Do You Guys Have These Yet?

Mango Bounty Bars.

If not, I highly reccomend that you write to your nearest snack-food distributor and demand some.

And I reserve the right to extra calories, because my new apartment--great as it is-- requires a 20 minute walk to the metro.

For anyone doing the math, that's about an extra 80 minutes of walking every day. And still more convenient than my old place.

Think of me next time you want to complain about parking at the end of the mall lot...

Also new and delicious in Russia? The pics of the Portage visit, including St Petersburg. As soon as she sends them to me. Ahem, Portage...

Well, My Luck Had Nowhere to Go but UP

My internet is back!
My hot water is back!
My vacation is back on!
I've gotten a lot of really good new clients and my fall roster scedule is filling up!
My mum sent liquorice allsorts from Canada!
And computer that seemed broken has mysteriously healed itself!
Well, except for the ctrl and shift keys on the left. But I am NOW the only person in the world who uses the ctrl and shift keys on the right, which is kinda cool in the way that Dennis is kinda cool for being the "Beeper King" on 30 Rock.

So I guess things are pretty back to normal.
Right?

*knocks tabletop and waits for it to collapse...*

Like KBilly's Super Sounds of the Seventies, "The Hits Just Keep on Coming"*

On Saturday, I got locked out of my apartment. I had left my keys in the pocket of my jacket at The Limey's house when we went there to use a hot shower (current estimated date of hot water-return? July eighth.) So I was locked out for a whole day while Portage went to get her registration completed (four days late, but who cares? Not the Russian authorites, apparently).
I realise I forgot my keys when I am already at my home metro station, and TL isn't even home to pass them off if I did want to trek 40 minutes back.

I decide to wait out Portage and her spare set of keys, although knowing Russian registration to be what it is, there is no telling how many hours that just might be.

I decide to go into the mobster-looking restaurant a few blocks away I'm always joking about but have never been into. I walk in and...picture it: The place is definitely empty, and decorated with the always-classy cast of Goodfellas in mind (there is a coloured-light covered rockwall complete with an indoor waterfall. No lie.) And only one occupied table, seating no fewer than ten men in silk suits, eating a big meal and drinking vodka. They all turn to look "Come sit down! Have a drink!" They shout accross the dancefloor (of course there's a dancefloor). I mumble something completely incoherent, do a stilettoed about-face, and haul ass out of there. Even I'm not that up for adventure.

Okay, so accross the park meridian, to the other side of the double lane street to a diner I once noticed. On my way there, a guy slows his car to eyeball me and offer me a ride. Not quite so weird in Russia, but still...weird. I shake my head and keep walking but he keeps calling out to me. Weird guy behind me, I make it to the diner, climb the steps, and notice the sign on the heavy wooden door: "Closed Saturdays."
Wha...?

Tired of walking, tired of heat, I park my but on the steps for a few seconds. As I stand to leave, who comes running accross the parking lot but weird dude, waving a set of keys?! Oh it's his restaurant? You don't say? And he's happy to let me in and make me something to eat? Super...

Thanks but no, and I'm off walking again. Four minutes down the road, and a car pulls up next to me. Now, you know who this is. He drives slowly next to now stony and completely unresponsive me as I walk, urging me to meet him somewhere for a coffe, for a talk, etc. Then, true story, he pulls up half onto the sidewalk still imploring me for a date, for my phone number, for whatever.
"Miss!" he says "Please, don't be afraid to come out with me! Don't be afraid! I'm telling you, I'm normal!"

Dude. You are driving on the sidewalk to get the attention of some girl you don't know and who doesn't want to know you. You. Are. Not. Normal.

As Portage later put it, if you have to say you're normal, obviously, something suggests you are not...

I made it to the short cut, and hung out in the (non-street facing) park by my flat until Portage got back (mercifully quickly)

Some other highlights of my week?
- My home internet access is gone (mysteriously disappeared, really)
- I had a rather expensive class cancellation
- The metre in my old apartment was "misread." For nine months. That's gonna cost us.
- My summer vacation is cancelled
- Lost my sunglasses again
- The Limey is set to leave for Japan...



