movie and fiasco

Today a large (~8) group of us went to the movies to see The Hangover, a dumb American movie. It was dubbed in Russian which made it much funnier. I understood very few complete sentences, but maybe one word of every six, which pleased me. I'm feeling a bit better about the whole language thing. So far, there have been days during which everything I've ever learned seems to flow freely out my ears and nostrils, and then others, like today, during which my brain is much more absorbent. I hear the Verbs of Motion constantly and I think they are finally starting to sink in.

Tomorrow we have our first medium-sized test. I think it will be fine, but never having had a medium-sized test here, there's no way to know for sure. So I'll study a bit more before sleep.

Before the movie I decided to buy some жетоны metro tokens so I would have a small collection to use for the next few days. I walked up to the desk, handed the lady 50 рублей rubles, and asked for три жетона three tokens. The lady looked at me expectantly and I stared back. She waved 10 рублей rubles at me and I shook my head. У меня нет мелось! I don't have change!

I should mention that in Russia, everyone (myself included) competes to hoard small change. Large bills can be a problem in the US, but in Russia, they are fairly useless save for touristy places or nicer restaurants. So I figured the problem was that she wanted me to pay in tens so she wouldn't have to make change. I really didn't want to do this because I was hoarding my tens, and it didn't seem unreasonable for her to give me the 20 рублей rubles one way or another. After all, her job is to stand there taking people's tens all day. So I put on my stubborn face.

Then she started waving 50 рублей at me! This seemed very strange to me. How would it be helpful for me to give her another 50 рублей? I concluded that the token-giving lady must be crazy. Or crooked. Having had enough nonsense for one conversation, I said, Дайте мне мои деньги, пожалуйста! Give me my money, please! Exasperated, she slid my money under the window. I snatched it away and scurried off, без жетонов tokenless.

On my way to meet Ariel, I remembered that tokens are 20 рублей each, not 10. This is why the token-giving lady wanted 10 рублей, because I had only given her 50. I could only laugh at the sheer absurdity of the situation I created and be thankful that there wasn't a long line forming behind me. And that she didn't call the police.

Call it culture shock, call it something I might have done in America. Perhaps I should celebrate the fact that I was able to complete a perfectly nonfunctional exchange with no real language difficulty! Oy.