SaTOURday in Frankfurt

[DISCLAIMER:  Terry has not seen or edited any of the photos shown here. He is not to blame for poor quality]

My days are not normally quite this busy ...

It started, Saturday morning, the day after the new curtains in my apartment were installed. Now, instead of hanging an inch or two above the window sill (and thus letting in first and all other light), my curtains hang several inches below.  And I slept past 8:30am.

After going for a run in which I successfully re-created the first few steps of a previous bike ride to Nidda Park, I made breakfast and got ready to hit the museums. The last Saturday of the month is free admission for most, but not all, of the Frankfurt museums.

The Children's Museum is located just steps away from the Hauptwache U-Bahn exit, so I went there first. The exhibits are very cool and interactive, but the place is tiny and it may be a bit young for my kids. I don't think I spent more than 20 minutes inside.

The Museum for Modern Art (yes, I went there. It was free!)  was about what you expect for modern art.  Some of the exhibits were thought-provoking, many just begged to be touched although that was frowned upon, one installation with bench seating did in fact allow viewers to sit so of course I did.

 This is one of many things I hold against modern art. How does this title relate to this work?

OK this one was cool. They are not dogs, but some kind of soft furry material shaped to look like them.

I tried to get into the Museum for Angewandete Kunst (Museum of Applied Art), which I had visited previously, but it looks like it is being prepared for new installations and any way the only door I found was locked.

Across a sweet little park from the Museum for Angewandete Kunst is the World Cultures Museum. The exhibitions focused on south America and Africa and art reflecting on the legacy of slavery.

This mobile is hanging from the entrance and along the two stories of stairs

My last museum stop was the Archeological Museum, located in an old church. There's an exhibit that unfortunately ends before the family comes to visit, all about prehistoric peoples. This was the winner of the day and the one I think the kids would even like. It definitely goes for breadth rather than depth, but I found value in the series of pottery that, in the course of a hallway, brought the visitor through nearly a millennia's worth of change and development. 

By the time I got home it was way past lunchtime and I was hungry and tired. After a brief rest and refreshment, I put my German license plates on the car and hit the road. Selgros is a membership-warehouse-type store, and I went to check it out. Three months into living as a single person, I still have trouble purchasing fresh produce with enough variety that I don't get bored during the week, but that doesn't rot when I can't eat it all. Needless to say, I bought little, although it isn't only full cases of stuff and I did go home with red curry paste and coconut milk.

Back at home, it was time to prepare dinner. When I returned to Frankfurt  last Sunday I took the whole chicken out of the freezer, planning to roast it later this week. My oven hasn't worked for 2 days, the chicken is now fully thawed, oh no, what to do?

Kenji, the culinary genius at Serious Eats, explains precisely how to grill a whole chicken and why one should do it his way. Without a meat thermometer and with the sunlight fading (it was full darkness when I pulled the chicken off the grill) it did entail a few risks, but the result was delicious and we'll find out tomorrow whether it was properly cooked. 

Memorial Day

For the first time that I can remember, there were no illnesses or previous commitments, yet we did not spend the long weekend at the cabin.

Sunday we went to Gettysburg - it's only about 1.5 hours from home and I've been wanting to see it - this weekend seemed an appropriate time. On the way we listened to a podcast about the battles, which was useful as I could explain things from the podcast while standing in the battleground.

Gettysburg does this great thing where kids get a Junior Ranger booklet with information about some of the major sights, things to look for, and puzzles and games.  It definitely helped keep them engaged. Walking around downtown Gettysburg itself was also interesting, with all the buildings marked "Civil War" and trying to imagine what the town would have looked like back then.  We played "what wouldn't have been here" - cars, electricity poles/lines, the road itself.

Then on to visit Terry's sister and watch a minor league baseball game in her hometown.  There were a number of rain delays, but the game was never canceled. There were fireworks after the game, which was also fun. In general, it ended up a late night, but the kids surprised us by sleeping late the next day. Wins all around!

