Witch way is it?

Oh no, it's been awhile and now I have lots to say again. Sorry Mr. McQueen!

I experienced Russian Halloween. Not quite as elaborate as Canadian Halloween. The only costumes I saw were myself, wearing a strange hat and Galia wearing devil ears. I didn't see any traces of candy or ghosts, except at a play put on by the English language club. So that's not really an accurate representation. (I wish I had seen more Baba Yaga (i inquired about this strange character thanks to Amanda. Baba Ganoush and Yoga? It's the only way I can remember it.
I give Canada 1 point for having Halloween madness integrated into their culture.

On Halloween, after not getting into the Matrix club (after waiting forever and finding out we needed tickets eeek)

So we went to our regular pizza place, "planet". Everytime I go there, I feel like I'm 12 and it's the first time I've gone to eat out without my parents. It's got a chuckie cheese vibe, but with more gambling and more smoking. The pizza isn't very good, and the music is the cheapest Russian dance/euro-techno/russian pop and it's to loud and there's neon lights everywhere. I say we need a new hangout, but the problem is "planet" has an awesome location and it's cheap, meaning a pizza and beer will run you about $4.

My last post was a slight tinge on the negative side. So this time I think I'll focus on good things. Never mind the complaining in the last 2 paragraphs. Think of it as more descriptive and not complaining..

Pink toilet paper. They have pink toilet paper!! And green. And they're scented. Kleenexes are scented too. I got some kleenex with oranges and apples on the box and it sort of smells like oranges and apples. So then I bought some with dinosaurs on the box cause I was so darn curious. Smells like oranges and apples too. False advertising if you ask me. Which you probably wouldn't.

It was Babooshka's birthday yesterday, so we ate some delicious cake and drank some homemade wine... You're supposed to toast to something and then take a big gulp. My gulping speed was a little slow, so BAbooshka kept motioning towards me to DRINK DRINK DRINK. By the end I just wanted to curl up somewhere and sleep. (maybe homemade wine is a tad stronger than regular wine. More like alcoholic syrup..)

I feel a bit closer to babooshka now. I even learned how to say Happy Birthday in Russian. (i forgot already) but I think she was very impressed. She's 66. Which is pretty young to be a great grandma. Maybe not. I don't know. So alcohol seems to be bringing me closer to the family. strange but true.

Last night Galia and I and Max and Anton (another counterpart pair--actually Anton is my work counterpart (who I complained about earlier) and Maxim the Quebequer (how do you spell quebequer?? quebecer?quebeker?) went for Sushi. It reminded me of Vancouver, and Max and I reminisced about our Canadian paradise. I thought about Douglas Coupeland and how he said in his twenties he traveled the world to find the best city and then after that he realized that his home town (Vancouver) was actually the best. Edmonton is also awesome though.

Anyways, this sushi place is great. And it's open till 6am. It was nice to go out with just a small part of the group and not all 13 of us! I find it way to stressful to go out with that many people.. to find a place that big and a table that big and organize the bill. TEAMWORK. this is all about teamwork I guess. The 4 people at one table was a nice change.

The other day, me and a few other people were sitting in our room and playing cards. And Nikita was chillin with us, cause we give him ample attention so he's like a little magnet to our room. Anyways, he drank like a liter of water and the bottle was like bigger than him and he kept spilling and he had to kind of bend over to concentrate.. we were joking around and saying "this kid seems to have a drinking problem".

About 2 hrs later, Val steps into our room to use the computer. Nikita insits on sitting in his lap. 30 seconds later, Val starts yelling at Nikita. Nikita peed on his lap. This was funny. Val didn't think so. One more thing to add the the list of things that one of us finds funny and the other doesn't. (Val is a cool guy, and I don't wish for anything bad to come his way, but come oN this is funny!)

So this weekend is a long weekend. Russian Revolution holiday something or other. Galia and I seem to be getting along quite well so far, which I'm feeling pretty lucky about. Anton has changed his ways at work, so there's alot less tension. I've convinced a techie guy from our group to come to my work and teach me some php MySql html goodness. too many acronyms if you ask me! (which you probably wouldn't) when I say teach me, I mean do the work for me while I wonder about important things like what "html" really stands for.

Nikita's decided that meals should be eaten on my lap. He does the infamous baby "mix saliva with the food so it turns into a nice goey paste and then smear it on anything within arms reach" and then puts jam into my coffee. He's so cute, I don't even mind. He teaches me russian and pees on Val's lap. How can get upset with him?

We have our "educational activity day" on Friday. Basically, 4 of us have the responsability to presenting a topic (ours is russian economy) in a creative, educational way for the entire day. It's an ongoing thing throughout the program.. and the idea is that we'll get better over time. We're going to make the rest of the group sell something on the street. Hands on Economy education. We think we'll make them sell some meat (you can buy a big bag of leftover parts at the market for $1) and some Canadian pins. Who knows? Maybe this will lead the group into some hands on penal/jail system education?

I'll try to make posts less long and more frequent. And to take more pictures of Steve's couch.