Sound: "Alpha Beta Parking Lot" by Cake
Guess what? The Russians are still touching me. Fortunately, they aren't being quite so creepy, and I've gotten so used to it that at this point, I barely bat an eye.
There was a slight respite in touching incidents. But with the arrival of spring comes the arrival of weird touchy-grabby people. The two most recent incidents of Morgan-Russian relations happened this past weekend in that most Russian of places - the Old Arbat.
The Old Arbat is a wonderful, huge pedestrian walkway in the middle of Moscow. It boasts tons of wonderful cultural sites; the Vakhtangov Theater, Pushkin's apartment, Andrei Bely's apartment, Wendy's, Dunkin Donuts, Pinkberry - the list goes on. It also has a ton of souvenir shops and people (men) dressed up as animals and/or popular cartoon characters (think Disney-style costumes, not realistic costumes). Tourists or weird Russians can take pictures with these costumed entrepreneurs for 100 rubles, or a little more than $3.
While walking the Arbat with a few of my friends, we noticed a man dressed as King Julian, the lemur king from Madagascar. Marissa's boyfriend is currently in Madagascar, so she needed to get a picture, which I happily took. After finishing with Marissa, King Julian said he would take a picture with me "for free" (except we just saw him do the same thing with another pair of ladies, but whatever you say, silly entrepreneur lemur). Why not? I thought, and posed with him. And then Russia let its crazy out.
The picture Marissa took perfectly captures the feeling that something is not quite right. Please note the expression in my eyes:
Guess what? The Russians are still touching me. Fortunately, they aren't being quite so creepy, and I've gotten so used to it that at this point, I barely bat an eye.
There was a slight respite in touching incidents. But with the arrival of spring comes the arrival of weird touchy-grabby people. The two most recent incidents of Morgan-Russian relations happened this past weekend in that most Russian of places - the Old Arbat.
The Old Arbat is a wonderful, huge pedestrian walkway in the middle of Moscow. It boasts tons of wonderful cultural sites; the Vakhtangov Theater, Pushkin's apartment, Andrei Bely's apartment, Wendy's, Dunkin Donuts, Pinkberry - the list goes on. It also has a ton of souvenir shops and people (men) dressed up as animals and/or popular cartoon characters (think Disney-style costumes, not realistic costumes). Tourists or weird Russians can take pictures with these costumed entrepreneurs for 100 rubles, or a little more than $3.
While walking the Arbat with a few of my friends, we noticed a man dressed as King Julian, the lemur king from Madagascar. Marissa's boyfriend is currently in Madagascar, so she needed to get a picture, which I happily took. After finishing with Marissa, King Julian said he would take a picture with me "for free" (except we just saw him do the same thing with another pair of ladies, but whatever you say, silly entrepreneur lemur). Why not? I thought, and posed with him. And then Russia let its crazy out.
The picture Marissa took perfectly captures the feeling that something is not quite right. Please note the expression in my eyes:
Why am I so wary? Well, in addition Marissa, someone else was taking a picture of me. A strange man. As in, a man who is a stranger. Who I do not know. Who now has a picture of me. Honestly, I'm not even that upset that he took my picture; I just want my 100 rubles.
Shortly after the stranger took a picture of me, I, along with Marissa and King Julian, was approached by a man dressed as a polar bear, who promptly hugged me and demanded that I "drink vodka!" with him. No. No, Polar Bear. I do not want to drink vodka with you. Also, you are a bear, and vodka is not a natural part of your diet. You should not be drinking, Bear.
So we've got five incidents in about seven weeks. Let's see what the remaining five weeks bring.
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