How would Roma have said it?

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As I was on my way out this morning I bumped into Kseniya in the lounge. I hadn't spoken any proper Russian for about a week so it was good to have a conversation again.

When I sat down to write some more of my essay I realised something. My brain hasn't fully realised how much my Russian has progressed since September, and I am still used to thinking that I will struggle for things to say when I don't any more. If the essay was 5000 words in English and not 3000 in Russian I am convinced I would have finished by now, instead of procrastinating over a couple of hundred. The barriers that stop me working are now much smaller; maybe that is why I enjoy speaking so much more than writing, as it is more spontaneous. The irony is that whenever I get bored of writing I send an sms to Ana.

When I went for another walk in the evening I took the 5 rouble coins from my coffee jar piggy-bank and stopped at every music kiosk on Tverskoi Prospekt to buy some CDs. They are just like fruit or magazine stalls, in that there is a woman sitting inside them who won't acknowledge you until you tap loudly on the glass. When she opens the window for you it is so small that there is only just enough room to poke your head through and tell them what you want. I bought another Zemfira album - have I mentioned her before? - and 'the best of Russian radio, autumn 2005' to remind me of Yaroslavl. There are thousands of mix-tapes and soundtracks to choose from.

It still feels unnatural saying to someone "give me, please, the compact disk....". What felt even more strange was looking at a pile of music and trying to work out the right way to ask for a CD called 'The Underground Sound of Moscow'. The lady wouldn't have understood if I kept my English voice, nor if I translated the title into Russian. The compromise I decided on was to put on a bizarre hybrid accent and pretend to her that English wasn't my first language either.

I succeeded in buying the album after much pointing, and left the kiosk with the adrenaline rush that only comes after making an utter fool of yourself in front of someone you'll never see again.

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Photos

Tverskoi Prospekt.
The centre of town.