Духан/I have no idea. (Дух = Spirit (s) but that's all I know)

Духан/I have no idea. (Дух = Spirit (s) but that's all I know)

Тhere is this little restaruant near the university called Духан it says «Central Aisian Cuisine» The guide they give to the Middlebury kids reccomends it as does Ear and every Russian I ask about it. Every day I walk by I'm tempted to stop in and try it but I'm usually so full from breakfast I'm afraid I'd make myself sick. Well today the stars allaigned. Irina had an early meeting this morning so Михайл and I were left to fend for ourselves. I had a banana and a croissant, I didn't have to eat a pound of salami and bread. What a revelation. So about 3 O'clock after I was done with classes I headed over for a taste of Central Aisia and the Caucasus. As usual, I didn't know exactly what I was ordering, being a Central Aisian restaurant I recognized less words than ususal. Aside from the words for, meat, potatos, onions and bread the only other words I reccognized were proper nouns, Tashkent, Tibilisi, Azerbeijan, Uzbekistan (all the stans for that matter). In over my head I asked the waitress, what do you recommend? She points at the menu, I see the words meat and Armenia and we begin. A few minutes later she brings a rout-iron skillet(did I spell that right? Someone please tell me, usually I let my spellng mistakes go but this is driving me crazy) Inside the skillet I find some kind of meat (I'm guessing, or rather hoping it was chicken) with peppers, onions, tomatoes and some interesting spices. A sort of, Caucasian Fajita if you will, it was good only cost me 125 rubles (just shy of $5) and it was a welcome shift away from the Russian diet of fat and carbs.

Happy Birthday Yaro, Tommorow in Яарославль is День Города/City Day. Yaroslavl and its residents will be celebrating their cities 1,000th birthday with a slew of concerts and events across the metropolitan area. Right out side my apartment their holding the annual Volga regatta and down the street will be the «Concert to Celebrate Russia's Ethnic Minority». I don't know exactly what that means, but I'm hoping it's a concert of Tajik, Kyrgyz, Tuvan, Uzbek and so on music. Could be fun, so I'm deffinetly going to check that out among other things. Three of my teachers have given me explecit warnings to be extremely careful, not to speak English in public and especially not to be out after dark. They say it's just an excuse for people from the region to come to the city, get drunk and fight. However, one teacher has given me an assignment write a 1 page report an any city day event. Talk about mixed signals. As usual, I don't know how my internet access will be over the weekend, and Sunday I might be going to Rostov Veliky. (the ancient town about an hour south of the city) But tonight, I'm going to singing club I'll let you know how that goes.

Update:
--Last night at singing club we ended the night(or should I say morning) with the Scorpions' "Winds of Change" That is all I will say for now, full update later. The picture is of the final verse of the Scorpions song.

--As I mentioned earlier today is City Day in Yaro, This morning at 7 A.M. my octagenarian host parents woke me up to drink champagne. I'm meeting some Russians at the Lenin Statue on Red Square at 10:00. We'll see how this go.