Our first day in the USA

We decided there's no point just sitting around waiting for jet lag to attack us, so on our first day back we went to Penn Vermont Fruit Farm, a pick your own place we used to love when we lived in the area. We picked our own string beans - Zoltan loved them straight from the plant as we thought/hoped he would - then went over to the blackberries. Funny enough, he refused to eat the black ones and insisted on sucking on red ones, even eating a few. Ick! Alex however got the hang of things early on, as you can see by her fruit stained clothes, face and hands.

We made it!

This flight gave me hope for the future. The 3 hours to Germany was nothing, between snack and some of their toys and coloring the kids flew through that one. Frankfurt airport is so much better now that the construction is over (yes, that's how long it's been) but still not recommended. The good/bad thing is they have a pretty decent play area (good) but it's out past security (bad) and in a different terminal so we had to ride the tram (good - Z loved it; bad - adds time). We were at least able to give the kids 45 minutes of running around burning energy and we got something that approximated a meal.

The long haul flight started off awfully enough. Waiting, waiting, someone checked luggage and never got on the plane so that bag had to come off, then there was a medical emergency so first the medics came, then it was decided that person and travel companion had to get off and their luggage found. However, when we knew we were delayed one more time and I got up to get Z to the potty, we met the flight attendants. Awesome group of people. I love all of them. When explaining to one pair of attendants about Alex's need for darkness and the challenge of an all day flight, one lady handed me eye shades (the kind given away in first class) and wished me good luck. Wonder of wonders, it worked! Zoltan fell asleep pretty early on sucking on the lollypop we give the kids for their ears during takeoff and landing. T was able to ease the pop out but that may have been the downfall, as Z was awake only 20 minutes later. Alex, who we never thought would get any shuteye, slept for more than 2 hours! It was heaven.

Then it was time for snacks and TV. We'd been building Zoltan's tolerance for sitting and watching TV during the course of the summer and it was well worth it. Between the variety of movies offered on the plane and the fact we had 2 tablets loaded with their favorite shows, the kids were pretty happy for most of the flight. They did a little coloring and we read a few books, we pulled out the Leapster gameboy thingie and they each got a turn with it ... but most of our 8 hours in the air was consumed with TV, and I'm cool with that.

The next bit of heaven - our agreement was I would stay here an extra week after Terry went back, but on condition we flew in and out of Philly as my sanity and the kids' ability to not completely melt down only last for 2 planes, not 3. So we were met immediately outside customs by a nice man who had a luggage cart, loaded our stuff in it and whisked it away to the vehicle and met us around the other side, with a cooler of water and rented car seats so we didn't have to lug ours on the plane. The same nice man will bring me and the kids to the airport in a few weeks.

Zoltan did manage to fall asleep in the car. The one time I actually wished for a teensy bit of traffic, to keep the nap going, but of course we sailed through. So here are the stats: we woke the kids at 4am for the flight, between then and when the kids went to sleep again (at 3am Piter time) Alex slept 2h and Zoltan slept about 1.5h. The good news is they seem to be making up for it, taking their naps and going to bed on time. Terry and I don't even mind them waking around 6am as we're up then too!

Time honored rituals - the freezer cleanout

Every year, part of our preparations for a decent chunk of time out of the house (i.e., R&R, last year it was our "PCS") we do a drawdown on leftovers. So tonight's dinner was mystery brown shmoo from a tupperware in the freezer that didn't even have a date on it. We guessed it might be tortilla soup and I cooked up some tortillas chips to go with it.

It was some kind of chili. And REALLY tasty. The tortillas went with it pretty well. And we have absolutely no idea what recipe we used, it wasn't a usual one, so we may never make it again.  I hate when that happens.

I think we need to keep a Sharpie by the freezer and label our meals.

Happy 7 year anniversary!

Of course, I didn't even realize today was our anniversary until 2:30pm, at which time I called Terry and said "Do you know what today is?" in the "you're in trouble voice" and told him to look at his calendar. Happy man, he did get it on the first try.

We kinda suck, don't we?

Family

A few tidbits just from today ...

Zoltan crying "Mommy! Mommy!" this morning during my entire trip to the bathroom, because I didn't want him to join me and Terry kept him captive in the living room. Now that's love when 2 minutes is just too long to be out of eyesight!

Terry offering to take the kids alone to the grocery store this morning so I could go back to bed, even though the reason I was so tired was that I was out too late last night. Usually my attitude is "you were out having fun, if you're tired too bad". Taking the kids to the grocery store alone is something we just don't do, as the havoc Zoltan can wreak is monumental. Now that's love! [note, I didn't take him up on the offer, but the offer itself was golden]

Not sure if this should concern me, but although we have a ridiculous quantity of play food items, lately whenever Zoltan makes something for us to "eat" (roast, soup) it is always his sleep lovey Blabla presented to me in the pan or pot. Terry says it means he'll farm well, as he doesn't mind eating his pet.

Zoltan: Allie, if you eat your lunch you can have a chocolate muffin.
Me: No, Zoltan, they are carrot cake muffins.
Zoltan: I'm talking to Allie.

