Finally, time to relax

We had a lot of visitors to the little apartment yesterday. In addition to two deliveries (food and Anya's contacts): Grisha's friends, one shorter and round and loud, and one tall and thin and quiet; the cleaning people, who are from the Philippines; a couple of the kids from my program who go to OSU; and Anya's fashion-designer sister.

So Grisha's friends. They spoke English, too! Geez. Or at least the shorter one, Alex, did. The taller--I can't remember his name, it was very unusual--greeted me in English, but hardly spoke at all even when everyone was speaking Russian. After Alex had thrown himself across the couch (which is really a sort of large bean bag thing) and snuggled up to Anya, getting a dirty look from Grisha, he said, "So. All I know about you is that you're from Ogaio (Огайо, the Russian word for Ohio)." And Grisha said (you'll have to imagine his thick accent), "That is not all you know! You know she has long legs and is redhead." Which was very funny. Alex was dramatic and funny and seemed really good-natured. Grisha's other friend--I feel so bad that I can't remember his name--seems sweet as well. I hope I see them again. Anya and Grisha are considering having a party for Anya's birthday, in which case I'll meet more of their friends.

I left not long after the cleaning people came, so I didn't talk with them much--they spoke English with Anya. I went on a walk with Graham and Hanna, who are from OSU. They came back, but Hanna had to leave before dinner. Anya made Graham and I some traditional dish whose name I can't remember. It was not unlike tiny pirogies, and Anya set sour cream on the table and laughed at me. I'm trying to like it, I really am. It's eaten with EVERYTHING here, even more often than I was expecting. Graham seemed to enjoy it just fine. I had a little and then ate the rest plain.

Anya's older sister, Masha (Маша), came over after 8:00. She mostly played with Lyova at first, but then Anya hard-boiled some eggs for us to paint and Grisha came home from the gym and visiting his mother. Grisha, Masha, and I sat down in the kitchen and painted our eggs while Anya put Lyova to bed. Traditionally, Russians paint either end of the egg a solid color and write ХВ, the abbreviation for the Russian phrase meaning "Christ is Risen." I did so, at least on one end. On the other I painted an exclamation mark. My egg was striped white and mustard-yellow. The biggest stripe in the middle was white, and I painted purple swirly things--I wish I had a picture, I'm very proud of it. Masha said, "I like your style." Grisha painted a Star of David at one end of his; he and Anya are both ethnically Jewish, although Anya is also Orthodox by heritage. They are not religious. The rest of the egg he decorated with other symbols and patterns, such as a very well-executed zebra print. Masha painted an absolutely perfect heart on one end, and on the other a third eye symbol with an Aum on it. The rest was striped with various shades of yellow and red.

Masha was fabulous in the exact way I would expect a fashion designer to be. She called me "darling" and said things like, "I don't know, I hate everyone right now" in an absurdly charming, low, heavily accented voice. She is elegantly dramatic, and I can tell I would have a hard time knowing her personally but she was much fun to hang out with for one night. It's apparent that she is a strong, resilient but volatile business woman. There's a lot to like about her. Also, she's a babe.

Anya, Grisha and I watched O Brother, Where Art Thou and ate ice cream. The ice cream was SO DELICIOUS! They put some topping on it, but even alone it was nice, had a stronger cream taste than American ice cream. They gave me the largest serving of ice cream I've ever eaten in one sitting, I think. The movie was sort of dubbed. The original sound was still there, but there was a track laid over it of a man translating into Russian--it was odd, and it seemed like it would be difficult to understand who was saying what. Anya said that it was, but that they could mostly figure it out. I can't imagine enjoying a movie like that, but when it was over, they said they loved it.

This morning, Anya and I will eat the eggs we painted as well as a traditional Orthodox Easter cake called kulich (кулич, I would imagine, though I haven't seen it spelled out). I can't tell you how much I adore Anya. We're very good friends after just over a week.