The Delayed Post

Randoms. I like the players the Houston Rockets picked up yesterday.

Went to a very interesting Mexican food restaurant. My quesadillas were really good and the "super nachos" were not so good.

We had a trip to this huge palace where Grigori Rasputin was murdered.

The Michael Jackson incident came on too suddenly. I got a text about it and then 5 minutes later a Russian told me "Вы знаете Michael Jackson умер?" translation "Did you know Michael Jackson died?"

I got stuck on the wrong island last night after the bridges went up!* It was in no way shape or form no fault of my own. I was hanging up with some Russian friends of my from the gym. I didn't want to go but Peter's English is so bad he thought I had "promised" him I'd hang out. I should have just stayed here cause I was supposed to coordinate a night out for the Brown students. Anyway, I got stuck but got EXTREMELY lucky!

We stopped a private taxi that was a Lexus in the driver was a 21 year old kid from Kazakhstan named Виталик (Vitalnik). At first I thought I had been set up and that I was about to be taken off somewhere strange and never heard from again but it turns out that things were quite the opposite of that.

He explained to me that Peter was not a very good friend for inviting me all the way out to the island he lives on and forgetting that the bridges go up. We drove around together for a ride that would have normally been way over 5000 rubles searching for a bridge that might be still closed. To no avail. But I got to see how beautiful all the bridges with their lights looked at night opened when opened. We had the best conversation ever. I eventually got back to my apartment at like 4:00 am after we stopped to get something to eat here too. He told me that most Russians will want me to speak english with them so they can practice that I should only speak Russian with them.

I ended up only paying around 600 rubles just for his gas. Which was the best possible scenario ever.

I wrote this in a hurry cause I have to get back to finishing Crime and Punishment. Not going ANYWHERE tonight. I have to finish up a lot of readings.

Stay Tuned.