Appear and Disappear

This is just a passing-by sort of post. I'm in Russia, and tomorrow I won't be any more.

They have cute animals out on the streets so that people can take pictures with them, and pay their owners money. Today, we were standing by a pair of incredibly fuzzy rabbits. Their owner, a completely disinterested lady smoking a cigarette, kept a tactful distance, so as not to interfere with cuteness-seekers. Also, there were monkeys in dresses. In St. Petersburg, there was a hawk- not for petting, I suppose.

Also, they have ice cream on every street corner. And flowers. If you go to someone's house, you should bring flowers, or candy or something, so it's quite handy if you can pick up all this stuff right before.

What else? We've been followed around by an orchestra. We first saw it three days ago, in an underground passage going from one side of the street to another (really, when you have 6 lanes of cars, this might be the only way to get non-cars from one side of the intersection to another). Four violins, a cello, a bass, maybe another cello. And we've run into them every day since. They play pretty much the same pieces all the time, but they're good, so it's ok. I wonder if you could make a living like that, playing music all day long, every day.

Well, that's the touristy stuff. That, and walking around to look at all the important buildings.

It's been weird, living for the first time (as an adult) in a place where I know the language and culture. When I was sitting in the airport in Germany, about to fly here, I was looking around, and realized that the people looked more like me than anyone in any of the other places I lived. Looked, sounded, whatever. I understood everyone, and I felt very foreign, all at the same time. On the other hand, it's the same in the US sometimes, just not so strong. A funny way to be.