Day 6 - Second Verse, Same as the First

Today was basically a repeat of yesterday, plus children, me leading a seminar about dating, and me forgetting my camera.

Woke up around 7a, talked to Manda and my parents for a bit (morning for me is evening in California) before meeting at the church.  We went to a day care around the block from the church and played a few songs for them before getting into crafts and games.  Mike, Drew and I found a puzzle and started working on it with some of the kids; soon after, one of the kids brought out checkers and chess, and that was the end of their interest in puzzles.  But you know that once you start a puzzle, you have to finish it, Mike, Anna and I polished it off while Drew got beat by some Russian Bobby Fisher.  After that, I got schooled by an eight year old at Russian checkers because I kept forgetting that in Russian checkers, you can jump backwards, and kings are basically chess bishops.  During my checkers match, one of Drew's chess beatings was occurring, and my opponent said something to his and they both started laughing; I swear he asked him "Are you beating yours?  'Cause I'm beating mine!"  

Anyways, they seemed to enjoy our company, and they had prepared small gifts for us, which were nice.  Apparently Slava told them that we were American musicians "like you see on TV," so they wanted our autographs afterwards; that part was awkward.

Then lunch, then practice with our band to finalize the set list for tomorrow night, then practice with Viktor (who still doesn't speak English, thanks for asking), then practice with the Russian band, then my seminar about dating, which went well, followed by more practice with the Russian band.  I think we played only about five hours today, which is less than yesterday, but still a lot.

Afterwards we walked on the embankment for a bit and met an ex-Soviet Special Forces guy named Sergei.  He heard us talking and asked us if we were American (we had Masha there to translate) and after some pleasantries, he asked me what I thought about the US being in Iraq.  Whoa!  I had to tread lightly, because I didn't know where we were going.  He said that he fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s and that Iraq is like their Afghanistan; apparently we will realize that it's impossible and we'll give up.  I told him about my friend Jessie who's been to Iraq two times and my grandpa who went to Korea, and then I was like "Oh wait!  They were on their side in Korea!"  Luckily, he didn't punch me, so it worked out.  We invited him to the show tomorrow night and he said he was going to come.

Tomorrow we're staring out with a team meeting followed by more, but not as much, practicing, then the show at Club Wheel, in which I play with every band.  It should be pretty awesome; tiring, but awesome.