Carol Bontekoe

This blog has been keeping track of my adventures since 2004. The stories and the adventures have come from my college dorm room to Uganda, Peace Corps Kyrgyzstan, learning Dutch in the Netherlands to living in the wilds of Homer, Alaska. I went back to school in Amsterdam to study Theaterwetenschap (Theatre Science) at University of Amsterdam. And now my adventures as a Fruit Fly, a Sexy Unicorn, and creating a movement with Team Sparkle in Chicago.

Monday, September 4, 2006

where is the weirdest place you have taken a shot of vodka?

Looking out over the snow capped mountains, holding a tomato in one hand and a vodka shot in the other I thought is this really what my life has come to? Oh, did I mention I was standing in a Russian Orthodox Cementary?We went on our permnant site visits this past week, and my first day I met a German Girl who was guesting at our house. Because my language skills aren't the best I was in the middle of cooking and then abruptly put into a car. I'm sure someone said we were getting in the car and going to the cemetary. The German girl was visiting because her sister had recently passed away and she wanted to see where she was buried.The cememtary is full of little tables, and I'm assuming it is a Russian thing to take shots in a cemetary. They pulled out a brand new bottle of vodka, tomatoes, and bread. See Russians don't do the Coca-Cola and juice chasers. It is normally some kind of vegtable, that day it was a tomato. Peace Corps trains us in all different types of situations where you will be forced to drink, the cemetary was never one of them. I couldn't turn it down being afraid that it would dishonor the dead. They first poured out the first shot poured it over her grave. Then we all took one, said a little prayer and took the shot. I have never been a shot taker myself so I didn't know if making a face would be bad so when I took it I popped my tomato into my mouth as fast as I could looked out over the sun setting behind the mountains and said another prayer.

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