K-dar with Andrea, Sarah, and Olya

K-dar, offically known as Krasnodar but its so much easier to text k-dar so that's what me and the American's call it, is the capital of the Krasnodar region (go figure) and about an hour bus ride from Korenovsk. I went with Andrea, Sarah, and Olya last Saturday, the 10th. We got a bus at 8 in the morning and caught a bus back at 7:20, so we had all day in the city! When we got there, we walked through a big park that had a cute little kid's amusement park that reminded me of a mini Storyland for some reason. There was a ropes course too that me and Sarah wanted to do but it wasn't open yet :(

We then went to a book market which was really cool. They had some new books and book supplies and cheap little plastic toys that Russians like to sell, but there was one part that was all old books and it was so cool. Anyone who has been with me to Yes Books in Portland knows my weakness for slightly used classic literature :) But books are heavy and thus expensive to bring home with me, so I restrained myself and only got three books small in size. Two book with poems by Alexander Pushkin, the greatest and most loved Russian poet, as well as a history book that is written in Old Russian (the equivalent of the Canterbury Tales to modern English from what I gather) I realize they I probably have no hope of ever reading it, but Olya was very impressed by the book and says the author is very respected in Russian history, so I thought it would be cool just to have. We had ice cream in the park on the way out of the book market. I had coconut and it was sooooo unbelievably good!

Then, we met up with Karla, Wilson, Clare (all fellow Americans who live in Krasnodar) as well as Bella (student from Brazil) and Karla, Bella, and Wilson's host sisters. Don't ask me to remember their names, but they seem to go everywhere with them which would be kinda annoying I would think but they didn't seem to mind. We met at the Red Square, which is not an actually outdoor square like I thought. It's basically a giant mall with a bowling alley and indoor skating rink. The first thing we did was eat McDonalds and I really wanted a hamburger but it was so crazy busy and both the lady behind the counter and Olya couldn't understand what I wanted so I just got the McChicken sandwich because it's the only thing that I could say that they understood. (Later, I realized with chagrin that Wilson knows how to order a hamburger and I could have asked him but it was too late then!) I still enjoyed my chicken sandwich and the french fries were really good!

After that, we kinda sat around for a while. And I really wanted to something and Andrea, Sarah, and Olya had gone off to go shopping, but I really wanted to be with Clare and Wilson and Karla, but they were just sitting there! Finally, me Bella and Clare just left and everyone else followed us. We went to couple store and the clothes were really cute but I didn't buy anything. Clare tried on this really pretty dress that looked awesome on her and we all tried to get her to buy it but she didn't think she'd ever wear it and didn't want to spend the money. It was $90 dollars. After that we went to a book store that had English books and I bought Gulliver's Travels (an appropriate title for my current situation is it not?). I know I shouldn't be reading too much in English, but you guys know how much I love reading and I'm halfway through Cat's Cradle already and I can't stand the thought of not having another book to read! But I'm going to see if can make it last til I leave.

We left everyone at the mall after that and me, Sarah, Olya, and Andrea went for pizza, but when we got there they didn't have any just plain cheese pizza and apparently you can't order it that way, so I say hamburger on the menu and was like "That's what I want!!!" It was pretty good. There was mayo and ketchup on it which was weird but didn't taste too bad. Of course, nothing compared to a flame-broiled baby my dad can whip up on the grill, but it satisfied my need for beef. Temporarily anyway. I'm already craving it again!

We had some time to kill before the bus, but Olya felt the need to practically run to the shoe store because Andrea wanted to look for shoes (he's so Italian) But of course, he didn't find any he liked. But there was a DVD store there too and I actually bought some, which might seem stupid at first because they won't play in American DVD players. But they play fine on my laptop, they have the English language on them, and they were ridiculously cheap, only 5 bucks for brand new DVDs!! So I got 17 Again, The Duchess, and Star Trek. It makes me pretty happy :)

So yeah, that was Krasnodar. We are making plans to go back soon and this time, we want to see a movie at the theater!