine chocolate and internship applications!