Monday was a pretty ordinary day....classes...george moved to a new homestay, so I've got the room to myself again. After class, I pretty much just hung out. On Sunday night, I'd been assigned to get crackers for wine and cheese in Carrie's room at about midnight. At 10, I realized that I didn't have any crackers, so I threw on a coat and started off toward Progress (supermarket) looking for crackers...well, progress closed at 9:30. I realized that I didn't know the russian word for crackers as I went into one of the small shops between my dorm and Progress. I tried explaining crackers--"Well, they're sort of like cookies...but they taste different...people often have them with cheese." I was asked if I wanted cheese flavored cookies....I gave up hope of trying to figure it out and sort of blurted out the word "Crackers." "Ohhh..you want 'krakersi' the shopkeeper said" (it would figure that the word would be a cognate." I got excited--"yes, I want krakersi." "Well, we don't have any." Dejected, I set off for home...luckily, I tried another small shop which had some form of "cream crackers" which were good enough. The party was amusing...if a bit smoky. (Everyone in this damn country smokes. Even people who claim they don't.) At about 2, i decided that I needed to get at least a few hours of sleep. jesse