Who let the American loose in Moscow???

So, my wife informed me late last week that she would have an overnight 'business trip' on June 17th. At the time I thought, 'no big deal, I'm good'. OK, so maybe I was a bit over-confident in my Russian language skills. I decided to walk past a few restaurants that Olga and I had been looking at in hopes that I could break away from the Italian cuisine that we have been living on. I appeared to be a bit under-dressed for the most promising (and closest) place, as most people looked to be wearing Russian, business casual attire (I'll explain Russian 'style'in a different posting, as that will require pictures for full appreciation) and I was prominently sporting the classic American look of jeans and a t-shirt. With that place crossed off the list I headed further down a recently discovered street only to find that I was under dressed for many of the places.

Forty minutes later I arrived at a 'Pub'. I passed through the doors with confidence only to be met with a number of people standing around apparently waiting to be seated. Not to be deterred, I walked up to the man standing at the entrance and then fully realized that I had no friggin' clue what to say to him after I said 'hello'in Russian. While I am capable of reading a menu (with a bit of assistance) and placing my order, I have always relied on Olga to get us a table. At this point all of my Russian ran from my head and I stood there trying to ask for a table in English. Needless to say, the guy was not impressed and the severe look on his face showed it. After a few minutes of him speaking harshly to me in Russian and me responding with 'I don't understand' I decided that we had both had enough and I left. Only after I had left did I understand one of the phrases to be 'we have no room'. Nice.

I then promptly went back to an old stand-by, Italian joint and order my calzone and beer. While this was not one of my finer moments, it has provided topics for lessons from Olga!