I am thisclose to some sort of animal sacrifice, I swear to
whatever god can get me out of this bad run...

Some good stuff has been going down too. As soon as Portage uploads her pics, you'll know all about them.
Until then, it's my blog and I reserve the right to sulk.





*If you don't get that reference: it's Resevoir Dogs. And I pity you.

Day 7 Without a Shower

Well, sort of. Portage and I both slept at the Limey's place, just so we could shower there Saturday morning, and Grisha got himself a shower at his dacha. That's right, we are now heading to the cabin for improved hygeine round this joint.

Better still, Portage and I attempted to go to a banya (pool/sauna/bathhouse) on Sunday. We waited by the front desk, while five men went a head, gawping and asking us if we wanted to steam with them. I gave them my very best "bitch, please" side eye, and waited for them to go up the stairs.

Then the women at the front desk informs us that this entrance is for men only.
So Russian dudes, if you are reading this (of course you are!) I recant my glare of death.
This time only.

7 days to go...

A Taste of Russian Organisation

Portage needs to get registered. Just so that the Russian government knows she is really here. Or knows she is real. Or knows that she will jump through hoops of red tape just to be here. Something like that.

When we tried to register in Petersburg, the address given by the official website turned out to be a ver dodgy joint hidden in a courtyard, blocked from the street by an arch, and without a number or sign on the door. (fun fact: you can get your visa registered and buy crack cocaine in one convenient stop!)

We were really proud to finally find it, but as it turns out, that particular office doesn't register foreign passports. We never did find the right place.

So, using the "three business days in a given city" rule, we figured it would be okay to register her in Moscow. Which she went to do today with my frind Vicky, who has much better Russian than I do.

I just got a call from her. They closed the office three hours early. Because....just because.

Welcome Portage. Welcome.

Update: Cold Showers Still Awful

Chose to wear a hat in class rather than soak my head in cold water this morning. Not super-appropriate for the teacher, but 7am+cold shower= heeeeeell no.

12 days to go...

(House) Guest Blog:by Portage Pt1

Larissa has asked me, Portage, to post some thoughts on my trip. I have never blogged before and am not a writer so please do not expect the wit and style of Larissa.

Here are some random thoughts and observations that from Russia. Yesterday I went for a toliet paper run and to get some groceries. The little super market I went to had a full aisle devoted to beer, every type of beer you could possibly imagine but no toliet paper. How am I to consume all these beer without toliet paper? Larissa's answer to this question: bushes.

Also no one lines up properly for things here; there are no clearly defined rows and it totally drives me crazy. Rather people converge from the sides and try to get ahead of you. Throwing elbows is essential to keeping your spot. At Tsarkoe Selo this middle aged women literally pushed Larissa out of line and tried to elbow me out, so she was not lieing when she said babushaka's can be deceptive.

Vice is very cheap here. Alcohol and smokes are ridiculous cheap. You can get a bottle of champagne in a restaurant for about $9. We saw a man walking around with a sandwich board sign advertising porn for $2, so presumably sex is too.

A fun game to play while you are sipping champagne or downing shots of vodka (only tourists drink vodka with mix) is: why is she with him? You will see these gorgeous women with these guys with rat tails. It just begs the question why? Well really two questions: why are they together and why would he consciously tell the barber to live a few wisps of long hair in the back?

Bathing, Sovietsky Style

Portage arrived in Moscow (having stayed a day later in Piter) She had a rough train ride after a lot of walking and just wanted a bath.

No problem.

It just took ten pots of boiling water.

On four burners.

With three pots.

We're calling it a "hand-drawn bath." Cuz it sounds classy. So enjoy your running hot water, commonfolk.

And place your bets now on how long before we're sneaking into the car wash.

13 days to go...

Larissa And the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

I'm sure I just broke at least a dozen copywrite and character infringement laws, but whatever. Bring it on. Just try me.

Cuz I'm having one of those days. Nothing really bad, but just enouogh of the little things...

