There's a homeless man who is always reading in Melrose Starbucks. He's definitely one of the fixtures of the location, along with the shoestore owner from next door who's always coming in for refills; Преподаватель, the sad-looking grad student who's always grading papers and looking around; and Ilya, the Russian-speaking boy who never seems to make any progress in his book. You can sit next to him for ages and he'll barely turn a page. I was there at Melrose Starbucks doing some homework before class today and asked The Homeless Man to watch my things (laptop, purse, and the rest of my worldly belongings) while I went to the restroom. When I came back, he asked me why I'd purchased the particular Russian-English dictionary that I had on my table, and then proceeded to talk about different dictionary brands and their strengths and weaknesses for learning foreign languages. He told me he used to be a professor of German language and over the course of the next hour told me in great detail about the migration of the Germanic and Turkic tribes throughout Europe, modern day Icelandic in comparison to Old Norse, the two existing forms of Norwegian, and more. He was very kindly and had a full, long and unrestricted laugh and every time he let it out I would start to wonder if he was actually crazy, but then he would settle back in to his steady stream of effusive knowledge and he was completely normal. He compared the world of academia to life as a "street person," and I very badly wanted to ask why exactly he was a street person but it wouldn't have been proper. When I left he thanked me for indulging his rambling, saying that he doesn't get to talk to people very often.
Today, Nelly (a different Nelly from the one mentioned a few times before - this Nelly is younger, from Armenia, half Armenian and half Russian) brought a big tray of медовый торт, honey cake, from the Armenian bakery for everyone in the class. I asked her what the occasion was and she said it was because our teacher had mentioned that she'd never tried медовый торт, and that it was totally unheard of for someone from the Soviet Union to have never had any.
