I opened the door…

And influenza. (Get it? “In-flew-Enza”).
This past week was flooded with disease. It was such a significant occurrence that I am going to devote an entire blog to it because you cannot imagine the inconvenience and turmoil being sick abroad can cause. As I have mentioned before, the cold is biting, howling, yelling, asking, telling, barking, etc. so my fellow Americans and I spend a lot of time together inside. This type of cohabitation is bound to draw up disease. Like a ticking bomb, it’s only a matter of time.
I was stuck first. (At least I think I was, it’s a toss up between Nadia and I). I had a brutal case of the sniffles, which was followed by a fever, and then the chills and then sweating and then a headache and then a migraine and then a whole bunch of orange juice and hibernation. It left me feeling extremely dejected because not only was I in pain, but my friends went out to a Georgian restaurant without me! (Only kidding, I was happy to stay in bed... it just invokes more sympathy to say they left me haha). I haven’t felt that ill in such a long time. Also, it didn’t help that the heat in my room is slightly defective causing an ice-box type effect. It was just lovely.
As a result of all of my woes, I was in such a state of sorrow. For this type of misery there is only one cure (besides self-pity)… MOULIN ROUGE. There’s something about Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor and those catchy song and dance numbers that makes me really happy. Don’t judge me. But basically, I laid in bed all week and watched movies online (such an active lifestyle).
After a solid 3 days, my fever finally broke. I was left with intense, but manageable, nasal congestion and a wicked cough (wicked as in malevolent, not Boston/British slang). So it wasn’t clearly determined what illness overcame my poor body this past week, but I can say that it was a filthy one. It was a dirty, rotten scoundrel but I am lucky to say I prevailed! Good always triumphs over evil.
Well, this has been a sufficiently cheerful blog. I do believe that this predicament is worthy of documentation though because it’s most definitely part of the Russian experience. It’s cold and damp in Moscow, if you don’t get sick you’re a freak of nature. I’m sure this has been a positively stimulating piece of literature. I’ll add better blogs soon!