Well, I guess this is good preparation, maybe even a good omen. I am in Novosokolniki at Ksenia’s cousins’ and I am heading out for Mumbai, India in a few days. Ksenia will follow two weeks later. I’ve been assigned to work in Mumbai for a year, so we said good bye to NYC (Long Island City that is) and on our way to Mumbai we made stopovers at my parents in Italy and at Ksenia’s mother in St. Petersburg. So, in preparation for all sorts of stomach flues that we are fully expecting to get in India, I had some of Ksenia’s cousin’s sour cream for breakfast. Maybe it was the 8 hour train ride to Novosokolniki from St. Petersburg, maybe it was the vodka that I should have drunken but didn’t, in any event my head is over the toilet bowl and I am puking to my heart’s content.
It will be a fun ride back on the night train and probably a great flight to Mumbai via Moscow and Delhi. Novosokolniki has a fantastically blue painted big Lenin statue on its main square and, at least here, one is tempted to believe it when people say (which they do) that since Perestroika everything is in ruins. Who knows? What I am noticing the most in my few days in Russia, both here and in St. Petersburg, that people are actually seriously proud of being alcoholics. A 10:00am can of beer and an afternoon bottle of vodka seems to be nothing to write home about.
People are extremely friendly around here and St. Petersburg looks beautiful, especially with the sun not going down untill 11:30pm or so. Still, I am pretty anxious to get on that Aeroflot to India, especially now that my stomach has received a blessing of sorts.
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