Kyrgyzstan Day III: Karakol and Petroglyphs

If you aren't going to experience nature, and between the rain and the chill we weren't, there isn't really much in Karakol.  When we got up we took a quick trip to the Dungan Mosque - a mosque built in the old method without using any nails, and also, curiously, built and painted to look like a Chinese pagoda.  The imam came out to greet us, ask where we were from and caution us that we were not allowed to go inside but could take photos.

Then it was a relatively direct road to Cholpan-Ata, the main tourist epicenter of the lake. We got to the town around lunchtime, then checked into our hotel, then headed out to the Petroglyph Museum.

"Museum" may be an overly generous term. It was a nearly deserted enormous field studded with rocks, some of which had little placards by them with some information about the petroglyph beside it. There was nobody around, but the gate was open, so we figured we would start looking around and presumably at some point someone would come by to charge us the admission fee.  We saw a guy on a horse in the distance, and waited a bit for him to come closer, but it turned out he was just a farmer and he went right past us out the gate with a young ram laying across the saddle in front of him.  We saw a small herd of horses, many of which were accompanied by a foal. And, eventually, a woman came up over a small hill to take our fee, ask us where we were from (for statistika, she said) and give us a bit of the lay of the land as well as the warning not to step on any of the stones. She seemed happy to be practicing some English, and bade us farewell after letting us know that about 70% of the glyphs depicted goats.

Due to the ominously dark sky and forecasted rain, we headed straight for the far end where a few balbals stood. then worked our way back to the entrance.  We had the kids scouting for signs, and then they had to find which rock had the picture carved into it, and guess what the picture was (some of the glyphs were better preserved than others).  The fresh air and open sky were the perfect antidote to too much time in the car.

Kyrgyzstan Day II: Southern Side of Issyk-Kul

The next day we headed out to go halfway around the lake. Early in the drive we pulled over in a canyon and had a great time exploring and climbing.  Of course it wasn't any of the several canyons mentioned in the tourist guides, but it was everything we were looking for.  We headed back to the car around the time the raindrops started falling.

We were already crawling so the rain didn't really slow us down, and in fact it came and went all day. The slightly larger town of Bokonbayevo allegedly had a tourist information center, and while wandering around the center of town looking for it we wandered into the town's May 9 Victory Day celebration. (May 9 is the day WWII ended in Europe and is celebrated in many countries.)  We had come to ask directions to an alleged highlight of the Issyk-kul area, Barskoon Waterfalls.  The lady at the tourist info center told us, in essence, "take the road out of town, but turn right instead of left, and keep going, you can't miss it." As we learned that night when reunited with internet, the waterfalls are an hour away from the town on a logging road - we were actually on the right road, which we didn't think at the time, but only went about 15 minutes down and turned around.

We also saw on our GPS the landmark of "Lenin Cutout" and decided it deserved a visit.  Alex and I scrambled most of the way up the hill while Zoltan stayed in the car and Terry took photos.

Unfortunately for us by the time we hit some of the "major" sights - only about an hour out of Karakol - we were drained, weary of sitting in the car, needing the bathroom and not wanting to potty behind a bush in the rain so we drove right by.  Sorry "fairytale canyon" and "7 bulls rocks," i am sure we will forever regret not checking you out.

On the other hand, it was a great relief to pull into the hotel and stretch out again.

Almaty

We finally headed south as a family for the long weekend over Women's Day. Although Terry and I had both gotten to Almaty for work, nobody had gotten any leisure time there and the kids had never been.  We got to the hotel, checked in, and headed out for lunch. Zoltan pitched a fit which earned him a nap while Alex and I enjoyed the warm weather and playground only a few minutes' walk from the hotel. When she got bored I decided to check out the Ramstore (everything is better in Almaty). We soon learned one similarity between the former and current capital - some looong blocks that make destinations seem only a few minutes away on a map, but are actually a kilometer or more. We spent shockingly little time in the store, and had many rest stops on the way home. Recognizing Alex was likely exhausted from the trek, we decided to take advantage of the hotel pool - it was one of the main reasons we'd chosen the hotel. By the time we'd gotten showered and changed it was dinner time, then we were all pooped out from the early day and all the activity - even though we hadn't seen any of the sights yet.

