Sunday was Russian Independence Day! The Red Square was jam packed with people (we didn't go down there) but they told us last year you couldn't move. The set up looked like Times Square on New Years... so it was a really big deal! So with nothing to do, we enlisted the help of our professor and decided to make borcht or in Russian борщ! A few of us left for the farmer's market early Sunday morning and gathered the ingredients which consisted of : beets, cabbage, onions, tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, garlic, and bread (of course). We decided to make vegetarian borscht because the meat here is expensive and not very trustworthy. One of Dr. M&M's childhood friends came with her son and she brought blini (Блины), which are really really thin( like ten times thinner than crepes)... pancakes. You eat these with either sour cream, butter and salmon, or икра (caviar). Russian's eat икра like butter... it comes on everything! When in Russia do as the Russians do, so the first weekend I was here I decided I would try it. NEVER AGAIN! I've never had caviar in the States so I don't know if there is any difference, but here they are like little balls of jelly that taste like salt, fish, and fish guts (or at least what i would assume they taste like) so naturally I had my blini with sour cream.
Well all of the girls decided to make the borscht, and we left the cleaning for the guys. It was relatively simple. We cut, chopped, and shredded vegetables threw them all into one big pot and let them to simmer away. Dr. M&M then gave us a brief lecture on Russian peasant food and how its influenced Russian cuisine today. Everything from cow tongue to vodka served a purpose. She then showed us how Russians eat garlic bread. You get a big thick piece of Russian black bread and a clove of garlic and you bite the garlic every time you take a bite of bread... soooo stronggggg. We then all sat down ate borscht like one big happy family! I'm still not sold on borscht, I don't think I like it, but I don't hate it. Idk its weird. After we were done I got to interview Dimitry (the friend's son) he is ethnic Russian but look like he's from the Caucus region. So it was really interesting, my paper is starting to take off. I just haven't started the writing process yet :(
Yesterday, Monday, we had the day off from school because of the holiday. They give people a day off to recover i suppose. I slept all day and did homework. It was amazing!!! I haven't had a day like that in a really long time. Today we had music class again and learned two new songs. We leave for St. Petersburg on Thursday and I'm sooo excited!!! Miss you guys!
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