Ice Skating

Back in December the Consulate was offered and accepted a Master Class in ice skating taught by a former Olympic competitor and current coach of Olympic hopefuls. I "had" to go as it was my event, Terry and Alex came too for the skating. It was a great time, I had completely forgotten how much fun skating is.

This was also our test experience to see if Terry's dream of Alex going to Penn State on a hockey scholarship could ever possibly be realized. She had a great time on the ice, especially when the current skater being trained by this coach took her and led her around the ice.

So, we asked around, found a skate instructor who speaks some English, and Alex - on her 3rd lesson - skated on her own for a little bit. She is happy to go to her lessons, is dead on her skates after 1/2 hour and has a good nap later. Win-win. Today's lesson was also her first on her very own new skates - we had been renting previously and the new ones arrived this week. It's not too long before she'll be skating circles around mom & dad ....

Winter in Petersburg

The photo isn't great, taken with my phone and all, and this is seriously delayed as it was taken on December 24, but this is the sun in the sky just before noon right around the solstice.

Big News!

I've moved one more step closer to the possible eventuality of becoming a foreign service officer - I passed the QEP. Of course, the window to choose a test date for the Oral Exams is this week, and we have no idea when we'll be allowed to take our Home Leave, so it is still to be seen if I'll be in the USA at the right time to take the thing. I made a relatively conservative guesstimate of when I'm likely to be home given various possible scenarios. Keep your fingers crossed.

Brought low

When you last saw the Mad-Zac clan we were returning from a vacation fraught with minor annoyances and major family bonding time. Turns out the family that flu-s together stays together or something like that.

Zoltan, the one who got the stinking flu shot (well, Alex did too) was the first to fall. Sunday night a week ago he woke in the middle of the night with the kind of burning up fever that terrifies a parent. Of course our children's thermometer's battery was dead and we somehow didn't notice we had 2 other digital thermometers. Whatever, burning up is burning up so we got Motrin into him, tried to soothe him until the meds had a chance to kick in, and hunkered down for a night of intermittent wakeups, screams, fever reducer administration and generally not a whole lot of sleep. Alex's ability to snooze throughout the whole experience is testament to how far she's come and the merits of sleep training, but that's a digression.

Next to fall was Terry, who came home "early" on Tuesday (as in, right at quitting time), and didn't make it back for a full day of work til this week. I was next on Wednesday. It really is a lot like mastitis without the painful breasts! Friday I managed to get Alex to preschool (so grateful for the car, I never could have gotten her the mile walk on foot) and Terry and I took turns trying to care for Zoltan, who seemed to have turned a corner and was in good health and fine spirits other than his refusal to nap. We even pulled out Baby Einstein in desperation. He watched it as much as he watched Big Bang Theory. We called our nanny and begged her to come on Saturday.

Saturday was definitely the worst day for both Terry and me. We ended up bringing Terry and Zoltan to the doctor, Zoltan mostly because of his refusal to sleep caused us to worry about an ear infection. He did have fluid but not an infection so I'm glad we took him.

One of the four medicines the doctor prescribed for Terry is the most amazing drug I've ever experienced for a stuffy nose. It's a nose drop of some sort, probably something the FDA would run from in horror, BUT within 1 minute of administration you go from completely stuffed up to breathing completely freely. And the stuff cost a whopping 8 Rubles (approx. 22 cents, give or take). It took 24 hours for me to stuff up again after taking it, although Terry definitely didn't last so long.

And now I'm feeling worse again? These kids will, literally, be the death of me!

First haircuts

My friend Heather inspired me. Her son is one month older than Zoltan and got his first haircut last week by her hands and the family hair clippers. I told Terry he was welcome to cut Z's hair whenever he liked, as he's been bugging me about Z's "hippie looking" long hair.

Today was the day. Alex helped Terry comb Z's hair, then the clipping began. Z was pretty indifferent to the whole thing, but he really didn't like Terry getting too close to his ears and didn't like when Terry pulled out the haircutting scissors to do a final trim on the parts that still annoyed him.

