Robbie Williams
Yes, it's deceptive when you hear all the same songs on the radio as in the rest of Europe, and breakfast radio DJs sound exactly the same as everywhere ('zany'), BUT things are a little bit different here.
I mean obviously the signs are a bit harder to read, and you can't drink the water, but more than that. A small example, Peter kindly ordered tea and coffee for us in a Starbucks equivalent, as we hadn't quite mastered how to say hello yet, but was told you can't order tea with milk, only with lemon. Coffee with milk, yes, but not tea.
Then there was Peter's pseudo rental inspection where the landlady and boyfriend Sasha turned up late at night, apparrently to wash the dishes, water the plants and have a general chat. Sasha generously offered Nicho a shot of vodka (which is an offer one is advised to take up) with a water chaser. He didn't offer any to Peter, and it was Peter's voldka. He then found that Australia and Russia have boxer Kostya Zhu in common, and we had some kind of bilingual conversation about that.
And then today, when we arrived at the museum where we were meeting Peter, and found it had become a different museum, a kind woman who worked there rushed up to us, and told us in Russian how to find the place we were after. We had the map, and heard the instructions a few times - over the bridge, down to this square, and up the second street to number 53. No Problem. But once there, all we could find were building works. Being cold, late and without a coin operated phone nearby, we opted for a cup of tea to collect our thoughts. We were so late we figured Peter would have given up on us, so we headed for the metro station (lovely metro stations here by the way). And saw some phones. So we called Peter who was still at the museum (enjoying it much better without us I'm sure)which was immediately behind the original building we'd been to. Go figure.
But its great fun, and there's so much to see (too much - the Hermitage needs to introduce rollerblade tours), and if we could just remember some of the common dishes found on menus then all would be perfect and we wouldn't have to live on pancakes (called bliney) and pizza.
Also, we met a couple who have just come from Beijing on the Trans-Mongolian, and they said there's no snow yet. There's no snow here either. What's going on??
I mean obviously the signs are a bit harder to read, and you can't drink the water, but more than that. A small example, Peter kindly ordered tea and coffee for us in a Starbucks equivalent, as we hadn't quite mastered how to say hello yet, but was told you can't order tea with milk, only with lemon. Coffee with milk, yes, but not tea.
Then there was Peter's pseudo rental inspection where the landlady and boyfriend Sasha turned up late at night, apparrently to wash the dishes, water the plants and have a general chat. Sasha generously offered Nicho a shot of vodka (which is an offer one is advised to take up) with a water chaser. He didn't offer any to Peter, and it was Peter's voldka. He then found that Australia and Russia have boxer Kostya Zhu in common, and we had some kind of bilingual conversation about that.
And then today, when we arrived at the museum where we were meeting Peter, and found it had become a different museum, a kind woman who worked there rushed up to us, and told us in Russian how to find the place we were after. We had the map, and heard the instructions a few times - over the bridge, down to this square, and up the second street to number 53. No Problem. But once there, all we could find were building works. Being cold, late and without a coin operated phone nearby, we opted for a cup of tea to collect our thoughts. We were so late we figured Peter would have given up on us, so we headed for the metro station (lovely metro stations here by the way). And saw some phones. So we called Peter who was still at the museum (enjoying it much better without us I'm sure)which was immediately behind the original building we'd been to. Go figure.
But its great fun, and there's so much to see (too much - the Hermitage needs to introduce rollerblade tours), and if we could just remember some of the common dishes found on menus then all would be perfect and we wouldn't have to live on pancakes (called bliney) and pizza.
Also, we met a couple who have just come from Beijing on the Trans-Mongolian, and they said there's no snow yet. There's no snow here either. What's going on??
posted by Wednesdays at 10:52 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home