Well, our Georgian restaurant didn’t let us down last night. I picked up Katy at her hotel and brought her back to the apartment for Kirs and pâté. Her husband Craig is being recruited to work on gas turbine technology and they have him running all over Russia this week so Katy was on her own and we were only too happy to show her around. We walked back to the apartment and it was spooky. She actually reads the blogs and seems to memorize them. She knew all the landmarks, remembered all about the boys and girls of The 54 Club, and loved seeing their clubhouse. On the way home we saw a classic car accident, which created gridlock, and she remembered all the rules related to driving in Moscow. I’m going to have to be very careful what I write from now on.
Back to dinner. We had the really good waitress, which forced us into ordering in Russian. We, and by we I mean Cindy, are really getting better at this language and we ordered everything in Russian, much to the delight of our waitress. We had three starters, the rolled eggplant with walnuts, which we always have, the spicy spinach soufflé and a new dish, which was, mashed red kidney beans with walnuts. All of them were delicious as was the hot and crusty bread. We ordered three main courses, the fabulous grilled split quail, a new dish called lamb kebab which was really a wonderful lamb sausage wrapped in something resembling a tortilla, and stuffed with fresh tomatoes and some yogurt sauce and a plate of roasted veggies. Man, it was all delicious and even the red wine seemed to taste much better. Katy was most generous, in addition to the lovely orchids she brought for Cindy; she also picked up the tab at the restaurant. Let that be a lesson to those of you who might come and visit!!
Katy and Craig have been living in Costa Rica for eleven years and are now considering a major move. She was working as an educator there and I’ll take her to Cindy’s school on Friday so she can have a look around incase she decides to work there if they come to Moscow. We were very firm in telling her that she had to live in the city and not in the sticks were her husband’s office would located. She would be miserable being stuck twenty kilometers from the nearest Metro. A prison is a prison no matter how well appointed.
I got a note from my sister regarding the blog where I mentioned Cake Boss. It seems that my niece, her daughter Mieke, is the assistant producer of that show! She has been working with them for two years. What an incredibly small world we live in. Speaking of readers writing in, our resident microwave/grammar expert, Bob Van Epps, wrote to tell me that the Turkish menu that mentions ‘hot searches’, most likely means hot sandwiches. What an eye/ear for language he has.
Speaking of language, why does Moscow wish to condemn itself to be a third world city, expensive, but third world. There was an article yesterday that said that three stores were being investigated for using English words in banners outside their establishments. It turns out you can be fined up to 500,000 Rubles for such subversion. Here is a city, striving for modernity, attempting to lure multi-national corporations to do business here and they come up with some silly thing like this. I would bet you dollars to donuts that all of the politicians send their children to English language schools since they know that English is the lingua franca of the business world. It’s nuts but then again, where are we. http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/stores-probed-for-using-english/422012.html
Perhaps the reason for such silliness is that for most Russians it really doesn’t matter since they won’t live long enough to learn English.
More adults smoke in Russia than in any other heavy-smoking country, and their average life expectancy is one of the shortest among former Soviet countries, according to two separate but thematically linked reports released Tuesday.
You can read the whole article here: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/who-russians-smoke-the-most/422117.html
I’ve been struggling for the past two hours with the Russian alphabet and cardinal numbers. I found a site on the web that has the Russian alphabet song and I’m trying like crazy to memorize it. My brain is like most other muscles in my body, it is loosing tone and elasticity.
A few of the folks from AAS who when to Istanbul for the holiday came home with more than carpets and spices. Seems that the ‘Stanbul Belly has hit many so I made a big batch of garlic soup this afternoon that I’ll bring around to those in need this evening. If this doesn’t fix them they’ll need professional care. Of course, I’ve saved a little for us as well.
And finally, it looks like the best and cheapest way to not suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) in Moscow, is to go to jail!
Sunbeds for Moscow's notorious prison
November 10, 2010 - 8:19PM
Inmates at a notorious Moscow prison where a lawyer died last year in a case
that sparked global concern, are to receive sunbeds as part of a new drive
to improve comfort, reports said on Wednesday.
The chief spokesman for Moscow prisons told ITAR-TASS that the improvements at Butyrka prison also included Internet telephony, Skype, spas services and access to better medical services and drugs.
SADly yours, Cindy and Wm
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