I commented that he wasn't a baby anymore, he looked like a boy. Alex didn't accept any of the explanations I tried to give her as to why I said that (she's deep into the "why" phase) and in the end demanded a haircut RIGHT NOW.

I figured with long hair and a slight wave, nobody would notice the imperfections of the very tiny trim I intended to give her. She fidgeted the entire time, so it was a very imperfect cut, but I don't think it is noticeable. We'll see if anyone asks about her hair when they see her next week when she returns to preschool. The one thing I will say is it seems a lot healthier. We'll see if it's any easier to comb.

Had we lived in the USA, they definitely would have gotten their haircuts by professionals, but this was probably way less traumatic for them - at least, the photos many of my friends have sent of their kids' first haircuts seem to indicate the home remedy may be easier to take.

Seen on the streets

I keep forgetting to mention, the other day I saw a woman walking her baby in the pram ... with the tiny little kick-me dog riding in the bottom basket. It was pretty cute, unfortunately I didn't think fast enough to get a photo with the phone camera ... probably wouldn't have come out well anyway.

Aeroflot

Terry told me I had to blog about something that's gone right on this trip so here is my posting on Aeroflot. No, seriously. We took Aeroflot through Moscow to get to Antalya. Both flights were comfortable and comparatively new Airbuses. We had no troubles getting milk into sippy cups before takeoff and the children's meal we ordered for Alex was perfect – a lot of fruit, chicken nuggets that were actually mostly chicken, juice box of 100% juice and packed in a brightly colored really sturdy cardboard box so it could take being brought down to her level (i.e. on the seat between us). On the “long” flight Alex was handed a real canvas backpack stuffed with markers, coloring book, a hat, socks, a 20 or so piece puzzle, and a booklet of mazes and games. I, carrying Zoltan, was handed a bag with diapers, a pack of wipes, a disposable bib and bottle. Both flights were on time. Meals were tasty and every meal had a juice box, which we squirreled away for Alex. Flight attendants were helpful. I seriously would love to fly this airline every time I fly from now til forever.

Addendum: return flights were just as good. Terry didn't think to order a baby meal for Z but I saw one and it was 3 jars of reliable baby food (i.e. I could see one was Gerber) and a box of Parmelat milk. I wish we had ordered one! Too bad we won't be flying again before Z is out of baby food. Still loving Aeroflot

First Full Day, More Impressions

Other than Zoltan's 3 screaming wakeups (each 2 minutes or less, Alex slept through each) the kids did pretty well the first night. We had put them to bed roughly when we wanted them to sleep to shift their schedules and I guess Z was so overtired he couldn't make the morning transition. Breakfast opens at 7am, we were up at 6am. Even Alex couldn't sleep through the crying at that hour, she got right up. There was a thunderstorm the first night and it was still damply chilly in the morning. The walk over to the main building was refreshing to say the least. After we ate we checked out the playground and beach and the kids had a blast. We were glad we'd thought to bring rain pants for each. Then it was time for Z's nap – Terry took Alex to the indoor pool while I stayed behind to put Z to bed and deal with yet more issues (the safe was locked and unopenable so the front desk said someone would come at 10am to unlock it for me. This was probably the one and only time that everything happened perfectly – he came at exactly 10 and the whole transaction took 2 minutes).

Then the phone starts ringing. It's the front desk saying something about us forgetting to sign our credit card slip. Huh? That usually doesn't happen until the end of a stay. Whatever. A bellboy gets sent to our room with the slip to sign. It's just a credit card slip with the amount and signature line, no itemization of what we're paying for. I ask what it's for, the guy speaks no English so he calls someone, puts me on the phone and the guy says we just forgot to sign the slip yesterday and to sign it now. I say my husband isn't here and we'll deal with it when he gets back. The bellboy leaves the slip with me and leaves. A few minutes later the manager guy comes himself and asks for the slip. I tell him I want my husband to see it, he says he needs it back for the accounting department – something about us losing the paper – so I give it back to him. I still think this is incredibly sketchy especially given the nightmare the hotel put us through Turns out it's relatively legit, at least Terry says the cc was charged but nobody gave him anything to sign – the paper he got didn't have the signature line. So he signs and all is well.

