I must say that I pulled a dirty trick on Cindy for her birthday and I loved every minute of it. She has wanted an iPad2 for a very long time and I had ordered it three months ago. Because of the earthquake in Japan there was a backlog of orders and the unit did not arrive in Charles Town until one day before I left two weeks ago. I purchased a Kindle as a placeholder for her, just in case, so last night I made believe that the Kindle, plus a nice watch, were her birthday gifts. She was gracious but I knew she was disappointed, so I asked her if she wanted a drink or something else – like perhaps another gift. She was very happy with the iPad2 and now she has to learn how to use it.
We had some friends over for Champagne and caviar to celebrate. I have to tell you that getting caviar in Russia is not as easy as one might think. I finally found a place that carried the good stuff and purchased 100 grams for the equivalent of the gross national product of Peru. It took about twenty minutes to complete the transaction since there was one person who had the key to the cooler, one to take the caviar to the checkout line and another to actually ring it up. I think it is easier and cheaper to get cocaine in Moscow. I served the caviar with warm blinis and sour cream and I must say it is as addictive as cocaine. It was truly something to enjoy and savor and we all had a grand time.
Dinner at Ragout was much better than our first visit and we all had magnificent dishes, which were shared. The wine was ice cold and affordable enough to have three bottles. Needless to say we were all feeling quite relaxed after dinner.
Today was a party at Spaso House, the residence of the US Ambassador. Cindy played with her trio for an hour as the guests arrived and it was a truly elegant affair. Great food, wines and one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen in Moscow. I had a chance to talk with the Ambassador and extend the best wishes of his friend HRH Marie Louise, Princess of Bulgaria. He was gracious and interested in knowing how I met her and we had a nice little chat.
It is late and we are home and looking forward to a quiet and relaxing Sunday. With best wishes, Cindy and Wm
PS the other day Wm wrote about the kids we saw dancing in a production in the park. I was so impressed and at the same time feeling a little sad that we don’t have any similar traditions in the U.S. Well, yesterday at AAS they proved me wrong, at least where it comes to our students (65 nationalities, but the largest share are North American or British). We have a former Bolshoi dancer on our teaching staff and it’s a year long project to teach all of the 4th graders (about 100 of them) some Russian folk dances. They all have costumes and they started and ended with the whole group dancing together (Kalinka was last), and in between each of the 5 classrooms were doing a different dance. While it may not have been as polished as what we watched in the park, by golly those kids knew the steps and were in unison! Some of the boys even did pretty well at the Cossack style “squat kicking”. It was so cool that it was enough to bring a tear to my eye.
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