Be Careful What You Wish For

Well, I got what I wished for, if not quite what I was anticipating.

Tonight, Shelli decided to be awesome and cook the American girls and Bolshoi Max and Maksim a chicken and dumpling dinner. Bolshoi Max agreed to drive Katie, Karlie, and I to a nearby grocery store to pick up a few ingredients. Simple enough, we thought. What we didn't anticipate was Moscow traffic.

Moscow appears to have no rhyme or reason to its road system-I'm pretty sure Max drove diagonally through a line of cars onto a four or five lane highway with no visible lines to guide him. Impressive, but not exactly comforting...Once we got on, the traffic was stop and go the entire way. Ambulances couldn't even get through. We passed many apartment buildings in varying states of disrepair, a hallmark of this city, I've noticed. And there's a pharmacy and a flower shop at every corner. At the very least when I leave here I will be able to read the word "аптека" with no problems. We did eventually make it to the store but they didn't have thyme or chicken broth so we had to get creative. Katie bought flour and butter to make a rue for the chicken and then handed me a bottle of oregano and said, "Is this like thyme?" In my infinite cooking wisdom I said, "Sure!" We picked up a couple of other things (we're still learning to navigate grocery stores)-I'm trying Russian pretzels.

Well, coming out of the store, poor Max's car was giving him trouble and we wound up stranded at the grocery store and had to call good ol' Maksim to come by metro to pick us up. Of course, that took him a good hour-plenty of time for Bolshoi Max to teach us some colorful Russian. But like the loyal friend that he is, Maksim did show up to escort us home and Bolshoi Max managed to get his car home a little bit later. We were all greeted three and a half hours later than expected by poor Shelli, who had no clue what had happened. She managed to make due with our substitutes and cooked a delicious chicken and dumpling dinner. I really appreciate Maksim and Bolshoi Max-they're both such great guys, they've really taken care of us this trip. And I appreciate Shelli for cooking, especially under duress!

So, I asked for an adventure and I got one. Probably not going to try that one again anytime soon but at least the day wasn't boring! We're venturing into downtown Moscow tomorrow to see what we can find. Sounds like another adventure brewing to me...

пока!