More reasons not to come here: the high chairs have not been cleaned once. We have used the same one 3 times a day for 3 days now and it's all the same crumbs and leftover food. We have been wiping the tray and seat with our wipes or if not too bad with water and napkins. Disgusting. Also the tables are not always cleaned and never have all the tables been cleaned. This morning we never found a clean table for breakfast but we found one with only crumbs and no spills on the tablecloth and they had new silverware on the table so we figured it was good enough and sat down.

There's no ATM at the hotel, in fact the nearest one is 4km away in front of a different hotel. The hotel told us 4 different buses we could take to get there but never told us the bus fare. Babysitting is 10 Euros per child per hour, which does seem to be the going rate but is scandalous to me, especially as the kids would be sleeping (we were thinking of trying an adult-only dinner at the reservation restaurant). So, we're just going to keep them up a bit late one night to try it out because even if we wanted to pay for babysitting, we don't have enough cash to do so and no motivation to schlep over to the nearest ATM for more. We had to adjust the kids' schedules anyway due to time zones so we just decided to shift them a bit more to see if we could get them to sleep later, and be up later. The latter worked, but the former not so well. It doesn't help that the footballers are up at 6am for their practice – except the ones who are in the rooms right by us apparently are deep sleepers because their phones ring on and on and on at manage to wake us all quite well but not the intended sleepyhead.

As a safety precaution (I assume) the room door sounds an alarm when it is opened to remind the occupant to shut it (again, I assume). The alarm isn't TOO loud, thankfully, because the one for our room has started to sound the moment the door is opened rather than wait a reasonable time for a person to actually walk across the threshold and shut the door and then determine whether it was shut properly.

Can you tell I am entirely NOT in love with this place?

There are some good points. Between the playground, beach and indoor pool Alex has been loving life. The Turkish food is excellent, the pide at dinner every night is amazing, in fact Zoltan ate meat for the first time - devouring a piece of pide with minced meat. I was excited the first night because the desserts sucked, so I thought I could work my way back to pre-Thanksgiving weight. Fortunately or unfortunately, there have been several really delicious treats at each meal since. The two times we called for housecleaning to be at a certain time it was within 15 minutes of our request.

WOW Restaurant

I meet up with Terry in the main building and give him the news. At least we have somewhere for Zoltan to sleep and it only took FIVE requests to make it happen. There's a “kids restaurant” next to the main restaurant so I head in to check it out. Yep, a room with an animal border at chair rail height but not very child friendly setup. The waiter setting up the food tells me yes it's the children's room but it's not for children now, it's for the footballers (soccer players for you Americans). I ask if it's just tonight or every night. Every night, but there's children's things in the main restaurant. I check it out, and it's sort of true. BUT … no milk. They had hot milk for coffees and we put that in the sippy cup to let it cool in the room's fridge so we would have milk for the morning but it turns out Z doesn't like cooled hot milk. How is there no cold milk? We even asked a waiter for milk, noting that there must be cold milk in the kitchen to create the hot milk, but no dice. Our workaround has involved bringing both kids' sippy cups and an empty small water bottle to breakfast every morning and filling everything with cold milk before leaving, then running back to the room to get it all into our fridge before they warm up. It's viable, but why do we need to resort to this? The only reason there's even milk at breakfast is for the cereal.

