Russian Ivan.

It's been awhile since I've actually written on this blog, so I figured I'd give it a shot. Ready...set...READ..

We FINALLY met our neighbor! Oh, you guys haven't heard that story. Let me rewind. Not long after arriving we had our first encounter with our neighbor, but it wasn't a good one. He decided to blast his russian-bass-filled-rap at 2:30 in the morning making all of us suffer silently while trying to sleep. A few weeks ago, a lovely Sunday afternoon, it started again. We were all a bit fed up so my roommate found a way to connect her Ipod to the speakers here in our apartment and blasted our own lovely tune. This will probably remain one of my favorite memories here in Russia. Blasting our music and jumping on the couches trying to show our neighbor who's boss. It didn't really work, but it was worth a shot. Our second encounter was just last week. Julie and I went to a market while Jenny and Kaysi ventured somewhere else. We all had the mindset that Jenny and Kaysi would return first so they took the keys. Unfortunately, Julie and I returned first. While sitting outside our apartment door

, our neighbor (we're thinking this is the Dad, and the one blasting the music is the son) walked out and saw us. He invited us in but out of shock we both declined (something we kinda regret). He went back inside and a few seconds later came back with some sort of fruit. The texture was like a tomato, but it was sweet. The third encounter happened on Thanksgiving day. At our apartment, there are two doors, one on the outside that locks than another just on the inside. Thanksgiving night I guess we forgot to close the outside door and suddenly we heard a knock. We were all confused because no one ever comes to our apartment so Kaysi went to answer it. Suddenly a Russian 20-something-year-old man starts opening the door while saying, "You left your door open!" No one really knew how to respond so we said, "Thanks!" then closed and locked the door. Totally bizarre. Anyway, those are our first three encounters. So, for Thanksgiving we made cupcakes and apple pie. We had a few left over so the next night we decided to take them to our neighbors. I rang the doorbell and the mom (we think) answered. She looked at me, totally confused, as I sat there holding a plate of sweets and smiling like I belonged in an insane asylum. The woman said something in Russian than turned around and knocked on the door behind her. Out came the swanky Russian 20-something-year-old man who speaks a bit of English. Wearing: A purple button up shirt, halfway buttoned to show a little bit, but not too much. We handed him the cupcakes and he said thanks and asked our names. After repeating my name a couple times he finally said, (Now you HAVE to read this in a Russian accent) "My name is Ivan. Russian Ivan. If you like, I can take you on Moscow excursion in the night. We can go on excursion." We think he means clubbing or something, but we're unsure. We bid our adieus and went back to our usual activities. Not long after there was a knock on the door, confused once again I went and answered it. But apparently I wasn't quick enough because Russian Ivan walked right in. "Cupcakes so good. SO good! American cupcakes are delicious. Here, ve vant you to have this." I looked, and behold, I was holding a jar of mushrooms. Because naturally we exchange cupcakes for mushrooms. Unfortunately we've been warned against eating mushrooms, so we threw them away. But not after many laughs and many pictures. Gotta love Russia.