The Bull Market

Here in Russia, the major holiday for the year is New Year's. I got to celebrate this with some friends and friends of friends and so see what the traditional celebration is like. Basically it means sitting around a table with friends and/or family at someone's home with loads of food, juice, and champagne (well, vodka is traditional, I think, but these were classy people) and talking, watching tv, and singing karaoke until the wee hours of the morning. At around 11:55 the president of Russia gets on television every year to give a short speech and wish the country a happy New Year. (Well, literally, he congratulates them on a New Year, but that's just an idiosyncrasy of the language.) I was told it was a nice speech, but all I understood of it was "New Year" and "2009". They asked me whether our president does that, and I told them I didn't think so. But apparently the Queen of England gives a speech, but hers is more like half an hour than 5 minutes.
Many people were shooting off fireworks outside, and the men from our party braved the cold to go out and do so. I assume that no one was trying to sleep anywhere, which helped me not feel bad about our loud karaoke at 5 am. They kept trying to make everyone participate and so pulled up all the songs they had in English for me and Ivor to try. The idea that we didn't actually know most of these songs at all, and only the choruses of the others, didn't seem to be accepted. So we faked it, making up our own non-melodious melodies. Listening to some of the Russians sing, I suspect they were doing the same thing.
I took a taxi back to my place at around 6:30 and spent most of New Year's in bed sleeping or reading. I think my neighbors had a party that continued until around 2 pm on the first, which is pretty impressive stamina. The day was pretty dull, for the most part.
Yesterday I braved the telephone company's office to go and pay for the internet. It actually went smoothly and easily. There weren't many people there, so they were relaxed and helped me. Megan told me I needed to fill out two different sheets, one for the modem rental, but they told me, after I did the one for the internet itself and had paid the money, that my internet was working and so that was all. I tried to explain that I should pay for the modem, but failed. They just said "It's working, that's all" (in Russian), so I left. And it is indeed working. I'm hoping they don't come to reposess our modem, but it's only about 2 bucks anyway.
After that, I went ice skating with Ira, one of the Russian English teachers, her friend Olya, Ivor, and this guy named Dima, who we know through Zhenya, another teacher. Dima is a really interesting guy. He spent 4 years in a monostary before deciding he liked sports and interacting with people too much to make that his life. That's a strange path anywhere, but especially in Russia. But since his English is extremely limited, I can't really ask him about it.
Ice skating was an interesting experience. The first place we went was closed without explaination. The second was in a shopping center, tiny, and over run with the under-ten set. We finally found a place that was large and open, but the management was, well, Russian. There was a small entry way with a window to pay for and rent skates. When we got there, we were told they were out of our sizes and we would have to wait until the current session got out and turned in their skates. The current session was just then starting, so we had to wait an hour. First indoors, then outside in the cold so they could clean the floors, and then back inside. As the time drew nearer, more and more people arrived, squeezing into this small lobby. It only got worse when people came out of the rink as they had to return their skates to this window and push through the crowd to get out of the building. If anyone had fainted, I'm sure they would have remained upright as there was not even room to fall down.
Skating was fun, but pretty difficult for me. Better exercise than I've had in a while, and I was kind of glad to see there were plenty of Russians having difficulty too. It isn't a congenital thing that they can strap on skates to two year olds with an inborn knowledge. After an hour, it was time to experience the other side of the crush, pushing through the crowd to return my skates and escape the building. One thing I'll learn from my Russian experience is the willingness to shove through a crowd.
Now it is the year of the bull. Russians seem to get into the Chinese year symbols, and I've been given two stuffed cows already. I don't know about the rest of the economy, but in Russia, the bull market is doing well.