Getting ready...
Jun. 6th, 2009 06:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpI curtailed the scope of my travels within Moscow yesterday when it became clear that my plans were a little too ambitious for the time available, limiting my visits to the gorbushka (near the Bagrationovskaya metro) to look at prices and see if I could find a legitimate copy of a spell checker for Word 2007 (I could not), and then over to the other side of town to the office of a publisher that specializes in books for translators (P. Valent, over by the Chkalovskaya metro stop).
I went back to the hotel, stopping along the way for a hot dog and a blin (crèpe) with meat, for a quick nap before setting off to visit my mother-in-law and sister-in-law. We had a nice visit, after which I returned to the hotel after agreeing to meet my sister-in-law Alla at 11 am today here in town.
My flight out is at nearly 9 pm, and I plan to return to the airport the same way I came in, via the train from the Savelovskoe terminal, which is right next to a metro station of the same name. This time, of course, I'll have my luggage with me, so the experience will be a bit more "realistic" in terms of getting from point A to point B.
The breakfast buffet yesterday had a new wrinkle, which was not surprising considering the arrival, the night before, of a group from somewhere in the Islamic world. The wrinkle consisted of the addition of spicy Thai-style chicken sausages to the buffet, and the appearance of discreet signs - in Arabic - on the trays of bacon and pork sausage.
When I looked closely at the little signs, I was struck by the fact that they were identical, which I concluded meant that the signs were not describing the food (supported by the fact that no other tray had a sign in Arabic on it), but instead were intended to give notice, along the lines of "Contains saccharin" on some diet drinks back home (albeit for a different reason, naturally).
I was curious as to what the signs said, so I asked my waiter. He came back a few minutes later and told me the signs said "Contains pork." When I checked a few minutes later on Google, it turns out the signs said simply "pork."
I probably would not have mentioned this at all, except that a few minutes later, as I was moving around the hotel, I shared an elevator with a guy who told me that my question had somehow raised a ruckus among the kitchen staff, which is what truly befuddles me.
Apropos of which, it is time for me to grab some breakfast, and then return to my room and pack.
Cheers...
I went back to the hotel, stopping along the way for a hot dog and a blin (crèpe) with meat, for a quick nap before setting off to visit my mother-in-law and sister-in-law. We had a nice visit, after which I returned to the hotel after agreeing to meet my sister-in-law Alla at 11 am today here in town.
My flight out is at nearly 9 pm, and I plan to return to the airport the same way I came in, via the train from the Savelovskoe terminal, which is right next to a metro station of the same name. This time, of course, I'll have my luggage with me, so the experience will be a bit more "realistic" in terms of getting from point A to point B.
The breakfast buffet yesterday had a new wrinkle, which was not surprising considering the arrival, the night before, of a group from somewhere in the Islamic world. The wrinkle consisted of the addition of spicy Thai-style chicken sausages to the buffet, and the appearance of discreet signs - in Arabic - on the trays of bacon and pork sausage.
When I looked closely at the little signs, I was struck by the fact that they were identical, which I concluded meant that the signs were not describing the food (supported by the fact that no other tray had a sign in Arabic on it), but instead were intended to give notice, along the lines of "Contains saccharin" on some diet drinks back home (albeit for a different reason, naturally).
I was curious as to what the signs said, so I asked my waiter. He came back a few minutes later and told me the signs said "Contains pork." When I checked a few minutes later on Google, it turns out the signs said simply "pork."
I probably would not have mentioned this at all, except that a few minutes later, as I was moving around the hotel, I shared an elevator with a guy who told me that my question had somehow raised a ruckus among the kitchen staff, which is what truly befuddles me.
Apropos of which, it is time for me to grab some breakfast, and then return to my room and pack.
Cheers...
