Last night was Emma’s last night in Petrozavodsk and we
decided to celebrate with Oreo cheesecake at our local hangout, Kivach. Oreo
and cheesecake. 2 words which should always be used together. Every day
preferably. We had a new waiter donning a blue and white stripy t-shirt as
opposed to the usual navy blue emblemmed top. He had the hard task of informing
a very outraged Nadia that there was no Oreo cheesecake left, just pineapple
cake. Pineapple cake I exclaimed making a vomming face about 2 inches from his
own. He got a mightly ole look at my tongue. In this case the messenger was
about to be shot had there not been pancakes on the menu. It’s pretty standard
Russia, having nothing on the menu. Normally you will be expected to make a top
5 list of foods to eat and even then they’re not guaranteed to have even one of
them. Anyways, poor stripy t-shirt guy, as well as having to put up with my
harassment, accidentally dropped his tray when he came to our table. Apple juice
was flying everywhere, tiramassu was getting soggy. He was almost crying. Gonca
was almost crying at her white jumper getting applefied. I was laughing my
brains out at this just deserts.
They were all heading off on the overnight train to
St.Petes, leaving me as the only Brit left. Luckily the other Europeans don’t
have any form of reading week. Lucky for me, unlucky for them. So I went to Bigimot to play with them. Bigimot is
another of the minor clubs. Except clubs don’t really exist here. There was an
excess of seating area and a miniscule dancefloor that when ventured onto, only
to be meeted by some 60 year old lad in a salmon-pink shirt attempting to grind
all the 20 year olds.
Seeing as it’s still Halloween weekend we felt the need to
make some effort; the other girls got some scary looking face-paint thing going
on but I opted for the “50% off because it’s the day after H-ween” bat ears.
But one of the ears kept falling backwards so I was really just a 1 eared bat.
Wearing a normall dress. So just a girl with a stupid fluffy headband. It’s
okay though, totes pulled it off. Bigimot had a cheeky little game going on. If
you were a girl you got a pink card headed with “Привет, как дело.” You have a
character name and you’re looking for a specific character. I was a female cat,
looking for my Hannibal Lektor. Everything about it was a bit dodgy as a female
cat probably doesn’t want to find her true love in a psychopathic killer who’s
going to make her eat her brains, but I played along. I eventually found my
Hannibal in the form of a car-mechanic, Anton. When you find your partner you
get a glass of champagne each so we ventured to the bar in silence. I was too
scared to have to make conversation in such a loud place in Russki so I just
looked away and prayed he’d keep it simple. We started with the usual what’s
your name, what do you do and he only had to say everything 2-3 times to get me
to understand. It was like a very awkward first date, but we parted amicably.
And no brains were eaten. Always a bonus. Unless you’re Hannibal Lektor. The
rest of the night passed by in a haze of tarrot card readers and dancing
vampires.
Before all of this occured, I ventured into Sigma (supermarket) to kill about 20
mins before I was meant to meet the girls and apparently at 10:30 on a Friday
evening I was criminal number 1. The guards chose me to follow around the
store. I stopped to take a photo of some packeted mushrooms because it had the
word классический on it and
that's some stupid private joke of ours. The security guard chose this moment
to actually approach me and ask why I was photographing mushrooms. I couldn’t
very well tell him that классический
is just a hilarious word to foreigners so I opted for the “we don’t have
mushrooms where I come from” and he accept this as a valid excuse and contined
to follow me from 20 paces away muttering on his radio. No doubt about a far away land where mushrooms don’t exist.
 |
| Photo that may have resulted in deportation. |
Actual Halloween on Thursday night saw us start off the
night in Kivach, which was very nicely decorated for the occasion. Bats and
pumpkins were stuck onto and falling from every available nook and cranny. Then
move onto Art Cafe so we can do the same but not hear what anyone else is
saying. A very eventful night full of many the misdemeanor and self-confession,
seeing us all at 9:45 grammar passively aggressively telling Sasha gossip from
the past week under the pretence of education. He definitely just finds us all
sorts of amusing, and stupid, and not able to sing. But we can translate to
high heaven. So much so that on Thursday, during a test, he stopped to ask us
if anyone knew how to say “let’s wait.” I confidently piped up with “давайте
подождём” pleased that the one thing I’d learnt had come up and I was able to
show this off in such a publi manner. I reckon Sasha was just surprised because
he leaped to my desk and I was rewarded with a chocolate cupcake with an icing
ghost on the top, followed by a warning about the toothpick inside, holding the
ghost aplace. When we went for lunch, I named it Sasha and played with it for a
while before the devourement. T’was joyous.
 |
| Oh happy days. |
 |
| Oh even happier days. |
 |
| Maddy "dressed up" as our favourite Kivach waiter, Maksim #babe |
 |
| My prize. |
This week, after we met with Ben, has been full of
translating for the website he works for. He came here for his YA 2 years ago
and just graduated. Whilst here, he met his now-wife at choir and has recently
moved back. So he finds business-related articles in Russian and we
translate/interpret, but mostly just completely re-write them and upload them
onto the website. It is voluntary so only a couple of us were interested, but
honestly it’s just something else for the ole C.V., and something to say you
did whilst you were away. It is a lot more effort than I put into my
translation module last year, but I feel I shall reap the rewards soon enough.
I have my own page! - http://rusbase.com/news/author/nadiaamroon/
No comments:
Post a Comment