Moscow 4.13 Part 2

I went to the famous Cafe Pushkin in the center of Moscow.  I didn't have the heart to tell my colleagues I'd been there before in 2007 - the first time I went to Moscow.  I guess its where all locals take their out of town guests.  For the first visit I remember having caviar and the team telling us fish were becoming extinct and caviar would soon be prohibited.  They were right!  No caviar on the menu.  Instead I had borscht and a famous fish, "sterlet".  It was delicious.  We had an appetizer of wild mushrooms which were so velvetty and flavorful, I wish I could have them every day.  My co-worker said she actually farms them in the forest outside the city.  Yum!

I noticed a couple of beauty parlors and told my colleagues many of the women who do facials and beauty in NY are Russian.  A friend said women are ultra competitive in Russia.  Many successful men have a mistress, several girlfriends, and other women on the side.  That's why Russian women dress very sexy, sheer clothes, lingerie sticking out, very obvious.  Asked another woman about that and she said its not true. Perhaps I was hanging out with the wrong crowd.

A co-worker was obviously having menopausal symptoms and she smelled.  Reminded me of the "big meeting day" times when I knew I was sweating, with hot flashes.  Sympathy for her, pretend its not happening   She carried a small package of wipes everywhere -- to wipe our hands before we ate, to wipe a table at Starbucks, then at lunch at a nice restaurant she just took the wipes and wiped her under-arms.  Ok.  Good use of wipes.  Never saw anything like that before.