Елки Палки

August 5

Today work was a bit slow, so I decided to take tomorrow off (since quite a few people I help will be out of the office anyway) and wander around Moscow to try to get a feel for the city. I haven't seen the river yet and I've only plunked myself off in different sections by metro. That should be fun.

Tonight, Eunice treated me and one of the new teachers, a girl about my age, to dinner at Yolki Palki. It was so Russian and fantastic! We ordered one sweet and one savory pirozhki (to the right) to try and rye bread. We all tried to order typical Russian dishes and then tried each others. Eunice got borshch (below) and it was really good. I've always thought it was terrible because that's what my dad said...but it was great! I got pelmeni (above) also excellent, and Jessica, the new teacher, got blinchiki s myasom (Russian pancakes stuffed with meat). I ordered kvas, which I had never heard of before, but is apparently classic. It's a fizzy, sweet drink made from fermented white bread - a sweet beer, if you can imagine – and I actually liked it. The whole meal was very fun and good. We tried to get some morozhenoe on the way back, but they closed as we were walking by.

I'm going to go heat up some water so that I can take a bath. Turns out, the reason there's no hot water is because Moscow shuts off the hot water for every neighborhood once a year for a couple weeks. The hot water turns on here the day that I leave Eunice's house.

Oh, I almost forgot! The best part of the day was that there actually was Ensaladilla Rusa (a French salad that Spaniards call Russian salad) at the Russian restaurant!