I was sitting at People Square drawing this.

I always attract a bit of attention when I sit down to draw in a public place. Crowds stand around for a moment or two. People sometimes sit next to me and watch. In India, men often tried to leaf through my other pages while I was still drawing. That wasn’t appreciated.

These two girls came and sat down next to me today.

Awesome picture right. Fulfilling stereotypes.

The girl in the middle introduced herself as a primary school art teacher. She ruffled in my bag (maybe she asked first I wouldn’t know, but it was very abrupt) and found a pencil. She then asked for a piece of paper and started drawing the same scene I was for the next 15 minutes. I could tell she was a primary school art teacher. Her drawing looked like a kid did it. She then left her name and phone number on the back of the paper.

I’m not sure we have a future together; it was sort of a one way street of interest but I was flattered by the effort of exchanging contact info.

Putin is in town tomorrow. The police presence is out of control. I’m probably going to take a day trip out of the city just in case somebody decides to drop a bomb or something nasty like that.