Jeans Hot Fiesta!

Today I had one of my most Russian of experiences and went to the movies. The film in question was Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which my friend had lead me to under the lie that it was in English. It was, in fact, somewhat in English-- the original words on the soundtrack had not actually been removed, but rather had just been turned down in volume so that Russian could be spoken over them. The weirdness of this was amplified by the fact that the people in charge of dubbing had apparently decided that multiple actors were completely unneccessary to the humor value of the movie, so one poor soul had been selected to provide the voices for all the parts. He did rather well, switching around accents and intonations whenever he remembered that there were different characters. One problem, though-- the Knights who Say "Nee" were mysteriously translated to The Knights who Say "Reba". God only knows. In the end, battling heat, fatigue and the strain of trying to simultaneously listen to the English and understand the Russian overlay, I must confess that I briefly fell asleep. The audience seemed to like it, though.
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Earlier in the day I went the full circle with my random speaking of languages when I encountered the mysterious Brazilian who I have been curious about for the past week, ever since he made his appearance into the elite circle of desperate smokers in the "Smolny Playground" during breaks between classes. He is very golden, in the way that only Brazilian boys can be-- curly blond hair, bronze skin and green green green eyes. Shades of his Aryan ancestry. He and his not attractive friend were talking to Freida and Charlota, my German friends, when I came over, and a bond was formed over an invite to the beach outside town tomorrow. Freida, Charlota and I are going on a picnic, and wouldn't it be nice if the boys accompanied us? They conferred briefly in Portuguese, I let on that I understood them, I was interrogated on my knowledge of the language, but it kept coming out Russian. On the bus, all the phrases came back. Ach.

It turns out that bronze beautiful boy knows Italian, as he backpacked around Italy for a few months, and we discussed the comparative highlights of Russia vs. Italy vs. Brazil. Lovely lovely. Only question that remains-- how in God's name can I think to appear on the beach in a bikini in front of Brazilians? I'm not slurring upon my own body, and I do on occasion get asked if I'm from there, but they come from the land of the beautiful women in excuses for thongs and my two-sizes too big Billabong suit isn't going to do much to hold up the Italian side. Ah well.

PS: Jeans Hot Fiesta!-- sign on a store that sells purses. I love Russia.