Where are you, Anya?

It all started off with a glass of sake at James' place. It always does, doesn't it? Two hours later, we're jamming out to George Michael and Elvis with two Russian girls, an American student from Massachusettes, and a Hirdur (Hirdur (hir-dir`) proper noun - a sassy Iraqi girl named Hilda from Ontario prefecture, Canada).

Anya was on her way to James' place with my bike key. She borrowed my bike a few weeks back, and since I lost my key at school, I needed the spare. In typical Russian fashion, she was "five minutes away" from us for about a half hour; where would Russians be without that magical word probka (traffic jam)? On time most probably.

Downing a small drink, we waited outside for the blonde bombshell from Novosibirsk to appear. After about five minutes, she rode past James' house on her bike. "Anya! Anya!" we called out, but no response. Afraid she would soon veer too far off course, I yelled something in Russian: KUDA POEHALA! (Where the hell are you going?). Unfortunately, the blonde girl riding this particular bike who stopped at the sound of threatening words in her native language was NOT Anya. It was sure fun explaining why an American guy was yelling at a stranger in Russian.

Anya dialed up, "I'm coming in my car. Be there in 5 minutes." After about 15 minutes, James and I got tired of waiting and decided we would wave her car down as she passed. Sadly, Anya decided to take a different route to our house, and so we ended up just waving at strangers like a couple of jerks (or Japanese politicians). A mere second before the lovely girl appeared behind us, a brown van drove by with a surprised driver. It was a girl I had taken out on a date back in January, who happens to also work at my base school. Yes, Yuko, I've stood at that intersection everyday since our special time together, waiting for the moment when you just might pass by. Imagine how much more awkward her "ohio gozaimasu" (good morning) is going to sound when I show up to work tomorrow.

Anya had come with Julie, an exchange student from Massachussettes and fellow psuedo-vegetarian. The four of us went to Peace Street Kitchen for the best (as in ONLY) vegan cuisine in town. Afterwards, Yulia, the new Russian student and lovely Tanya's replacement, met up with us and we headed back to James'. James brought the bottle, I brought the guitar. We were set.

Soon Hirdur joined the group, and we had ourselves a regular drunken orchestra (well, we were pretty sober actually, I'm not a big drinker). Whether it was Elton John's "Circle of Life" or Mr. Big's "To Be With You," all of us were ready to rock out to the hits. As it turned out, Julie is a wonderful singer, and our rendition of Extreme's "More than Words" was so fantastic, we decided to perform it at the ALT charity show this month. Where does Toyama get all this talent from?

What a blast Monday night was indeed! The life of John Di Lascio: Seinfeld Season 9.