The Lost Craft

I got my watch fixed today! I walked into a jewelry store, and at the back was a hallway with windows for different repairs, like ticket windows. I went to the Watch Repair (Remont Chahsie) window, gave the man behind the glass my watch (I told him I speak Russian badly and he didn't try to ask me questions). He immediately took the watch apart, and I watched him dismantle the entire thing, fix it, and put it back together, carefully cleaning it out with a paint brush and leaving no trace of human intervention. He even set the time and date for me. All this in five minutes, and then he wrote a receipt, I paid him cash (a small amount), and went on my way, my watch as good as new. 

Do we have watch repair places like this in America? Every time something breaks, something under $50, we go out and buy a new one. I've gone through a few watches in the past several years. It amazed me to see the watch master (it says "Master" on my receipt, and he initialed next to it) so deftly and quickly fix it, and the fact that he repaired it immediately. I was expecting to drop it off and pick it up in a few days, which I'm sure I would've had to do in America, and I would've been charged all sorts of little fees.

In other news, it's cold here. The wire on my earbuds froze after a minute or so outside, so I quickly took them off and put them in my bag before it snapped. And then on the bus ride home, the doors didn't close properly, and the inside of the windows and doors were covered in a layer of ice. It was actually really pretty, because the thousands of little crystals played with the light, and the whole bus glowed pink or blue or yellow depending on the lights we passed outside. Surprisingly, it wasn't even very cold, I suppose because of all the warm bodies, bundled in fur. Tomorrow, the forecast is a high of-14*C (7*F), and a low of -24*C (-11*F). Tomorrow, I will layer.

Also, I will be eating a lot better now, thanks to the One-and-Only-Spar (actually I think there's 2 or 3 in Nizhniy). I usually go to the Magnet (Magneet), a large grocery store near the university, but decided to stop at the Spar on my way home from the jeweler's. They have a much larger variety of vegetables, and little things like tomato sauce and boneless/skinless chicken breasts that will make my culinary experience here in Russia much more exciting. They also have a lot of imported brands, but they tend to be expensive. 

Well, it's Friday night and I'm going to go study imperfect and perfect verbs, because it's just too cold to go back outside (my toes are just thawing now). Tomorrow, I have to get my phone fixed (it stopped turning on today). I would go to a phone repair place, but I think I might just buy a new one (you can take the girl out of America, but you can't take America out of the girl).