Pad Russia

So today was a long day in class. We had only 2 yroks, but half of our class went to Moscow this weekend. They apparently didn't sleep well on the train back this morning, so decided to sleep in and skip class. Which I probably would have done too, but that reduced our class size from 4 to 2. Three hours in a one-on-two class only working on verbs of motion (which are dreadfully difficult in Russian --- up until today's lessons, to signal that I went somewhere, came somewhere, left somewhere, I would just use the ASL sign for "walk" to avoid figuring out which form to use.... now it'll be harder to justify that since I "know" (at least part of) the verbs) But anyway - I had a headache. I though, what better than a yummy spicy Thai meal. My guidebook has a review of a restaurant that seemed fairly decent - so I thought I'd give it a go.

Two things should have tipped me off in the beginning: 1. the lack of any Thai (or nationalities other than Russian as servers or chefs...) and 2. that there were a group of employees sitting in the corner eating boiled potatoes and ham. But I didn't catch any of that.

So I look at the menu - nothing's particularly Thai. No noodles - some sushi, but mostly just meat and sauce. No basil, no tofu (I was looking for a good source of protein - see the post below about peanut butter), no pad thai. nada/rien/nisto. But there was curry. I thought - maybe? So the (Russian) waitress comes over, and I point to a curry (there's three on the page - beef, chicken, shrimp) and explain that I'm a vegetarian. Could I have it with just vegetables? Sure she says. Great I reply. And I order rice (of course that's extra.)

The "curry" comes. Not sure it's deserving that name, even in quotes... It had a few token pieces of celery in it, 1/6 of a red pepper, and some onion. The "curry" was tasteless, red, MSG. Incredibly disappointing. They stared at me while using chopsticks... "She knows how!?!" I could almost hear them say... But the curry wasn't even deserving of the authenticity of the wooden-pull-apart-comes-in-a-paper-sleeve chopsticks. But oh well. I'm thankful that I've got food, and eat the rice.

The bill comes. 317rubles for the curry. My jaw drops. This is a ridiculous expensive price. especially because I remember looking at the general prices on the menu all hovered around 150-200 rubles. I read the bill, they charged me for the shrimp curry. So I call the waitress (Russian) over and ask why I was charged for the shrimp curry, which I clearly didn't have. She answered that it's because that was the one I pointed to when I asked for my curry with vegetables, and they don't have a curry with vegetables. I replied that I didn't eat any shrimp - and clearly the my dish cost well below the 317 rubles they charged - and well below the 175 rubles they were charging for the chicken "curry." Why didn't she just charge me for the chicken curry? She stares at me and says, "this is already in the computer, if you don't pay it, I have to..." As you'd imagine, my response, "can you not tell the computer you made a mistake?" This goes on for an unseeingly endless amount of time. I ended up paying only 175, but boy did it piss me off. Especially since it wasn't even worth 75. I shouldn't stray from Troitskii Most. Learned my lesson. Going to write to the guide book too... That place shouldn't be recommended.

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Moving on....

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I wanted to write a bit about the metro in St. Pete. Because it’s awesome. Firstly, it’s not famous like Moscow’s – and certainly not as ascetically pleasing. But here’s what’s awesome:

1. The Metro is REALLY deep into the ground. If you think the metro escalators are deep at Dupont and Medical Center in DC, you are mistaken. I timed it once, it takes a solid 4 minutes to descend into the depths of the earth. (so long in fact that many people sit on the stairs of the escalators to rest their feet…) Cool.
2. The trains run incredibly frequently. About every 30-40 seconds during rush hour – and when I take the metro late at night, or early on a weekend morning, I can expect a train every 1:30-2 minutes. Much different from DC’s 15-20 minute wait. Ditto on the coolness.
3. The ads in the cars (and there are a lot of there) make for good reading practice.

But there are a few cons:
1. Not all Russians shower frequently. Put a lot of them in a closed space….
2. If you are disabled, you can’t (at all) use the metro – or the busses. No elevators. No ramps. Pushing a baby stroller is really tough too.

But it’s cool. Looking forward to Moscow’s.

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I’m just about ready to leave St. Pete. I need to go visit the Russian Museum (which I was planning on doing today, but then came the massive headache and the ridiculous lunch…) and then I’ll have seen everything I care to see here. Ready for a change.

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Congrats Hugh IV on the graduation thing….

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Oh – and I introduced my host mom (and new foreign student) to SET. They’re addicted :) Two more converts. I ordered on on-line today to give to my host mom as a gift. And they’ll even ship it to Russia.

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to be continued…