Tuesday Is for Learning

Yesterday we bought OJ, staving off any further vitamin C crises outside of the head colds that we have both manifested. This is what comes of my orange juice denial on Saturday...

We managed to learn several "new" things yesterday, too.

1. First of all, we had totally blanked on the fact that there is a Mexican Food restaurant (!) here in Kharkov, La Cucaracha. So, we rambled over there for lunch. It was a strange experience. We showed up at about 12:30 and were the only people in the place save a woman who was cleaning and a guy behind the bar, both of whom steadfastly ignored us until we persisted in poking our nose around each corner and began opening doors. The cleaning woman explained that the waiter had stepped out for a moment, but would be back and we could just seat ourselves wherever. The food was suprisingly okay. We ordered tacos, which came in threes, were made with chicken, and contained dill, but were otherwise surprisingly good. Thus, we have declared it a "keeper" and will return and try, say, the fajitas... 
2. Stores have started closing up shop. Well, I don't know how surprising this is or not. I guess I am surprised at the volatility in the market place. Jason needs a pair of shorts to work out in (long story), and we thought- we'll just run into that Adidas store around the corner. Guess what? gone. Boxed up. They were taking down the sign, when we walked past on Monday. The Puma store on the main drag? also gone. What about that place that sells L'Occitane products? gone. I told Jason that I wasn't sure exactly what was going on, but apparently they didn't survive the holidays or recup any losses during the after Christmas sales...and then there is the whole threat of currency devaluation looming on the horizon, which made me wonder if some western brands are pulling out ahead of a monetary crisis. 
3. We had some time between La Cucaracha and our language lesson, so we popped into an "Apt'eka" to find out if this could possibly where one buys contact solution and efferdent. Score! They had both. They even had Jason's preferred Opti Free brand of contact solution (though the packaging was in Russian, including the Opti Free name itself). When we explained about the efferent, which included a gesture to my teeth and the phrase, "if you don't have real teeth and need to clean them", which did indeed cause some analysis of our smiles by all present, they brought us to an open box. I asked for a whole box, but they didn't have one. Apparently they usually sell each tablet separately (sigh). I bought what was left. 
4. We've come to the conclusion that the reason we keep finding clumps of undissolved laundry detergent in our washer is... it must require liquid detergent. Yepper. That one took us a little while to decipher.