"Hello, bro" is how my 5:30 a.m. bus commute to the IBC kicks off every morning. The bus driver greets all of us that way. Somewhere he's picked it up from an American or two and determined it's a cool greeting.
Up on snowboarding terrain, he'd probably being saying "dude" all day.
"Hello, bro" pretty much says it, though -- the Russian people are very friendly. The word I'm using most is spasibo, which means "thank you." And they are here to serve and protect us, so we find ourselves saying it to security, volunteers and, yes, even my baristas at Starbucks.
