Sex and The City, Kharkiv Style

Yesterday, when Ed took Belle for her morning ablutions, the elevator arrived with two other passengers already in it, carrying a few bags of provisions. This was too much for Belle, and she resisted going in (she's used to having the place to herself), but Ed persuaded her. They went down about two floors before the elevator stopped. This is MY worst nightmare - it really scares me. The other people took out their cell phone and made a call (presumably to the "guard" downstairs) and in a minute or two the elevator started up again. On the return trip the elevator wouldn't move at all when Ed got in with Belle, and he and she had to walk up the 8 floors. Everything seems fine now, but this is something I'm really worried about. I can't possibly trudge up the 8 flights with marketing packages and water bottles! I'd better get that phone number right away and make sure I'm NEVER in that elevator without my cell phone!

After a quiet day we had a light supper consisting of the remaining things I had bought at my favorite market the day before - the unidentifiable objects turned out to be delicious (of course - everything is!) - they were sort of like mashed potato outsides stuffed with mushrooms in one case, and with chopped meat in the other. Yummy! One of the blintzes was stuffed with chopped meat of some kind and the other with cheese - it tasted exactly like the cheese blintzes my mother used to make. I really did eat most of this food at home when I was a kid. My parents had friends with Polish backgrounds (Peggy & Ralph) who served wonderful perogy, Russian-backgrounds (the Krentskis) who used to have us over for black bread and butter and kilbassi (sausage). My mother served cold borscht with sour cream all the time (I hated it then - beets - yuck!), and made (from scratch) fabulous cheese blintzes (my father specialized in the potato pancakes, kasha verneki, and matzoh brie). We used to have herring in sour cream or with onion frequently, and salads of chopped radishes, cucumber and scallions in sour cream. I feel like I've come home! A Jewish version of "Recherche du Temps Perdu"!!!

We walked over to the Opera Theater (it's so pleasant walking in the early evening when the sun is low in the sky and not beating down) for our first opera in Kharkiv. Unfortunately it will also be our last here!! Not so good. It was Tosca, and when Tosca is bad, it's really bad. Unlike the ballet performance, it was very poorly attended. Our seats were fantastic - 8th row center aisle - no one in front of us, next to us or behind us!! Soon after the curtain went up we knew why - Mario (the lead tenor) was just ridiculous. He was wearing shiny patent leather (or rubber) boots that looked like a combination of Wellies and cowboy boots, a black satin shirt that showed every bulge is his unattractive body, and his face (with a big mustache) looked like a cartoon. (I think they probably used those same boots in Pique Dame, which our friend Sasha had walked out on because the tenor was so bad - it was probably the same guy!). He sang as if he was giving a pop concert (sort of like Celine Dion), with that little catch in the throat that pop artists and contemporary Broadway musical singers seem to specialize in. And Floria Tosca - ohmygod - she was so unattractive - and her singing did not make you forget that she was fat, had a horrible black wig, and looked like some sort of caricature. She had on a huge pink dress with big baby-doll puffy sleeves that just compounded the problem. Her singing wasn't awful, just not very good. Scarpia was the best of the lot, but his voice wasn't very strong (at least he could act a little - the others made it look like a silent film melodrama). We gave it a shot, but left after the first act, at 7 p.m. I don't think we'll try that again. We'll wait for Kyiv!

We walked over to the beautiful cafe, where we had eaten at about a week before, on Sumskaya opposite Schevshenko Gardens. This is definitely a place where the "beautiful people" of Kharkiv go to see and be seen. Almost everyone there is very young and very attractive - and they are almost all women. It's rather expensive for Kharkiv (for example, I had a poppyseed cake and cappacino and Ed had a gin and tonic (with a real lime - the first we've seen in Kharkiv!!!!), and this cost us $8 - quite a lot by Kharkiv standards. But it was worth it, as we spent an hour sitting there watching "Sex and the City" Kharkiv style. There was a table of four young women just below us, and I think they were celebrating one of their birthdays. They went through two bottles of sparkling wine before ordering their dinner and it was really fun to watch them interact. One was really interesting looking (I would say beautiful in an unconventional way), with long dark blond hair, and wearing a green skintight top that showed the outline of her black bra underneath, exposed midriff and tight green cargo pants. She had on a great pair of 4" high Corkee type shoes with pink and green and yellow stripes on the heels, and a bag (which clearly wasn't a matched set with the shoes, but which went with them very well) with stripes of the same colors. We thought that she was the Carrie Bradshaw of the bunch. The Samantha of the group was really a sexpot - she walked in wearing skin tight capri length jeans that sat on her hips, with a black thong showing above it. (Ed actually thought this was a fashion faux pas, but I explained that this was really the way to wear it if you had the body and the youth and the confidence required to carry it off!) She too had on a skin tight top with exposed midriff, and very glittery dangling earrings and necklace with a flower barrett in her long blond hair. She had on sky high spike heeled pink mules and a bag to match. The other two were the more conventional of the quartet - the Charlotte and the Cynthia Nixon character - the lawyer - I can't remember her character's name. I really wished Ed had brought his camera - a photo posting here would be perfect!

We got home to find that Belle was up to her old tricks - she had managed to sniff out the chocolate in my night table drawer, open the drawer and eat up all that was left of my Vosges chocolate that I had brought from home (only about one square), and one square of the delicious dark chocolate that I had bought here. (I keep the chocolate in the bedroom because it melts in the kitchen unless I put it in the fridge, and who likes to eat ice cold chocolate!!) She's unblievable. But she clearly feels at home now - she has her chocolate supply just where it's supposed to be, and instead of cats to bark at through the canal doors, she has the elevator which keeps her very busy.

It's amazing how NOT homesick I am - when I'm doing my blog I actually feel like I'm talking to my friends! And then I have actually talked to some people, and will talk to more soon. I had a great conversation with Jane and Jenny yesterday - it's just impossible to believe that we've only been away three weeks!!! I spoke to Milton and also to Claire Pollack a couple of nights ago. I've had two or three conversations with Michael Oliver and one with Jeremy, a few with Laura, and I also spoke to Dian about our upcoming trip! And then of course there are my scrabble games which, with the exception of Vicki who is on vacation in Italy, continue uninterrupted!! Jane asked if I was homesick and I told her that I really wasn't - that I had my "home" with me - Ed, Belle and my computer (Ed chimed in "not in that order!"). It's not that I don't miss seeing people - I do - but I still feel very connected to everyone, and the main reason for that is the blog, and the feedback I get from friends who are reading it. I am so glad I am doing this - I forgot who suggested it - someone at the dog park, I remember that much - and it was Glen who told me where to go on the web to set it up. I think I would feel quite isolated without it.

Today we're going to make an excursion by metro to the tractor factory and stop at Target (for more soft TP) on the way home. Kharkov was famous for it's tractor factory - this should be interesting.