A letter home from study abroad
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