Facts

Friday, March 26, 2010, Day 3, 10:11 p.m. Moscow time, 3:11 p.m. Athens time

A fact of Moscow life: no one looks good on the Metro.

A fact of study abroad: at any time, anywhere, I see people I mistake, for a split second, for friends back home.

I have noticed a lack of: hipsters (as we conceive of them), old men, DRINKING WATER (almost no one drinks water here, and much of the bottled water is с газом—bubbly).

I have noticed the prevalence of: 90s-esque clothing, heavy makeup, slightly more smiling than I was led to believe I would see in Russia, the tendency to use ketchup where Americans use tomato sauce (Anya didn’t seem to mind that I declined to squirt it on my spaghetti at dinner).

I am surprising even myself tonight by doing homework. On a Friday night! My first Friday night in Moscow! I need a new SIM card for my (Russian) cell phone, which Grisha is going to pick up for me while he’s out, and so I haven’t been able to call anyone to see what they’re doing tonight. Of course it didn’t occur to me until around 9:45 that I could have used the house phone—but too late. The Moscow metro closes at one in the morning. More likely than not the trip to wherever my friends went would have taken me at least half an hour to 45 minutes (I don’t live very close to the center of the city). Anyway, being out in Moscow at night without a cell phone is not something I’m comfortable with, especially after having been here only a few days. I’m sort of bummed that I’m not out dancing somewhere, but there’s plenty of time for that. Tomorrow everyone’s meeting at Red Square to wander around that area—Anya might join us! If Lyova is feeling better. He had a fever today.