Just call me Mila.

So, Sunday.

Things are getting cramped. "Things" being healthy egos and strong personalities. We all knew this would happen eventually, but I think it's a bit sooner than most of us had hoped. The fact is, when you pile a bunch of hormonal, self-actualizing artists on top of one another, problems arise. 

So far, there seem to be two ways of dealing with homesickness/stress. One is to be with someone at all times. The other is to be as far away from anyone as often as possible. Ironically, the ones who need people seem to mostly want the company of those of us who've taken to hiding in the bathroom for twenty minutes just so we can read a few chapters in quiet. The boiling point is nearing.

So, Sunday.

We had a rescheduled Cinema History class Sunday (normally, Sundays are free), and since we were out and about, some of us decided to go to Moscow's apparently famous Underground Mall. It's a mall. It's underground. Imagine any mall you've ever been to. Now imagine it underground. Point made, I'm sure. 

My friend and I were really not in the mall-ing mood, so we snuck off after a painfully trendy forty minutes. We had unspecific dreams of visiting a Russian banya (an aggressive blend of steam bath and massage that involves hitting your pamper-partner's back with a bundle of twigs), but first we wanted to check dates for Little Misha's show so that we wouldn't miss it. Shows here may only run twice a month, so you gotta be on your organizational A-game.

During the course of our floundering linguistic foray, a young man who spoke some English came into the ticket booth. He was amused by our terrible Russian and translated for us. We left feeling love for humanity and vowing that if we ever were able to, we would translate the hell out of conversations. About a minute into our walk towards the banya, the boy caught up with us. He said he was going to see a play at eight (it was about five) and had nothing to do until then, so would we like a tour of Moscow? We enthusiastically replied in the affirmative, and our adventure began.

At first we just walked. He said his name was Phil and he was a third year acting student at another training school in Moscow. It was a very Harry Potter moment. For those of you who don't know the reference, Harry is taken aback when he finds out there are other witch/wizard academies. Also, for those of you who don't know the reference, WHO ARE YOU? How are you my friend slash family member if you haven't read Harry Potter enough to get obscure book four references? Do I even know you? My point is, it never occurred to me. Phil also studies jazz and puppetry. 

He knew a lot of trivia about Moscow WHICH I WILL NOW SHARE! SEGUEY!

Stalin was supposed to sign off on a blueprint for an apartment building that was to be built in downtown Moscow. Two blueprints were laid on his desk, and apparently he was in a hurry, because his signature was split between the two. So what did the architects do? Did they ask him which he meant to sign? No. They built half of one and half of the other.

The architects who built St. Basil's were blinded after it's completion.

Around the turn of the century, it was popular for young men to walk up to young women at parks, produce a pistol with one bullet in it, and say, "Kiss me or I'll shoot myself." The women invariably said no, and the men shot. It was a philosophical movement. If the shot didn't kill, the men walked away. Sometimes they died. When I said, "That's completely sick and stupid," Phil responded with, "No. It's poetic and beautiful. It shows that there is no god, only fate." This is a big Russian philosophy; what happens, happens. Nothing to be done, no one to blame. I kind of like it. It helps me justify why the people here are so much quieter than me.

At various points on our walk, Phil would make phone calls. I figured it had something to do with us because I kept hearing the word, "Amerikanskii," but assumed it was something along the lines of, "Sorry, I can't come to lunch with you, I'm hauling these obnoxious Americans around. They thought the changing of the guard was funny. What idiots." Instead, he was finding us tickets for the performance he was going to. 

And that's how Cara and I wound up at a Russian hip-hop opera, or hip-hopera, as one might lovingly call it.

We met up with one of Phil's friends at an unbelievably awesome underground cafe, where I wish I could live, and another at the theater. They were sweethearts. I didn't realize what a novelty we were until after the show when we were all saying goodbye and one of them said, "American girls! The American dream!!!" and insisted that we write our e-mails on his arm (even though we had paper) because that's what Americans do in the movies. 

The show was So. SO. SOOOO. Funny. 

"Cops On Fire," which is what the name translates into, was about a team of four blundering cops trying to catch the mac-daddy of drug-dealing supervillains. A perfect blend of The Sting, Starsky and Hutch, Batman, and Office Space (set to a thumping bass beat and rapped out by short, white guys), "Cops On Fire" took place in a large, American-ish city in the 70's. The lead characters were Yablonsky, Krazowski, what we SWORE was CharlieCop (until we later learned that it was ChernoyCop, which means "black cop..." guess who was the secret bad guy...), and, inexplicably, Pee-Pee. Pee-Pee was a constant source of amusement for Cara and I, for both obvious and acting-related reasons. You know the Mac commericals? If not, you know the adorably nerdy computer guys from Best Buy? That's Pee-Pee. Remember, these guys rapped the whole show. Pee-Pee was the goofy OTHER cop, who hadn't quite graduated to REAL cop status yet. The main theme of the show, which translates to, "Who is it? It is I," sounded like, "Eta kto? Eta YAH. Eta kto? Eta YAH." The characters would pop up with their names during openings and closings of scenes/the play. So we have, "Eta kto? Eta yah. Eta kto? Eta yah. Eta kto? Eta yah. Eta... YABLONSKY! Eta kto? Eta yah. Eta kto? Eta YAH. Eta kto? Eta YAH. Eta PEE PEE," whereupon Cara and I would dissolve into fits of giggles. The show was translated for us by one of the boys, who was kind of shy. His translations only made the show better. After a long, active song and dance number, he would lean over to Cara and say something like, "They said that they are very cool and very dangerous."

On the whole, the show was quite neat. The special effects were comic book-y and inventive. Like, when people got shot, a stage hand in all black would run on and hold an oversized bullet wound, framed in yellow, over the place where the character had been hit. All of the props were oversized and made of cardboard... hairbrushes, coffee mugs, steering wheels. The stage had two giant, octagonal columns on either side that spun, which was effective during car chases and neighborhood raids. The stage hands would spin them to illustrate speed and the passing of time.

After the play, we met Phil's friends from the show, one of whom was American. Everyone was so nice. As he left, one of the boys yelled back, "I'll remember you forever!" We're going to try to see them again next Sunday. Maybe vintage Soviet clothes shopping.

Closing thoughts:

The coat I bought at the Underground Mall looks like fashionable Elmer Fudd. I bought it because we're kindred spirits, me and the coat. We're just farmers pretending to be trendy.

While walking home, Phil somehow got on the topic of American Westerns. He mimed pulling guns out, swaggered a little, and threateningly said, "This city is too small for us two." Guess some things just don't translate...

Pet names are HUGE here. Not like, "pooky" or "baby," but Misha and Masha and Katya for Michael and Maria and Kathryn. According to my new friends, both Amalia and Molly shorten to Mila, which means "cute, nice and adorable." Cara, unfortunately, is a foreign name that doesn't shorten. It means, "attack." I win.

Love you.

Love you, Margie. Happy birthday. If I were there, I'd buy you something that I wanted for myself and eat a lot of your birthday candy, as tradition dictates. So proud to be your annoying little sister. Specifically for you: I have a special relationship with a sign-holder. She passes out fliers outside a high-end clothing store. One day, she (she's pretty old) looked really sad, as though no one had been taking the papers, so I took one, and she smiled soooo big. So now I take one every day and she is weirded out but I love her. I would have texted you this, but...