valerie
October 14, 2021 - grabbed some pizza with a couple colleagues last night. I bought my own pizza, only ate half and then wanted to take the rest home. I used my broken Russian and hand signals to show that I wanted a container for my leftover pizza. The байке (Kyrgyz word for addressing a guy you don’t know) says, “пакет?” (packet), which is the Russian word for the plastic bags that you get at the grocery store. I said, “да” (yes) not really knowing what to expect because I’ve never taken home leftover pizza in a bag. He put my pizza between two styrofoam plates, which didn’t seal or lock or anything, and then put this in a bag. At least it was better than just putting the slices of pizza directly into the bag
October 13, 2021 - some food items for sale at Ortosai Bazaar. Of particular interest to me are the little orange berries with what look like orange leaves around it. Based on the internet searching I have done, they seem to be called physalis. The Wikipedia article for these berries says that they are endemic to the Americas, but I can’t say I have ever seen them in the US. I want to buy some one day to try them
October 11, 2021 - I took a trolleybus home and thought I was going to miss it because I was crossing the road while it was stopped at the bus stop. The doors had closed and the bus was just about to drive away, but the driver stopped for me and a couple other people and I just ran into the door that opened, not realizing until I stepped on that it wasn’t the door for general passengers. In some buses there is a door which leads to a space next to where the driver is, and I don’t know what that space is supposed to be used for. I don’t know if this makes sense without a full picture…but anyway, I think it was fine. Actually I would say it was better than fine because I was only in this space (partly pictured) with two other people instead of being packed on the main part of the bus with at least 50
October 10, 2021 - am I the only one who thinks the sign on the left looks like “UFO abduction 100 meters to the left”?
October 5, 2021 - my classroom. full class today for Teachers Day! (the candies on my desk were a gift, brought to me by a student who couldn’t even stay for class today 🤣) what happened is that regular school hours were shortened due to Teachers Day, and that affected my students’ ability to come to my class
October 4, 2021 - two student interpretations of a ‘carriage’ (the vocabulary words for today’s lesson were types of transportation)
October 1, 2021 - the colleague that I ate lagman with earlier this week brought me some apples. She said her brother came to Bishkek from western Kyrgyzstan and brought several kilograms of apples with him. In her opinion, these apples taste better than the ones in Bishkek. I am intrigued and will report back once I have eaten one
September 30, 2021 - today was the last day of work for one of my colleagues, and he brought pizza for everyone to eat. He gave a box of pizza to one of my other colleagues and me and wrote our names on the box
September 29, 2021 - lunch with another colleague today. I ordered off the ‘business lunch’ menu (which we would just call the lunch menu or lunch specials in American English) and didn’t really know what I ordered other than a combo meal which included rice and tea. It tasted fine, but I feel that the food combination was confusing. I had no idea what I was supposed to do with the tomato sauce stuff. At least the presentation was somewhat artistic
September 27, 2021 - ate lagman (noodle dish) with a colleague for lunch at a place called “Lagman Center”. The lagman on the left was fried while the one of the right (top plate) wasn’t. My colleague and I agreed that the non-fried version was better, but it was all tasty and I got very full 😋
September 25, 2021 - pomegranate juice that I bought from Orto-Sai Bazaar. I think there is little to no added sugar as the aftertaste is tart. It’s really good, though it was a bit expensive 😬
September 23, 2021 - my Russian teacher invited me to go with her to a park where they have karaoke every night!
September 22, 2021 - it makes me smile to see things that I recognize here, even if the prices make me frown 😅
September 21, 2021 - a picture from the trail to Kol Tor Lake. This trail reminded me of hiking in Montana
