Beard Papa's

Sorry about how long it's been since my previous blog. I've been itching to post, but I haven't been able to do to Internet problems. Same old story, yada yada.

I've been busy this week! Last weekend, we went back to Ismailovsky Park (the hellish abandoned park), although this time it wasn't abandoned. In fact, it was a huge and pleasant souvenir market. I'll have to come back with more money. It was fun, because you get to barter, and a successful transaction feels even more successful when you do it in Russian.

On Wednesday, we visited the Old Tretyakovsky Gallery, which exhibits Russian art up until the 20th century. The New Tretyakovsky Gallery exhibits more modern art. It was really cool, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. We saw works ranging from old icons (which I am growing to love even more, and I am enjoying learning about them and the meaning behind them) to gigantic masterpieces standing at (if I had to guess/remember) over four meters tall. Very enjoyable. It was also interesting, because along with the huge final results, the smaller preliminaries were also displayed. For more information and details, Andrea has a really good article about it in her blog.

Reading back at that, it seems like my English grammar is getting skewed. Damn it, Russian.

The highlight of the week was not the souvenir market or the Old Tretyakovsky Gallery, however. It was Beard Papa's, a Japanese cream puff restaurant. Oh. My. God. So bizarre. Not the cream puffs. Those were normal, and delicious. However, the dining experience, or rather the ordering experience, at Beard Papa's as a strange mix of Japanese, Russian, and English. Here's an example:

Her: こんいちわ。(Forgive me if this is wrong, I don't speak Japanese.)
Me: Эр, добрый день. Один с Green Tea, пожалуйста.
Her: Другой хотите?
Me: Да, оригинальный.
Her: С Vanilla?
Me: Да.
Her: 140 рублей.　ありがとうございます。

Confused? Me too. Here is a rundown/translation:

Her: Hello! [Japanese]
Me: Er, hello. One [Russian] Green Tea cream puff [English], please [Russian].
Her: Would you like a second one? [Russian]
Me: Yes, an original. [Russian]
Her: With [Russian] Vanilla [English]?
Me: Yes [Russian].
Her: 140 rubles [Russian]. Thank you! [Japanese]

I am inspired to make math out of this. I call it Boggs's First Law Of Headache.
(Russian + English) x (Japanese + English) = Runglish x Engrish = Rungrish.
We were speaking Rungrish. A pidgin so terrifying and bizarre that I would want to study it, if I really believed it existed. However, I am convinced it was all a horrible dream.