Friday and Saturday

Friday night, after a long week of work – and getting paid – we decided to go out for a night on the town. The school’s former students who made us plov last weekend play in a cover band called Cadillac, and one of their frequent venues is a café/bar called Sweet 60s. Sweet 60s is a really nice café, with many choices of Russian, Kyrgyz and Western foods, plenty of booze and a good staff. Cadillac are excellent. They played a lot of classic rock covers mixed in with Red Hot Chili Peppers covers and they covered a few Russian songs too. After a fun evening of yummy food, beer and dancing, I headed home (opting out of the trip to the group’s next destination, a hip hop club – boo).

This is a shot of people dancing. Really.

Saturday morning I got up early (despite my late night the evening before) in order to wander down to the internet café to check my email and make sure my plans for the day were still on. See, back when my AH friends and I went to Siberia, we met this super fabulous girl from Norway named Ina. She is currently in the middle of a two year trek around the globe, and flew into Central Asia just last week, and has been in Bishkek for less than a week. We had planned to meet downtown at noon, do some exploring of the city, and have some dinner and booze. Unfortunately, Saturday was the coldest it had been since my arrival in K-stan. After my short trek to the internet café, I scurried home to double up on my layers. I’d neglected to check weather.com, so I don’t know how cold it was, exactly, but I’d estimate in the -20s C. That’s snotsicle forming territory, and not exactly stellar weather for outdoor adventuring.

Saturday, in addition to the utter chill, found the city of Bishkek covered in a glittering frost. I decided that with my extra layers, it would be fine to walk downtown (despite the fact that this is a thirty minute walk and all...), and as a result, by the time I met up with Ina, I was already pretty damn cold. She had walked in from her hotel, and wasn’t feeling all that warm either. Nonetheless, we set off on a walk around the city. It didn’t last long. It was simply not the weather for aimless wandering without any specific destination in mind. We ended up spending about two hours in Fatboy’s, thawing out, catching up on what we (and our mutual friends) had been up to in the past few years since our first meeting, and chatting about traveling in the Stans. Eventually we decided that it seemed like a good afternoon to return to our respective residences and crawl under the covers. (Even Fatboy’s was feeling a bit of a chill inside.) I took a sardine-packed marshrutka (minivan-taxi) home and immediately snuggled down under my blankets and cats for a four hour nap. (Yes, I know. That’s a bit much, even for me.)

(Today, according to weather.com, is 3F, or -16C, and it feels slightly warmer than yesterday! Hmmm...)