Creative Home Maintenance

Anyone who knows us knows Terry is a do-it-yourselfer. In fact, if there is any way he can just do it himself, he prefers that. Our first post was LQA and if he had his tools with him I think the whole experience would have been less painful. Now we are in a "normal" post, in Government housing, and we have GSO to do the home maintenance.

We had a huge project throughout most of the winter, replacing the risers in the entire building. If you, like me, used to think risers were the slightly raised flooring many conferences and lectures put their panels and speakers are on so the audience could see them, you would, like me, be wrong. (well, not wrong as that is one definition, just not applicable here). Risers are also some kind of pipe used in plumbing. While the risers were being repaired, our kitchen and all bathrooms were in their turn torn apart, and the bathrooms got renovated at the same time.

Since the new flooring was put into the bathrooms, we have had the grout coming up. This is because the floor wasn't leveled before the tile put in, so the grout will come up every month or so until the floors are leveled.

Or not.

Because this week, when they regrouted for the 3rd time, they used some kind of flexible grouting that will move with the shifting tile and not come out.

Why do something right when there's a workaround?

St Petersburg Mining Institute Museum

It just doesn't sound that exciting, does it? My geologist friend aside, what could be interesting to see at a mining museum? And nobody who'd been before could really describe what was so special in a way that made it sound very special ... so here's my attempt as it is relatively fresh in my mind.

Our contact met us at the front entrance, brought us in, and gave us some history. The Institute was founded in 1773 by Catherine II and was originally only an educational academy. It was part of the military so the students all still wear uniforms, although they no longer give swords to the #1 student each year (we did however get to see one of such swords in a display case).

Then our tour guide came and we began with a visit to the special exhibit room, which houses the prize items in the collection. There's a shelf of Faberge figures...

... another sword on which is depicted all along the blade/scabbard a famous battle ...

... a collection of raw silver and gold nuggets ...

...then on to the main collection.  I totally dig the enormous hanging periodic table and already plan this will be some year's science project for one of my kids. 

 There are rows and rows of cases of rocks. Our guide picked out the most important or interesting ones to tell us about. There's a display showing synthetic rubies and sapphires next to natural ones. We learned that only blue topaz will keep its color against constant sunshine but yellow or other colors fade. We saw marble statues and learned about the type of marble that makes figures of people look so real. If course I forget now, but there's some quality of it that lets skin actually look like skin. Don't you want to pick up this happy baby?

We learned that minerals are individual molecular forms and rocks are composed of composites of minerals.

This table has a bronze bottom crafted here in Russia and the top is a piece of petrified wood from Arizona (and now, again, all I can think is "There is no ... Arizona ... no Painted Desert, no Sedona...") Wood gets petrified when it is buried deep into the earth, such as from an earthquake, and the minerals in the earth seep in and cause chemical transformations. Did I mention this is really pretty?

 This is a stone that when you strike it with something metal - we had a key - will ring like it's metal itself?

And what's not to love about a Russian Imperial crest made of forks and knives?

We got to see a number of pieces of mining equipment - most are models of real sets as the stuff is quite big but some is the original. That's 400,000 year old water in that glass jar, came from more than 3 kilometers down in Antarctica. They found bacteria down there that actually came back to life when they warmed it up.

In a part where we can't take photographs I saw a huge gold nugget about the size of a newborn baby that weighed more than me. We saw a part of an iron meteor (did you know meteors are rock, rock/metal, or metal?) that weight some large number of tons and learned it came from a meteor shower that happened about 60 years ago, whch means we're in luck as they only occur about every 200 years (they do a LOT of damage).

For those who want to check it out themselves, the place now opens tours to the public at 11am and 1pm every Saturday. Tours are in Russian of course.

Sunday Brunch at Grand Hotel Europe

I'd heard about this brunch, and finally an opportunity to go arose, so Terry and I decided to have an early anniversary celebration. Our reservation was for 1pm, which is when the brunch opens. I take issue a bit with a brunch that does not begin until 1pm - that's lunch - but I quickly got over it.

We started with a glass of champagne and headed to the cold zakuski and salads. The smoked fish (3 different kinds) were all too smoky for me, the beef carpaccio too bland (although later it seems to have gotten seasoned, so I guess I just dove in too early). The satsivi was good, as were a couple of other salads I no longer remember. Should have been taking notes during the meal! They also had a whole row of fresh juices and milkshakes so I made a carrot-orange mix. Later I tried something red and it's some kind of mixed berry with an emphasis on strawberry. Both were very yum. Terry got the fresh OJ alone and reported it was very fresh squeezed.

Next was blini with red ikra, smetana, and chives plus potato pancakes I dabbed some cranberry vodka sauce on, a few pieces of sushi and maki, and some fresh salmon, one cold smoked and one one marinaded. The blini was excellent, the potato a bit too spongy but the sauce was delish, and I thought the smoked salmon was the highlight. The tuna sushi was inedible and I unfortunately warned Terry too late so we both got a mouthful. The rice was off too, but the salmon maki wasn't too bad and it satisfied my seaweed craving. We were served a small glass of vodka for this course.

There's some Asian theme running through the hotel this month so a cart came by with duck moo shu. I jumped on it as I super love duck. The bird was a bit dry and the sauce a bit too salty. Disappointment, although I should have known better to expect good east Asian food in Piter.

Next up, the meats. I got a slice of prime rib, a slice of veal, and a too-big portion of fish pie. These were, hands, down, the highlights thus far. The fish pie was too much only because I was already stuffed to the gills by this time, but it was 3 layers of different fish with the rice layer and the pastry all around it. Y.U.M.  We had red wine with this.

Finally of course came the dessert. I said to Terry I was going to find a way to stuff some of everything into my belly but really, that was an empty threat. I did manage to taste the blini with fruit sauce, a small skewer of fresh fruit, a cake we were attracted to by its enormous blackberry adorning each slice, some fresh passion fruit, several truffles (mint, coconut, some kind of tea) and a cappuccino. Later the waiter also brought me mint tea, which my belly sorely needed.

We spent a bit more than three hours eating, and it is now 5 hours since we stopped. I still haven't felt the slightest pang of hunger, although my stomach is no longer bloated or painful.

Finally photos of New Holland Awesomeness

The free library has a bit of a plexiglass type overhang for those rainy days

The community garden plot for the kids of Pavlovsk (they wuz here)

This is the scarecrow.

Amazing Leto sculpture/sign

Kids playing on said sculpture/sign

In this little kiosk building thing there's stalls from Shyrpa, Probka, Clean Plate Club, and more

There is also outdoor table tennis. A tournament is going on between the diasporas of St Petersburg.

A little waterfront seating

The best thing of all ... the play area. I didn't get photos of the amazing bean bag mountain on the other side of the building (the red siding you can see, it's actually an old shipping container). Inside the building there's all kinds of crafty and arty things for kids, mostly for kids over 7 and nothing for kids under 5.

Zucchini bread marathon completed!

Approximately 200 muffins taking up a lot of space in the freezer, but truly it's the only way to eat zucchini from about October to about May. At least I can get out of the kitchen now.

In other notes, I am more than halfway through the epic The 900 Days, THE seminal nonfiction book about the Siege of Leningrad. Light summer reading!

And, finally, we have plane reservations! Our trip home is now way more concrete than it had been this morning.

Photos of New Holland to come ....

Mnemonic Devices

I'm looking at December and it's getting bigger and bigger on the horizon. I think I really need to step up my Russian studies ... which is a bit crazy as there are only so many hours, I do have this job thing they want me to do to get my paycheck, and the whole reason I've given for quitting my job upon our departure to the USA for R&R is so I can study Russian full time upon our return. So basically I'm freaking out even though I have a logical plan in place that should get me where I need to go by the time I need to be there ... it just requires me to WAIT to be able to turn full steam ahead.

That went longer than I thought. The point to this is I started looking up better methods to make vocabulary stick in my mind. Enter the mneumonic device. I started with a few words I'd been getting mixed up, such as "to memorize" (запомнить) and "to remind" (напомнить). Memorize and запомнить both have "Z" in them. напомнить is like NA[g]-remember, which is of course remind. So far so good.

Then in my homework I saw the word for "noteworthy" (достопримечательный). My neumonic for this is "Do stop, make a sandwich and tell me". Yes, my 9 syllable sentence is 2 longer than the 7 syllable word.

Peter's Walks new boat tour

We took advantage of the beautiful weather to do our second Piter boat tour in 3 years. Yes, we've been remiss!  This time we wanted to check out what our favorite tour company had to say. Peter's Walks only started their tours within the last month, so the almost empty boat wasn't a huge surprise although it was a huge shame. Good for us, though, as it allowed the kids to roam a bit and use up some energy while both Terry and I got to listen to the tour guide.

Our tour guide was young and enthusiastic and did a good job personalizing the tour, answering questions and making conversation. His English was impeccable.

There was some issue with the boat, so we had to wait about 15 minutes. The kids took the opportunity to have a snack.

When we took our original tour in 2009, we saw the Neva, Moika and Fontanka rivers. This time, we accidentally got on the water on Red Sails day, and were unable to get onto the Neva at all. No matter as it meant we were able to meander through canals, under bridges, and around sights and monuments using a totally different perspective.

For example, here's the backside of the Mariinsky Theatre - not kept up quite as well as the front, eh?

I happen to be a big fan of all the Petersburg bridges and got a chance to snap many that I'd never seen before.

Another exciting aspect of today was how lightly we traveled. A & Z each had a backpack, I had my purse and T slung the Uppababy over his shoulder when someone wasn't in it. We even took the metro with the kids; I don't remember ever doing that with both of them before. Of course by the time we got home at exactly naptime, everyone was exhausted, dirty and grumpy. It was a great day!

Buddy Bears

What are the Buddy Bears? In Berlin in 2002, someone got the idea and artists started decorating 2 meter tall bears. According to the web site, there have been various iterations over time - at first the bears were on all fours like the Einstein Bear still is, now they stand with arms up "holding hands". In its present form, there's a Buddy bear from every member state of the UN and they tour around the world promoting tolerance. Except when the 4 year old gets bored, runs off and can't be found easily. Then, there's very little tolerance for such behavior and we go straight home.

We tried to get photos of the kids from each country they have visited, unfortunately they got bored about 4-5 photos. Alex announced she wanted to only shoot with bears she liked best, then made a beeline for Sudan. Which of course was next to the USA (It comes next alphabetically in Russian). Here's a snippet of what we did manage to get.

We tried to get photos of the kids in front of the countries they had been to, but Zoltan refused to move out of the way for this one. Oh well, he will get to the UK one day and then this will be accurate.

Hungary

Kids riding the Einstein bear. See Alex being a good big sis and holding on to Zoltan so he didn't fall off.

Estonia

Russia. Note that it's just Z and me. This is because this is when Alex ran off. I love the Khohloma design.

Chancey

We agreed to dog-sit a friend's pup when he went away for a long weekend. I thought it would be a great time to let the kids experience a dog and to remind us how much we don't want one in the FS. Our friend assured us the dog was, if anything, overly submissive and had plenty of experience with kids. Hm.

The intro was as good as could be. The kids bounced off the walls and ran and screamed a lot but she was shielded from them and being petted by me so her freaking out was muted. She drank some water and wandered the house a bit. Eventually she settled down when we invited her onto the couch (she's definitely used to the good life!).

Unfortunately for the experience, she never really got calm. She only peed once a day even though we took her out more often than she's used to. Having her around brought back the visceral reactions of having had Kirby - every time she approached a new dog, I tensed. That probably didn't help her or the other dog view each other as new friends, although she did well enough.

Also, on our first night, Zoltan accidentally stumbled over her and she snapped at him. She growled many times when he got near. Saturday morning I got the idea of letting the kids feed her bits of bacon to reinforce that they are friends. It helped a bit but not enough.

I was amazed and impressed with Zoltan - he did a spectacular job of being gentle with her when he actually got close. I'm sad that he said he wasn't being gentle with her, I believe he didn't think he was because of her reaction. Alex fared much better, even when she tripped over Chancey the next day (just as Zoltan had) the dog had no reaction. Of course, Alex was, in general, quieter and slower than Z and not tearing around on a riding toy.

In the end, I am glad to have had the experience. It solidifies many things that have been nebulous: 1. No dogs while we're in this job, and quite frankly maybe not ever. It's just a PITA and for now my kids provide all the companionship I can handle, and then some.  2. Any dog we do get will be a puppy so its neuroses are unique to our lives and we're not worried about what s/he lived through before we got him/her.

The funny things kids do

We love our nannies. They are amazing and when we largely part ways in just a few weeks we'll all be sad. Yesterday when I came home from work and had to wake Alex from her nap, she started crying and saying she didn't want me, she wanted the nanny. She was still tired, a bit hungry, and generally distraught. Then she asked me to hold her. So, yup, I was holding and comforting my daughter for the fact that I was me and not the nanny.

I am pretty sure the irony escaped her.

Puttin' Up

No, this post isn't about how the kids handle the fact that mommy can only give one of them my full attention at a time. It's about berries in the winter!

We got 4 kilos of berries this weekend at the rinok, 2 blueberry and 2 raspberry. Here's the stats of how we processed them:
-- 9 jam-jar-size jars of jam
-- 6 babyfood-jar-size jars of jam
-- one half-liter jar of blueberries in light syrup
-- one mixed berry cobbler ... heaven! Which then led to using up the random cup's worth of whipping cream ... more heaven! and using the KitchenAid, meaning that I could pour in the cream, toss in the sugar, turn it on and go do something else for 5-10 minutes.... you get the picture. It was yum.
-- unknown number of small bowls of berries. At first they were naked, then they were topped with whipped cream.

Next week we're going back for another 4 kilos.


Shall we talk about the peaches?
Friends of ours who served somewhere that these peaches were plentiful introduced us to them about 3 years ago. I'm not the family peach lover and I remember being unimpressed. For some reason I picked up a few a week or so ago and ... wow.




As mentioned previously, Zoltan is a picky eater. He rarely lets an unknown food pass his lips and many previously loved foods soon fall to the same fate. Imagine how thrilled I was the day he asked me for a bite of my peach? Now, 2 kilos within 2 days later, the kids aren't yet showing signs of slowing down on their gorging. Of course, Terry and I have put in our fair share of the eating too :)

Alex is Terry's spitting image

and we have several recent examples to cement the deal.

1. She was doing puzzles backwards (upside down?) Either way, the picture was facing the floor and she was putting pieces together solely based on how well shapes fit together. Terry does this regularly.

2. She took a toy apart and tried to put it back together. Unfortunate results, now Terry's going to have to try to salvage the toy.

3. She complains of being too hot when it's 70 degrees outside. Actually, that's all of us these days.

New Holland

Of course it was the first day +30C that I decided it was time for us to check out New Holland. I'd heard too many good things and it was Friday - my day off. After somehow requiring 1.5h to get the kids fed, dressed and pottied, and all the snacks and other "just in case" accoutrement prepared, we ran out of the house before something could pull us back in.

The 22 bus is surprisingly convenient, as Ploschad Truda is a переход (underground crosswalk) and a block away from the entrance to the island. From the moment we walked in we were entranced. After crossing around a building that was being renovated, we saw the LETTERS.  лето, ("summer") is spelled out in letters a bit higher than me and are perfect for climbing (for example, E makes a stairway and the O is boxy enough for both kids to fit inside the hole). Then we saw the children's play area. It's not the typical jungle gym, rather it's one of those indoor soft-foam obstacle courses and soft foam shapes to stack or climb on, just outside. It's covered over to there's protection from rain and - more importantly today - sun.

It's much smaller than I thought it would be, although I know they are continuing construction and I am sure more and more of the island will open up over time. The community garden is about as big as my living room, with about a dozen plots. The cafe was very nice, my veggie panini fresh and clearly made after I'd ordered it.

My biggest complaint - my only real complaint - is the lack of shade. The cafe had a lattice-type structure over it so we weren't in direct sunlight, but I had promised Alex a picnic and couldn't deliver because the only trees - about 4-5 of them - are right by the entrance and we didn't notice them til we were on our way out.

All in all, it's worth schlepping over there a few times this summer. Who knows, maybe we'll go back tomorrow with Terry and actually take a few photos*.

* photos were in fact taken, but on my phone, the quality of which Terry finds overly dubious and only under duress will camera phone photos be allowed on the blog. Sometimes it's a pain to be married to a photo snob.

Around the neighborhood

We've been meaning to photograph these windows for 3 years. Enter one gretzy morning with the kids, the magic of just getting them outside (oh how I yearn for a yard!) and we finally got it accomplished. How cool are these?

Better than TV?

Alex liked this one best because it had different colors.

I think Z wants to go for a ride.

Picky Eater

Zoltan is a picky eater. He will clap his hand over his mouth rather that put a new food item into it. Alex will complain about everything and start whining that she doesn't like the food before it has even gotten onto her fork, but in the end she will taste everything and sometimes rarely (hello, chicken corn chowder) actually like it and ask for more.

Dinnertime, understandably, is a bit of a nightmare. We had held for a while that they can have the dinner we cook or they can have the raw chopped veggies we usually have on hand (thank you, nannies!), and that's it. Living outside the USA, though, means that produce purchased on the weekend doesn't last until the end of the week so by Thursday if I don't get to the market we're out of alternatives.  Last night I decided to follow the "experts" and try the "if you don't eat dinner you'll see it again at breakfast" thing, assuming as all the expert assured me that they wouldn't starve themselves and after 16 hours on nothing more than a cup of milk they will indeed eat the food I prepared.

Or not.

I had even enlisted their help in preparing the meal, another piece of advice that is supposed to make them more amenable to eating the resulting creation.

So I went looking for some better advice. It turns out that Zoltan's pickiness is genetically attributed, according to this NYT article. Just ask my mom about the months that went by that all I'd eat was a piece of cheese on a piece of bread - and only at a particular friend's house - and we can see which parent might be that genetic carrier. And I turned out pretty OK culinarily. Eventually.

Even the Mayo Clinic weighs in on how to avoid dinnertime battles and what a parent need and need not worry about. The National Network for Child Care explains that a portion of veggies is a tablespoonful for each year of age; a portion of fruit is generally a half piece. It also turns out that my childrens' love of fruit, a few select veggies, pasta, nuts and yogurt set them up for much healthier eating than the average picky eater. "Hiding" zucchini in their muffins is also apparently not damaging to them and the tablespoons of squash they get from that is probably all they need, serving-size-wise, for good nutrition.

And tonight, when they are eating their plain pasta and apples, I'm going to smile and relax.

Exactly what we've been hoping for

We had hoped to give the children the gift of a second language during our extended tenure in Russia and our very likely return to Russian speaking posts. We're even choosing a place in the DC area to live based on the true Russian detsky sad in the neighborhood. But, as our Russian is still poor and the kids mostly speak English with us, we don't have a good sense of their skills. Enter: this week.

The Russian school year is September 1 - end of May. The preschool is still open June and July, but so sparse that all the grade levels are together in one class and the teachers rotate who's there watching them. Yesterday, a teacher I had never seen before June asked me if I didn't speak any Russian. I said only a little. She asked where Alex learned to speak Russian so well. I said "here." She still looked puzzled, like it wasn't possible.

Today, another teacher told me that Alex's "best friend" today was a little girl from the younger class. She said they were chatting all day (I was excited because I had just learned the word for "chat" yesterday in class!). This little girl has a Russian mom and British dad and I know he speaks to her in English. Naturally, I asked the teacher which language the girls used today ... you guessed it, Russian.

"Major surgery"

We foolishly encouraged Alex, as a tiny infant, to form her deepest attachment to a stuffed animal of discontinued design. Aarrugh! We learned with Zoltan and made sure we had 2 of his lovey.

In 4.5 years poor Blabla has been washed too many times, flattened out, had her tail pulled and ear pulled out. Worse, her knit has been stretched and torn. She's had some stitches a few times. After the last minor surgery we realized she might not make it to an old enough age that Alex wouldn't need her anymore. We needed drastic intervention.

Enter Zoltan and Alex both growing out of their current sizes at once, so we had a lot of extra "scrap cloth". We let her choose the piece she wanted and Terry used his super magical sewing skills to put a patch on. I'm not being sarcastic here. When he puts in a stitch you're not. getting. it. out. Not great for hems that are supposed to be cut out as the kids grow! Extra bonus that we found some cotton from back during winter when our one nanny made a Santa for the kids, including fluffy beard and mustache. So now Blabla has come back from the brink of anorexia to reasonable health.

Doesn't she look happy?

I think she now looks like she's wearing a cape. Super Blabla!

Why we're still here...

In honor of bid season, and shamelessly stealing the idea of an FS Blogger located in Brussels, here's my Top 10 Best and Worst of St Petersburg. Like this other blogger, I had a bit of trouble finding the "bads" as we are deliberately here for 2 consecutive tours. 4 years. A Foreign Service lifetime.

The good
1.  Ballet
The Mariinsky Ballet Company (previously the Kirov) is well known, but did you know Piter also boasts the Mikhailovsky Ballet? I have seen some Mikhailovsky performances that trump Mariinsky ones, and Mikhailovsky theatre is easily accessible by public transit unlike the Mariinsky. And the Alexandresky theatre hosts Eifman when he's in town. I have probably now seen more ballet in the last 3 years than I had in my lifetime before now!

2. Weather (hear me out!)
Here's my cred: I lived in Singapore with only a ceiling fan. I summered in Delhi when monsoon didn't come to cool things down. The words "only 40 today" have passed my lips. I can do hot.

But here's the thing. You can only take off so much, and A/C can only work so hard. With a hooded down coat and my fleece-lined Timberland boots, with my kids in Lands End snowsuits and Kamik boots, we can use every piece of equipment in the playground for an hour at -30F. I've done it two winters (last winter wasn't that cold). We have no malaria. Mosquito season is short. You can use sandbox toys in the snow. Almost nothing HAS to keep us inside, whereas heat can be dangerous.

3. Hockey
I hate spectator sports. I think a baseball game is a good place to drink beer outside. However ... the European style of hockey isn't as fight-y as the North American kind, and is more based in speed and finesse. It's actually pretty to watch. And the most expensive tickets outside the boxes is approx $25.00 No, I didn't mess up the decimal. Terry went to almost every home game this year and will again next year. Alex loves to go with her daddy (weekend games start around 5pm)

4. Chocolate, Honey, Vodka
Chocolate: I'm a dark chocolate girl, but always hate how American/European dark chocolates have that chalky texture. Somehow the Russians have found a way to keep the bitterness of the flavor but make the texture creamy. I have no idea what I am going to do when we leave here. When we go home on R and R or HL we bring chocolate with us. I am pretty sure this is a major culprit in my gaining weight AFTER losing the baby weight.

Honey: Ironically, our previous post was Malta, whose honey is famed and in all the souvenir stores. Never liked it much. Russians are very serious about their honey. At the fairs and markets you can find honey stalls each boasting a dozen different varieties and each one is different from anything any of the other vendors sell. Our favorite is the white - we still haven't figured out which vegetation is comes from - but it is the one specifically labelled полезно для здоровья детей (good for children's health).

Vodka: I never understood how Russians could just drink vodka without anything else to cut the taste or potency. Now I understand. A good vodka is smooth and has either no taste, or a pleasant taste. It doesn't feel like fire going down. I have a favorite brand I can happily sip.

5. Petersburgians aren't nice, but they are kind. Exactly like in NYC.
Example: I lost my diplomatic ID card during the 10 day New Year holiday. Turns out the woman who found it called the Consulate, after the holiday we connected arranged to meet up so she could return it to me. When my bad Russian made me hesitate at one point while she was telling me how to get to the nearest meto stop to her, she offered to come to my neighborhood.

6. 24-hour energy
In Malta, stores closed around 2pm or maybe 4pm Saturday and didn't reopen until Monday. This is when the weekly grocery list and shopping trip really became ingrained in my family. In Piter the stores and many restaurants open 24 hours and, especially in the White Nights season, the population is too. Just the other night I was going home at 11pm with the sun glinting off Spilled Blood (and me wishing for my camera!) I saw a babushka walking her couldn't-be-more-than-2-year-old grandson in his stroller. Wide awake, of course. Terry's hockey practices are at 9:45pm because that's when they get the ice - and I imagine when the dads can get away.

7. Beauty
This was originally entitled "Museums and Monuments" but then I realized it wasn't broad enough. Museums and palaces of course abound; a brief list includes the Hermitage; Russian Museum (which I prefer to the Hermitage); the palaces of Peterhof, Catherine's Palace, Gatchina, Pavlovsk; Peter and Paul Fortress that happens to house a cathedral and several museums plus a sandy beach right in the middle of the city; the Summer Garden that recently reopened; the Singer Building on Nevsky; the Bronze Horseman; the view from St Isaac's Catherdral or, if you feel a bit lazy, from Mansarda restaurant. Everywhere you look in Petersburg you can find something beautiful, whether it's streetlights glittering off ice in the winter, an old palace that was someone famous' home for a few years, or a park in full summertime bloom and greenery.

8. Housing
We don't have too much to compare to, but the apartments here are surprisingly large and centrally located for such a big city. Yes it is all apartments but they are BIG and on the longest stretches of winter darkness the place never felt too small to contain 2 energetic preschoolers and it is certainly larger than the place we planned to raise children in when we lived in Philly.

9. Transportation
If we wait 3 minutes for a train in rush hour we start complaining - off hours we sometimes have to wait just over 4 minutes. Horrible, awful traffic means it took 45 minutes to go clear across the city. How on EARTH will we survive a DC tour next?

10. Cuisine
We've discovered Central Asian cuisine and Georgian food is a new favorite (although we haven't been to the recommended Uzbek place yet). Restaurants are at worst OK and at best exquisite. 

The bad
1. Apartment living
The lack of a garden is wearing on Terry 3 years into it. The inability to open my door and order the kids outside while I do the "they can't help me with this" part of dinner is also frustrating.

2. Ice (can be deadly!)
Russian attics aren't insulated. Heating is central and most people keep their homes at a comfortable temperature by opening their windows. What does this mean? All the snow on roofs melts and becomes ice. Icicles as large as people can hang off the eaves and threaten those passing by. 2 of the 3 years we've lived here there have been a dozen or more icicle deaths each year - this year was particularly dry.

3. Difficult language
If I gave Spanish the attention I have given Russian, I'd be a solid 3/3 by now. Instead I am optimistically calling myself 1+/1+ and continually frustrated by my own inability to find the word I want, or if finding it being perplexed as to which case or verb form to use. The only good news is I like a challenge and the triumph I feel from small progress is exhilarating.

4. Expense
Nanny post this is most certainly not. We are also improperly COLA'd so we aren't even being made whole. Things that cost $30 in the USA (crockpot, anyone?) are over $100 here. At least it keeps the shopping down.

5. Groceries
To keep a healthy diversity of produce you are either forking over $10 for a small bunch of asparagus (when it is in stock, which is about once a month) or doing a lot of preserving in the 2 summer months that things are in season. The reason I do my zucchini-bread-a-thon in the summer (so far about 120 muffins in the freezer!) is that there is no zucchini about 6 months a year - or anything other than carrots and cabbage - so it gets some different nutrients into my kids. There are some frozen veggies that, even though technically available locally, we still bought from the commissary when we still had commissary access because they tasted like someone bought them at the store, put them in the freezer, then put on a fancy plastic bag to make us think they are professionally processed.

6. Dirt
This isn't just about dirty streets or polluted air, it's ground and water pollution and the fact that we really don't know what harmful chemicals are in our food. Nothing's organically grown here and the water has heavy metals. We buy the imported carrots even though the local ones are the cheapest and, doing the "sustainable thing", we'd normally go for local over organic if given a choice.

7. Darkness
A lot of people have trouble with this one. I used to say that if you worked a 9-5 job in New England you went to work in the dark and came home in the dark so does it matter whether you missed 7h or 3h of light in between? As a partly SAHM, I feel the darkness more strongly. I'm not comfortable having the kids in the park in the morning when it's pitch black. It's also partly Medvedev's fault for cancelling standard time last year - we stayed on daylight savings so the sun came up at 11am. DAWN was 11am, not even full daylight.

8. Driving
OK this one isn't actually a problem for me but I put it in for fairness. Petersburgians drive like Philadelphians. Many Americans aren't happy about driving in Philly. My only issues with Philly involved the supernarrow streets in South Philly, and I haven't encountered those here. Driving the wrong way down a one-way, illegal u-turns, parking on the sidewalk? Par for the course.

9. Burocracy
Every month I have to pay Alex's detsky sad bill at the local bank. It means standing in a sort of line - Russians don't exactly line up, they call out "kto paslaydnie" (who's last?) and then focus on that person. It has to be in cash and I hand the teller the bill, the cash then wait for ... what? I have no idea. Terry lets the internet bills pile up for a few months before paying them because it's the same dealio. Alex is at a private detsky sad because a couple of native Russian speakers have told me the language issue isn't even half the problem with getting a child registered for a public school, it's the red tape.

10. Sushi
I love sushi. Terry stupidly lived in Japan and won't eat it anywhere else now. Every restaurant here serves sushi, whether the restaurant bills itself as, and the rest of the menu is comprised of, Italian, Georgian, French bistro, pub, you get the picture. And all of it is awful. What a tease!

Rainstorm

It was about 1/2 hour before bedtime, and we heard a rushing noise. "Is that ...?" Yep, huge downpour.  We got the kids in their raincoats and boots and rushed outside. They had a blast stomping in puddles and sticking their boots in the waterfall coming out of the drainpipes.

13 minutes later.

The thing is, we are not usually all that spontaneous and I can be fanatical about bedtime (always reinforced after the havoc that usually occurs when we deviate). But, in the end, they only got to bed 15 minutes late, and without the bath they were to have tonight.

Sometimes you just gotta carpe the diem.

Happy Russian Independence Day!

Today was a Russian holiday, but my Tuesday/Thursday nanny is happy to work holidays. So we took advantage of the fact that I had forgotten to tell her not to come until the week before and then thought it was too short notice.

The morning started great. I woke at 7am (habits die hard) and got in a workout before the family started getting up just before 8am.  The weather was awful, drizzly and gray, so I figured some of the plans I had for the day would have to be scuttled. The initial steps though were still solid so off we went ... to Kupetz Eliseevs. Here's a shot of the confectionery section.



We got some pastries and hot beverages and sat under the giant pineapple. I got a very yummy hot chocolate, tasting just like a melted chocolate bar but too milky and sweet, I still prefer Guell's the best. Although the meats, cheeses, fish etc are ridiculously expensive - the least expensive cheese cost 1000 rubles per kilogram, or roughly $15/lb - the alcohol was surprisingly close to what it would cost other places and the pastries were also on par.

From Eliseevs we headed over to ROSPHOTO where there were 2 exhibits I wanted to see and thought Terry would like.

The first was One Hundred Years by Danish photographer Keen Heick-Abildhauge - 100 photos of Russians, one from each year of life. Below is the 5 year old, who collects Transformers. In addition to the photographs, each photo included the age, name, and a dream or passion. We were struck by how the dreams were relatively consistent among age ranges, and how the changed over time ("I want to be a policeman/artist/actor" became "I want world peace" and eventually "I want to have family around me")




The other one was Crown on the Earth, a collection of Japanese photographers' works. Below is a set of photographs superimposed on top of each other to make one composite photo. A couple of these were so clear - so the faces involved had to be so similar - that the effect was quite eerie, especially when next to other images where the different individuals create a very fuzzy image.


After the art, it was time for lunch. Brasserie de Metropole was our destination as it had been recommended and we'd never gone there yet. And it was on the way home and close to the metro.  I hadn't realized it specialized in Belgian style home brews, so Terry was entirely unimpressed with their beers although I really liked his, mine was only OK. The food was pretty good too, we'd probably go back on a night he didn't feel like drinking.

After lunch was a weird time, not really time yet to go home (we'd specifically asked our nanny to stay certain hours then felt bad going home too early) so we did some errands first and came home only a bit early.

Last special treat of the day: buffalo wings. Terry found chicken wings at the store, a friend had sent us the Tabasco Buffalo sauce, and he whipped up blue cheese dressing yesterday (it is supposed to sit overnight).  YUMMY!

Zucchini bread muffin marathon 2012

Zucchini is back to 10 rubles/kilo at the rinok and that means it's time to bake a year's worth of muffins! Last year I got almost 120 into the freezer and they were gone by the new year so this year I'm aiming for 200. With what's already in and what's on the cooling rack, I expect 50 to be in the freezer by tomorrow and when I make more tomorrow night (I have enough shredded zucchini for one more batch) there should be 30 more.

Rather than one horrifyingly long night marathon of baking (and sweltering in the awful heat we had last year), this year I plan to do a few batches this night, one batch that night and extend the "marathon" experience over several weeks. The first two batches have been pleasant even, especially as the weather's been more appropriate for the far northern clime than it has been the last couple of years.

It also means there will be fresh zucchini bread muffins more often this summer. Yay!  I'll report back on the final result when all the baking is said and done.

My big boy

Tonight is Zoltan's inaugural night in the toddler bed. I can hardly believe how easily bedtime went, given that he spent the 1/2 hour before bedtime jumping in and out of the bed, grabbing his big teddy bear, tucking it in, then throwing it into the toy box, etc etc.

Another one of those "foreign service affects my normal life" moments. Did we move him tonight because he was climbing out of the crib, or we're expecting another baby and don't want 2 in cribs, or were we dealing with nighttime potty issues? No, no and Nope. He's happy in the crib, we're happy with him in the crib. BUT ... we'll be in the USA for 5 weeks between R&R and training, and we don't have a crib there for him to sleep in so we figured we needed to make the switch beforehand so it was natural when we disrupted him with 18 hours of travel, 8 time zone differences, and "nowhere" to sleep.

Wish us luck that the easy bedtime translates to easy nights. He often wakes if he doesn't have water with him and tonight he doesn't. The question is will he call for us or go wandering through the apartment?

Elagin 2012

Our inaugural trip to Elagin for the summer finally occurred last weekend. Terry got a small fishing pole for Alex, got some help in purchasing worms, and we decided to take advantage of the absence of rain Sunday to revisit one of our most favorite places in Piter. We had an unfortunately slow start to the morning, so by the time we got there we didn't have as much time as usual to explore the place.

Note #1: Not a lot of fish movement. Alex bored quickly. Zoltan needed constant grabbing to avoid a Trakai repeat, especially as it was chilly today and he hadn't appreciated his dunking when it was sweltering hot outside.

Note #2: One thing I have been noticing lately is that all the enticements for kids - so sucker mom and dad have to pay for X treat or experience - are not break-the-bank expensive. We've developed the rule they each get one treat and it can be pretty much anything. Zoltan was begging for a ride in one of those electric cars and it was only 100 rubles for 5 minutes. When we get our new video card so Terry can edit videos you'll get a shot of him riding around on top of the world. He even gave his sis a ride, and she kindly returned the favor by sharing the ice cream that was her treat with him.

Note #3:  If you've never had сладкий фундук (sweet roasted hazelnuts) go NOW and find some. We got a little cone of almonds and one of hazelnuts, mostly to avoid having to make change, and wow what fabulous serendipity that was.