The next morning we woke raring to go.  We walked to the cable car to Kok-Tobe. Unbeknownst to us, its repairs had only been completed the week before and it had only just re-opened. The cable car ride was a blast, as we knew it would be.  The brass Beatles statues up on the top, the majestic mountains as backdrop, and the unfortunate view of smog climbing up the mountain were all noteworthy.  We stopped for a snack, gave the kids some time on the amusement rides, and checked out the very sad small zoo (there were domesticated animals and birds who seemed to be doing just fine but a few of the traditionally wild animals really seemed to want to go home). Lunch at cafe Nedelka, which had been recommended to us, was nice although Terry kept arguing to stop at the "real American diner" next door instead - they had free coffee all day (presumably they meant refills) so it must have been legit. We then hopped a taxi to what we thought was the Mega that housed a science museum (like in St Petersburg, I assume) but it was the wrong Mega and by then we were all tired and grumpy and it was time to go back for a rest.  Dinner was at VietCafe and very tasty - definitely hit all the right spots!

When we got back to the hotel we noticed Alex was warm. I chalked it up to being run all around all day and made everyone promise to sleep as late as possible the next day.

The next morning she was clearly ill.  I was grateful that we always travel with children's Motrin (They can now manage the chewable kind! This is huge!) Zoltan was perfectly healthy though, and bouncing off the walls, so I took him to the little playground at the hotel.  Then the bigger playground he missed the first day when he was napping.  Then the hotel pool.  Lunch, a short nap in an effort to keep everyone else healthy, then it was time to head toward the airport (or so we thought).  The traffic Terry and I were used to was non-existent (it was a holiday not a work day) and there was no line anywhere at the airport. We left the hotel a solid hour, hour and a half earlier than needed. Hurrah for the tablets!

The trip home was relatively noneventful. The next day Alex and I went to the embassy doc and learned she had strep throat. That was way less fun, and meant our Women's Day was spent in the apartment reading, watching TV and playing games. Inside. Not bad, but not what we had planned.

* note: if Terry ever looks at the photos we took there he may post a few. Check back someday!

Cambodia: Bees Unlimited

Our fourth day was definitely the highlight of the trip.  This tour company, Bees Unlimited, had been recommended on some blog, I forget which, and served an unforgettable slice of Cambodian life.  Although the company's origins appear to have been about exploring the flora and fauna related to Cambodia's migratory rafter bees, there is also a wonderful general tour.

As the family had been sick the day before, we forced some toast down everyone's throats before the 7am pickup, even though we knew we were being brought to the local market for breakfast. I tried to taste as many things as possible, but was just too full to get it all down. I did have some delicious coconut milk-tapioca soup with bananas and something else sweet in it to start. Also jackfruit and longan, and sugarcane juice (served in a baggie with a straw, like 20 years ago when I live in Singapore. That was a pretty cool flashback. You haven't drunk a beer until you've drunk it in a baggie from a straw). There was a breakfast I can't remember but it included fried lily pad greens (or some kind of water plant green. It was surprisingly delicious).  Towards the end we tried these fried rice balls with banana. We wandered around the market. This part would have probably been a highlight for a smaller group, but as it was we were 9 people - our family of four and another family of 5 - and the market was crowded, so we could rarely hear what Dani had to tell us about this or that, and we often got caught behind a traffic jam of humanity and had to scramble to sight and catch up with the group. We finally had to tell him we were all done and it was time to move on.

From the market we jumped into our two tuk-tuks and headed into the country. Our first stop was to watch women weaving baskets. Mothers teach their daughters and this is one of the crafts that appears to still be alive. After watching all the different ways people used baskets during our time in Cambodia, we were inspired to want to buy more of our own (I never would have thought to use a basket as a colander! but of course once you see it you say "duh"). From there we visited a Buddhist temple with the brightest color scheme I have ever experienced in a place of worship.  The paintings all over the walls depicted stories from Buddha's life - some I knew, some I didn't. The kids played a game of finding the unusually-colored people (usually blue - Vishnu - or green - not sure who that was).

