Ой Боже!

You might know how the old song goes:

Oy Bozhe, what a beautiful world

How hard it is to leave it behind

They make vodka there, they make wine,

and then they offer you beer as a chaser.

In my case, it was vodka-cognac-beer-cognac-vodka. A palindrome of alcoholic beverages.

And this started before noon.

(Although, contrary to the stereotype I'm invoking, the truth is that there's been little imbibing in Simferopol. My host family aren't really drinkers - this was an exception - and no one else seems to be either.)

Today was my host mother/sister's mother's (my host grandmother's?) birthday, and I was invited to join in the celebration when I first arrived almost 2 week

s ago. So, we travelled by glamorous elektrichka to Джанкой (Dzhankoy) a town on the northern end of Crimea, to visit baba's house. 

The day was great fun, though I took a serious nap following our meal. Baba presented me with a Tajik caftan. The caftan had originally been given to her by her Tatar friend and neighbor Ana, who was kind enough to show us the footage from her niece's wedding last summer - this was part of the reason I was encouraged to come. (Ana also prepared some very delicious plov, and now I'm charged with preparing it according to her recipe for International Women's Day when Baba comes to visit Simferopol.) Baba wanted to demonstrate how the caftan looked before presenting it, which is part of what is happening in the photo below. What was also happening was that Baba was dancing to the music emanating from Russian MTV or whatever Boris was watching in the other room.

And, to satisfy those of you who have been asking, here's a photo of me with my younger host brother Pasha. (That's still what I look like, thanks for reading my blog.) Pasha and I have the most amazing avant-garde conversations in English. Here's a loose transcript of the conversation we had right before this photo was taken:

Pasha: "Don't." (time elapses, he's looking at me expectantly)

Maria: "You?...What?" 

P: "eh, hotel" 

M: "wait -- "  

P: (interrupting, very quickly) "- it was say present gift. Say, saying" 

M: "what was?" 

P: "yesterday... eh... tomorrow." 

M: "hotel?" 

and so on....

He's going to be fluent by the time I leave. 

Happy Day of Lovers, as they say here. I wrote a love song for a bureaucrat to celebrate. 

And I'll leave you with that, my second self-promotional stunt in this entry.