Cafes I Could Live In

there are a number of cafes in the world that i feel i could live in.  zaza cafe in rio de janeiro, alice's tea cup on the upper west side of nyc, and anderson cafe in moscow.  it just so happens to be next door, and CONNECTED to the office building where i now work.  it's fantastic.  full of little white christmas lights, brightly painted walls, comfy cushions on the chairs and benches, nooks and crannies, and shelves of old telephones and russian children's books.  it's dreamy.  we go there every day.  well, um, for the past TWO days i've been working anyway.  :).  here's a picture of my friend and co-worker jess at our table today.  she is always working and always orders the ginger tea.  it comes in a HUGE french press.

and here's a picture of the businessmen at the table next to us:

yes they are drinking milkshakes with absurdly long straws.  and yes that is a giant painting of daffy duck as ebeneezer scrooge behind them.  they are obviously very productive working in this cafe.

and here is a picture of the cover of the menu:

see?  dreamy, right?

AND they make delicious espresso, which coming from me, says something.  

this morning i started a new language program.  it's an app i downloaded...very similar to rosetta stone, in that it shouts words and phrases at me at a rate faster than my heart can beat and then quizzes me on them.  the first quiz i failed miserably.  then i re-did the lesson and damn if i didn't improve drastically!  i learned to say "giraffe eats?  yes, giraffe eats."  very useful.  but seriously, it is quite amazing.  the best part is they both speak and show the words written in cyrillic, so it is helping me familiarize myself with the letters.  i feel miles ahead of where i was yesterday, even tho i can only say "yes, giraffe eats."  oh!  but i remembered how to say "i don't understand"!  i'm so proud of myself! i seriously think it was osmosis, hearing it again and again in the lesson yesterday.  i couldn't recall it in the moment, but about 8 hours later i was suddenly saying "ya ne panemayo pa russki!"  AND this morning as we were gesturing to our shuttle bus driver to go, he said the above phrase, and i was the ONLY one in the shuttle that knew he said he didn't understand us!  so proud.  

here is a picture of what it looks like out my window at 8:30am.  still quite dark. i don't think i've ever been in a place that is this dark in the morning.  there was an article in the Moscow Times today about that very thing...Medvedev apparently decided NOT to change from daylight savings time (or whatever they call it here) after the summer.  and people are now complaining that it is too dark in the mornings.  so there is a bit of conversation about how the darkness will affect people's experiencing the olympic games, but so far no movement to change back to observing daylight savings, or whatever it is you do to "fall back."  that's right, the russian presidents have the power to change time.  and fire the deputy chief of the olympic games, which happened yesterday on a governmental visit to sochi to check on the progress.  

i haven't had much of a chance to explore around, as i've been mostly getting used to being 11 hours off off my body clock AND getting used to my new office!  it is pretty fabulous.  very industrial space - used to be a design studio of some sort.  OH! and there are tons of video screens around that play - get this - round the clock re-broadcasts of every olympic opening and closing ceremony from the past 20 years.  i'm assuming it's for inspiration.  and it's actually a great education for me, cuz i don't really remember most of them, and we reference them all the time in meetings.  so today i spent about half the day researching old ceremonies, and watched almost the entire 2012 London Games opening ceremony (that sucker is 4 hours long!!).  i also watched clips of previous torch-lightings, as that is the most anticipated event in the opening ceremony.  i love my job so far!

here is a photo in our lobby:  

and i also went on the sochi games website for the first time (shhh, don't tell anyone i haven't been on it yet!), and i went nuts over the merch.  cute stuff!  i am loving the patchwork designs.  i may be coming home with 7 bags, one with all merch and swag, including a possible patchwork-pattered sochi 2014 jacket for my sister's miniture daschund, tallulah.  yes, they have pet merch!

all in all, it's been an awesome week.  going to do some exploring this weekend...i've organized a small group outing for dinner sat night, and also a kremlin/red square visit on sunday.  going on a walkabout there tomorrow to research all the various tickets we need to see everything in all the museums and things that are a part of the kremlin/red square.  oh, and to take loads of photos by the countdown clock of course!

making friends with a posse of canadians that all worked on the vancouver games, and various other games events.  trying to break in with the brits as well (the tech team is mostly brits...gotta get in good with the tech guys).  most of the russians i know are in sochi at the moment, back next week, so will be fun to hang with them, too.

venturing out for dinner will be fun...hoping wherever we go has a good english menu...or a waiter that speaks english.  i don't think "yes, giraffe eats"  will get us very far otherwise...

xoxo