Love and Politics

Life as an expat has treated us pretty well. We step out of our comfort zone almost on a daily basis, but with it comes come great perks. For me, I see it mostly in the people that we meet. I'm not a huge fan of meeting people, but here it's the number one key to survival. Whether its learning where to go for your most cherished groceries, where the best burger in town in, how to maneuver on public transportation, google tries but it always comes in second to personal accounts and story-swapping. So, I've kind of seen it as my job to make those connections and get out to meet people. And although I'm pretty content with just the basics, like where the heck is the cheddar cheese is this city, we have been blown away by the cool things we've been hooked up with through casual conversations and connections. This year's election night was one of those things.

We received an invitation to the Spaso House, our ambassador's home here in Moscow for election coverage/cocktail hour. How busy and important does that make us look, right? So we were pretty stoked to go, if anything so that we could say that we were entertained at the Ambassador's home. And because we still pay US taxes and yet we can't shop at the embassy commissary, which has Pillsbury cookie dough and other items we're dying for. The least our tax dollars can give us is a night of free food and booze.

We arrive, flash our passports to the marines on guard for impostors to the VIP party and we waltz in. It didn't take very long to realize that we were horrifyingly underdressed for the occasion. Nowhere on the invitation was "business casual" mentioned, but maybe we got a different invite than everyone else. Or maybe thats just common knowledge to show up to the Ambassador's home looking nice. In hindsite, I think its probably the latter.

There was no other choice then to go in, avoid contact and start drinking our taxpayer wine, which, to be honest is the way I like to see our dollars at work. I dove right into piling my plate with food, too, because Hubs has way more pride than I do and I knew he would want to leave soon. No sir, not till I have my fill.

By glass number three of vino, we were feeling better. It helped that we were seeing more people who were also casually dressed. Albeit, they were the hippie photographers, but we'll take it. If we ran into any of our well dressed friends in town, we had a plan to immediately comment on the media dress code, or lack thereof. "Pffffftt… take a bath hippie, am I right? Another glass of red, please?"

Luckily, we didn't see anyone we knew until the very end, after I felt I had properly gotten the most out of my tax dollars for one night (which happens to equal three plates of food and six glasses of wine…). By then, the hippie photographers were gone, so we had no one to turn our nose up to. But by then, lets be honest, we had the upper hand as the most comfortable couple in the place. Boom.

When we left, we walked past all the drivers and their heavily tinted windows, waiting for the way more important people inside. We walked past the expensive apartments, the fancy restaurants. Past the pubs and drunks stumbling outside and into our little metro stop. We laughed the entire way home at the situations we find ourselves in, and how significantly unprepared we usually are. I mean really, who wears jeggings to an Embassy sponsored event at their ambassador's home?

We do. And we do it fantastically.

And eventually, we find ourselves not alone and so comfortable. And with a great story. We got to watch the polls close with a plate of gourmet food and wine, with a pretty cool international backdrop and lots of secret glances and giggles.

Cheers to those glances and giggles that take the story from mortifying to memorable in no time at all.