After a heavy and exhausting week last week, and a scare about a roommate just when I was feeling all settled (scared them more so have preserved my pimpin solitude), I gently collapsed over the weekend and had a nice domestic time regenerating all strung up with drying washing. Also tried out the chair lift on the hills which was fun, counting the weddings and stray dogs which seem to gather in equal number around the view point at weekends. Since then this week has had quite a perky kind of buzz about it. The weather has been cold and crisp and clear, hard frosts over night and sunny days.
Sunday night - Spooky barbecue in spooky wood.
We went for a spooky barbecue in spooky wood. A successful induction session for my grill set involving lots of lighter fluid and grilled meats.
Monday night - Mission Cake Bake Bake Cake
This was two of Cambridge's greatest Moscow representatives teaming up for an evening of culinary concoctification. Since success is a subjectively defined social construct I would say it was a very successful endeavour, although I have also on occasions been subjectively described by certain third parties as a delusional optimist.
Armed with tin and various ingredients and snacks to keep us going through the cooking process, Charles (Russianist from Jesus College Cam at the history faculty here) and I set off in search of working oven, since mine doesn't have a handle on the door and his doesn't have a knob to turn the gas on. We went up to floor number 8. Couple of near misses with the gas oven explosion wise - ooh er - and lots of whisk-y fun (see last post). The cake was a bit of a cobbledy jobby. We just had eggs and flour and sugar and some frozen fruit to chuck in it, and decided it needed a bit of baking soda or yeast or something (last baking experiment was stodge). So we plied the mix with beer (bubbly logic) to try to get a rise out of it. But alas yon cake proved resistant to our tried and tested seduction tactics and despite all efforts the result was really remarkably dense.
The whole point in all of this was that it was Jo's 21st - Cambridge Moscow Uni resident numero 3.
So we stabbed some candles in our creation and blew up a couple of balloons and set of for Sektor G, as it was by now just past midnight so birthday time. We got a couple of funny looks from security. Lit all the candles (there were loads, cake turned into mini forest fire) and banged on what we thought was Jo's door. Sleepy grumpy looking Russian guy emerged so we moved on to the next door sharpish. Banged on it. Jo emerged. Mission Accomplished.
Tuesday night - Georgian food
It was yummy, especially the pumpkin dumplings, and we got free wine at the end. A success whichever way you look at it.
Wednesday night (tonight) - Circus!
Fantastic circus, I'm ruined now for any kind of petty acrobatics and if I ever had appreciated the skill required in training dogs for dog shows then now I definitely wouldn't. Lions (both sea- and normal big catty maney african ones), magic tricks, trapeze, nail biting balancing acts, bears driving motorbikes, funny clowns. And of course the stodgy cementy birthday cake made an appearance as a filling interval snack. Basically, it had it all. To dispel any squeamish hesitation about the ethics of what discipining animals to such a high level must involve, the Russian response I received was that the animals are kept in good order, fed, and ruled with an iron rod so obviously much happier, healthier and more successful than if they were struggling with chaotic freedom in their wild (natural?) habitat. A theoretical viewpoint which sounds strangely familiar.
Thursday night (soon) - off to St Petersburg for a long weekend. Looking forward to getting on a train off to see old friends. But also glad to feel - delusional optimism aside - that I can now leave the Moscow I've been arduously carving and digging a niche into, nail and tooth, since the end of August, and to come back on Monday to my niche all ready carved and dug and furnished and ready for the winter.
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