Palm sugar is a local product.  It starts with syrup. Making syrup is similar to maple syrup - tap the tree, gather the thin, slightly sweet/sticky sap, and boil it forever and a day until it reduces. When it does, it is the consistency of honey. Then they do something to the syrup to dry it into sugar. We went to two different places to see different stages of the process.  The kids were thrilled to have a taste of the thick syrup and wanted to go back for more again and again.

One lady we visited was a cupping practitioner and Terry gamely agreed to have it done. She would "rinse" a glass jar with a flame, then place it on his back to create a suction. It is meant to pull toxins out of the body. It left a massive set of circular red/brown marks on his back - I told him he looked like he had just gotten out of the Matrix. The wife of the other family also got it done. While they lay with the cups we played with the three-week-old puppies.

The kids became bored and cranky after a time, so Dani pulled another trick out of his sleeve. Many (most? all?) tuk-tuk drivers keep hammocks in their vehicle and while waiting for the client (tourist) will sling it across the vehicle and take a nap. So we slung the hammock and the kids got to ride in the hammock while we went from place to place, and if they wanted we'd let them sit out one or another sight and hang out there. They perked up quite a bit with this treat.

We also visited a blacksmith, and a two families who participated in different steps in making rice noodles.  The noodle process is fascinating, they first grind the rice into something like a powder. mix with water to make a paste, then there is this huge contraption to knead the rice dough. When well kneaded, it is then taken across the street to the place that turns it into noodles.  We were able to taste some fresh rice noodles minutes after being made. Yum!

One elderly lady we visited makes incense by hand. She takes bark from a particular tree, and mixes it with an herb or two, waters it into paste and rolls it out onto the sticks to make incense.  She makes two different scents, that's it, and it's all natural, and she sells them out of her home. People know she makes the incense and they come to buy it. We bought some and Alex has been begging to stick some in her room.  Dani explained that this is a traditional craft that is not being preserved - obvious by the lack of youngsters around her, common at many of the other places, learning the process.

Although we were still largely full from the market, we made a bit of room for lunch. For me the bet part was this thin pancake that Dani said was essentially just rice flour, water, and turmeric but it tasted much better than that.

Our last stop was to visit the monkeys. Dani had developed a relationship with one in particular who would (and did) climb up on him, and us, and perch on shoulders or on top of heads. He had brought things to feed them, peanuts and lotus seed pods. The monkeys were careless eaters so a few times I was able to rescue a half-eaten pod and hand out more lotus seeds to the kids. They liked the older, bigger monkeys better as they took the food more civilly - the younger monkeys just grabbed. Of course, we adults noted the bigger monkeys had the leisure of civility, as they often chased smaller monkeys away from the food.

On that high note we headed home for some much needed rest and time by the pool.

Hadrian's Wall

You just can't spend time in northern England without checking out Hadrian's Wall. And it turns out one of the better sites is one of the closest ones, and of course we wanted to stick close to home for the first day (everyone needed a nap, you know, after the long, started-at-4-am-travel).

We stopped in the gift shop because that is also where you buy the tickets (clever, eh?) and Zoltan immediately fell in love with the swords.

It started raining as we walked the half mile to the actual site - it was a former Roman village on the wall plus a little museum - so we stopped in the museum in hopes the rain, rain would go away.  The kids found the dress up area then became little menaces to anyone who got too close as they might have accidentally hacked off an unsuspecting arm if it happened to fling itself into their swordfight. Thankfully, nobody was slain, or even maimed. By the time they got a little too boisterous, the rain had stopped and we went out to enjoy the site.

Barcelona: Sagrada Familia

When asking for recommendations on Barcelona must-see spots, I received surprisingly varied replies on Sagrada Familia, ranging from "sublime" to "give it a skip".  With small children possessing small attention spans, any tourist site may stale after a mere half hour so you end up being judicious in your choices. Did I think my kids could manage 2 hours in a cathedral?  Did I think I would spend 2 hours in a cathedral?

