Sunday, March 28, 2010

My belated Women's Day celebration

Saturday, March 20


After returning from a particularly hard workout that is now wrecking havoc on my tailbone, I was surprised with a belated Women’s Day celebration. A bunch of stuff that I love: bath salts, bath scrub, wine from Crimea, popcorn, and the requisite chocolate.

I have wanted to go to some sort of cultural event here. Last week I saw a poster with a man playing an accordion. It had the number 21 on it and 18:30, so I figured maybe he was playing on March 21st at 6:30 pm. I went to the music theatre and there was the poster, alongside another poster that had a man playing the violin with the number 20 on it and 18:30. Yay…I’d rather go listen to the violin than the accordion. So, I decided to go to a show.

After I returned from the workout, I showered and actually put on a dress. It is now warm enough to do such a thing. It felt good to be a bit dressed up.

We walked over to the theatre and got a rose on the way. When we arrived, there was no activity and all the doors were locked. Hm. I guess we were at the wrong place.

Then I thought that maybe the shows were being held at the drama theatre, which is larger and just a few blocks away. Yes, that must be the case.

I walked over and a woman showed us in to a box at the back. I handed her some money, but it was dark so we aren’t even sure how much. Couldn’t have been much though. On stage, there was no man playing the violin. Instead, a play was being presented, in Ukrainian of course. The inside of the theatre is beautiful, as is the outside. Too bad I couldn’t understand a word of the play.


I left after about 45 minutes and no violinist, and decided to go to Greek, a restaurant whose pancakes were recommended to us. Don’t ask me why it is named Greek; it does not serve Greek food, and nothing about the interior is Greek. Surprisingly they had a menu in English.

I ordered borscht with pampushki and a stuffed red pepper with boiled potatoes and fried onions. The borscht was great but when I inquired about the pompushki I was given a shake of the head…the international body language for no. OK. Ten minutes later, and about 25 minutes after I had initially ordered, I was brought a menu and received another shake of the head. No stuffed red pepper. OK. We went ahead and ordered pancakes with fruit for dessert, which was fine bc the soup and potatoes were filling. Fifteen minutes later the pancakes arrived filled with beef. UGH. When mine finally arrived, they were very good. I must admit, however, that if I return to Greek it will be bc I am in the mood for borscht and maybe for pancakes. Nothing else.

One issue I was warned about is that the menus here to be extensive…page after page of options. I alluded to this in an earlier posting. The issue is that many of the items on the menu are not always available. Just one of those things, I guess.

So, the evening was definitely not what I thought it would be, but oh well. Noteworthy nonetheless!

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