the weekends here always go so quickly, or at least they seem to haha. i had class on friday again and we took a while to decide what we wanted to do on friday night. we decided to walk arbat (the tourist-y pedestrian street) and then find a bar or something like that. we were originally going to go a jazz bar, but we couldn't find the one we were looking for, so we ended up going to a pub we found. it was called john bull, who is apparently england's equivalent of uncle sam. john bull was umm...unique, haha. it was themed kind of like an early 1900s
bar/saloon/tavern, take your pick. the waitresses were dressed in little plaid dresses, and the entire restaurant was covered in a hazy smoke. but it was really nice, and the food and drinks weren't too expensive. i think our waitress liked how hard we tried to speak to her in russian. but it took us a while to get her to understand that we wanted to keep one menu so we could order more, haha. they had a bunch of irish and english beers, so i got a few of those, and we shared some garlic breads and things like that. but yeah, thanks john bull for a thoroughly
entertaining night!

i felt like being really lazy on saturday so i slept late and then svetlana made me breakfast. i know, do i even need to say it anymore? um, yogurt, salad, and empty omelette. although, i will say that among all of these breakfast disasters i think i am slowly becoming extremely friendly with kefir, which is..um, spoiled milk. it's an entirely russian invention, although i believe it has made it's way to the states in various forms. but in russia, and especially on russian tv, it's advertised as an extremely healthy digestive product, kind of like metamucil or something. technically, it's even called "bio-kefir". but yeah, i put it in my yogurt every morning and it's actually really tasty. i don't know if i'm at the point where i will drink it straight from a cup like svetlana though, haha. maybe someday...

but yeah, svetlana left for the day so i had the apartment to myself so i decided to do some exploring and to my surprise i found a super secret room off of her bedroom. actually it's really just a window balcony, but the mystery as to where she dries my clothes has been solved. showered and headed to the dorms to try and get homework done (did not happen). oh and one of the new students arrived the other night. her name's anya. so we hung out for a little bit and then i went home.

then on sunday we had the organ concert downtown. it was ok, it was basically just a recital open to the public and the woman played for about 90 minutes. i had a lot of homework though so i just went back to svetlana's afterwards and did that for the rest of the night.

then monday, all of the new students (about 10) from the arizona program finally got here, so they were doing their orientation while we were in morning classes. i met some of them but not for very long. we're supposed to get one new person in our class even though zoya apparently would prefer nobody, haha. but yeah, that was my weekend. and then tuesday night we went to the opera. it was called ruslan and lyudmila and was about a princess who got
kidnapped and the prince who tried to save her. i understood nothing but it was fun to watch. afterwards we went out for pizza and then went back.

oh, so a few more things i have noticed about russians, since i have been told many a person enjoyed the last installment. i know i have mentioned this kind of already, but russians will drive and park their cars ANYWHERE. i am not even honestly sure if it's possible to be issued a parking ticket in russia. i have seen cars parked in the middle of major roads, backs sticking out into traffic (accident waiting to happen), and just about anywhere in general. also, so many of the roads here are too small for two lane traffic, so people will regularly drive up onto curbs and sidewalks to let each other pass. also, i was watching tv with svetlana the other day, and i can now rest easy knowing that trashy american tv has found its way to russia. it was, generally speaking, judge judy, except instead of the judge screaming, the plaintiff and defendant would just go at it for like, 10 minutes straight. i'm not even sure if i saw either of them pause to take a breath. there was no way i was ever going to understand what they were arguing about because they were being so belligerent and obnoxious, but it was fun to watch. i have also been told there is a show similar to jerry springer, but i haven't actually seen it so i will have to keep an eye out for that.

alright so that's it for now because my internet sucks. we are having an excursion to the kremlin on sat. though so that will be fun. also, expect postcards semi-soonish.

mitya