Golly.

As I’ve mentioned several times, several of my friends have taken me under their wing and declared it their goal to Russify and maximize my final days in Yaroslavl. The last two nights they’ve escorted me through two annual Russian rites of summer, the movie theatre and the scary amusement park on the island in the Kotosrol.

Let’s start with the amusement park. The girls at Unicorn introduced me to one of their students, a man by the name of Valeri. When he found out his English Teachers were showing his new American friend Adam around he insisted he take us to the amusement park.

First, let me set the stage. The amusement park is on a very small island in the Kotorosl River, connected to the mainland by a pedestrian bridge. The term “amusement park” is a little misleading, more like a perpetual county fair. Remember those Scooby-Do episodes where a ghost was terrorizing amusement park patrons? Remember how “the gang” would somehow always end up there after dark wandering through the creepy rides and attractions with a flashlight? Yeah, it was sort of like that, except instead of ghosts in the shadows you had mulleted Russians teenagers in Speedos. When we got to the amusement park Valeri insisted that I check out this “new Spanish attraction,” that he had seen in Spain and helped bring to the park. Well it turns out that this “new Spanish attraction” isn’t so new, and isn’t so Spanish and I didn’t have the heart to tell him. For those of you from god’s country, it’s the scrambler. For the rest of you, look at the picture of Valera and I riding it, I’d be willing to bet that your county fair or local amusement park also sported this “new Spanish attraction.”

---As I’m writing this it is 11:00 at night my host mother knocked on my door and something strange just happened, “Адам, ты хочешь пиво?» «Eше раз?» «Ты хочешь пиво?» «Да» I'll translate. «Adam do you want beer? «Once again please (I know what I heard but I don't believe it what I heard) Do you want beer? Uh.. O.K., sure» She then handed me a glass of beer. Hmm..strange, O.K. back to scary island.--

After the «new Spanish attraction» Valeri told us about his time in the millitary. He spent two years in the special forces (those guys who scared me to death during city day. Small world huh?) and was stationed in Baku, now the capital of Azerbaijan. I of course saw this as my opportunity to eat Caucasian food with someone who knows their stuff, and before I knew it we were headed to a Georgian Restaurant called «Café Ruzhe». Valeri ordered for everyone and I ended up with some sort of beef/pork mixture wrapped in grape leaves stew, it was excellent. A grand time was had by all.


The next night they wanted to take me to the movies, I didn't really have any desire to go, so naturally we went to the movies. There are currently two movies playing in Yaroslavl «Шрэк Третий» can you guess what that is? and something I couldn't quite figure out, it was called something about pirates, the number three and Johnny Depp. A few observations: It really is the little things you notice. All of the tickets are sold as assigned seats. A higher price (200 rubles) for the premium seats a lower price(160) for the fringe seating. Russian cinema owners know what they're doing. You can buy tickets in advance, but only in person. So if you want to see film A at X o'clock, you'd better be there by V o'clock. While you're waiting for your film to start, please enjoy one of our 3 bars, our restaurant, our sushi bar, or our ice-cream parlor. The whole time I was under the impression that we had purchased tickets for the pirate thing, thus explaining my surprise to see the big green ogre on my screen. Incidently,Q: What's the Russian word for Ogre A: Ogre/Огре. All in all it was a pretty uneventful eperience, everything was overdubbed I could only understand about 50% of the dialogue and the previews were the best part.

Tommorow night a trip down the Volga to Tolga. (< the volga)

Saturday, Moscow.

Sunday, The World. No Pinky, probably just packing.