Угар!

This is a word I ought to know and my Russian friends claim it means something like nirvana...I'll deal with that but it's imprecise. I met these two guys last week about 2am at the wonderful flat next Christ the Saviour and they were kind enough to invite me to a concert with them - a band called Landashyn. Pretty cool group like Mumiy Trol - a Petersburg sort of feel, but they were harder the played to the crowd and there was a nice pit that formed...best thing - free cd's with door entry! Yeah, I liked them very much some of their stuff was nice and poppy and it was all very catchy, humorous (from what I understood) and energetic. Naturally, in any group of young Russian males on a Friday night, much drinking will be involved, I somehow held out better than they did...likely because they all started long before I arrived, but they had me try a flavored vodka - Horseradish...it was pretty nasty...not smooth at all and the aftertaste is something awful though I did like the spice. We jabbered about many things mainly music...at one point about homosexuality (we had to agree to disagree) and I got a couple more invitations - to go skiing in the Caucasus with them in April to go see Reel Big Fish, and so on...hopefully some of this stuff will work out. For some reason we went to another club - zhest' - iron/harsh/metal something of that nature. It was a little boring there...there just wasn't anyone there. Anyway we went home, one of the guys had gotten too drunk and made an annoyance of himself - he sobered up when he punched his friend in the face. We found a taxi and they wanted me to come over to their place, but because of intern applications and our scheduled dacha trip i had to refuse.

So I have about a third of my apps done..and only a week or so left...woot. Incredibly i'm making progress.

Yesterday, we all went to the dacha (vacation house/country house) and had a good time - shish kebabs, bliny, and other tasty delights in celebration of russian carnival/maslenitsa, but we didn't have any of the traditional fighting or burning of scarecrows. It was mostly a success and I stayed up talking until about 6am - it was pleasant. I got back today did about half of what I wanted to on the computer and crashed, woke up, made myself some pasta and now am typing again...look at me I'm here this is real time! Anywho, classes and internship tomorrow, more applications tonight...hoping to knock out 2-6 and get some grammar homework done. Gotta do rugby and get to my mainstreams with paperwork this week...it'll be a good time. Either next weekend or the following will be Petersburg and I need to get myself hitting the touristy stuff in Moscow...upping my culture quotient.

That's it for today