Shoelaces 'n' Stuff.

SUNDAY, SUNDAY. CAN'T HELP THAT DAY. Poetic license to fit the sentiment.

Somehow it's already after 5pm. Not sure how that happened.

Last night I saw none other than the infamous JOHN MCGILLIAN in, yes, in St. Petersburg. As I said, I met him for a drink at the classy Astoria Hotel and brought along Ilana. It was fun -- just the three of us, chatting. John wanted to know all about how we felt about Russia and what we'd been up to and all that as we sat in the hotel lobby lounge and drank Baltika and ate pistachios. It was really nice to see him, once again highly bizarre having such a familiar face in the middle of this new life of mine here that is so separate and different from my life at home. It was even more bizarre than having Abby or Malina or Erin here this summer as all of them are from my college/Russian language life, but John McGillian??? Throw back to Fishers Island summers when I was three. It was like having a family member here. Ilana and I taught John how to say thank you ("spasibo") but then gave up trying to teach him hello ("zdrasvityeh") as that is a little trickier. The only disappointing thing about our visit with John is I completely forgot that I had dragged along my digital SLR with me with the express purpose of capturing a moment of me and John McGillian together in Russia, but with all our conversation I forgot. So I have no proof that he was ever actually here with me, you'll just have to trust my word.

After we left John to go about his own business for the rest of the evening, Ilana and I decided it was Saturday night and we were looking nice and we were hungry and wanted to eat out. So we went to everybody's favorite eatery, the Толстой Фраер -- "the Fat Frier" -- a place that had always held our curiousity walking past it to Fidel so many times this summer..... is it a place where they fry fat? Or is named after a friar who is fat? The sign has a picture of a fat guy at a piano, but he didn't seem to be a friar. We never knew, but Ilana went with her mom and said it was decent and so we had a meaty and reasonably priced dinner of chicken shashlik (oh my god, I just forgot what they are called in English.... shishkabob? is that it? where the put meat on a stick?) and pelmeni (meat-filled dumplings).

We met up with Claire, Zach, Maneka, Eric and J.Nelson afterwards and went to that Пена place near school.... it's a new bar on the pedestrian street that's nice because it's a sitting kind of bar with big wooden tables, not a standing-awkwardly-kind-of-dancing bar and we just felt like sitting and talking. So that's what we did and then midnight rolled around, and I was having too much fun to rush off to make the last metro train home, and as Maneka lives about three feet from school, we decided to have another sleep over -- this time me, Maneka, Ilana and Eric. Sometimes I feel like I am back in middle school with all these giggly, girly sleepovers but it's also completely awesome. We had so much fun, but not before we had a repeat of our Friday night and went to get McFlurries (they have Bacchi-flavored McFlurries here which are to die for, you know, like the Bacchi candies that are so good... is that how you spell that?) at McDonland's.

I actually had a complete repeat of my Friday night/Saturday morning on my Saturday night/Sunday morning in terms of where I ate, it was kind of weird. McDonald's both nights (it was so strange as fast food is such an unusual occurrence for me) and the yesterday morning before printmaking I ate breakfast quickly at Чайная Ложка (orange-colored Russian fast food restaurant, literally called "The Tea Spoon" as they only sell tea, blini and salad) and this morning before we went to Udelnaya, Maneka, Erica, Ilana and I went to the Чайная Ложка by the metro. I even had the same thing -- English breakfast tea and blini with apples. Am I ridiculous? Kind of. I am such a creature of habit. But I enjoy it.

As for Udelnaya today..... Maneka, Ilana, Eric and I met up with Lauren and Vicky and.... it was INSANE. Bryan was so right, I had no idea, Sundays at Udelnaya are so much bigger than Saturdays. There were SO MANY PEOPLE oh my god it was even more exhausting than usual. Udelnaya is always kind of overwhelming (is that my new go-to word?) in terms of how much stuff there is -- I always have these bursts such as, "Ah! Guitars! I should buy one and learn how to play guitar!" or "Oh, man! Soviet pins from the Moscow Olympics! I should buy these for everyone at home!" or "I should really get a leather jacket! I would look so Russian!" -- and then I just end up getting so over-saturated with stuff that my eyes blur and I either buy everything or nothing. Today though there was about twice as many as blankets-in-the-mud as usual and more vendors everywhere and so, so, so, so many people and babushkas who just pushed you out of their way without a second thought. We lasted about two hours there which was pretty impressive considering how exhausting it was in some ways.

Because I never went home between my fancy evening out and going to Udelnaya, I was still wearing my Russian high heels this morning which I had chosen to wear last night to look nicer to have a drink at the Astoria Hotel. By this point today my feet were a little mad at me for such abuse, and so my first task at Udelnaya was to find a pair of sneakers. I had been planning on getting some new sneakers anyway -- the No Sweat "converses" that I bought brand new in June for this trip are pathetically dying they are so worn -- and was thinking about those blue and white fake Adidas that Margaret and I were so obsessed with in Siberia last summer but were not able to find in Irkutsk. But I found something even better first -- a random guy back in the part with the blankets-in-the-mud sellers (where usually new items are not sold) had five pairs of brand new white-teal-and-purple sneakers from Finland. I immediately got excited about these because they are so snazzy and just scream E.B. but then had a brief moment of sorrow when I saw they were all 5.5 or 3s. But then I had a revelation that, wait, these are from Finland, a 5.5 European is a 7.5 U.S. and a perfect fit. And maybe it was just the stark contrast to the high heels I had been wearing for 10 hours but I am certain these sneakers are the most comfortable sneakers to exist in the world. Plus, they cost 200r ($8.00) -- Mom and Nunni taught me well in terms of bargain shopping.

I also had another great find at Udelnaya....... and you'll never guess what it is..... oh, right, ANOTHER CAMERA. Yes, this brings the number of cameras in my room up to a nice even 10. Yes, I have a problem. BUT THIS CAMERA IS SO GOOD. It's a Zenit, of course, a good, classic Zenit that I have been longing for (ADAMS, you know what this means? We need a video-chat date on Skype so you can show me how to rewind the film properly so I won't shred it!) and the story of how I obtained it was even better. When I stopped to lace my new sneakers and put them on (while I was doing this a woman actually asked me if I was selling them -- they are that snazzy, everyone and their mom wanted to get their hands on them), I was squatting by a blanket with two old Zenits on it. I was kind of checking them out while putting on my sneakers and putting my high heels in the shoe box and decided to go back and ask how much they were going for. The young guy running the blanket said he was asking 250r ($10), I considered this as I looked over the camera some more. While I was looking though the seller had some issue with his cell phone and asked me if he could use mine to make a quick call to his friend who was currently lost in the market -- he even gave me 20r to compensate, even though his call cost much less than that -- and as he told his friend that he was in the first row of blankets in the back behind the train tracks, I decided to go for the camera. The guy hung up and I took out my money to pay him and he says, "It's okay, let's make it 200r." So I essentially got the camera for 180r without even having to barter. I love it.

So that's about it. I got home a couple of hours ago after stopping to buy some purple shoe laces to match my new sneakers (white is so boring and gets too dirty too fast) at my favorite shoe repair and shoelace shop where they think I am Norwegian. So now I am showered and fed and in my fleece pants from Melissa W and am ready to start homework nonsense. The weather was too cold and overcast today for a sports day -- it is currently 10.2 degrees C which is about 50 degrees F -- and I actually broke down and took out my new wintry coat from Latvia last night to wear out which I had been holding out on doing because I don't want to wear all of my warmest clothing too soon... but I appreciated having it at Udelnaya when it was crisp and chilly and we were kicking dead leaves underfoot instead of just warm, summery mud.