Next morning after another large Olga-style breakfast of salad, bread and jam and salami, we walked the length of the lake to the port. We intended to spend the day on the other shore. We purchased smoked omul and more stale bread. (What is it with stale bread in this country?? I think it must be a sin to throw bread out as nobody seems to have a problem serving week-old bread for some reason). We took a ferry to the other side of the lake where all the girls - Jolene, Christina and I proceeded to eat our smoked fish (yuuuum) followed by a wee sunbathing session.. bi~~g misake). We awoke three hours later to find ourselves sunburnt and windburnt and the men deserted us already.
With an hour to go before the last ferry we decided to have a snack. (Seeing a pattern here? eat/sleep/eat/sleep/eat...) Christina wanted us to try some 'halva'. It looked like a big block of grey clay much like you'd imagine a potter using - ie - nothing at all edible. So she just bought a tiny wee piece for us to try. Closing our eyes we were like - ok - but just a crumb. Well. It tasted great! It was like sunflower seeds with honey crushed and ground and then pounded into a block. We ate the whole lot and then decided we had to have some more halva. So we sent Jolene back for some more. I gave her 20 rubles (60 cents). No better back it 40. What the heck - here's 50. So she comes back out with the entire block of halva (about 2 kilos worth) and the most priceless expression). Apparantly the girl in the shop found us foreigners very amusing.
A long tired, dust and sunburnt-sore walk back to Olga's. But she had prepared us a delicious ravioli with sour cream dish for us. The Russians have sour cream with everything, much like the Japanese obsession with mayonnaise. Although I'm not sure if you can get a Russian pizza with sour cream, but probably.
No comments:
Post a Comment