Yesterday was the first time in a while that I left my neighborhood for a reason other than using the internet. That sounds terrible, but I had one hell of a cold keeping me in the dorm all day. I missed Saturday's all-nighter at Duma, boo. It was making me really depressed to hang around there all day, but now I feel much better after some good times and exploring more of Moscow in her infinite beauty. Everything was blanketed with sparkling snow last night, and it looks magical here.

So last night, Pasha of local Cavestompers and Zebras fame invited me over his apartment to hang out, and we had good conversation, wine, beet and herring salad, and saw the '60s Soviet slapstick movie, "Операция Ы". Inbetween, he also played a lot of guitar while we sang songs by the Beatles, Blur, and the Kinks. Oh, and "My Humps", ha. Because of the ridiculous amount of snow and worries about me taking the Metro at midnight, I wound up staying over. He was a real gentleman and made a guest bed all nice, and tea in the morning. It was so beautiful outside this afternoon, and we walked through Yekaterinsky Park. I wish I'd had my camera on me to capture the frozen lake and the Soviet history lessons on signs along the walkway. Afterwards, he treated me to lunch at a good stolovaya, and I took the Metro home. Actually, I'm inbetween there and the university now, because I stopped midway at a mini-mall to use the internet and buy some hair stuff. I'm sure when I return, everyone is going to imply that something happened between us, but nyet, nothing happened.

I don't feel too bad about missing class this morning since I had a lot of lessons in the time being regardless. For example, that movie that we watched was entirely in Russian with no subtitles, so that taught me a few things! Pasha also sat and tried to teach me a lot of words after he felt bad about me missing lessons. On top of all this, spent a lot of time speaking to the woman that he and his brother Mitja share the apartment with, a teacher who studied and lived in the US for decades. She taught Russian to Americans then, and teaches English to Russians now, and gave me some pointers. Great conversation was had. However, she wasn't there when I faced the difficulty trying to explain "Back in Black" and "You should cut down on your pork life, mate, get some exercise!" (from Blur - "Parklife") in limited English. I figured "We have returned, wearing black clothes!" and "Stop living a bacon life like Homer Simpson and go get up from the couch!" were good enough translations, even if the first one just doesn't sound as metal...

Oh, oh, oh, and I started working out daily! I'm a little angry at a guy I call Captain America -- this uber-conservative bodybuilder in my program -- for making the school "sportskomplex" sound like it was a godawful place. He said there were only about two weights to lift and no weight machines, treadmills, or stationary bikes for cardio. It turned out to be absolutely false, but his insanely high expectations and incredibly wrong description kept me from going for so long. Grr! It turned out to be even better than my high-school gym. I can't say I feel entirely comfortable there because of the language barrier and how ridiculous I always feel like I look while working out, but I can say that physically, I feel extremely good right now.

And lastly, the forecast for the next week, which no one can say is surprising in the least!: