And a $7.50 Bottle of Water

I hate to be so negative, but the eating out thing is not going too well. We now have a second restaurant on our boycott list. Last night we went to Krem Cafe. We asked for an English menu and got not only an English menu, but an English speaking waitress as well! She asked what we would like to drink and I said water for now. She asked one or two waters, we said one, she said "no gas?" (most water in Russia is sparkling water and if you don't want it bubbly you say either 'no gas' or 'still'), we said yes, and she left. While we were perusing the menu, she came back and as all Russian restaurants seem to do, quickly opened our bottle of water and began pouring it into our two glasses. As she was pouring I noticed the unusual shape of the bottle. It was glass, cyllindrical in shape as opposed to the traditional 'bottle shape' we are used to. I began to flip through the many pages of the menu looking for water. I finally found the page and saw that there were five kinds of water on the menu ranging in price from the 15 ruble (50 cents) BonAqua we've been drinking from the store to the 188 ruble ($7.50) Voss that she had brought us!!!! I quickly pointed out that we wanted the BonAqua water for 15 rubles, that what she had brought was too expensive. I asked if she could take it back and bring us BonAqua. She said no, that it was already opened, she was so sorry. We ordered and I guess we looked annoyed while we were sitting waiting for our food because the manager sent her over to ask if everything was OK. We said yes, except for this and held up the bottle. Unfortunately, the food was EXCELLENT! I had like a chicken stir fry with fresh green beans and carrots and other vegetables with soy sauce and sesame seeds and Wade had spaghetti with seafood (squid and mussels). But we were very thirsty as we were splitting the one bottle of water and were not going to order anything else to drink. Then we paid for the bill, 260 rubles for his (a little over $10), 188 rubles for mine ($7.50) and 188 rubles ($7.50) for our bottled water. Funny, the one bottled water was the same price as my entire meal! Anyway, we kept the nice, glass, cyllinder shaped bottle to use a vase; so now it will be worth about $7.00!