Some things in the restaurant are impressive. A good quantity of fresh fruit, simple biscuits (no sweeter than what you get in Russia), they even have 2 types of baby cereal with a stick blender and cup right there. We tried blending the soups at night but so far Z has rejected every one. I think the soup phase has ended and he is now where Alex was at 1 year – eating dairy, fruit and bread and nothing else. When the only high chair we saw had neither tray nor straps the waiter brought us a different one almost immediately. There's also 2 child sized tables, one of which Alex commandeered the first morning.

World of wonders

The trip was pretty much as expected, although Alex's refusal to nap on the plane even after Dramamine was a bit of a surprise. We managed, not too much crying or screaming from either one, got our bags, found a taxi that didn't seem to rip us off, and got to the hotel in short order. We thought that meant the adventure was over but k'sajolania (unfortunately), it was just beginning.

First the hotel assigned us to rooms that were, at the time, already occupied. The format of the resort is that everything is open to the outside, so it meant standing outside in a chilly walkway while the porter called the front desk to get us a new assignment. He then brought us to the exact same rooms 2 floors below the ones originally assigned but – they weren't connecting rooms. And the one smelled like smoke.

We called the front desk again. They first didn't believe the rooms didn't connect, then tried to tell me they didn't have any more connecting rooms because it's winter and only part of the hotel is open now etc etc. She tried to give us a dublex, which is the usual family room consisting of 2 rooms on 2 floors with an open stairway in between. No door. With my kids that doesn't work. While she's going through all this I am on my way back to reception, fuming. I actually had a pretty serious back and forth email exchange with a customer relations guy for the hotel chain about how we had to have connecting rooms or we had to go to a different hotel and he promised connecting rooms. I told the front desk about it, asked if the guy worked at this hotel or the corporate office, nobody seemed to know his name so I guess he's not at this location. In any case we're at the front desk and after some time they find connecting rooms for us. One is ready now, the other is still being cleaned and will be ready in a little while.

We ask/reconfirm for the 2^nd time that a baby cot be brought to the room (we had asked for it when we originally checked in) and go to the ready room. Alex and I lay down and Terry takes Z for a walk to nap. About 15 minutes after Alex finally quieted down someone is pounding on the door next to us. Taking short breaks, the pounding continues for 10 minutes, at which point I get up and tell the guy that the room is now empty and in fact I'm waiting for the key. I throw in a “after 10 minutes of not answering the door, maybe it should occur to you the room isn't occupied or the guy isn't going to answer” but I don't think the guy was quite bright enough to figure that out. It also appears that our connecting rooms are the only not-soccer-player rooms in a block of a couple of soccer teams. It also explains why the phone in the kids' room kept ringing last night. The first time we were able to unplug the phone, the 2^nd time we couldn't figure where the ringing was coming from and the 3^rd time we had to find our way into their bathroom in the dark to take that phone off the hook. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

My getting up got Alex up – she must have still been in light sleep. I told her we would lay down for 10 more minutes then we could get up and she agreed reluctantly but without any real fuss. In that time, thankfully, she did in fact fall asleep. There was a knock on the door and it was the hotel bringing the key for the other room and to unlock the connecting doors. I reminded the guy we had asked for a baby cot (#3) and he said it would be brought up.

I brought a suitcase into the kids' room and started to unpack. Terry and Z came, I hear that Z never fell asleep – a very strange thing for him in the stroller and as tired as he was – and that Terry saw almost the entire grounds and there's a lot for the kids here. We discover there are no drinking glasses in our room and only one in the kids' room, we are one towel card short (they are presented at the pool to get a towel, we really want one per person), and we have no face towels in the room. Normally in my adult life I never use them and I do often wonder why every hotel usually gives us a dozen but trying to bathe a baby without one is challenging.

