Today, I braved the kitchen. Within 15 minutes, I had met 5 Turkish students and a student from Egypt. And this is at 10:30 at night... if I cook every meal in the kitchen I will have met the entire dorm by Tuesday.
Cooking here is not as easy as it sounds. First, Katie (my American roommate) and I had to brave the snow and ice and walk 10, 15 minutes to the store. (Come on, Amanda, don't be so lazy...) Right, but not 5 minutes into the walk, I wiped out on a giant hill of ice. The sad part is, Katie was walking in front of me, and I watched her slip, made a conscious effort to be extra-careful, put my foot down, slipped, caught myself, and then the next thing I know I'm thinking, "Well, so much for that, I'm falling, this is inevitable." And BAM. I'm probably going to have a bruise tomorrow, but I like to think of it as proof that I live in Russia.
By any means, once I arrived at the store, found something edible (their selection of fresh vegetables is sadly lacking, no matter how many types of sausage they have to make up for it), and made it to the check-out line, I still had to deal with an angry check-out lady. Angry check out ladies are kopeck fiends. Kopecks, the Russian version of a penny, except worth way, way less, are effectively useless and a burden to humanity. Nevertheless, without fail, Check Out Lady will ask you for exact change, including kopecks. And heaven forbid you hand her an 1000 ruble bill, which is worth roughly $30 and is basically the only thing ATM's give out. You will get a look of death. However, pass this stage of public humiliation, and all you have to do is lug your goods home, get past the guard (I'm new, so I still have to flash my dorm card), and cook them.
This is the tricky part, and the reason it's taken me 3 days to brave this new territory. The stoves are gas, at least 50 years old, and you have to light the burner yourself. With a match, or a lighter, whichever method you prefer to burn your hand. Katie showed me how to light it with a match, which was not as hard as I anticipated, and luckily Jack (which is not his real name, but it's the American version for, well, Americans who can't pronounce his actual name, which sounds more like "Jzhenk" ) was on hand to re-light the burner, twice, when I tried to turn the flame down and overshot.
Then I decided I wanted to add a vegetable to my meal, only, my vegetable lives in a can, and we don't have a can-opener. Or so I thought... Samira (my Algerian roommate) texted her friend Mourire, the human can-opener. A minute later, he showed up at our door and proceeded to open my can of corn with a knife-blade. I know college guys like to cut stuff unecessarily with knives, in some kind of adolescent fit of masculinity, but it's quite impressive to see one actually cut something open with a knife for a real purpose.
Anyway, I would say the whole experience was a positive one, in which I leaned a meaningful life lesson. Or something like that.
Here's the result:
No comments:
Post a Comment