Weekend

Friday night I went to the Ilkhom Theater and watched a play, "Feelings". It was in Russian so I couldn't understand most of it, but there was an actor who had some lines in English and I quickly realized he was from the States. Excited, I waited for the play to end and introduced myself. Turns out his name is Tree (sp?) and he's from California! He's been living in Tashkent for the last year and a half. It felt so nice to speak English fluidly with someone and to understand each other's experiences living here.

Afterwards, I went to Chun Gi Wa as Svetlana had called and said to stop by. I hung out with her and the owner and ran into Rosa or Larisa at the restaurant! I can't remember which one it was to be honest. But her guest happened to be staying at my hotel so they dropped me off afterwards.

Saturday I was too lazy to venture out, but wanted to at least do something. I went to the pool and there was the cutest kid there. I asked the mom how old he was. We began to talk. It turns out the family's been living here for 3-4 years. She said she could understand Russian now but couldn't really speak. But she knew one phrase perfectly, "Ya ne znayo", which is "I don't know" and probably one of the most important phrases to learn.

Afterwards I went to my room but quickly came back down. There was music and something seemed to be going on. It turns out LG was having a raffle for refrigerators, dishwashers, etc. but in order to get the prizes they made people do the most hilarious things. They had dance offs, grandfather's swim fully clothed, people pick random numbers and the one with the highest total winning. But they also had a short but beautiful dance show with real arabic dancing which was my personal highlight.

That morning while trying to see if the internet in the lobby would work (it's been down at the hotel), I happened to be sitting at the same table as a guy watching World Cup. Long story short, I had no plans Saturday night and was waiting to hear from my co-worker (yes, the one I have a crush on). Well, no word from him, but I got invited to dinner from the guy watching World Cup and his boss, as well as Svetlana and ironically her boss. I went to meet Svetlana and her boss and we first stopped by this beautiful outdoor place. Koreans love grilled pork, and Uzbekistan being a Muslim country, there isn't a lot of pork around. But apparently he's been coming here so often that he brings his own lettuce, spices, and kimchi, to eat his own mini "sam-gyup-sal". Well, the place ran out of pork b/c we got there too late, but we ended up going to another place around the corner which turned out to be a ko-ryo-in restaurant. The pork was delicious. I personally love pork, and for some reason I've been craving Korean food til no end here. It was one of the best meals I've had in so long. We talked about so many things, but it was the first time I realized while to me Uzbekistan holds so many secrets and curiosities, for others it's a place without choices.

Having a bit too much of a really good wine I discovered that night, a chilled "Mona Lisa", I crashed and passed out in bed.

Sunday I decided to go see one of the museums. The hotel staff and the driver hadn't even heard of the museum. After stopping along the way a few times, we finally found it and I went in. There were 4 floors of beautiful artwork. They even had 2 Kandinsky's, ceramics, doors with beautiful ornate wood carvings where you could see the similarities amongst the countries on the silk road. But what stood out in my mind the most was this one section. There was a ko-ryo-in painter who had painted a set of 4 paintings reflective of each season. And in each one he painted a card or "hwa-too". But this one painting titled "Freedom" took my breath away. There were Korean women dancing in hanboks with Russian militia standing around. There were banners in the background, one written in Russian, one written in Korean... I was so moved. I could feel the longing for this painter's home country mixed with having adjusted to this foreign country. It made me so sad.

I returned to the hotel and went on my weekly ritual to the Oloy Bazaar to buy fruit. They sell fruit here by kilo's or the weight, but once again I explained in my broken Russian that I would like 2 of these, 3 of those, etc. I also bought some iced teas and bottled water at the "Supermarket". To give you an idea of how much the foreigner markup is, a huge 2 liter bottle of water at the Supermarket cost me 600 soums. At the hotel a 1 liter bottle costs me 4,000 soums. I vowed never to buy water at the hotel again after I realized this. I also felt more at home after having gone real grocery shopping. The funny guy from the morning before who was watching the World Cup called. Funny thing is when we met he asked how long I was here. I said another month but that I don't want to return. He said omg, you have another month? I've been bored to death being here only 2 weeks. I went to dinner with him and his boss and we got the pork belly again, yay! But it was a lot of fun talking to them and they played ping pong outside. It turns out the boss is here on a project and the younger guy is basically here as his translator. But the boss doesn't know how to do anything, so the translator can't leave his room in case the boss calls. And the boss will only call his room, not his cell phone.

The boss and I happen to both love walking so we walked back. The nights in Tashkent are gorgeous and there are a lot of really pretty parks you can walk through. The other guy said he hates walking most in life and cabbed it back. After I returned to the hotel, the young guy called and asked if I wanted to check out a bar and watch soccer. A side note, I don't know their names b/c 1) I'm really bad with Korean names and 2) it doesn't really matter. You kind of figure out who's oldest in Korea and address them by a title rather than name if you're the younger one. Anyhow, we went to this really nice bar called "Cmi bar". It looked like a place they would have in NY or Korea. Black, sleek, with a huge tv, I discovered a good beer Chim Gan from Kazakh. Long story short we were there til 235am b/c freaking Italy and Spain went into overtime. I lost 10 bucks on our bet, but had a lot of fun talking. I'm sad to know they're leaving tomorrow (Tuesday). I wish I had met them sooner.

After about a zillion wake up calls and alarms, I somehow managed to get up this morning. Anyhow, I'm back at work today. We'll see what this week holds.