Holiday Road

The November Holiday Extravaganza continues here in Dushanbe. On Thursday, we celebrated Stephanie's birthday. Starting with cornmeal pancakes, eggs, and fresh bacon. We continued celebrating with lunch at the Hyatt and then it was on to sushi for dinner. To top things off, I made a dark chocolate cake with dark chocolate truffle icing. I have to say, it was pretty amazing. In fact, we ate the whole thing in just three sittings.

After trudging through Friday, (Gasp! A whole day of work!), it was on to the weekend. On Saturday evening, we decided to go to a symphony at the opera house, sponsored by the German embassy. It was a very good concert and free to boot. But the bad thing about being free was that anyone could show up. In our balcony seats, we were beset by hoards of teenagers who just could not get control of themselves long enough to stop their gums from flapping. I really raised the bar for feeling like an old man by scolding them several times in Russian. It didn't work very well.

We were further disappointed when, on the way home, we discovered that the supermarket were out of shrimp. Well, they were out of the good shrimp. Some friends of ours brought some over recently and they were outstanding. But when we got to the store, only the small, pre-cooked shrimp were left so we made do with what we had at home.

On Sunday we spent the afternoon at the coffee house that Stephanie discovered nearby. Unfortunately, they didn't have any coffee. But we enjoyed lunch and some green tea over a game of scrabble.

Now that I've made it through the hardship of Monday, (another whole day of work!), I am looking forward to having tomorrow off for another local holiday. After that I'll actually have to work for three days straight before the weekend, and another three days after that before Thanksgiving. Tough life.

Fortunately, the weather is holding up nicely so we are able to make the most of the time off.