Cigars and Vodka

Hopefully I have been making a good impression on RB’s folks. I only get a couple of days a week to be home so I have been trying to be as accommodating as possible. Not that it is all work. Much of the time I spend with them is quite entertaining. We took them to a Jazz club in St. Paul, that was a lot of fun and generally do low key things around town. Visit people have people over. As part of my ambassador program I have also taken to drinking and smoking with my soon-to-be father in law SB. Not smoking cigarettes all weekend or anything like that. But I did share a nice smoke with him on the porch the other night.

We actually talked in a manner about our families. He had met my brother and explained a lot of things about his family using hand gestures and names. It is really quite amazing how well people that don’t know each other’s language can communicate with a few common words/titles for things. These hand gestures indicated birth order, approximate ages, heights, and relations between people. It wasn’t perfect, talking about adoptions is a little hard as are more complex issues. I also found out later that he was testing me a little bit. I think I passed. Though, it is funny because he told Ruzana that I was some what aristocratic. I think this may just be because my mannerisms, ways of dealing with things, interests in politics, and education. I’m not entirely sure it didn’t sound like a bad thing.

What is also fun to a point is the Russian, or at least SB’s tradition of drinking at dinner. He likes to take shots of vodka and toast. I have been told that this is a common practice and that many people over there do it. It isn’t that common here and I am not used to taking several shots of hard (and Russian vodka is strong) liquor in a single sitting. Back in my younger years this would not have seem that hard but now it takes a bit of getting used to. Though it does make for interesting evenings and SB’s toasts are great. It is pretty common for us on a Saturday night to toast 4 or 5 times. So lately on the weekends about half hour or so after dinners I have felt a little tipsy! The vodka it self takes a little getting used to it has a bit of an after bite, and I don’t think it was meant for sipping!