kept in the dark

My power was out again yesterday when I got home. I have learned to tell by (a) the total darkness enveloping that area, and (b) the traffic lights not working.

Now, traffic is bad in Almaty and the drivers are even worse. When you couple aggressive drivers with neither working traffic lights nor a policeman to control flow of traffic, it's even more dangerous than usual. I won't discuss what it was like crossing the street last night, 'cause I know mom and dad read this blog. I felt like George Costanza in that Seinfeld episode when he was trying to move the Frogger machine across the street.

Fortunately the previous resident left one candle so I wasn't completely in the dark. One's cell phone can emit quite a bit of light in a dark stairwell, which makes unlocking your door easier than feeling your way through the pitch blackness. I also have a gas stove, so was able to heat up my dinner and boil water for some tea.

I also had brought my laptop home from the office so I could watch the DVD my friends got me. It's got all three seasons' episodes (pirated, of course) of the Russian Sex and the City Show that I've fallen in love with, Balzakovskiy Vozrast. I've finally figured out why I love it so much: The main character is a kindly, intellectual woman named Vera, whose love interest is a man that very much reminds me of Steve. I'm essentially re-living the beginnings of my relationship through watching them, which is fun. (Though Steve was never married to a woman to help her retain a Moscow work permit, nor did he sleep with said on-paper-only wife, knocking her up while also professing to love me. Storylines such as this are why the show is subtitled "Or, All Men Are Bastards".) So I watched 5 episodes last night, 2 of which were in the dark. Then the power came on for about an hour and a half. Then it went off again. Laptops emit a surprising amount of light from them. Thank goodness I have a good battery. And a warm, fuzzy blanket that I can wrap myself in.

The heat doesn't get turned on until October 15th. But after playing with my AC units, I discovered that they are also heating units. The one in the living room works, but emits screeching noises that vary from barely noticeable to annoying enough to make your ears bleed. That's when it gets turned off. I'd rather be cold than deaf. The one in the bedroom refuses to work, but I've got warm covers, so it's really not needed. We'll see what it's like once the radiators get turned on....hopefully I won't be running the AC or opening windows to keep it to a tolerable temp. Interesting how most places here don't have individual climate control, no?

Friday night I went out for a drink after work with a fellow American girl, and we got some unwanted attention at one point. Three old dudes who had obviously been partying came up to us and asked us in English if we were Americans. We immediately switched to Russian (we're far more likely to convey to them that we have a clue about their culture and aren't going to be messed with/swindled/naive if we're speaking in their tongue) and when one of the guys asked what our names were, I responded "Vera Petrovna." Name + patronymic, which is the female derivative of your father's name. Between my name (it's terribly schoolmarmish), face, and lack of American accent at this point, this dude was having none of it. He was convinced I was Russian and was just faking being American. I'm sure the booze that he had consumed previously also had something to do with it. Unfortunately, I'm only "passing" as a Russian about 50% of the time. Cab drivers generally can smell my American-ness a mile a way when I'm bartering fares with them. Fortunately, most can also tell I've been here long enough to know what reasonable fares are, so I'm not getting ripped off. The rest, I just tell 'em to drive off....for some reason it's always young dudes in a BMW that want to rip you off. Like it's not enough that daddy bought you a Beemer?? Sheesh.

I'll post about the overprivileged youth of the oligarchy/businessmen/politicians/schemers some other time. That's a whole other discussion unto itself.