Dancing the night away
Two observations: 1) damn, its freakin' cold outside right now 2) I REALLY miss my cable modem connection at this particular moment.
Okay, on to the narration.
Sorry I've been relatively incommunicado these days. I only get online every other day or so, and I spend most of that time just taking care of email and other essential things, but while I'm typing this today, I've got the dial-up strained to its limit uploading pictures for everyone.
The library is closed today, as are the archives, so I have a free day at home to finish those stupid grant applications that keep plaguing me. Since I just committed to a room in Charlottesville in Laura's house for next year, I figure I may as well find a way to pay for it. So yes, I'm not running off to the woods or Lake Baikal or whereever for at least another year.
I worked most of last week, except when the system was working against me and doing everything it could to challenge my attempts to be productive. DON'T get me started about the archives here, I don't want to talk about it. Let's just say at one archive, it is going to take them 2 WEEKS to fill my next order of a mere 5 folders.
Thursday night Alina and I went shopping to find me a skirt. It was decided by collective family decision that I needed one. At one store I even tried on one of those short pleated plaid things that I mock all UVa undergraduates for wearing. Alina thought I should buy it, but my common sense won out over that one. I eventually found one I liked. Nothing exciting, but its above my knees at the very least. At home I then experienced a lecture about the fact that I have very nice knees and should show my legs off more often. Umm, hello, this is winter in Russia people. I wear long underwear everyday. Anyway, the whole point of getting the skirt was that Alina and I were going to a club on Friday night, hopefully with Dave and Christian if we could convince them to come along.
On Friday morning Dave and Christian arrived from Moscow for the weekend. Christian's never been here, so we gave him the walking tour of the main highlights etc. I attempted to get work done at the library, but my book order got lost. DON'T ASK. They came over for dinner that night, and then we 4 left for Club Griboedova from there.
The club is located in one of the many bomb shelters that are located in various courtyards across the city. Just about the only hills you'll find here are the bomb shelters. The club was awesome. I would never go out in Moscow because everyone there is so freakin' image conscious and too many places have face-control and its just a mess that I don't care to deal with. But this was more laid back. And Alina and I danced like a bunch of 20 year olds who know how to dance. Okay, so she is 20, and she does know how to dance. I've improved lately it seems, thanks to the hip rotation exercises I'm doing at home to help my back. :-) Christian got sufficiently inebriated to dance with us eventually but Dave was having none of it, preferring to find random strangers to talk politics with. Around 3am he got this glazed look in his eyes, and we decided to go home.
Alina flagged us a car and when we got in, Dave insisted that we take him to McDonalds or he would kill us all. I was relieved when we left the boys at the hostel. Geez. Then we went home and happily went to sleep. Unfortunately Saturday I felt the after effects of a very late night mixed with alcohol. Not a lot of alcohol, mind you, but my body just doesn't bounce back from nights like that. Marina, Alina and Sasha went to visit Marina's dad for the weekend, so I basically did nothing. I gave Christian a walking tour of my neighborhood, the 3 of us had dinner, and then I went to bed. Wish I could have slept though, because I had to get up at 5:45 to go meet Zhenya at her train.
Zhenya also came up this weekend, but only for a day because her company in Moscow sent her on a last minute business trip to the Amur River, near China. Poor thing had to go the OTHER side of Russia for the weekend. That's like me flying back to Washington, for the weekend. Despite being Russian, she had never been here either, so we spend Sunday walking around, seeing some of the highlights while the boys went off and tried to meet some skinheads for an authentic Russian experience (I swear, they are not right in the head). But it was really really really cold out, so we basically spent the day in various cafes drinking tea and eating cakes, punctuated with brief bouts of walking through the city! I can now recommend several tasty, but affordable cafes. Our goal for the evening became to find a restaraunt which served gluhwein!
Man, having people visit is expensive. Christian asked me on Saturday what I do here when I'm not in the archives. I hang out at home. Its a nice apartment, cozy, welcoming and the people are great. If they were miserable, I'm sure I'd be making some sort of effort to make other friends, but at the moment I don't see the need.
I can't believe February is almost over.
