Myself and Teddy In Russia

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It was in the beginning of November when my childhood friend informed me of the trip he is to embark on to Russia. A company lottery it was or an honorary I should say to the most promising worker in the company. An all expense paid trip to the country in ninety days, and he was supposed to go with a partner; Teddy being the 'chief bachelor' as I always mock him even though I am not married myself, told me he wants to go to Russia with me. To cut long story short, we were given a three week ultimatum to prepare ourselves medically as everything right from accommodation to minimal shopping was going to be taken cared of. On the D-day, you know guys; even though we were encouraged not to take any food items along we still were able to manage and stuffed some balls of kenkey and canned sardines our favourites in our bags together with a jar of 'shito' just in case of emergency.
Unfortunately on our part, we were not able to send the 'shito' along as it was taken from the airport. Just in case you are wondering, a SHITO is a kind of stew but prepared usually with only pepper and ginger to go with Kenkey. About 13 hours flight time from Ghana, we finally landed in Moscow. After all the medical examinations and preparations I could still feel my balls freezing as a result of the weather, I must be frank, the only thing that comes to my mind in the mention of Russia is an extreme cold climate and a language spoken backwards; no offends though. We arrived just about sunset and after checking in in our hotel, we didn't even took a bath or at least rest for a while and then brought out the Kenkey we stuffed in our bags. Just in no time, we finished our respective two balls of Kenkey but was still feeling uneasy in the bellies so we prepared and set off to the hotel's bar with our supper coupons.
In the bar was well arranged double seaters set for two people with the curtains hanging on all the doors and windows matching that which is used to cover every table in the the bar. The floor of the bar was also of designed tiles similar to that of the designs printed on the curtains, napkins, as well as the table cloths. With the ceiling in the shape of a dome looking as though it was crafted with gold, shining and illuminating the designed yellow bulbs hanging from it. Before I could take out my phone for Teddy to take a picture of me in the beautiful bar, one of the waitress showed up with a menu. At first the menu was written in Russian and like I said before, my view of the Russian language as a backward language I turned the menu upside down in an attempt to read what was on it. The waitress noticing we knew nothing in the Russian language smiles and politely requested for the menu and then told us now in English to wait in a bit. She came back in a few minutes with a menu now written in English, I looked through and the first word I admired on it was Pelmeni which I quickly informed her that I will like to take that. Pelmeni is a pastry dumplings, filled with minced meat and wrapped in a thin pasta-like dough Russian cuisine that can at times be eaten alone or with a sour cream or in soup broth. She then turned to Teddy who didn't even bother to look through and just pointed Holodets- a meat jelly cuisine eaten cold out of the refrigerator and spread with mustard.
The night was already very cold to us on our first night in Moscow, and trust me; I can never forget the reaction of Teddy when his order was placed in front of him. " An ice cream in this cold night!" He said. It took the waitress about three minutes to convince him that it was not an ice cream, and finally he just opted for Shashlyk, a Russian kebab made of cubed meat and vegetables grilled in skewers plus a cup of water; after rejecting Solenia and Forschmak. After the meal, we went back to our room to rest for the night. The next morning, I came out of our hotel room very early for a walk, I could hear the sound of the snow breeze and for the first time have a feel of the snow on my body. It was very cold and in just about five minutes walk around I was beginning to shiver wanting so badly to return to our hotel room and even increased the room heater. Tyres to cars that was parked overnight were burried in snow, so stuck that the owners will have to shovel them out- I thought. Majority of the trees had a few leaves which were now white and stiff; just standing still as though they were dead. Just when I was about returning to the hotel, I heard a loud continuous banging on a door of a nearby apartment.
The fellow as he said had forgot to turn on the heater in the house the previous night allowing the snow to lock him and his family in their own house. I turned around and saw Teddy whom I didn't notice was following me and we then head to the streer side to some officers whom I think were road officers in charge of the street during these season and directed them to the apartment were the snow had blocked their passage out.
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