Something weird is going on.

With this blog, I mean. The preceding post is the one I thought Blogger accidentally deleted, but I guess instead of deleting it the site must've recovered it, then posted it today. Minus a picture and a few paragraphs. But I'm happy that at least some of the time I spent working on that post wasn't wasted.
This, by the way, is my last post for September. Starting tomorrow, our group is going on a weeklong excursion that was originally supposed to be to Nizhni Novgorod and Kazan, but is now to Vladimir and Moscow thanks to a hepatitis outbreak that spread along the Volga. I personally am not too disappointed--I like Moscow more than little provincial towns with cathedrals--but I told my babushka I'd take lots of pictures of Kazan for her, and now I'm not going there. Hopefully she'll get to see it sometime, either herself (not too likely) or by proxy.
I figured I should take this opportunity--I'm at the internet cafe with no laptop, and thus can't post pictures--to talk about Russian food. It's good. Contrary to what I believed five years ago, most Russian food really and truly is tasty. It doesn't hurt that my host mom knows how to cook. Of course, with the amount of butter and oil and mayonaise she puts on everything, she could make just about anything taste good, but I choose to ignore that little fact.
Food is also dirt cheap. We only have about forty minutes for lunch on the days when we have school, which leaves us just enough time to go to a cafe next door to our university. Lunch there is usually about $2--that's $2 for blini, a salad, and tea. I can't believe, by the way, that there isn't one fast-food blin restaurant in the U.S. Those things would sell like hotcakes--which I guess they are, actually. Anyway. The one problem with cafe food is that in order to get to it, you have to go through the food service employees. On most days, this means facing the Wrath of Lyudmilla.

Lyudmilla: I'm listening.
You: I'd like blini, a salad, and tea.
Lyudmilla: We're out of salad.
You: OK, I'll take blini and tea.
Lyudmilla: No blini.
You: OK then, tea.
Lyudmilla: Fifteen rubles.
You: (hand her a 50)
Lyudmilla: (gives back 25.)
You: This is only 25.
Lyudmilla: Fine. (gives you 10 rubles as if you're the one trying to steal from her, and not the other way around)

All these things didn't actually happen on the same occasion, but they've all happened to me and to my friends during various lunches. All I can think is that if this is what Lyudmilla is like at a fairly nice cafe, what would she be like if she had to work the 5 am shift at Dairy-Mart? How many Americans would survive?
That's it for now. Do svidanya...until October.