Uh, I vill have Absynth

Today was my first real experience of actually feeling like a traveler in Russia, rather than a student. We had our usual class load....today was movement, followed by singing, then acting. After that, the night was ours.

We went to dinner at a Tibetan restaurant right across from the building that has our classes. Weird that my first night dining out wasn't Russian, but it was a beautiful restaurant. The meal, however, was another story. I started off by ordering some Parlament vodka...when it was brought out though, an ashtray and cigarettes were placed before me. Parliaments are cigarrettes. Parlament is vodka. Hard to explain in Russian...though the waitress actually did understand English.

I'll let you know that right now my entire pod of 7 people are discussing the night in drunken detail. This was preceeded by a drunken entrance by shirtless Justin and shirtless Jason. This is the main reason that all of us are awake right now.

The girls are now discussing tallying how many of them made out with Jason tonight.

Total: 2...but i'm assured that a third will "probably happen."

Others are discussing their hopeful makeout partners and eventual totals, but I will exclude this from the blog for privacy sake...unless I need blackmail material.

This is hilarious!

Ok, so dinner, yes? Cigarettes instead of vodka. We ordered water and a tiny little bottle of still water came for the 4 of us. Benjamin ordered a weird chicken appetizer, along with some Tibetan bread, and eventually, after 3 different requests, green tea came. Overall, the meal was not very good as (never thought I'd say this) my meal had too much meat. Not much flavor...but literally 5 different types of meat.

After a quick power nap at the dorm, the crew that went to TGI Fridays (that's right, TGI Fridays...just couldn't do it...it goes against my snobby "don't eat at a restaurant you could go to in America" rule) got back and we went out to a restaurant/bar. They were already 2-3 Long Island Iced-Teas ahead of us, but we caught up at the restaurant.

And what better way to catch up then with Absynthe? Actually, we ordered Canabis Liquor first...which i assume is exactly what it sounds like. However, they ran out, so we were left with the absynthe. While illegal in the United States, it's actually quite common over here and known as the Green Fairy. It tastes pretty much like black liquorice....really fuckin' strong black liquorice!

Something about it put a weird feeling into my head momentarily, but I soon recovered and had a few Hofbrauhaus beers, reminiscent of our time in Munich. Ah Munchen!!!

The night was pretty amazing though...most of our group was out and we had a really nice time. People got a chance to relax for the first time and actually socialize and not be worrying about school.

The night was a success...along with a lot of other things....but mostly success.