Hopefully a good sign of things to come.
This evening was lovely. Our Ukrainian roommates cooked dinner for us two non-Ukrainians. We had something sort of resembling a casserole that had mushrooms, potatoes, chicken, and creamy stuff (very yummy), and then two plates with beautifully cut vegetables. I also tried a bit of kefir. Not as bad as it looked as they poured lumpy milk into the cup. Here's a picture of the veggies:
The closer plate is finely sliced cucumbers. The far plate is tomatoes cut like tulips, and cucumber carved like leaves.
After dinner, we sat in the living room while my third housemate, the one who is also a new oceanography grad student, played guitar. He tried to play songs that I knew so I could sing along... Some worked out better than others. But even the ones that we totally messed up (usually because I suddenly would realize that even though I "knew the song", I had no idea what the verses sounded like) were fun. The Ukrainian woman drummed along on the bongos. All this while looking out over the beautiful city night skyline.
That's as good a photo as I'm going to get for now, I'm afraid; without my camera's screen working, I can't adjust exposures or anything :(
It was just exceedingly pleasant. An Ah, this is the life! kind of a moment. Classes will start, real life will start, and soon enough I will not have so much time to just enjoy a simple, beautiful evening with good food, good music, and good company. But if I can just hold onto this moment, maybe it will be enough.
5 comments:
'Ah, this is the STUDENT life'...
What're two Ukrainians doing over there anyway? I think it's almost exactly the other side of the planet for them...
Whoa. How do people cut vegetables like that? I thought that was only in restaurants.
Seb - "Ah, this is the student life in that magical week before classes start." That part is key. We'll see how it goes next week.
Yeah, it's pretty far from home for the Ukrainians. But one of them is doing a post-doc here. It's a nice place to live for a year or so.
Hez - I know! That's why I had to take a picture. She said she has a special knife to do it and everything. I ate the tomatoes, but didn't actually have the heart to bite into one of the leaf-carved cucumbers.
I'm glad you are settling in, we need more pretty pictures though!
I know! Reminds me that I actually do have some more pictures. I'll try to get those up soon.
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