And yet ...

When we bought the tickets [on Terry's Smartphone standing 3 feet from the ticket taker, rushing through to just get ourselves inside] we accidentally bought a ticket to go up the tower an hour later. Oh well, we figured the add-on cost wasn't much so if we didn't make it, no harm done. Instead, we scoured every inch of the inside, marvelling at the stained glass and how beautifully it contrasted with the mostly plain stone walls.  We popped outside for some sunshine and took in the stonework on the facade.  One of the things I found so fascinating was that many different styles were used, yet in my eye it all worked.  Also, to be honest, I found it a highlight that the carving itself was the adornment without paint or gilding.

The kids enjoyed checking out the schoolhouse Gaudi built for the children of the workmen. Alex did several of the math problems left on the board and we pointed out how sparse the yard was - no playground?!?

When we realized the hour had slipped away we went to find the tower for our trip and discovered Zoltan couldn't come (FYI, children under 6 not permitted. It was clear on the web site, so says the attendant at the elevator. Not clear enough that we noticed it!) Alex and I went up in one shift, then Terry went on his own while I took the kids outside to each their sandwiches.  Terry would have taken longer up there but he ran out of room on the SD card so couldn't take any more photos. After lunch we finished exploring and then headed to the playground we could see from the tower.

Barcelona: Montjuic Castle

One thing to know about travelling to Barcelona in February: a lot of stuff is closed. No magic fountain, no cable cars, no Tibidabo. In some ways it makes things easier, not quite so much to decide between in our few short days.  On Tuesday we decided to see what we could find in Montjuic Park, which appeared from our map to host about a dozen museums and tourist sites.

We chose Montjuic Castle for the first (and as it turned out only) stop.  It is mostly a ruin, just the walls really, but the views are stunning.  Looking out over the sea one direction and what seemed to be all of Barcelona city the other direction, one could easily see why a fortress was placed here.  When we got to the top the kids commandeered a turret and happily played with their toys while I soaked up some sunshine and Terry took photos.

When we tired of the views we decided to wander the park and see what else there was to see.  When cutting through some greenery we saw this

Why don't more people take advantage of hills by building a slide right into it?  It is the shortest and safest way to get a kid from point A (high) to point B (low).  They had a blast going up and down, and when it was time to continue on Terry and I also popped on for the ride down.  And of course a few short meters along the path we came to a playground with a cafe next to it. Sadly, the cafe was not open or we could have sipped cappuccino and nibbled on something and been very refined while the kids acted like wild savages.

We could have continued on, but with the cafe closed and us not having enough snacks in our bags and being a no-nap day we were all getting grumpy so we cut it short and headed back.  There's a mall by the metro so we jumped in for some late touristy lunch, then decided to see if the mall had a grocery store (common in Europe. Why don't we do this in the U.S.?)  Yup, so we got a few things we needed then noticed a "bio store" (bio = organic).  I found my beloved Oatly milk that I discovered in Malta and grabbed some soy milk yogurt - what a treat! Should have gotten more as Alex ate hers then half of mine.  On the way home from the metro we stopped in the little grocery store/tourist goods store right by the metro and picked up a few bottles of wine. We did not buy the 1 Euro wine but seriously considered it.

Barcelona: Park Guell

Bright and early Monday morning we got to La Boqueria to gather the produce for the week.  We wandered the stalls, the family sans moi tasted jamon and bought some cryovac'd packs that don't need to be refrigerated for 2 months (thus easy to get home), kids and I got amazing fresh juices and we loaded up on fruit for the week .... that we ate by Wednesday. I had threatened to prohibit Alex from eating any apples during the trip because apples are the one fruit she eats regularly, but Terry pointed out they are shipped/stored better in Spain and are thus better apples so we did get a few kilograms of them too.  We got 2 kilos of strawberries, a kilo of cherries and of yellow plums, plus oranges, clementines, a mango, apples.

With our load we had to go directly home, and it was time for lunch and nap anyway.

After nap we hit our first real tourist site: Park Guell.  The kids had a blast playing hide and seek among the columns, I was entranced by the mosaics, Terry took photos of the spring flowers.  There is a building you can go into, I am not sure exactly what is inside, but by the time we thought of it the line was 45 minutes long so we bagged it and headed toward the metro while looking for a place for dinner.  Not finding any by the time we were within a block or so of the metro, and noticing a playground in what was essentially a median strip, we let the kids go while we searched online for a restaurant that would be open at 6pm (once again thankful for the local SIM cards and frustrated with Barcelona schedule. Look, I love me a siesta as much as anyone, but in Malta everything was closed 1-4pm. This I can work with. In Barcelona everything is closed 4-8pm. Ugh.)

We had a place in mind but walked past the crowded place we planned to go to the night before and as I'd hoped it more open on a Monday night than a Sunday.  Tapas, very abbreviated menu.  Delicious.  Steak, patatas bravas, fish, pork. They had a house brewed beer so we tried that. We ate well in Barcelona.

Great Falls

Last weekend some folks from A-100 decided to hike the Billy Goat trail at Great Falls. Although I had lived in the DC area for 4 years, and now almost 1 more, I have never been to Great Falls. The rest of the family was at the cabin so I jumped at the chance.

The weather was amazing and the company just as good. A few shots from the day ...

Miniature city

The first 3 days of our 5 day weekend were largely consumed with chores. There were too many things that absolutely had to be done before I left next week. We got outside every day, but the outings were largely brief and close (major exception being shashlik ... it was important to me to do that one last time, and there's still a chance we might go one last, last time).

Today the sun was shining, and I just had to get out. I suggested we metro to Gorkovskaya and see if we could find the miniature replicas of the major buildings in Piter that's supposed to be behind the metro. If not, there's always Peter and Paul Fortress, the Artilliary Museum or the zoo. The kids love riding the metro, it could be an outing all on its own. So we threw some things into a bag and off we went. It is remarkably freeing to go out with the family with no stroller and everything we need fits into a large purse. As that was packed, however, I took my leather backpack.

I hadn't realized it was actually a miniature of the city. Shiny, polished marble represents the rivers and canals. Grassy areas are parks and a couple of the major ones, like the Summer Garden, had its polished marble "pond" laid out.  The buildings are where they are supposed to be. We read an article a couple of months ago about how this was a gift to the city but the city never did anything about it and vandalism was destroying the place. Today everything was cleaned up, if Spilled Blood lacked color, and a gentleman with a megaphone kept anyone from touching the displays. Or rather, he yelled at everyone as they touched the displays.

 It was warm enough to be without jackets in the sun. The kids had the best time running around town. Zoltan even got on his belly to "swim" in the Neva. We got lunch in a nearby cafe and home in time for nap only a little late.

Riga - day 1

Friday I hurried the kids to sadik and rushed back to the house because the taxi was arriving at 9:30am.  We got to the airport and checked in. Boarding, arriving, getting cash from the ATM, taxi ride with a driver listening to Russian radio got us to the hotel - all smooth as silk. We grabbed a drink and snack at the hotel and waited excitedly for our other friend, who we expected any minute.

This is how the ladies' weekend began. Travel with one small carry-on bag, reading the magazine on the plane, moving easily from one thing to the next.  Terry had his turn last month when he visited a friend in Sweden, and this weekend one friend from Petersburg and I met another friend from Lithuania in the mid-point of Latvia.


By the time our friend arrived at the hotel to meet us, it was Happy Hour at the hotel bar. Her travel SNAFUs dictated that we take advantage of the buy 1 get 1 free cocktails (well, in Latvian and English it said BOGO. In Russian, interestingly enough, it said buy 2 cocktails get the 3rd one free. Hm)



The in-flight magazine highly recommended a restaurant in the old city not too far away so we went. First, the building was adorable (seen below). Appetizers were phenomenal. I had a cream of chestnut soup with duck, I forget if it was roasted or smoked but anyway it was delicious. One friend got an elk goulash and the other had beef carpaccio. Then the mains came. I am so glad my soup completely filled me up, as my pheasant was so dry and overcooked I  could barely swallow a bite, and actually had to take a sip of water to help it go down. One friend's catfish was undercooked although the asparagus that was the real reason she ordered the dish was perfect. The third friend, just like Goldilocks' littlest bear, had a perfectly juicy lamb.

