October 13 - Day 26

More and more I am finding that there must be some force in the universe far beyond our scope that hears our inner fears and pains and sends us signs to guide us in our understanding of the world. Things happen for a reason. There is a method to the madness. Fate. Destiny. God. Whatever it is, there is something bigger than me that keeps sending me these signals, letting me know that everything is going to be okay. And sometimes those signals come in the most ridiculous packages. In this case it was ‘coffee guy’. We don’t have computer access in the dorms so in order to post these long-winded entries I have to go to one of the few free internet cafes in the area called Respublica, where they sell thousand dollar hand bags and eight dollar lattes, and coffee guy talks to me through broken English while I sit at the bar eating the free cookies he gives me on the sly. Coffee guy is the resident hippie stud. The twenty year-old girls I go to school with sit around checking their Facebook accounts (something I missed as apparently it is a big thing now) and stare him, giggling. I am usually too absorbed in my own self-indulgent writing but I guess he has been hitting on me and today, coffee guy (I have no idea what his name is) finally asked me on a date. It came completely out of left field and I just sort of stammered, “Uh yeah, sure, maybe, sometime!” and I ran out the door. Not exactly my smoothest moment but I haven’t even been thinking about such things and in the land of Amazon beauties, where I always look sweaty and exhausted, I didn’t really think it was an issue I would have to deal with anytime soon. But, to be honest, it was pretty darn cool. I walked to school with a stupid grin plastered to my face, as my fourteen year-old self gave me internal high fives. The day just kept getting more and more laughable. I was invited to attend the second year Russian students’ fencing class with five other students from my group, under the guise that we might be able to join the class for the rest of the semester. Gregory, which sounds so much cooler in Russian, is the professor’s assistant and might be the most dashing human being I have ever met. We all sat there, jaws ajar, as he demonstrated thrusting and proper parrying technique. It was brilliant and we all left wanting to act out the sword fighting in ‘The Princess Bride’ (and maybe a few other scenes as well!). Hour by hour, I had one strange run in with a Russian man after another. Jenna and I decided to do actual grocery shopping (The Azbuka by the dorms is a western grocery and is insanely expensive. I think the cheapest orange juice is eight dollars a carton.) There is a store about twenty minutes from the dorm and while the walk wasn’t terrible on the way there we didn’t take into consideration the pouring rain or ten bags we would have on the walk back. Jenna was completely soaked from the waist down and practically in tears trying to maneuver in her soggy Ugg boots. I tried to carry most of the bags because she kept moaning that she thought they were going to break. Sure enough, three blocks from the store her bags busted sending canned goods in all directions. I wanted to laugh, scrambling to catch jars of peanut butter and pineapple before they rolled into the street. Jenna was less amused so we decided to try to hail a cab. Now, in my right mind, one that typically exists when I am not drenched and carrying 3o pounds of groceries, I would have know that this was not a good idea but when Jenna and I are out and about it seems we can’t help but find ourselves in these situations. I called the dorm to try to get our address or street name (names of streets or places in Moscow are very confusing because five streets may have the same name with just a different ending) but when a car finally pulled over I panicked and the name vanished from my memory. The car looked like something from the old KGB movies and driver looked about like what you would expect from a Russian taxi driver/hit-man. I went to grab my cell phone to call the dorm again for help but unfortunately Jenna’s peanut butter was wedged in my pocket and I couldn’t get it out. My arms were weighed down with the bags and I looked to Jenna for help but she just stood there frozen looking back and forth between me and the angry cabbie. I was attempting what could only be described as a deranged chicken dance to get it out. I finally screamed “Jenna, help me!” but she just started crying, “What am I supposed to do!?!” With that the passengers who had been in the cab opened the door a crack and looked at us with a glare. “You no Russki!” they barked and slammed the door. The cab sped off with them still inside, spraying us with water as they went. It was exactly like all the commercials you see on TV and all I could do was laugh – my hysterical, ‘You’ve just gotta love Russia’ laugh. I grabbed more of Jenna’s bags and started marching in the direction of home. Shit happens and in this country it happens a lot. All you can do is hold onto your humor, your friends and of course, a big umbrella.