Shashliking.

Spring is finally here and this weekend the locals and myself took full advantage of the warm weather. OK, sure, 10 degrees is still bloody cold for all you Queenslanders, however, now that I am slowly acclimatising, 10 degrees felt absolutely perfect. Yesterday Nastya and I headed to Naberezhnaya. Forget Cavil Ave, Hastings St and James St, Naberezhnaya is where it's at! An endless parade of Vlad's finest, all checking each other out, as they walk the boardwalk. It really is quite the spectacle and beats Perver's Paradise (Surfers) hands down. Winter has only just finished and the girls here are chomping at the bit, to strut their stuff, in the most revealing outfit. Yesterday would have been 5 degrees, if that, and I saw more mini skirts on the boardwalk than you would at Cavil over a week. The Naberezhnaya experience involves donning your Sunday best, picking up a couple of roadies (stubbies) and then start to strut. Oh I nearly forgot, you can't go without purchasing the obligatory shaurma, or Russian kebab. We waited over half an hour for ours, but boy was it worth it.

The weather stayed pleasant through into today and so a group of us from EF headed to Sanatornaya for Shashliking. Now the great Aussie BBQ is dam hard to beat, however the Russian Sharshlik experience is on a par if not, dare I even think it, one higher. Unfortunately, back home with the fire restrictions you can't just rock up to the BBQ area and get a serious bon fire cranking. The sterile electronic BBQ hotplates found all over the place in Brisbane are safe and environmentally friendly but also detract from the whole open fire, great outdoor cooking process. Nothing beats the smell, the hypnotic flames, the whole primitive cooking on the open fire process, that Shashliking is.

Now what exactly is a Shashlik? Well it's basically a shish kebab. Chunks of meat skewered on to a long skewer and then cooked over hot coals. Vegetarians beware, this is a pure carnivore ritual. As a mater of fact, if you are a vegetarian you my as well come from Mars here in Russia. It's another one of those strange foreign customs like "political correctness" that is so far removed from Russian culture.

Today was great. Meat, beer, kavas, the beach and a roaring fire to ward off the chilly spring weather, what more could you want.

Nastya, shaurma in hand at Naberezhnaya.

Me, Nastya, Nastya form EF, Lena and Anton shashliking.