While Waiting....

As I sit here whiling away another New England winter, I'm also waiting the arrival of some legal paperwork that I need to sign before I can put a deposit on my trip. So while it's not signed, sealed and delivered just yet, I'm close. But man, I just want to get that deposit down so I know I have it officially in the works. Meanwhile, I downloaded some "Learn Russian" podcasts from iTunes. I've been listening pretty regularly and I think I'm picking things up. Of course I can say what's in the podcasts, but if someone replies to me, I'm screwed. But there's still time to remedy that. And anyway, a certain Irishman I know said he survived in Russia knowing only "yes", "no" and "goodbye". Sweet. I have those nailed. So far I know (with pronounciations): Hello - Zdrastvooyte Goodbye - Da sveedaneeya Please - Spaseeba My name is - Meenya zavoot Sorry - eezveeneete Please / you're welcome - pazhalooysta I don't understand - Ya nee paneemayoo I speak a little Russian - Ya nemnogo govorju po-russki Good luck! - Udachi! Good morning - Dobroe utro Good day - Dobryy den Good evening - Dobryy vecher Yeah, so you can see it's a little slow going. My problem, aside from not being able to see/read this since I haven't yet learned the Cyrillic alphabet, is that these words are a mouthful. I mean, really, I speak Spanish, Italian and French, and even a little German without a problem. But with Russian I feel myself stumbling all over the words. Hopefully I just need more practice. We'll see...