Chivalry isn't dead, it's in Moldova

Having returned from a rather mediocre lunch at the local Сабвей, I sat down on a bench in the Philology Dept's courtyard for a pre-lecture cigarette. After I took my pack out from my purse but before I flipped open my lighter, a young man ran across the courtyard with a large box of matches, sat down next to me, and held a lit match to my face, smiling.

He was polite enough to stay and talk for a while, even though his English was, in his words, "miserable," and my Russian is... something worse than miserable. Despite this, for some reason, he spoke mostly in English, and I mostly in Russian- he remarked that whenever he talks to anyone who speaks English, this phenomenon always presents itself, which I've noticed as well. He was ethnically Russian, though born and raised in Moldova, and was surprised I'd heard of that little republic, of which he was not very proud. He asked me what kind of music I listened to- we shared an affinity for Tom Waits, Franz Ferdinand, and Muse. He didn't understand why an American was smoking terrible Russian cigarettes (I happen to like the Русский Стиль brand more than most of what one can buy in America, as it so happens), and pulled out his Marlboros. He wants to be a journalist. We never got around to asking for one another's names.