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…Later

So last night turned out exactly how I expected it to. After Dad made his round of phone calls, Sasha decided he wanted to have dinner with us and say goodbye today, because he has plans for Friday night. So, Dad and I got ready and met Valia and Sasha for dinner, and first we walked around Deribasovskaya, where all the shops and bars and restaurants are, on a big pedestrian sprawl.

Valia asked if I had been shopping at all, and I said no, but I was craving shoe shopping, and she immediately took me into a store (Dad with such a sour face!) and Sasha was all for it, trying on men’s shoes and just strolling around. But sadly, the shoes, like most of the girls’ outfits here, are really loud and crazy and super shiny or sparkly or 5 inches high, so I didn’t really feel in my shopping element. We left empty handed, which is for the best I guess. Sigh.

We finally stopped in at a Russian restaurant, and all the waiters and waitresses were decked out in full on traditional Russian wear. This is actually not as uncommon as you would expect, and in fact, these teenagers waiting the tables don’t seem the slightest bit sheepish or embarrassed. The menus had English translations (meaning I could at least choose my meal without having Dad pick arbitrary dishes and translated them for me to pick from, even if I couldn’t order it myself) and man, they were awful. I mean, pure poetry. One salad was described as having an “athletic taste.” Wow. Could have poured over that for hours, but the waitress took it away.

After eating a ton of food (and drinking ginger juice, which is absolutely fantastic) we walked down the street to a bakery where we stuffed tea and pastries into our bursting stomachs, which seemed like a good idea at the time. There was this brown half circle shaped dessert, called “Naomi” and I wanted to know what it was and Sasha told me it was named after Naomi Campbell’s boobs, and I actually believed him for a second there.

Then Sasha told me the story of when everyone was making fun of the music Dad chose to listen to instead of techno (The Doors, actually, I’m impressed with him) and he was totally outraged and going on and on about how these are “the Real Doors!” etc. etc. You had to be there.

It was sad to say goodbye to Sasha and Valia. I didn’t even know the existed back home, and even when we got here! Now they both really do feel like family, and I’m so grateful that they were so much fun and spent so much time with us, great company. When Dad and Sasha were saying goodbye in Russian, I kept hearing “baka, baka” (goodbye, goodbye) and realized that might have been my first Russian word, heard every time we left my grandmother’s apartment each Sunday. Sort of sad.

I’ve gotten Dad on a kick of playing Hearts on the laptop (who’s happy I brought the computer now?) and its actually hard to wrangle it away from him. Tomorrow night we have to have dinner at Valia’s and finally meet her Bentley-owning husband.