experiencing american culture

On Sunday Erika, Paige and I went to the Izmaylova market, a crazy market on the outskirts of town where you can buy any imaginable Russian souvenir- matryoshka, scarves, chess sets, palekh boxes, soviet lighters, tea pots, anything really. You also have to haggle or you're going to get ripped off. I'm pretty bad at haggling but Erika was fantastic at it so we let her do most of it, but Paige and I did venture to do a little bit on or own. As we were leaving this guy selling fur hats was yelling in english "girls! 5 dollar hats over here!" I was like, alright, 5 dollars, I'll take a look. Then he plopped a hat on my head, put an arm on my shoulder and said I looked great, then called Erika and Paige over to confer. I bought the hat and he kissed/licked my cheek and said we should all go out for tea. We declined and ran the hell out of there. I think I got pretty good deals on everything, I only spent about 70 bucks or so.
Then yesterday, Marina and I were talking about the elections. She thinks McCain is going to win, I said Obama is def. going to win. Then she said we should make a bet, except I'm not really sure what for. She said the loser has to buy pastries, or pay money. I guess I'll see soon enough. This conversation was also helped along by the fact that we were drinking a bottle of champagne, which I had bought for the Halloween party which was cancelled. She said McCain is going to win because America is white and only want a white president. I said Russians didn't like Obama because he is black, and she agreed. Then I pointed out the fact that Pushkin, the most famous Russian poet, had a black grandfather from Africa. She flipped out and said Pushkin's grandfather WAS from Africa, but he wasn't black, he was "arab." She refused to consider that he was black, it was crazy. Then somehow, while talking about race relations in America, she said her favorite american movie is about race relations, with Kevin Costner, called "The Bodyguard." I had actually never seen this movie, so she pulled it out and made me watch it. Kevin Costner, Whitney Houston, you know. After I watched it, she asked if I had truly never seen it before, and I said no. She was completely incredulous, then said "I'm going to teach you a few things about American Culture." Oh Marina.
anyways, here's a video of tequilajazzz, the band I saw the other night:

and here's an even better video about russian vampires: