Foreign Service Worldwide

Because our home leave address is more than 14 transit-hours from our post, when we go to post for the first time (aka PCS or Permanent Change of Station) we are permitted to stay overnight at our plane-changing location - called a "rest stop". A long, long time ago we would have gone business class and straight to post. While I internally yearn for the business class seat, with our children at this particular stage in their lives, I actually really appreciate not having to get on the 3rd plane after 18 hours of sleepless transit.

So there we are in Amsterdam, with our mountain of luggage that's only a mountain because it has to include 2 car seats, the double stroller, and any luggage at all. We look like death as we haven't slept in a very long time and have had to spend every ounce of our being keeping an 18 month old and a 2.5 [editor: oops! 3.5. Thanks mom.] year old from completely melting down in their sleep-and-proper-nutrition-deprived states. And then .... a very friendly and enthusiastic woman who's clearly waiting for someone coming off the plane breaks away from her family comes over to us and asks in perfect American English if we're from the embassy. Our jet lagged haze made us first look very confused, because we're from a consulate and then we realized - this lovely woman was a sponsor to some new family coming to post in the Netherlands. How cool and small world is that?

More culinary experimentation

We have been making jam since the early-in-the-relationship strawberry picking date landed us with waayyy more berries than we could eat or pie. Turns out, though, only Americans use commercial pectin in our home-jam making. At least, we can't find pectin in stores anywhere else in the world. So we started looking into making our own pectin.

Supposedly, it's quite easy: chop up some underripe apples; simmer them forever in just enough water to cover them; strain through cheesecloth overnight; boil the resulting liquid until it has halved. We did this last night/this morning.

Today the weather was perfect - sunny and cool. We decided not to travel so far outside the city and instead set our sights on the recently-opened New Holland Island. Sadly, it's an "I can see it but I can't get there" place, so we aborted the attempt and decided to stop by Sennaya Ploschad instead and see what produce they had. Peaches were cheap enough and hard enough to find jam-wise here, so we decided that would be our test batch.

You can't find jam recipes that include homemade pectin because it all depends on the pectin content in the liquid you have on hand. So we muddled through and got ... peach syrup. It was our backup plan as maple syrup is ridiculously expensive and I love my pancakes, however it means we had too much sugar or not enough pectin. We'll try again someday and report back.

btw - today's culinary explorations included some old favorites - waffles, cobbler (blueberries at Sennaya!) - and a first try at plov (an Uzbek dish). Thank you to my friend who taught me how and my other friend who took much better notes than me :)

Mamy

Zoltan spends most of 4 days each week with a Russian nanny. It seems the Russian is starting to seep in. He definitely understands a lot ... and this week he's starting to say "Mamy" (pronounced Mamoo). It's accusative case, and in one words it means "I want mommy." Just in case I wasn't sure that was what he was really doing, today he alternated. "Mamy! Mamy! I want mommy!"

Next week he'll start negotiating at the rinok for us :)

We saw a movie! In the theater!

I read in the St. Petersburg Times (the city's twice weekly English language "newspaper") a review of the movie Melancholia. I noted that it claimed the movie was in English with Russian subtitles. As it was showing at the new movie theater in the Galleria mall, I thought it was certainly plausible.

Terry wanted wings so we were already planning to be in the area, and our babysitter had successfully put Z down to sleep the week before (a test run) so she came pretty early in the evening, and we decided to check out the theater. Turns out there were 3 movies in English and Melancholia looked like the best of the bunch. It was our very first foray into a Russian movie theater and in fact we can't remember a movie seen in the theater since 2007. I was pregnant with Alex at the time.

Terry didn't like the movie, I did, but we both agreed it was a good test run and totally worth paying attention to what movies come to that theater and finding out which will be in English.

Sighting of the rare & elusive Customer Service

Last night, as Terry craved Buffalo wings, we decided to go to the TGI Fridays that recently opened in the Galleria mall. We placed our order, our server repeated it back to us, and yet when the meal came out mine was something completely different. Grrrr.

The manager came over, and in lightening Russian apologized for the mistake and said the corrected dish would come out, if we had the time and could stay, in another 10 minutes. At least, I think that's what he said as I caught about 2 words in each sentence. He repeated himself in English and as we had plenty of time to kill and at that point I really wanted the dish I'd ordered, we decided to wait.

#1: The manager apologized for a problem in our dinner.

Terry and I then got to discussing the manager's possible background, as his English was both excellent and accented American - most Russians speak with a British English accent. When he came over later to ask if the meal was OK and if it came within the time he'd promised, we asked and learned he had studied in Ohio and was never able, later, to shake the Americanisms out of his accent and vocabulary. He and Terry bonded over Cleveland, where both had spent some time. And then ....

#2: He offered a complimentary dessert or cocktail for our inconvenience.

