Bolshoi Ballet

I wondery why I go to the ballet when I actually don't like the ballet. Although if I did care for it, I can see why Giselle might become a favorite of mine. It was beautiful and I could tell there was a compelling love story going on, but I began to fall asleep and left the theater during intermission.
The proprieter of the hostel I am at near Red Square gave me an excellent recommendation for dinner - a cheap, authentically Russian cafeteria-style restaurant where I ate beef stroganaff, boiled potatoes and borchst with sour cream. Really when I was sitting in the first balcony at the theater, I was thinking not of getting roaring drunk like I thought I might on cheap vodka, but was craving instead hearty, salty, hot Russian food.
Moscow is as I remember -- busy, cold, neon lights of the Samsung building across the street in sweet contrast with the lights of the Kremlin just a few blocks away.
The streets are icy and the fountain outside the Bolshoi Theater was dusted with a great layer of powder snow.
Things come back to me; I'm delighted. For instance, I know that a sign that looks like PECTOPAH means "restaurant." BAP mean bar. CTON means it's a stop sign.
I remember without even looking at my book how to say Good evening, Thank you.
OK, I'm not a rocket scientist - even my 6-year-old can memorize a few words of Spanish. My vocabulary is only about a dozen words and I cannot read a word of Russian.
I fell very easily into the tourist trap of getting ripped off. My cab to the city center cost close to $150. About three times what it should cost.
But I'm pleased to see the woman at the cafeteria wihp out a pen to write on a piece of paper how much I owe - the universal language of numbers, thank god. My dinner cost a 312 rubles.
And how well I remember the obsession over small change. She was unhappy with my $1000 ruble note and actually fingered through my outstretched wallet to try to find a bill that better suited her.
Frankly, it's too fucking cold to go out exploring tonight. Full from a good dinner, thousands of miles from family trauma and work stress, I try to stay in the moment (how many times in your life can you actually be immersed and fulfilled in the moment you are in?) by looking down at my thighs. Yes, my thighs, to bring me back from brooding over the glare my boss gave me on Thursday, or the amusing IM I sent to one of my coworkers.
Tomorrow, I will go out and secure a breakfast somewhere and some coffee. I will try to buy some cigarettes without humilating myself (this though is really a lofty goal - it is impossible to not embarass yourself as a foreigner in a different country).
I'm going to take a long and hopefully hot shower in this cute Soviet-era apartment-building-turned-hostel on Tverskaya Street. I'm going to sleep long and hard and when I wake up, I hope there is more snow on the ground.