Late night posting

It's 4:00 am in Moscow, and I am up writing my final paper to finish out my first year of grad school! Thought I'd write this blog posting while I am up anyway. I came home from work and picking up groceries (I am still unsure what I will be eating here--those of you who know me well know that I hardly cook in America, and don't see that starting any time soon here! Although I am convincing myself that while I am here I should learn to make some Russian dishes. Maybe I'll have to retract what I said about not cooking...So my grocery stop consisted of buying Camomile tea (this one's the best--it's greenfield and has apple and cinnamon in it yummm!), which I didn't actually mean to buy. I had bought a tea called "Pleasure" only to find out it was black tea, so I had to take it back. I felt bad holding up the line, so I just took the first the girl offered. I had wanted to buy more of a Russian tea, but this one works--it reminds me of my first area in Saratov--the most coveted, though expensive, chai (all tea is chai in Russian)--coming in at a whoping 12 rubles more than the other tea I almost bought (so roughly 35 cents?) The exchange rate is about 32 rubles to the dollar right now. I also picked up a couple of bananas, Johnny Gold apples, a piroshok with potatoes (it's like a roll stuffed with mashed potatoes), four yogurts (called chudo--miracle lol), and a small loaf of bread (I ate the whole loaf last night...so let's say it was really small for my sake).

I only ended up eating half of the potatoe filling in the piroshok, because it had dill in it. No matter how many times I have dill, I still don't like it. It all goes back to my first couple of weeks in Russia...We met with a woman who was not a member and she fed us a summer soup. Now back then I was super picky. But, I had told myself I would eat whatever I was offered and do it happily. This was not the best dish to start being brave with. It had different vegetables that had been cut up and thrown into kefir--a very sour, curdled yogurt/milk drink, or kvas--a drink they make out of fermenting bread in water, I don't remember now which it was (this may make me seem like an unreliable narrator, but believe me, either would have caused the reaction I'm about to describe). I took the first big spoonfull. Not good, but I could do it, I knew it. I got about five bites in, when suddenly I could feel that my stomache had had enough. My gag reflex was setting in. It was almost more than I could take, but I was determined to keep it down and make it look like I was enjoying it. Now, you need to understand that past experience was against me--at this time I didn't even eat cucumbers, so between that and the kefir or kvas, it was kind of a doubly-whammy on my senses. It was also covered in dill. I slowed down, and tried to wait between bites, yet take big ones so I could be done sooner. Apparently I wasn't doing as good of a job as I thought at conrolling my facial expression. The woman looked at me and said, "You don't have to eat it. Really, don't worry." "No, no, it's okay. It's just a new taste--I want to." I think lying is okay in these kind of situations :) I took another bite--didn't go as well as I expected. She said, "Stop. Don't eat any more of that. Give me your bowl." Failure. I had truly, honestly tried my hardest. There was just something about the sourness and the new tastes all mixing together, not to mention a jar that was sitting in front of me with moldy bread floating in water--they were making kvas, which I also don't love, but sometimes try just to see if anything has changed. So there it is, the reason I can't eat dill to this day, or at least not eat and enjoy it. Sorry for the digression, but that story probably needed to be recorded somewhere anyway.

On to better foods...I forgot to mention that I walked into the kitchen to grab some water from the purified water jug (speaking of which, I'm still not sure if I should be drinking the water in my apartment or brushing my teeth with it, so I try to not rinse my mouth out with it, and only drink the water if I heat it up for tea, hoping that kills radiation???...I have not been able to bring myself to ask if I'm allowed to drink the water, it just seems tacky somehow. Which reminds me of another amazing story from my mission [this is the world's longest expanation in a parentheses]. We had just finished up English class, and we were riding home, and this girl asked us why we couldn't drink the water. "Oh, it's because of the radiation," I offered. Her eyes about jumped out of her head when I said this. I usually consider myself very socially aware, but was completely oblivious to the fact that I had said something wrong. Luckily Venita was a little more socially conscious, shot me a "shut up" look and said, "no not radiation, she means...organisms." I caught on at this point, "Yah, organisms. Our bodies aren't used to the ones here, you'd probably get sick at first if you drank our water--you're body needs to get used to different organisms." She seemed somewhat assured with my explanation, though I'm not really sure she bought into the whole I-just-slipped-and-said-the-wrong-word feel I was going for...So to avoid that, I think I'll just ask the Elders when I run into them again if there is a mission rule against drinking tap water here.)

Anyway, so I go to fill up the bottle and Marina and Asya (apparently she spells it Acia, to avoid it looking like Asia, though I think you'll get the pronunciation from the way I wrote it) are in there, and tell me I've come just at the right time. There on the table are these beautiful chocolate cake-like things with very finely shaved cocunut on the outside and a maraschino cherry on top. Delicious! They jokingly said it was their 5 o'clock tea time, though it was about 3:00 in the afternoon :) Now I will be able to take in my tea and join them--I'll have to pick up something good on the way to work. That is, after I go pick up my documents from registration...

Well, I should probably get some sleep. I ended up sitting down at 7:00 pm, thinking I'd finish up my LDS public diplomacy in Russia paper. Instead I decided to take a 15 minute nap that turned into 5 hours. I woke up at 12:00 am and decided to work on my paper then. So I have been, with the exception of this blog posting. It's been pretty fun, because part of it is like a journal to my mission, describing the different community events we did. But, now that it's 4:30 am, I think I'll head off to bed for a couple of hours before I have to start the day. Spokojni Nochi (Good Night--or Peaceful night, really), as I am going to bed, and it is almost night time where you are at.

I did warn you that this would be a stream-of-conscience-style blog, didn't I?...