Only In Russia

"Only In Russia" This is my new saying for Russia. In fact, this is the best way sometimes to explain something/to understand Russia. I say this because sometimes there is no other way to comprehend a situation or idea.

Setting
Saturday night in Yaroslavl at the CCCP restaurant that included Myself, Caroline, Cathy and Jess.

CCCP Restaurant
The CCCP restaurant is stylized as a soviet restaurant. However, the restaurant mostly had posters on the wall depicting soviet ideas.

And so are night began...
We got to the restaurant, sat down, got our menus, and proceeded to "read" the Russian menus. There were no English menus, just Russia. "Oh, boy," what to do now. After a few minutes of fumbling around, we looked at our neighbors who had already gotten their food. It looked rather appetizing, however, no idea of how to communicate that to the waitress without sticking out like a sore thumb. So, the Sweet (Caroline from Sweden) takes it upon herself to speak with our neighbors. She sits next to them and begins pointing at the various foods on the table. Lucky for us, our neighbor indulges her and helps her pick out the various items. After this point we thought we would be okay, right? Wrong! Our neighbors then begin ordering food for us! We didn't quite want that. So after more fumbling between the waitress, Caroline, and the Russians, we just order Soviet Beers for the moment.

Since the waitress couldn't understand us, she brings a 1980's dictionary/phrase book out to us! Could we be any more Foreign! But alas, this did help with our communication. We eventually ordered after some more of fumbling. After all the fumbling, it was worth it because the food was amazing along with the Soviet Beer.

When dinning out, it is common to share your food. For example our neighbors ordered a dish of rice, a plate of meat, a bottle of Vodka, a red juice concoction to drink with the Vodka, caviar, and bread to share with everyone amongst the table. However, being foreigners, we did not the family style dinning; we did the order your own plate of food. Typical dinning. On another note, it is still somewhat considered a luxury to eat out at a restaurant.

After we finished dinner, the live music began and that is when the party started! So, all of girls went out dancing! At first it was just us and these two other older women, but we got the party started for the restaurant, and it was all downhill after that point.

During the night, our neighbors bought us a bottle of Vodka with the red juice concoction, caviar and bread. Apparently this is typical Russian fashion when dinning out. I have never seen that done in the US! At first it was a bit awkward, but we drank, ate, and danced with the Russians that night! Overall, it was an amazing experience. The restaurant just came together as one. While drinking, eating and dancing everyone just mixes and matches. Even though we couldn't understand each other very well, (the Russians spoke broken English, while we mumbled along with our basic Russian) we hopped table to table interacting. Everyone is there to have a good time.

Hence my OIR (Only In Russia) theme!

At this point, my parent's are questioning my judgment in this situation. I can honestly say, I felt perfectly safe.

Now to the Vodka. There is a style to drinking Vodka here in Russia. A person ordering Vodka, orders the Vodka to drink during their meal, not to see how many shots a person can do in 5 minutes or a half hour. It is to be enjoyed. That is why our neighbors also had caviar and bread sent to us in addition with the Vodka and juice concoction. It makes sense. It's like drinking wine, granted you are not exactly sipping Vodka. So when drinking Vodka, a person pours a glass of the juice concoction and then adds the Vodka to the drink OR do a shot of Vodka and then drink the juice concoction.

Try it, you won't be sorry!!