One fine Saturday a couple weeks ago, a new friend (who has already left Bishkek) invited Farrell and I to go to the mountains. We learned two very important lessons that day:
1) Zil, the place he said we were going, is a ski resort.
2) In Russian, to “go to the mountains” implies skiing, even if the word “ski” is never ever mentioned in the conversation, neither the night before, nor during the entire car ride.
We packed up Win for what we thought would be a day of light hiking in some random and picturesque piece of nature, settling down for a winter picnic, and returning to Bishkek. Instead we drove two hours outside of town and sat outside at a cafe while our new friend skied, not acknowledging the massive misunderstanding in what we thought the day’s plans would be.
We eventually abandoned the cafe (lesson #3: Zil has the absolute worst cafe ever. Ever! Farrell found a metal screw in his shwarma) and sat in our new friend’s car until he returned a few hours later.
We accidentally roped Miles into this mess, what a trooper to put up with all of it.
Moral of the story: always clarify what the plan is when someone wants to drive you two hours out of the city.
Miles certainly did not appear to be dressed for the trip.