I just got home from the pool, ate something and did a wash, so now I’m ready to catch up on the blog.
Sunday Sonia and had ad tickets for the 4 p.m. basketball game so we figured we we stop at Amigo Miguels’s at 1, before hoping on the bus to the Basket-hall. And wouldn’t you know it. Amigo Miguel’s didn’t open until 2. We knew we couldn’t risk it because we were going to meet Fouad and Rabil at the game. So we caught the bus and started heading towards a restaurant we knew when we came across a place called Aroma Coffee. We thought we’d give it a try and boy, were we glad we did.
First of all, our waiter had worked in Tennessee and Florida and spoke excellent English. It wouldn’t have mattered too much because there were English translations in the menu. But it was pleasant to have someone truly understand what we wanted without having to point to pictures. I had a a great Cobb salad and a cappuccino. I even went for dessert and had a chocolate muffin filled with a warm, gooey center, served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Lucious.
Then we walked over the icy sidewalks to the game. People just pull their kids down the street on sleds and the strollers that convert to a sled are brilliant. I have been told that we will not see the ground until April. In fact, it has been snowing all day today . In fact, we haven’t seen the sun in over a week. This is Kazan in winter!
But back to the game. It was really good, in spite of the fact that we lost. Sonia was so excited because a Spanish guy who used to play for the 76ers was on the Moscow team. This was the first live basketball game the guys had seen and they enjoyed it too.
The game was over at 6 so we decided to go for a cup of tea and a bite to eat. Would you believe, as we walked out, we ran into another American guy who also attends the ex-pat’s City Club. We just said a quick hello and walked down to a place called Beanheart’s. It’s a nice place that serves a great bunch and all sorts of things. The guys were hungry, so they went all out. But Sonia and I were still so stuffed from our late lunch that she just had something to drink and I tried the solyanka, a local soup specialty with sausage in it. It was really very tasty and reminded me of the soup I tried when I was on a bike trip in the Spreewald by Berlin a while ago.
The waitress didn’t know how to ask us questions in English , so she had one of her colleagues write a note for her to show us. When we explained that Rabil spoke perfect Russian , she was relieved. It saved a lot of writing and translating. The big discussion of the evening was about the situations in Catalonia and Lebanon. It’s nice to have first-hand knowledge in the conversation. You get well-rounded point of view. It was lots of fun.
When we left the restaurant we were lucky because our bus was standing right there. We hopped on and were at the bus stop in 20 minutes. And it took us about that long again to walk from the bus stop through the snow to our buildings.
Yesterday was also an interesting day. It was the 5th anniversary of the creation of Bala City School. So the boss threw a big party downtown at the same theater were I saw the great Tatar dance performance. It was ostensibly a birthday party, but it was more of an advertisement for the school to try to get new parents to enroll their kids. Of course, all the older classes did skits and dances. It really, really was well performed. I wonder how effective it will be in recruiting new students.
It went from 5 until after 7. And since my TA was involved with it but the boss wanted me to attend, they had to arrange for our kids to go to another classroom for a couple of hours. I didn’t hear that any parents complained, so I guess nobody minded.
By the way, we now have 10 kids in the class. A new boy started today. He’s two and a half and unbelievably tall. He did well and really didn’t shed too many tears.
So now it’s just relaxing for the rest of the evening. I’m waiting to catch the results of the special election in Alabama.
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