"I'm glad to see an American with intellect in her eyes."

And here's to Ukrainians being redeemed in my book! We just had a lovely dinner with some friends of Alex, although thanks to my last experience with Alex's friends at first I was a little nervous (see "The Truth About Cross-Cultural Relationships) and we had to walk over about three miles of ice (I was in heels, of course) to get there which didn't put me in a great mood. Someone has got to introduce salting and sanding to this country or I'm going to slip and fall and break something and be very pissed off. Anyway, we got there and there were two little babies and couples and it was all just very grown-up and I sort of felt like I was in the wrong place. Shouldn't I still be playing Edward-40-hands with shitfaced college kids? Anyway, we started dinner and since Alex proclaimed my Russian "ochen ploha" no one really tried to talk to me at first and I felt really awkward and nervous... but slowly everyone started to try to talk and I got my nerve up to speak Russian (which is difficult, you don't understand until you have to do it... but speaking a language that you aren't good at is so hard because it makes you feel stupid and that's just no fun). Anyway, I was finally starting to warm up to everyone when Alex had to leave "just for a minute" because there was this raffle for a car that he had to go to in case he won. I let him and the second he left two of the guys started speaking fairly good English to me. Sometimes it takes some vodka to get those language-juices flowing. Anyway, Alex ended up being gone for like two hours and I had a great time without him. I held babies (!!!! Someone remind me that I don't want one) and talked politics and was assured that only stupid Ukrainians and stupid Americans think badly of people from other countries simply because they're different. "People aren't governments" someone said. Exactly. (Someone also said what I quoted as the title of this blog post. I was kind of flattered.) They also had me try some traditional Ukrainian food like lard on black bread (okay it didn't taste bad, but eww) and we drank cognac (of course). When Alex returned everyone had left but the hosting couple. We hung out for a while longer and I played with their 7-month-old baby. When we left they invited us to come again soon and invited me to come over anytime to play with the baby. And then, as I was walking out the door, they gave me a present: cute little Russian socks. It was pretty adorable.

Now, pajalousta, remind me how babies keep you up all night...