About 45 minutes after the last request for the baby cot, I call the reception area and ask again for it (#4). We get Alex up and Terry takes the kids to the restaurant with a stop at the front desk to request the baby cot again (#5) and to get another key for our room – the keys are required to provide electricity for the room so we really can't manage with only one. I had a couple of things I wanted to finish doing so I was going to catch up. As I rounded the last corner before the walkway to the main building, I see a housekeeper with a laundry cart that has a toddler bed sticking out of it. I confirm where she's going and head back to the room with her. In my mind I'm thinking “You don't even have any pack and plays, you're just going to put that mattress in the laundry cart and I'm going to have to complain AGAIN and this is becoming a nightmare.” but I did keep my mouth shut. A good thing, as she pulled the pnp out of the cart after bringing the mattress into the room.

Her mobile rings and I hear her talking in Turkish but I notice the word “mama” and I say it's probably my husband. When she gets off the phone she says the front desk was calling because the papa was there asking about the cot. She tells me she was eating and even left her dinner to come bring the cot. I tell her I'm sorry that happened to her but we asked for it the first time more than 2 hours ago so it's really unfortunate if nobody told her we needed it until just then. I was feeling some sympathy for her, just caught in the middle of a bad situation. THEN she tells me she got a call an hour ago and even then she was eating.

WTF?!?!? So an hour goes by and she still doesn't deign to get us the pnp and it takes another call to get her ass moving? I told her our baby didn't get his nap today because we didn't have a bed for him and I left before I ripped her head off.

no heat

A month or two ago, there was a cold snap and some kind of work being done in the building that required us to have no heat for a day or more. I don't even really remember the details of the situation. Adults are often out of the house or can just put on a sweater, but the little ones had to be able to nap during the day so I remember demanding space heaters for their rooms even though this was only going to be one day if all went well.

I am so glad I did that! We have no heat in the building and it's -10C outside. Our split pack is heat and A/C, and with the space heaters the kids are cozy. It is supposed to be repaired tonight so keep your fingers crossed ...

Adorable cafe

There's a cafe on Zhukoskovo near us that opened this summer and I have meant to go a million times. One day when I was having special time with Alex we went for lunch. I can't really comment on the food, it was fine but it was the basic fried ham-and-cheese in pastry type thing and a sweet treat so there's only so much room for error .... BUT ...

There's a bird cage with 2 colorful birds (parakeets maybe?), toys and stuffed animals on a high shelf for patron use, a ton of Ikea goodies for the kiddies (the plush dessert set, roll of paper and crayons, etc). It was set up for new year with decorated trees and snowflakes and winter scenes. The tables are well spaced for a stroller, there's booths and wide comfy chairs with wraparound arms that help kids not fall off. The kicker for me, Alex's milk came with a bendy straw cut to exactly the height of the glass. Little touches like this make me want to go back every week. If it's open this week it's on the agenda for a special treat with Alex on one of the days we've got babysitters coming for Zoltan.

Awesome park now open

The park across the street from the rinok at Nekrasova was pretty shady when we arrived, then it was under construction for what seemed like forever. It finally opened around the beginning of December and I forgot about it for a few weeks, then finally took Alex there last week.

It is fabulous. The play area is at the back and the back entrance near Octyabrskaya Theatre is the nearest way in, which means it's close enough to our house that Alex will walk it even in all her snow clothes. All the equipment is perfectly sized for a 3 year old, with the snow and ice I didn't like her doing everything by herself but she could in the summer. The stretch of ground at the end of the slide is ice and there's a "catch-pit" type thing so when she goes down super fast and then continues the ride on the ice she does get stopped. We went again today and I was a little surprised how many other kids were there, I hadn't expected so many parents to leave the house after all the celebration last night.

Mikhailovsky Theatre

Through a fantastic fortuitous set of circumstances, I finally got to see my second ballet in Petersburg this weekend - and my first at the Mikhailovsky Theatre. The location is fabulous, only 2 blocks from the Gostiny Dvor metro or in good weather (and not in cute shoes) a 1/2 hour walk from home. The theatre is smaller than Mariinsky - which isn't exactly bolshoi either compared to USA venues - so it feels much more intimate. The performance was fantastic. The tickets were way cheaper. Maybe a true connoisseur would detect flaws that would render Mariinsky the preferred venue but I am not that good. I am thrilled that I'm going back to see the Nutcracker there next week!

