“I was in Moscow, wandering around a park when yet another babushka asks me for a smoke. I give her one. She, again, points out my accent. I, again, tell her where I’m from.
She pulls out kvass and we sit down and drink it. We talk about the fall of the Soviet Union for a bit, and there’s a pause while she helps herself to another one of my cigarettes.
“So, is it as good as they say it is?” she asks.
“What?” I ask.
“America,” she asks, with a tip of her lip.
I chuckle. “The streets are paved with gold and there’s no such thing as debt,” I tell her.
She clucks and sits back, lighting her cigarette. “So it’s a shithole just like it is here, then,” she says, and hands the lighter over to me as I hum in agreement.
So, there’s that.”
coriander in pho 
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