Arabian restaurants and the cat circus

So this past weekend was fairly eventful, I would say. Despite trying to get student rush tickets to the opera twice - and failing both times - I managed to have quite a large number of interesting Russian experiences.

Friday night, after a failed attempt to see Carmen, I went with two friends to a restaurant called "1001 nights." Obviously, a slight middle eastern theme. My one friend had tried to go with her family the week before, but they were closed. We walked in, and had to go through 5 rooms before we found anyone that gave us any hope that this was a functioning restaurant. The entire complex was decorated like middle eastern/arabian buildings. The walls were painted to resemble light stone, with light blue decorations everywhere and fake pools of water. The restaurant itself was huge -- there were 2 banquet tables for 14 people each, and many more smaller tables. We were the only people there. We had to assume that it was a front for some sketchy Russian business, but even if it was, the food was great. After a week of meals consisting only of cabbage and potatoes, spicy eggplant was a nice change. We were thoroughly enjoying our empty restaurant until this guy came out with a microphone and welcomed us ladies to the restaurant. I guess he had been hired as the entertainment, but we were the only people there. So, for the next 40 minutes, he sang, just to us. We heard Arabian and Russian pop songs, plus some jazz standards. It was extremely awkward to sit there with a restaurant performer staring at us the entire time, but once again, the food was good.

Our weather is starting to get really nice -- today for the first time I wore a fleece to school instead of my huge down coat. Saturday was an especially sunny day, so I went for a long progulka (stroll) by myself. Along my walk, I stopped in the Nabokov's apartment (not so interesting, most of the exhibit was of his butterfly collection) and in Rimsky-Korsakov's apartment (more interesting, but still quite small. There are concerts sometimes held in Rimsky-Korsakov's apartment, so I'm going to look into maybe attending on of those.

But! The most exciting part of this past weekend was going to the famous Moscow cat theater! I am a big fan of circuses in general, so the idea of the cat circus seemed incredible to me. It wasn't as enticing to my friends, but I found a few who I could convince to come with me. First of all, I was a little embarrassed to go to a box office and ask for tickets to the cat circus. But, it's an extremely normal thing for Russians. My host mother said "Oh, that's a good thing to see. It doesn't come around here all the time." I guess Kuklachov's cat circus is often abroad doing international tours. I would suggest youtubing some clips to get the full effect.

All in all, it was an enjoyable circus. Sometimes the cat's trick seemed to be sitting. For example, a clown would balance on something with a cat on his head. But there were some really impressive cat tricks, like cats tightroping, or climbing across a rope upside down. My favorite was the cat that could traverse tightropes with just it's front legs -- basically by hanging by it's armpits. That was cool. I'm really glad that I got a chance to see this very pivotal part of Russian culture. It's not everyday you can go to the cat circus.