I was walking down a fairly crowded street in Russia and I felt somewhat out of place because I didn't speak the language. Fortunately I encountered a man I knew who spoke English and the two of us continued walking together with him acting as my interpreter.

We entered what appeared to be a restaurant frequented by young people. I noticed how austere the ambiance appeared and I figured the Russian people had little money in general to afford going to restaurants. I myself had a pocketful of money including quite a bit of change and I reflected about how good it was to be able go somewhere and order what I wanted without being concerned about being able to pay for it.

Several young men and women were in the restaurant, although most of the seats were empty. On the tables in front of every chair was standing a bottle of pop in a green pop bottle. All the bottles were open. Apparently it was customary for everyone who came into the restaurant to drink a bottle of pop. But I wondered what would happen to any pop at the end of the day which hadn't been drunk. Would it just be thrown out?

As I was trying to reach a table I bumped the chair of a young lady and started to say "Entschuldigung" but then I realized that was the German word for "pardon." I didn't know the Russian word so I said nothing. I felt rather awkward not knowing any Russian.

Finally I did sit down and almost immediately I picked up a piece of paper which had a short poem of about four lines on it. The poem was written in Russian, although when I read it, the words seemed like French. When I concentrated I was able to understand the words. The last word of the poem was "arrivons" and I had translated the words immediately before it as "spirit of adventure." So it seemed to be saying something about "we are arriving at the spirit of adventure."