See, I had to get back from my awesome vacation in Saint Petersburg, but since I had to work on Wednesday, I left Tuesday night, while Portage got to stay the extra day and go to Peterhoff. As I wait for my train to board, I get a message from my student cancelling the class I was racing to make.

!!%$fg&8?fgrdd/dh*?!!!

Calmly I board the train to find out that not only do I have a top bunk (it sounds not bad but proves to be considerably worse when you step on people to get to your bed, which has head clearance of...nothing. You may partially incline only slightly the whole ride. All nine hours). I could deal though, I'm limber enough (thank-you yoga) to make it in and out without a boost step and zero clearance.

But lemme give ou an idea: since I don't have a photo of my own I stole one. Don't worry: I used my own special brand of computer wizardry to ensure that I cannot be held liable:

So it's something like this train to wherever this completely unidentifiable man* is going, but those bottom two levels are at least two feet higher. And there is no ladder.

Also, ours was the cubby by the bathroom and the light, so my usually womb-like train sleep was interupted at least every ten minutes by a slamming door, highlighted by a fluorescent light...but hey, after at least 5 days of crossing two cities on foot, my body WAS just glad to lie down. (Woulda been thismuch better if I could have stretched out totally, but hey...)

So off the train. I wait for the people below me to take their sweet-ass time to clear the area, then lower myself to the floor so I can get my luggage out from under their beds.

Then it's off to the metro. Which will open in just forty minutes! Ever wait underground, with luggage, while a crown of equally be-suitcased passengers wait for doors to unlock? If it sounds kind of irritating, it was (unless you were the dude passed out in one of the metro doorways--perfectly serene, he was. Some people just know how to live.)

So we get in, me and my wheely suitcase and there is a LOT more walking and a lot more stairs, up an escalator, down some stairs, around a long, gilded hallway, down an escalator, and up two flights of stairs. Down two more flights of stairs, I allow my suitcase to bump down the steps behind me, and find a bench so that I can get back into Zelda for at least the third read of my life.

But--what is that---I smell---it's five am, and even in Moscow it can't be- (sniffsniff)--beer?!

(quick look around)

Now who would be spil--

Aw crap.

So that beer I had bought but never drank, so I just tossed it in my suitcase popped on that last stairwell, leaving a trail of suds that leads to a puddle in which I am now standing. Reeking, really.

Well at least now everyone else's morning will suck a little too, now.

<<>>

I get home and after 5 nights that never get dark, 4 evenings in a hostel, a 3rd of my luggage coated in Baltika, and 2 nights sleeping on a train, all I really want is one good shower.

But first I have to sort out the beer-made laundry.

Kira and Grisha are still asleep, but Koshka comes out to greet me. No Muishka, though...strange. I spend an hour and a half hunting for Muishka while my laundry whirs, wondering if he died while I was on the trip. Like were they waiting to tell me until I got home? Maybe they're just gonna be all like "What Muishka? What's that?" to make me think I'm crazy! Or maybe I AM crazy and there never was a Muishka to begin with!

But when they do wake they swear they don't know where he is. A quick look out the balcony finds my kitten stranded on the top of the entrance awning (four stories down!)

So I run to the second floor stairwell, crawl up the mailboxes mounted on the wall and through the ceiling-high window (thank you again, yoga) and retrieve my howling, sobbing, scratched up, pissed off, but otherwise fine kitten.

Muishka: You got eight left, dude. Eight.

I go back to the laundry, only to find out that a purple t-shirt that I have washed at least a dozen times in the past has coloured all my laundry--including all my nude-shade lingerie, a nose-crinkling, gym-sock purple. I give up already.

But at least I really earned that shower.

Oh, except that as of today, we will have NO HOT WATER for the next two weeks.

Now I know I'm prone to reckless and occasionally chaotic behaviour, but I don't specifically remember any broken mirrors, no black cats, no walking under ladders, no spilling salt, and no desecrating of Indian burial grounds, of late.

If anyone has an idea how I may have displeased the gods, shout it out.

*Trust me, I totally did this dude a favour

One of my Students Taught Me a Russian Joke for You:

Knock Knock



Who's there?



A horse in a coat!






That's it. That's the joke.


