red-letter day

Monday I accomplished an incredible feat. I ordered a sandwich at Subway. Yes, I realize that this doesn't sound like much in and of itself. But man, that is a LOT of Russian vocabulary to remember. Meats, vegetables, breads. Do I want mustard? Mayo? Salt and Pepper? Not to mention the accompanying chips and drink. And cookie. The cookies at Subway here are really good. I'm quite proud of myself for getting an entire meal, all by myself, without getting laughed at or having to get out a dictionary.

Yes, practically everything is more difficult to accomplish here than back home. For example...

We are still only half-moved in to our new apartment. The majority of our items are still in Antwerp, and the things that are NOT ours still darken our entryway. It's leading us to a sort of stressed indifference. I can't stand all this crap all over my apartment, but there's no point in trying to organize everything until the rest of out crap arrives. Sigh.

The one thing that could not wait, however, was getting a shower curtain. We're fairly certain that our long-awaited collection of possessions does not include a shower curtain. Nor was one included with our welcome kit of dishes and linens. After two days of taking baths, the novelty wore off and we set out to buy a shower curtain.

We looked into many small shops in the area that sold toiletries, hardware, fabric and small appliances, but no sign of shower curtains. ?? Is there some sort of special shower-curtain store here that we don't know about? Are they only sold on the black market?

Finally we found a high-end kitchen and bath store. The kind of place that sells artfully simple faucets that only 2 percent of the population here could possibly afford. After drooling over the hardware (who knew a mere hot water knob could be so beautiful?), we finally found shower curtains. Just in time, too- the last ones in the store, and they weren't planning on ordering more. They were apparently imported from Britain. Seriously. Do Russians shower at all??

Since we have our bath and a guest bath, and since they are enormous tubs, we ended up needing all 4 of their remaining shower curtains, which came out to almost $100. Certainly not the kind of sum I'd like to pay for a friggin' shower curtain, but it was either that or wait another month until our car arrives and we can drive to Ikea. Sigh.

We brought them home and set them up and delighted in our first shower, until we noticed that the water wasn't draining. It was then that we realized that the curtanis were dramatically too long. Our master bedroom and bathroom are in the loft, which seems to have been added as an after-thought to our apartment. It's a good thing my spouse and I aren't very tall, because the ceilings are maybe 6 ft high. Then the tub is propped up quite a bit from that, which means that there's just enough room between my head and the ceiling to fit my hands inbetween to scrub shampoo on my hair. The curtains were made for normal showers, you know, the kind that can comfortably accomadate people over 5'5". Consequently, most of the curtain was piling up in the tub, blocking the drain. After a week of wrestling with them for every shower, and releasing the water they collected afterwards, we decided it was time to find a tailor.

Tailors are also not particularly common around here, apparently. Which surprises me. There are shoe-repair shops on practically every corner, which leads me to believe that people fix things before replacing them. Wouldn't that apply to clothing, too? We found a couple recommendations for tailors and set out last weekend to find them. The first one, a 20-minute walk away, had a mysterious sign on the door, stating that they would be closed on weekends through the month of August. Sigh. The other, a 10-minute walk, metro ride, line switch, another metro ride, and another 10-minute walk away, also had a sign in the door- a faded one stating that they had moved to another location. Over a year ago. Several more metro stops away. Argh.

This left us with only one solution. Since I'm the one who has spare time on weekdays, I would have to drop off the curtains at the first shop. Eek. Maybe I can order a sandwich, but I certainly don't know how to ask for alterations.

Jonathan wrote up a detailed set of directions for me, in Russian. So yesterday afternoon, I grimmaced, loaded up my backpack with the offending curtains, and made my way to the tailor.

I arrived and opened the outer door to the shop, then the second one stuck. I jiggled the handle. I double-checked the hours on the outer door. Hmm, should be open. The inside handle looked like it might be broken. I played with it again. Nope, still wouldn't open. I heard people talking inside. I decided to knock. The door swung open and I was met with a glaring babushka, who rattled something off and pointed to a small hand-written sign on the inner door. I managed to stammer out "I'm sorry, I speak Russian poorly" before she slammed the door again. I looked at the sign. "Обед, 1500-1600." Whatever that means. I got out my dictionary and looked up обед: "Dinner." Ahhh. Apparently I interrupted their lunch hour. Oops.

With 45 minutes to kill, I crossed the street to "Блин! даналдс," otherwise known as Blin! Donald's, a blini-themed variation on McDonald's. The inside is eerily similar, with red and yellow plastic furniture, toys for kids to climb on, and disgruntled employees in polyester uniforms. I ordered some chocolate ice cream and ate it very, very slowly. Finally at 4:00 I decided I'd go back and try out the rest of my apologetic vocabulary.

This time the door opened with ease, and amazingly, the employees were friendly. Perhaps they'd all been gone during my earlier faux-pas. I started to read Jonathan's directions to them, but they took the sheet from my hands to save me the trouble. After inspecting the shower curtain and some mumbling among themselves (maybe they'd never seen one before?), they agreed to the job and asked me to come back on Friday. Joy! Only 2 more days of baths before at least one aspect of our apartment is complete.

So with the help of some kind locals, a few things are slowly being accomplished, and my Russian is slowly improving. The sad ending to all of this is that today my Russian teacher informed me that she's going to be out of town for the next 6 WEEKS. Ugh. I'm going to completely forget everything I learned. Of course, if our things ever arrive and we get to start decorating this place, I'll hopefully have lots of real-life practice...