Just got back from belly-dancing lessons at Mango's. I was the only one there besides the instructor, Кристина, a very kind, patient, cute, plumpish woman a few years older than me. She was great and it was really fun. I'm way too skinny to look anything but awkward doing it but oh well.

I stopped at the market on the way back to pick up some fruits and veggies, and I definitely got propositioned by Salim the Fruit and Nut Man ("You are beautiful, I want to be your boyfriend, do you like sex?"). Um, there's someone else. A hundred grams of cashews please. He's cool though, really. He's from one of the K-stans, I forget which, and he learned English at university in Egypt. Not sure how he ended up here. He helps me out with Russian and gives me free dried pineapple sometimes...about a week ago I bought some raisins from him, made raisin bars, brought him a few, and a few days later he invited himself over to learn how to make them. I was evasive and held out the naive hope that maybe he just wanted to be friends, but I guess not. Kind of frustrating.