Petersburgian Case File #16: Rhetorically Inquisitive

Went to dinner a few nights ago in this pretty nice place. As with many a places there is, theoretically, indoor and outdoor seating though considering the climate of Petersburg I have to imagine the outdoor seating is closed 11 to 11 1/2 months of the year.

That's actually how the outdoor dining patio looks in late September.

Still I suppose at this time of year the outdoor dining option still theoretically exists and so when we got there the hostess asked us "Inside or Outside?" and being the adventurous souls that we are said "Outside" to which the hostess reacted with what was either incredibly strong shock or a small, in that case probably unrelated, aneurism. But, well, the customer is always right so she led us outside to a lovely view of our surroundings, a space heater plus blankets at our table to keep us warm, and a generally more tranquil environment compared to the hustle and bustle of the inside of the restaurant and I have to say, hostess be damned, it was actually absolutely lovely.

Oh don't judge me Tim!
I love that his face is one of the first things to pop up on a Google image search for incredulous.

At least for the first 10-15 minutes before the realization of this is the evening in late September in St. Petersburg which means it is freaking cold, coupled with the fact that dinner is not a 5-10 minute ordeal. But we were brave, we were adventurous - what is a semester in Russia, after all, without suffering? How could we ever hope to reach the heights of our great Russian models our Pushkin's, our Dostoevsky's, our more contemporary batshit Nabokov's without some suffering. And so we pondered. And so we sat.

"Am I smart enough to write Lolita now?" his eyes said with forlorn.

At least for another 10-15 minutes before saying fuck it lets go inside. Okay, truth be told I was the one who said fuck it let's go inside but when you combine that with the knowledge that I was the one who also first decided yeah let's sit outside the whole of this story becomes a good bit more embarrassing for me than when I just ascribe decisions and actions to some quantity of "we". And so we were relocated into the wonderful, pristine comfort of four walls and a roof and as we were sitting down we caught a glimpse of the hostess laughing in the background. That is definitely one point for her.