 After dinner we stopped at the wine bar a few doors down from our hotel and ordered a bottle to share. The proprietor was extremely cordial, especially as we were the last people to leave the restaurant and had only bought a bottle of wine.

On the way back to the hotel we saw this interesting Riga phenomenon of bicycle rickshaws. As I never saw anyone riding in one, I wonder what kind of business they get. The rickshaws each have a blanket to keep you cozy in the snow and they all pipe out pretty loud music.
NOTE: TERRY DOES NOT APPROVE OF THIS PHOTO.

 

Grand Maket

More than a year after hearing rave reviews of this place, we FINALLY ventured down to the south side of town to see the miniature Russia exhibit "Grand Maket".

What the heck were we waiting for? We already have plans to go back at least twice - once with the kids and once just the adults. Including the short snack break, we were there more than two hours and everyone wanted to stay longer but daddy knew traffic might be bad and it was naptime.

The exhibit captures the environment and a bit of the culture from every major region in Russia, and has trains, cars, trucks, tractors, buses and maybe metros (we never saw them but there are 2 metro stations so maybe we weren't patient enough) running around. There's also planes, helicopters, hot air balloons, boats and more that are grounded; i.e. not moving. The terrain goes from the taiga to the mountains, from beaches to permafrost. Realistic down to the traffic jams and crazy construction, the exhibit absolutely blew us away. We even got to joke that we no longer lament never getting to Kizhi, as there was a miniature island with replica wooden buildings and I am sure Terry could have caught it at an angle that could have suggested we were actually there, sort of.

On the way to the exhibit there's a windowed workroom so you can see the engineers putting together trains and other parts of the exhibit. At the exhibit itself there are plenty of places where you can push a button and make things happen, from starting construction workers digging and jackhammering, to felling trees in the forest, to lighting up a lighthouse.

Here's a sample of what's to see...

A different kind of date day

We have recently started what I hope will be a monthly tradition, at least while I am still not working and the kids are still in preschool. On the first day, Alex and I brought Zoltan to school, then went off on a day of just the 2 of us.

First up - a treat at the local cafe, as it was only 9:30am and nothing we planned to do was open yet. Fortified, we went shopping for socks and tights as Alex seems to be going through a bit of a growth spurt. Then she chose trolleybus as our transport and we headed to the Russian Museum, where we have a membership.


Above she is showing me which picture is her favorite in the room. We played that game to get her to actually look at each piece of art, not just run from one room to the next.

After only about 40 minutes she was whining she was hungry - art apreciation does work up an appetite - so back on went all our winter gear and we headed out in search of lunch.

Here she is doing some coloring while I finished eating. She didn't like her plain pasta (?!?!?!) but she did like my soup - as I thought she might - so she wasn't hungry.

For getting home she chose the metro, and by the time we got home it was naptime, she was so exhausted she said she was looking forward to it! Her nap was surprisingly short, so we had time for a pedicure and a full High-5 magazine before going to pick up Zoltan. Usually with the magazine we only have time for a few of the stories, so going all the way through one is a decently big deal.

Zoltan and I had our date day later. I had planned a day of trying out all the local transits - bus, tram, metro, etc but he actually insisted in recreating Alex's day. So we brought Alex to school and off we went to the metro to go to the museum.

Learning from past mistakes, we went for treat/snack after getting off the metro, right before heading to the museum.  In the museum, he first whined about not wanting to carry his backpack, and wanting a snack, every 5 minutes. Eventually, though, he got into it. It might be because I let him carry the camera, and even take some photos. I'll have to remember that for my next outing with Alex. Unfortunately, Terry the Photographer deleted every damn one. I thought it was pretty cute that he got the bottom half of every painting and a bunch of the wall/floor. Terry was not amused.

