one week?

I've got less than that much time left here, and it's a little odd!

Today was my first "last thing" - I went to my last Chamber Orchestra rehearsal. Got pictures with the group and they gave me a CD of the concert I played in. That was one thing that worked out SO well...count on music to bring it all together when nothing else does. Here's the picture -


Yeah, so, for some reason half the people aren't completely in the picture and the other half aren't smiling. Oh, Russia. Anyway, this is most of the Chamber Orchestra I've been playing with all semester - there are probably a half dozen not in the picture. Of note: the guy next to me who you can't see is Andrei, a fellow violist. The other violist wasn't at rehearsal tonight, her name's Inna. Also Sasha, the head of the group, is the guy on the right with his violin.

Also today, going chronologically backwards just for kicks, I ate a quick lunch at the cafe. And since I knew what I wanted, I just told the waitress when she brought me the menu: caesar salad with chicken, broccoli soup, and peach juice. (I swear I still can't quite say "peach" right, it's kind of annoying, but they didn't have any so I asked for apple instead, which I *can* say.) Then out comes my salad. You never know what order they'll bring stuff in. A few minutes later, she brings me my apple juice and...a plate of blini with cream, peaches, and jam. Uhhhh that is not broccoli soup. But I didn't say anything because (a) I was in a hurry, (b) I'd had this before and it was quite good, albeit dessert-y, and (c) I didn't want to admit I had apparently ordered blini when I thought I ordered soup. The words are nothing alike. Half of me wonders if the waitress just decided to play a joke on me to see how I'd react. At any rate, the moral: it's back to pointing at menus.

I also learned that Russians can't handle digital cameras. You'd think with random tech stores at every third metro stop selling digital cameras back to back, many Russians would own digital cameras or at LEAST have seen one and maybe even used one before. But good heavens, when I asked for a picture with my physics prof this morning I swear it was about the end of the world. (It wasn't easy at orchestra either, but that was nothing compared to this.) I gave my camera to a woman professor who always comes into the room we have class in towards the end to set up for her lab. They had to babble in Russian for at least 30 seconds to figure out "look at the screen and push the button." And then it took her two tries because of the slight flash delay. Oi. Here is the result -


Me with Sergei Nikolaevich Gorshkov, my Thermal Physics professor.

And now it's time for bed pretty soon, because the rest of this week will continue to be busy and I still have no idea if I have weekend plans or not. So it goes. :)