Is Customer Service beginning to migrate into Russia? Will such sightings become more frequent? One can only hope. Stay tuned!

The joys of dacha season.

It is really common for Russians to have dachas or summer homes. Dachas I am told will range from glorified gardening shed to palatial homes. Many Russians will head out of town in the summer and spend the weekends at their dacha. One of the many side benefits for us non-dacha people is there are fewer people in the city. Traffic is significantly lighter. This makes going to one of the many parks a bit further out from the center of the city so much easier to do.

Last Sunday after Alex and I make a quick grocery run (also in record time thanks to dacha season), the family piled in the car and went Yelagin Island. Yelagin Island is one of the many islands in the Neva delta. The island is a large park with boat rentals, a small zoo, cafes, and lots of greenery to stroll around in. There was a nice playground there that ended up consuming most of our morning. Zoltan was thrilled to sit in the little car and bounce, while Alex showed us her excellent climbing skills.

After the kids got out some energy we stopped at a cafe for lunch. During our lunch one of the friendly ducks of the park waddled its way over to our table to get its share of the lunch. Alex was quite excited to share her bread with the duck. Following lunch the weather started to turn toward the rainy side so we headed back home to beat the rain and get the kids down for naps.

Thanks to the wonderful traffic during the summer we were home in no time and both children got their naps.

* Edited to add: we returned this Saturday for a lengthier tour of the island, once again transiting in record time. Useful to know is that if you get there early enough on the weekend, the usual entrance fee is not collected.

Recycling!

Our GSO is sooo fabulous to get recycling, finally. Now I have to remember not to throw away the Mac N Cheese box, because I can bring it into the Consulate and drop it in the bin. Life just got a bit better :)

Potty!

Friday was one of those dragging days, when no amount of coffee can make up for the desperate urge for a nap. Zoltan went down for his nap surprisingly easily, given that for several months he refused to lay down and go to bed when I put him down. The time it took to get Alex ready and down for her nap, then wait 10 minutes for the movers to arrive to take away the boxes from UAB, and have a drink of water ... Z was up and nothing would convince him to go back down. Totally poopalicious nap, and totally grumpy mommy. Turns out, with the lack of sleep, totally grumpy baby.

Grumpy babies need a lot of stimulation to keep from crying and tired grumpy mommies don't have a lot in us to keep things fresh. I managed to play with him for about an hour before running low on steam. Alex was - thankfully - sound asleep, which is normally a good thing, but in this case it meant I couldn't just take him for a walk or to the park.

His nails needed to be cut so I put on an episode of Peppa Pig to keep him still so I wouldn't cut him. For anyone unfamiliar with this British porcine, it's fabulous. Each episode is 5 minutes and everyone falls down when they laugh. We all love them. After the show was over we got up and did something else. It didn't take too long though before I started thinking longingly of the stillness and peace I felt while he watched the show.

He's been all about the potty lately, most of the time telling me when something goes into the diaper and wanting to sit on the potty at seemingly random intervals (often right after putting something in the diaper), but of course the potty is still safe to drop food into. I even totally freaked him out one day as he started peeing on the carpet and I scooped him up and got him on the little potty. He stopped and wouldn't go again til I put his diaper back on.

I took his diaper off, put Peppa on, and picked up my book. About 4 Peppas in I did something in the kitchen, which caused Z to squawk and run in after me. Potty still pristine. One more show and he gets up and .... there's pee in the potty! Yipppeeeee!

The crying place

A long time ago, when we started using time outs as a way to separate Alex from whatever was causing the hysteria, when it was a place to go to calm down, she chose her own place. It's the corner under the Vonage telephone in the kitchen. If we open both doors to the hallway, it's a very "secret", cave-like hiding place.

Now of course time outs are used when she's aggressive, grossly disobedient, etc. Usually she's crying when she goes to her time out place. So, from a 20 month old perspective, that corner is where we go when we're crying. So now ... Zoltan puts himself in time out when he's upset/frustrated. Will it screw him up forever if he hears us giggling when we see him march off after having a knife taken from him, or when he's redirected into the kitchen from the living room when he's got food in his hand, or any number of things that just frazzle his little toddler mind?

Zoltan's selective language skills

Zoltan loves looking at pictures and naming all the family members. "Mommy! Daddy! Allie!" For some reason he would never include his name, which we usually use in its full form. This week I started using his nickname, which rhymes with everyone else "Mommy, daddy, Allie, Zoli" He repeats after me "Mommy! Daddy! Allie! Oolie!" I think kids named Oolie get beat up at school, let's hope he stays a big kid for a while.

Yesterday I was looking at a book with him and going over the colors. The conversation went like this...
Me: Yellow
Z: Yellow
Me: Purple
Z: Purple
Me: Blue
Z: YES
Me: Blue
Z: YES