Thanksgiving

(this is a little late)

I am thankful for so many things. For the Consulate employee who, rather than try to explain how to get to the place that could fix our busted stroller tire, decided he'd just get it fixed for me. For the same man who decided that, rather than do it over Thanksgiving and get it back to me on Friday, he'd get it done Wednesday. For the other Consulate employee who brought the tire home with him so it wouldn't be locked up in the Consulate over the holiday and then brought it to me Thursday morning so that, when Zoltan decided he didn't like his crib for morning nap, his babysitter could take him for the walk in the stroller that just about guarantees sleep. For being able to have a babysitter, who first got Alex to school so I could work on the apple pies I needed to make for Thanksgiving, then helped me with the pie preparations when everything was falling apart and Zoltan wasn't sleeping but we didn't have the tire yet, then ran out with Zoltan to walk him to sleep once we had the tire in our possession.

People are - in general - kind, generous and thoughtful. I'm thankful that I get to experience these gifts on a regular basis.

Pinkalicious

This morning Alex started to "read" (recite) Pinkalicious to the nanny. She has to ask me to explain the first page - "What does it mean, too much rain to go outside?"

No such thing in Petersburg.

Galleria

A second mall has just opened up in my neighborhood. It doesn't open til 10am - including the grocery store - but when I was finally able to get into the place I was thrilled. It's an Okey Express, but had 90% of the items on my list. I didn't get to check out the mall but it has a baby room with changing facilities on every floor, an underground parking lot that advertises how many open spaces it has, and either already or coming soon is bowling & billiards (pool). The best part? From the moment I got into the mall (and the store opened late so there was additional time before I could actually begin shopping) to the moment I walking into my building bursting with groceries was one hour.

My very Russian Sunday afternoon

     Weekends are always tricky with the kids' afternoon naps. Alex wakes Zoltan when she goes back there because he's so sensitive; Zoltan wakes Alex when he goes down because of the screaming. Sunday we put Zoltan down first, then 30 minutes later brought Alex in to her room. Scream, scream, the baby's awake.

     Terry took the hit on Saturday so Sunday was my turn to go walk him in the stroller for however long he was willing to sleep. I took him to Mikhailovsky Gardens. He fell asleep, and after about 10 more minutes I sat down on a bench where someone must have sat recently - the snow had been wiped off. I opened my thermos of hot tea and sat there drinking and reading my book while Zoltan slept in the stroller next to the bench.** 15 minutes passed. It began to snow. The tea was long gone. 15 more minutes passed. I couldn't feel my fingers. It began to snow harder. Zoltan was swatting at snowflakes in his sleep so I pulled out his rain cover to protect him, and decided he'd napped long enough and it was time to go home.

** This sentence is the quintessential Russian part, except that I wasn't wearing stiletto boots and an adorable but largely useless hat.

Stockmann's

The new Stocksmann's store on Nevsky opened this week and I am already in love. Yesterday when Zoltan refused to be happy and Alex was napping I sent Terry out to check the place out and get Z out of the house (he's happier out and about, just like his big sis). Terry came home with tons of exciting news, the Stockmann's grocery store is just like Lend (the gourmet store that has all the stuff nobody else has like American brand cereals and maple syrup) but waayyy closer. They also have Lindex, our new favorite children clothing store that has ridiculously affordable clothes, Baskin Robbins in the food court, H&M, and I don't even remember what else. It's a whole 10 minutes walk from our house!

 

With Zoltan walking as of 3 days ago, I was able to run over to H&M and buy him some boots so he can play outside. Even with broken elevators and massive crowd of people the whole door to door transaction was 45 minutes and no car time.

