I got up early in the morning: even though the guest room in rk13's mansion has thick curtains, the sun shines there with all its lumens at once, punches right through them, and completely kills any desire to lounge around. Katerina and rk13 expressed no desire to go see "Bolt". So I shaved and went into the city alone, to have time to drop by the dumpling spot that Knyaz had been pitching to me no less eagerly than I had been pitching the opera to him. I got there fast — because the bus I needed now goes across the southern bridge — a rare case where my optimistic forecast came true. It's now easier and faster to get to rk13's, which is nice.
With nothing better to do, I went and bought return tickets for my beloved evening express. Transportation prices are getting outright scary, I won't even mention them so as not to scare you. And on top of that, Riga is rolling out e-tickets for public transit, and doing it so cleverly that you can't actually buy them. Literally — you have to buy regular ones from the driver for $1 apiece, which is just completely beyond the pale: for that money you could buy almost three packs of cheap macaroni — Knyaz's favorite food.
By the way, I forgot my razor at rk13's place way back on New Year's. Luckily, I have two of them — a Gillette Fusion and a Gillette Mach 3. Unfortunately, the one I left in Riga was the Mach, for which it's easy to buy cheap blades at my favorite store, so I have a lot of them. By the way, fun fact — some guys like women's razors, saying they shave better. I have no opinion on the matter, haven't tried them. Generally though, I've been wanting to buy an electric razor for a long time and quit sponsoring the cartridge business model. They say there's a cult Panasonic for 100 lats, and it doesn't irritate the skin, even if it doesn't shave perfectly. Out of sheer greed, I shave with the same blade for a whole month, so I'm ready to shave with an axe if I have to: so a Philips for half the price will do just fine for me.
Anyway, I digress, since we were talking about the XLPelmeni dumpling spot. By the way, I had already been there, just to the one at the train station, but here we went to the central one, on Kaļķu Street. We didn't just go for no reason, but because only in the central one could you put together the special recipe: boiled dumplings, adjika, herbs, sour cream, fried ones, and cheese on top. Unfortunately, the crisis did not spare the food service establishment: instead of sour cream we only saw the popular local joke "sour cream product" (which is 10% sour cream and 90% crude oil), and there was no cheese at all. So the wonderful recipe went down the drain. As you understand, this is yet another, probably the fifth already, herald of the apocalypse. And this one is definitely not our fault.
But the next one — very much so. I bought the tickets for "Bolt" at two in the morning, and my brain was already complete mush. Given that, it's not surprising that when we arrived at the screening, we found with some regret that it was dubbed in Latvian. Keep in mind, there is a Russian version too — just at a different time. In short, I felt a few pangs of guilt — after all, I was the one who bought the tickets. Fortunately, my comrade-in-arms said that he understands spoken Latvian better than English — and usually we get movies in English with Latvian and Russian subtitles. So we dodged a bullet — even though we probably missed a bunch of nuances, the general gist was quite clear since we did spend so many years studying the valoda after all.
By the way, fun fact — as you know, the cartoon in English is called "Bolt", meaning a lightning bolt, after the main character's name. Usually names aren't translated, but "Bolt" in Russian has a certain connotation that isn't exactly suitable for a kids' cartoon. So here's the funny thing: it wasn't just the Russians who managed to skirt around this awkward issue by renaming the hero "Volt". The Latvians didn't drop the ball either — in the Latvian version the dog is called "Bulta", which means "Arrow". It's pronounced exactly how it's spelled, in case you were wondering. Unfortunately, "arrow" is a feminine noun, which isn't the greatest fit. How native speakers perceive this fact is not entirely clear to me, but there's no better option anyway.
Overall, "Bolt" is a good cartoon, somewhere around an 8/10. But there's still a bitter aftertaste left by the ability of Hollywood writers to use the exact same tropes for the millionth time, and to wring a tear out of the audience even with such a simpleminded plot. For me, though, emotions in a movie theater are always somehow stronger than at home. I guess that immersion factor plays a role, and thankfully there weren't many of us in the auditorium. And nobody was crunching on popcorn, at least I didn't hear any. To be fair, I almost never watch arthouse, so it's silly of me to criticize mainstream cinema.
After Bolt, we finally made it to Il Patio, which rk13 pronounces as "Il Paccio" — and I think there's a reason for that. Funnily enough, the restaurant is located right across from the dumpling spot - in a medieval-style basement. Because of this, it's a bit stuffy down there, which for certain reasons wasn't very pleasant for certain ones of us. (Look at how politically correctly and circuitously I put that).
This is the future PhD rk13 and his wife Katerina
On Yezhi's recommendation, I ordered a seafood cream soup. And also some pasta to go with it (I don't remember which kind anymore) and a tea with grenadine. "Tea" (or rather, Magic Tea) at this establishment is a fancy contraption with fruit and a special extra-long spoon. Along the way, I found out what grenadine is — it's a sweet syrup made of crude oil. Back in the day they used to make it out of pomegranates, but nowadays they make everything out of crude oil with food coloring, artificial flavoring, and artificial sweeteners. (The spellchecker doesn't know these words — wow, how optimistic of it). In any case, the tea is sour on top and sweet on the bottom — very tasty.
This is Vasya, quite the character
Vasya was also eating something with seafood. In general, he acted very flashily (a stupid word) for the situation he is in, but I, as always carefully guarding other people's privacy, won't tell you anything. One thing is clear — it was obviously the sixth sign of the apocalypse.
rk13 ate pizza, I don't remember about the rest. Overall, in Paccio, as always, the food is top-notch, and you can really feel the class — we don't have this back home, even though the prices are similar. For instance, the waitress said "prègo" to us (if I'm not mixing it up), which means "you're welcome" in Italian. Then she very opportunely offered to bring some bread, which wasn't like bread at all, but rather like a pizza with no toppings, just oil and herbs. It pleased me bardzo, even more than the soup and pasta. Next time I'll definitely get some other bread too, just to try it. Oh, and the waitress grated some parmesan onto my pasta for me — the others somehow declined out of surprise.
In the next part, there will be stuff about feeding ducks and other critters, the "Čili Pizza" food joint, and the ongoing apocalypse in the form of two new omens. But it will all end with the victory of the forces of good, at least a temporary one.