Actually, it's pretty cute in Russian.


Puns work not even a little in translation, as it turns out.

It's a Bit of a Mixed Impression, Here

I can't say enough about the neighbourhood of my new apartment. It's it's got a lot of parks. And families. And yes, at least one "Satriole's-was-a-less-conspicuous-front-for-the-mob"-type restaurant, but then it has this:

!
And these:

!!

And this:

!!!

All within walking distance of my flat!

So can someone please explain the large piles of--um--horse poop that I see a several times every day?

Because I have yet to see a single horse in the neighbourhood...

I'll spare you a pic but it just doesn't jive with the surroundings... but then, Russia can be that way...

Things are Arriving in Moscow

Kira got a care package from her mum. And it had a little something for me in it.

Don't be perverts. I use Vaseline on my lips and my skin as moisturizer. I use it as makeup remover. And I use it to polish shoes.

Tragically, I haven't been able to find any since I got here. I mean, I've looked in what you'd think would be all the "usual" places: pharmacies, convenience stores, supermarkets, and "everything for home." (Yes, that is a type of store, like "supermarket" or "candy store" , because there are a million and they are all called by that and no other name.)

And I I did try to ask some students. All I would get is giggles at the word "Vaseline." They knew what it was, but seemed to find it only dirty. It got to that by the fourth or fifth student I asked, I would've been less embarassed asking them where I could find a hooker or some crack.

Ah well. Kira must've said something to he mother, and God-bless overseas mums, because I am once again back in Vaseline.

Oh really now...what did I tell you about the dirty?

Now speaking of things coming to Russia for me: three--count'em three days til Portage visits!

Getting excited...

My Bad

I am a bad, bad, uninformative Expatella.

Some excuses for not writing? Two going-away parties, a birthday, a lost cellphone being held for ransom by a pissy gypsy-cab driver, and Gerard Butler won't stop harassing me with his love*.

And I MOVED! Closer to downtown, a bigger bedroom, regular internet access, nine fewer teapots, and a third flatmate added to the mix.

All of this will be explained.






*I may have just watched 300 for the fifteenth time. (Sixteenth time for that scene where he's naked.)

I Just Discovered One of the Worst Ways to Wake Up. Ever.

Last night I was kind of having a hard time nodding off, but finally, finally, I started to doze. I was just in that place between asleep and awake, nuzzled in that nook in the guy's chest that girls love so much...I can practically count down to a nice, needed sleep...gently drifting off...feeling lighter... letting go....5...4...3...2...

WHAP!

Somehow, in his unconsciousness, The Limey manages, half-closed fist, to box me in the ear. He's got more than a little experience in boxing and martial arts, so asleep or not...
A one in a million shot. And he was absolutely horrified when I told him.

I had to tell him, because I woke him up laughing so hard.

He insists that he was probably having dreams of Eurovision Weekend.

What is Eurovision you ask?

Why it is the single greatest, gayest, glitteriest, campiest spectacle held this side of the Atlantic. And I got a crash-course this weekend, since it was held in Moscow this year.

My recap isn't done yet, but I'll post it when it is.

In the meantime, here's a taste of what you can expect to hear about:



On an unrelated note: Doesn't Liberace suddeny remind you of the Marlboro Man?

This Tour of my Apartment Guest-Blogged by The Count

Velcome Cheeldren!

Apartments for rent in Moscow are usually furnished.

This means that every lucky renter automatically gets dishes, a television from the eighties, a single bed, and at least one--ONE!--gigantic wall unit capable of hiding an entire family of smuggled immigrants.

But Kira and Larissa also got a few extras! And what fun extras they are!

Count with me now!

ONE! ONE TEAPOT! AH-HA-HA!

NOW...

TEN! TEN TEAPOTS! AH-HA-HA!!!

They also have three water pitchers and seven wall units.

But they had to buy their own butter knives.

**This post has been brought to you by the letter "L", the number "10", my landlord Nikolai, and the good people at Pepski-Cola!

Because Things Always Make This Much Sense in Russia

Using free internet in a restaurant.

