Sunday Morning update

I went to the Holy Trinity Cathedral/ Church/ whatever it is that the word hram means exactly this morning. My strategy of randomly showing up without knowing what time services are didn’t work very well, but it was good because the library was empty so I could go talk to the babushkas working there for a long time. I really have absolutely no idea what they said. But they talked a lot. I think they gave me directions to every church in the city, all based on a system of public transportation codewords of which I am wholly ignorant. We also discussed many saints I had never heard of and the choirs of various churches. I looked at lots of photographs. The only things I fully understood was that the church was only re-opened 10 years ago and that the white walls that I like so much are soon to be covered in very expensive paint ordered from France, and the consultation to determine which saints and angels and things to paint where was very expensive. The expensive paint was sitting in oval-shaped cans in the library. I may go back at some point and get a membership to this library. They have a copy of “What Will the Batushka Advise?”

Mickey and Minnie Mouse walked through the Cafe Fiesta a few minutes ago. It was alarming. Also, a girl at another table is wearing knee-length leather boots from Adidas. It’s very depressing that even sporting goods stores here are really boutiques. A Donald Duck cartoon is playing on the big-screen TVs, and it combines interestingly with the Russian pop over the sound system.