Riga: take two

Well, in a few hours I'll be going to Riga again. I find it funny how I now look on an international trip of going to Riga, Latvia, the same way San Diego college kids look at a night in TJ. I'm going to take the overnight train there, go straight to the travel document agency, kill the day in Riga going to the movies, get on the overnight train back to St. Pete and be back Friday morning. Although, I am excited about the possibility of eating at TGIFriday's again.

I started reading this book by a guy about his experiences as an American living in Russia during the early 90's. Sometimes I think I missed all the fun, but, then again, I like eating regularly. This book is in English, but it's from a Moscow publisher. I wonder if it's even printed in America; half of the book is an inside joke that only Americans living in Russia and Russians studying the English language are in on. I also started reading Nabokov's autobiography, "Speak, Memory."

My Russian is still improving. I'm at the point now where I can actually have conversations with people. Usually, I preface my conversations by saying, "I'm a foreigner. Speak slowly, please." I wish I could know what my accent sounded like to a Russian ear. One thing that is kind of funny is that the intonation in English is significantly higher than in Russian, and when I speak, I use a high, questioning intonation because I never know if I'm saying something right. I must sound like Mickey Mouse! I've been told that I don't speak with much of an accent, and that my pronunciation is correct. Too correct, in fact, because only foreigners pronounce words correctly!