Russki yizik?
I was at the pharmacy last week waiting to talk to the pharmacist about pain killers. I was in the 'consultation area' next to the waiting area. There was an old woman sitting down, I presumed that she was waiting for a prescription. I heard her say something, but assumed that she was talking to someone else. After a minute or so, I felt a tug on my jacket. I turned around and the woman asked me in Russian "Do you speak Russian?". I answered, in Russian "No, I don't speak Russian. My Grandmother is Russian". These are two of the maybe five sentences that have managed to stay in my brain, leftover from a semester of Russian I took in CEGEP, over 10 years ago. Goes to show you that anything that you learn is never wasted, it just sometimes takes a while for it to be used. The woman looked a bit surprised, but I shrugged and looked apologetic and she smiled. As I was leaving, she was getting up to talk to the pharmacist and I wondered whether she had been sitting there all day waiting for someone who speaks Russian to come into the pharmacy. I felt bad that I couldn't help her, perhaps I should have stuck it out for another semester.