I ordered a beer, then tacked on a pack of smokes, which they brought with a lighter which I did not ask for. Then I get the bill.

The total is 320 roubles.

The number on the top is 200 ru for the beer.

The zero rouble charge? Why the cigarettes are free!

But the 120? That's for the lighter.

To clarify, I just bought a 5$ lighter. But the (2$) smokes were completely complimentary!

I think I just got had, but am too pumped about the free smokes to care.

Consumer Psychology: Letting People Screw You Since 1955.

Worth the Price of Admission

Last Sunday I was playing football (soccer) in the park with some Expat friends. Okay, no, they were playing and I was barefoot because my heels would have sunk into the grass. But I digress.

We get to the end of the afternoon and are drinking beer on the grass, when we are approached by militsiya. In Russian, they tell us that it is illegal to drink beer on the grass where we are (elsewhere on the grass, yes, just not here.) We're 99.9% sure it is not. But in proper expat fashion, we all "don't speak Russian." (Even though we all pretty much do.) But they tell us we are in trouble in Russian, and we tell them we don't understand in English.

And so there we are in what basically amounts to a game of linguistic chicken. Because we can't challenge their authority without admitting we speak Russian, and they know that they have no authority to speak of in this situation. It's a catch 22. All they are lloking for is a small bribe, and in order to give it to them and walk away happily, all we have to do is turn over next to nothing in cash (because even though we may not have been doing anything illegal, they could always SAY we were doing something else...)

This would be upsetting if it weren't so funny. At one point, one of the cops (after making the intenational finger-and-thumb rubbing sign for "bribe") had the balls to use his limited English and say "Hah. Russia police!" and laugh. And believe me, we were all laughing.

The Cop: "Beer! So--" (makes the money-motion)

Me: (with feigned innocence)"What are you saying? You'd like us to buy you a beer?"

OR

The Cop: You drinked beer!

My Limey: Yes

(Edwina the Aussie slaps him on the arm)

My Limey: I mean, No.

OR

Mya: "These beers? They aren't ours-- these are rubbish. We were just cleaning up after other people who were drinking beer, that's all."

Imagine much of this going back and forth, and you can see how the situation was funny.

In the end, their patience with the back-and-forth outlasted ours, and we did end up paying them.

Total cost to bribe two militsiya and make them lay off five foreigners?

300 rubles.

12 lousy bucks.

The best part is, they didn't want to take any of our small bills. Because that would have been tacky, right?

Worth every penny for a good twenty minutes of entertainment that you can only find in Moscow.

IT'S A WAR!

Nah, not really. Tomorrow is "Victory Over Europe Day" in Russia. It commemerates the day that Germany surrendered*. Tomorrow there will be a parade etc all on theme, and the tanks have been practicing all week, running up and down Tverskaya, one of the busiest streets in Moscow.

You think that's weird? Yesterday, at midnight, we saw two random dudes in motorcycle jackets go past the window of our restaurant on horses.

Thanks to Ed for the sweet pics.

*In WWII. Since Germany was quite the stone-cold bastard for the first half of the 20th century, that may not have been clear.

Katie, You're Gonna Hate This

It is a carbonated beverage that tastes like барбарис, apparently called "barberries" in English, which I think are native only to this region. Barerries are naturally sour, but not in pop form. In pop form?

It tastes like Red Vines*. Aw yeah.

*I know I'm the only person who likes those. No need to point it out.

UPDATE: We Have a Contest Winner!

I received the following message from my lovely friend Julie W with regards to this post:

FYI the spanish men probably read "Terror in Winnipeg" by Eric Wilson
(who wrote "Murder on the Canadian" which ironically was about a canadaian boy and a japanaese girl who was facinated with canada due to a book she read"Anne of Green Gables") Useless facts Julie, Useless facts.I could be wrong but i swear its the only middle school book that would loosely translate into 'panic
in winnipeg'.i want my beets, caviar, and dolls ASAP!!!xxxooo

CONGRATULATIONS JULIE! You do indeed get your prize. And congratulations Portage: you get to bring it home for her on the plane in June!

Everyone's a winner.

But mostly Julie.