Cafe Stolle: Why my life in Russia has markedly improved

As I said earlier this week, I've been spending a lot of time studying for 2 economics placement tests so I haven't had a chance to write. What I do want to write briefly about is that I've recently found a new chain of restaurants here called Cafe Stolle, one of which is conveniently located not more than a five minute walk from my house. They make these wonderful little pirog's that are basically pastry bread with fillings inside. There are some pictures on their website. The fillings are sweet and savory, ranging from meat to chocolate. My new favorites are the salmon with dill and cream and the blueberry. In other food news. I've recently been on a bliny rampage. Between the bliny stand that I've begun to sample near my house and the plethora of Teremok's all around the city I've eaten quite a few this week. One day I went to a really great place called Russkiye Bliny and got one of which was a double-sized blintz filled with fruit and whipped cream and shaved nuts on top.

In other news, my host mother has informed me we are not going to have hot water for the next 2 weeks while they are doing maintenance at the water station. Luckily we have an electric water heater that plugs into the wall above the shower. There seems to be many of these such devicese in Russia, no worries about the safety concerns of having 220V of electricity running through your water, since my friend (read about it at her blog) has also had to use a similar device from Bulgaria to wash clothes in the bathtub. The first time I had to use it on Friday, the water pressure was kind of lackluster, so to input more water, I had to turn up the machine to max. Little did I know that after more than a minute on full power, it blows the fuse. Really fun standing there in the dark, covered in soap, and not being able to remember the russian word for HELP! Don't worry, I'm fine, and I've resigned myself to lukewarm water for the next couple weeks. I should accept this, as I've been told by many a Babushka, teachers, and friends, "It's Russia!".