The rat

Damn! Today I saw a rat walk down the sidewalk in the middle of the city. Boy, those things are ugly suckers. And this one was right across from a pizzeria. Oh joy.
But let’s back up. The guy from Kazan who rode his bike around the world last year wrote a book about it. I ordered it and the lady from the bike club told me she’d meet with me Saturday afternoon to give it to me. So first I spent Saturday morning cleaning, then I took off for downtown. I meet Aigul at the coffee shop and after she gave me the book, she asked me to to say a few words about it in Russian so she could post the video of my book review on the website. I told her I needed a chance to look at the book first! I told her I’d look at it over the weekend and have someone at school record it.
The book is actually very good. I understand a lot of it and the pictures are beautiful. I’ve been recommending it to everyone I know here. So I wrote a little blurb in English and had our foreign liaison guy at school translate it into Russian. Then I practiced it for a few minutes, he recorded me and I sent it off to Aigul. What was really neat was that the guy crossed the US along the Southern Tier route, which was the way I rode. So I recognized a lot of things that he wrote about.
Sunday we had an enjoyable breakfast with the gang at Beanheart’s downtown. We had some really interesting conversation. Claudia and Ravil assured Sonia and me that it’s not just our school that has a messed up bureaucracy. They too had tells of horror to tell about totally arbitrary decisions, unreasonable waiting times and rude clerks. Ravil even had to spend a couple of hours in a jail cell when a policeman stopped him and he wasn’t carrying his passport with him.
After breakfast we split up. Sonia and Claudia headed for the flea market and Ravil and I met Anna and we walked all the way down to the Kremlin. Ravil left is there and headed home, while Anna and I co tinted along the promenade by the river. The weather was sunny and pleasant and we walked until we found an empty  recliner bench and just really relaxed for an hour. Then, wouldn’t you know it, the clouds started rolling In. So we headed back into town and stopped at our Favorite Italian restaurant for a salad before we headed home.
Today I started talking to the kids about the US. At the end of the week I will let them know that I will not be their teacher next year. I figured this would be a good way to edge into the news, by talking about where I live. Then one of the boys celebrated his birthday today. Mom sent an entertainer into the classroom so we had a lot of excitement in the afternoon.
After work I went downtown for coffee with Dmitry. We’re planning a bike trip for the holiday on June 12.