With the mind, Russia cannot be understood...so true.

Wednesday, 4:45 pm. I swear, my quest to lose weight before the ball was doomed from the start. First, we went out for Indian food for Erica’s birthday yesterday; then, Lyudmila Afanasyevna surprises me for breakfast with fried eggs instead of the interminable kasha (awesome!); and now, I’m making an apple pie for Ethnic Food Week. Is this Russia’s way of telling me that I need to wait until Spain to diet?

Among the many little gimmicky things the Political Science faculty scatters throughout the year is Ethnic Food Week. As far as I can tell, this is meant to engage the international students with the Russians through everyone’s favorite medium: food! Several CIEE students have been recruited to prepare food for tomorrow…and Jarlath and Katya are making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. :P For me, apparently, my reputation as a cook has gotten around; Irina Borisovna and Katya both asked me, separately, to make an apple pie for tomorrow. I have never actually made an apple pie in my life, but I’d like to think I’ve picked up a few things from Mom…so I have a huge bowl of sliced and spiced apples on the table, and an explanatory note for my host mom. Now, time to leave for English class and do the pie crust significantly later this evening.

11:45 pm. English let out an hour early today, hence the surprisingly short time in which I have a pie! Granted, the top crust is kind of on the thick side, but I was afraid of having it split. Let’s just hope it’s okay for tomorrow…

Thursday, 11:15 pm. We can thank Nina Mikhailovna for this one.

Умом Россию не понять
Пока не выпито 0.5.
А если выпито 0.5
То дело кажется не хитром.
Попитка глубже понимать
Уже попахивает литром.

With the mind, Russia cannot be understood
Until you drink half a liter.
And if you drink half a liter,
It may still seem tricky.
Try to understand it deeper
When you have consumed a liter.
-Nina Mikhailovna Philippova

Off-color translations of the national text aside, it’s been a very good couple of days. Monday’s rehearsal was a little on the strange side, because we were handed six new pieces, read through each of them twice, then went home. -shrug- I must admit that I will be VERY happy to get back home, to a conductor who doesn’t believe in the magical power of the polka. After classes on Tuesday, I bought two SPRING shirts for less than $10 on 5-a Sovietskaya Ulitsa (hurrah!!!), then Erica invited eight of us to dinner for her birthday. We had a lovely time eating Indian food (spices! Good Lord, did I miss spices!) and joking with each other, aided by the Bollywood movies playing on a nearby screen. Why one of the movies involved a dance sequence running through Paris, we will never know.

We spent English yesterday discussing alternate explanations for supernatural phenomena. My class is thoroughly amused by the fact that I still wish on stars. :) Class let out at eight because Olga Vladimirovna had to take her husband somewhere (she explained it in rapid Russian, only about half of which I caught), so I came home early. I assembled a rather thick-crusted but presentable pie, apparently set the oven temperature too low out of paranoia, and took the pirog out an hour and a half later. I cut a slice for Lyudmila Afanasyevna to try, then took it to school today, covering it with my platka until lunchtime. It was a great success with Russians, Chinese, Brits, and Americans alike! :) All three of the coordinators tried it too, and pronounced it ‘ochen vkusni’. Happy Amanda is happy. :D