One evening, while walking around with no money to spend, we headed to the subway station to go home and sleep. As we approached 59th St. (I remember it like it was yesterday), we saw three young, cute girls ahead of us speaking Russian. We exchanged glances—it was clear—and slowly caught up to them, listening to their conversation. We walked alongside them, smiled at them without saying a word... :) They started discussing us right there in Russian (obviously assuming we were Americans). At a red light where we stopped, they caught up to us, and I said, "Hi"... "Oh, so you're Russian :)". After a bit of talk, we had to go to the Apple Store and they were heading to the park, so we said goodbye and left. I was standing there checking my mailbox when I felt a tap on my back. I turned around, and she said:

• We were thinking... maybe you'd like to hang out with us?
• Uh, well... We still had some things to do... (Aleshka walks up, wondering what's going on)
• We were thinking about hanging out with you guys??? (I'm waving my hands behind her back, signaling "what hang out, we don't have a penny")
• Of course we'll hang out with you.
  ...We go for a walk (night NYC is especially beautiful).

We're walking, chatting, the other two girls are insistently trying to get to a disco, as agreed with some other people. It's decided: Anya stays with us, and you guys head to the disco; we'll walk around and come later, everyone has phones—we'll stay in touch. We head down Manhattan, buying plenty of wine on the way, go to Washington Square Park, drink wine, chat, and compete to win over the Lady, my friend and I taking turns :)) I think I'm starting to win this unspoken, internal war, and Alesha realizes it too. Meanwhile, we finish the wine and head out to walk some more... Lower Manhattan is another world, unlike anything else, especially in the early night—words can't describe it... We walk toward the club where the ladies went; all sorts of dressed-up people are walking around, along with minorities and punks... The mood is great, plus the wings of love are growing... What happened next was a miracle; things like that only happen there. "We need a drink," we all thought. Alesha silently walks up to a trash can and pulls out—ATTENTION!!!—a half-full bottle of vodka. We almost fell over, him included. We continue... We get drunk on this vodka straight from the bottle, right in the middle of this "crazy-fun" crowd. "I need to surprise them too," I thought. About 15 meters later, we pass a flower shop at an intersection. Another 15 meters later, I silently slip back, quietly grab the biggest bouquet of roses—a huge stack that isn't even wrapped because there are so many and they are so beautiful—and take off. That's it, Anya, you're mine now!!! (I hope that doesn't sound cynical). Then the disco (the ladies who were waiting for us managed to get us in for free), that incident with the bike I already told you about... No, nothing, not even kisses happened then; everything ended after the disco... We didn't see or call each other again... After a week of pining, while walking in the same place where we met them, it was decided to meet again. We called, were invited over... We made our way to Trenton (I don't remember the name exactly), a small town in NJ, somehow, wandering for a long time, but finally arrived. And there (the thing is, all the girls worked at a restaurant, and just the day before, there had been a wine tasting at the restaurant, and where do you think the unfinished, unopened bottles went...) the table was just overflowing. I had never seen so much wine—and almost all of it was corked... I'm not enough of a connoisseur to list what was there, I was just told the wine was $100-200 a bottle, that was enough!! But that wasn't the thrill; I saw her again. Ah, love... Then Alesha and I got wasted like fools, walked around yelling at half the city, and behaved very badly...

Later, she started coming to see us more often; those were the happiest days of the summer. We were friends, walked around, chatted, rode the ferry... Princess, I still remember that time with a pleasant sadness :)