We had gotten yelled at by a dejournaya for getting too close to one of the paintings.She said we couldn't go any closer than the "line" on the floor ... here's Zoltan carefully checking to see he's on the right side of it.

And a photo of him in front of a favorite painting.

For the return trip home, he wanted to take the trolleybus - basically a reverse of what Alex and I had done. Then he decided he didn't want to have lunch in a cafe but instead to go home for PB and J. Soon after lunch began he told me he wanted to go to nap and not finish lunch. Sure thing, baby!

Liquidators Monument

It seemed random enough, in Tver there is a monument to the liquidators of the Chernobyl disaster. Then I went to see it, and it turns out more than 2500 people from Tver went to Chernobyl to help with the cleanup. Hence, the monument.

On the way to the monument I saw a strikingly colored building that i first thought was a church and then realized was the mosque. It was pretty so I took some photos. 

The little park the Liquidators monument is in is right next to the mosque.

As I walked toward the monument I could see an older man sitting on a bench right in front of it but didn't think much of it. I read the notice about the monument - handily in English and Russian, and I took some photos. The man started speaking to me. He asked if it was interesting to me and if I understood what it was for. I said yes, and then he told me he had been one of the liquidators. He said lots of other stuff I didn't understand. I asked about his health after being there and he said it was ok then something about his friends so I imagine some of them didn't come out of it so well. he then showed me something, it was clearly an official document, had his name and photo and it was in a case like we would use for ID or Russians use for their passports but it was just the 2 cards/pieces of paper, one on each side. When I got to an internet place and looked up Liquidators of Chernobyl, Wikipedia helpfully explained that special certificates were given to 600,000 workers who helped with the cleanup, so I imagine this is what he showed me.

 The gentleman then offered for me to take a photo of him with the monument so I did.

Chesapeake Bay

One of the fun parts of Foreign Service life is all the different places we can meet up with friends. We visited our sponsors from St Petersburg in Lithuania, where they are now posted, and this week we took advantage of being in the USA at the same time to take a day trip to their cabin on the Chesapeake Bay.

The day started inauspiciously enough. I had printed directions from Google Maps and I had my Garmin up and running. Unfortunately, when they disagreed on what to do I had to decide "who" to follow. I got a nice reminder of how I hate DC driving when I got off at the wrong point near the Capitol so had to sit in traffic to turn around then lost in Southeast AGAIN ... totally bringing back the days when I lived here. There really should be a better way for 2 stinking highways to meet up! So I decided to go with Garmin as at least I can follow that without really taking my eyes off the road. Of course, it put me on Pennsylvania Avenue and never told me it was also MD-4 so I spent some quality time panicking about when I would meet up with MD-4, which I knew I needed. The kids, amazingly enough, spent almost 2h in the car without asking for shows!

We finally made it to the Calvert Marine Museum just as our friends were pulling up, then proceed to spend some fun time watching the stingrays swim around, walking around an old lighthouse, looking at the fish and other sea life, and checking out port life way back when.

 After the obligatory stop at the giftshop (you can tell how hungry Zoltan was, the treat he wanted was a bag of crab shaped pasta, seen here clutched close to his heart) we went for lunch. The kids had hushpuppies for the first time, going down easily with a side of honey. They kept calling them chicken nuggets, until the actual chicken nuggets came. Darn, they had Old Bay in them and the kids refused to eat. They also tried lemonade for the first time, Alex isn't a fan.

The highlight was going to the beach steps outside our friends' cabin. We probably should have gotten the kids into bathing suits but, well, I did bring extra clothes for them. While our friends looked for sharks' teeth on the beach my kids dug in the sand, sat in the water and got pushed over by the waves.

dry at the beginning

soaking at the end

Finish it up with a cookout for dinner, getting some directions advice from our friends, and for the ride home I put the shows on before starting out and we were home less than 1.5 hours later. I threw the kids into their pj's still salty, sandy and sweaty, and into bed only an hour after bedtime.

To paraphrase the old Jewish saying, "Next year at our cabin."