May 23, 2013

More gorgeous weather came my way today. I got busy as soon as I finished drinking my coffee as I needed to have the flat in tiptop form since Jennifer was coming to spend part of the night with me. I cooked the lentil soup, froze the marinated pork chops individually and cooked some white rice for dinner.

Once the dishes were done, I moved on to clean the bathroom, tidy up the bedroom and living room as well. I had lunch and then took out the trash. In between, I got to do some more work on the e-book and got confirmation from Asel that she’d bringing her student  by on Friday to look at the remaining issues with it.

I had agreed to meet Willoughby at three to go to a travel agency and firm up our plans to travel to Russia in mid-June. I walked to our agreed intersection and we went into the Carson Wagonlit travel agency where we were quoted very high rates to fly to Moscow and for the required visas. We decided to try another one and were given a just slightly lower quote.

Our inquiry about traveling to Russia by train, as the locals do, and return by airplane were met with disapproval by both travel agents as they felt it wouldn’t a pleasant experience and that it could take much longer than what the schedules says since there several border checkpoints with Kazakhstan to cross.

We found a coffeehouse nearby and had decent cup of coffee while pondering our choices. I offered to do some searching online to learn more about the train before we made a decision. From there, we moved on to have dinner at a Chinese restaurant Willoughby had visited a couple of weeks ago and had really liked.

I wasn’t really hungry, but since I needed to be home by seven to allow Jennifer into my apartment, I had no choice. The food was terrible, too oily and too salty, flavorless and perhaps not even fresh. I ate a couple of tablespoons of it and decided to take the rest home hoping to be able to perform some magic in my kitchen.

Natalia then called to say they were already at Vanilla Sky waiting for me even thought it was only a quarter to seven. I said goodbye to Willoughby and walked back to my place. Jennifer and Natalia were sitting in the new outdoor space Vanilla Sky has added to their building. After chitchatting for a few minutes, we picked up her suitcase and crossed the street to my place.

The front door to my building was locked, so I placed the container with the leftovers over the ledge and opened it, quickly forgetting the food. Once inside, I remember I had no water and after showing Jennifer the flat, we both went across the street to get some snacks for her and water for me. I didn’t realize the food had been left behind.

Jennifer and I talked for a while mostly about the EFL program and the peculiarities of some of the members of our group. We talked about the book club and its format and she showed me her Sony reader, one I hadn’t seen before. I offered my Wi-Fi access code, but she was unable to log on for some weird reason as the name of my provider didn’t appear on her screen.

She was going to be picked up at 11:45 pm and I thought for sure I’d be awake as soon as she turned her light on. Instead, she had to rouse me from my sleep to let me know she was letting herself out. I was so totally out of it, that I just stared at her uncomprehending her words. I finally got out of bed and locked the front door after she left.

I had the hardest time falling back asleep.