Our Saturday trip out of town was cancelled due to rains in the mountains that prevent hiking, so our students have a free weekend, which means I do as well. That meant I could go to the Orto-Sai bazaar, a major fruit and vegetable market surrounded by booths that sell a thousand other things. I successfully found towels and an extension cord that were my major shopping goals. In the middle of this third-world looking place was a hole-in-the-wall pastry place that had pastries as beautiful as any I've seen anywhere. I bought a chocolate thing that was pretty damn tasty.

A quick stop home had me dropping off my purchases, and thence it was time to go to the bank. On the way I bumped into Sam and William again. William, sad to say, is probably going to depart early. He had a bad experience with a homestay where the family was rather anti-American and even had the temerity to once feed him food that the family itself refused to eat. He moved out into an apartment three days ago. The first he was chomped on by клопыт bed begs. The landlord fumigated with a vinegar preparation, as if that would get rid of those determined critters. William stayed away for 24 hours so the fumigation could be completed. Last night he slept on the couch. More bedbug bites. Pretty serious bites, let me tell you. It bugs him enough that he will probably head home Monday.

Sam and William also gave some additional comments about the various teachers, specifically that the Kyrgyz teachers didn't correct their errors as much as the native Russians, and also that some of the teachers didn't even present endings correctly in table format, which is pretty essential for foreigners for the grammatical side of things. I start my class observations on Monday, so I'll keep my eyes open for that. My experience is that lower-level students don't always correctly evaluate their instructors, so I'm taking their words with a grain of salt. They also said that of all the school's teachers, Dasha was acknowledged as by far the best. My experience is that sometimes lower-level students highly rank teachers that don't push them too hard. Alas, Dasha is not on our teacher list, so I can't watch for that.

On the way home I stopped a my favorite cafe. I asked the waiter about some things I saw sold on the street whose name I couldn't remember, which turned out to be kurút курут, salty cheese balls that have been dehydrated. I've tried them before, didn't want to eat them again, but I did want to know the word. My waiter insisted I try some since they had just received a fresh delivery. I tried to say no. No success. He brought five marble-sized samples. Wow. To my surprise, these are a lot better than the nasty things I had tried once in Kathleen's office. The taste, frankly, was almost identical to nacho cheese Doritos. I'm not a beer fan, but I can see people consuming them with beer.