The extra super awesome part is they have the big slow cooker 220W so we don't have to run it through the transformer. We've become big slow cooker fans especially now that I am working, we also use it for making stock after our friend's information that she just puts all the stuff in the slow cooker and lets it go for a couple of days. So now we don't have to schedule stock making. In fact, at one point over the weekend we had stock in one cooker and apple sauce being made in the other. Yum!

Halloween at the Preschool

Of 12 preschoolers, only 2 have 2 American-born parents. One kid was only 18 months old - and in Russia - last Halloween. Alex, however, participated in the traditional Halloween trick or treat in mom's neighborhood and was old enough to remember it. As it turns out.

The decision was made that "because the kids don't know any better" the treat bags would be filled with healthy food. They got raisins, Fig Newtons, peanut butter crackers, and fruit jellies.  The kids didn't actually trick or treat for them because the larger space we were supposed to have for their Halloween party got double booked and we were ousted. The regular classroom doesn't have enough room to move around that much so a group of parents quickly filled the bags with all the stuff and handed the ready-made bags to the kids. As there were plenty of treats at the party, the kids didn't really even look at their bags til it was time to go home.

When we got home, Alex eagerly asked for her treat bag. The crestfallen look on her face made me wish I had substituted at least 1 or 2 pieces of candy for the stuff in her bag.

He's walking

Last weekend Zoltan took an unaided step toward me - twice in a row. But there were no spectators even though it was the weekend and Terry was home. Today, he did the same for Terry!  Then later in the evening he stood for almost a whole minute, then took two steps forward before sitting down - right in front of both of us and while we were on the phone with a grandparent. I think the days before he's officially a walking are probably single digits!

Party Bus

The 30 seater party bus comes with a stripper pole in the back. The 15 seater has leather couches in a semi circle around the stripper pole. It's cheaper to rent the bus, in either case, with the stripper because there's a fewer hour minimum for rental.

At this point you're asking for the punchline. But instead, here are some photos (to come). And the backstory....

We were going on a tour of the Baltika Brewery. Russia has a no-tolerance policy on drunk driving, and the public transit option takes 90 minutes from door to door, if all goes well. In researching how to get us to and from the brewery, our friend discovered the Party Bus. Here's the third party synopsis of his conversation with the bus rental people.

Friend: I'd like the bus without stripper. We don't need it for 4 hours though, can you get a better rate?
Company Rep: Well, if you rent the bus with the stripper, there's only a 2 hour minimum for rental so it's cheaper.
F: I don't want the stripper.
CR: But it's cheaper... How about you rent the bus with stripper, but we don't send the stripper along.
F: No, I don't want to risk the stripper accidentally showing up.
CR: But it's cheaper!
F: NO STRIPPER.

In the end, he got the "stripper" rate without the presence of the stripper. A good thing, because everyone's first comment upon entering the bus was "Where's the 'tansey pole'"?

More rules and regulations of the Party Bus include no opening alcoholic beverages while on the bus (you have to open the bottles outside, then get back on the bus to drink); no standing on top of the bus; no throwing things from the bus ... you get the picture.

This experience totally deserves its own posting, but the Baltika Brewery tour itself deserves its own shout out, which is forthcoming. As are the photos.

Marchelli's

Friends of ours have a standing date night every week. I am both impressed and amazed. I try to keep in mind they only have one child but still .... for months I have been promising myself that Terry and I will go out more. We finally picked a night and decided to make this a routine event - not every week, but at least every other.

We knew the sitter was coming in a few hours, and we had no idea where to go. Terry makes a strange request - Italian food (we never go out for Italian), and further surprise - it sounded good to me. There's a place just down Vossitanya a few blocks so we decide to try it out. It's next door to a new Czech brewpub looking place so that was our backup.

First, the drinks. I had a glass of the midrange Montepulciano. It was very mediocre. Drinkable, but it had me wondering what the house wine was like. Terry got the home brew, which turned out to be almost a wheat beer. I really liked it and offered to trade but he liked the wine even less.

Starters: I had the Caesar salad with warm chicken (there was no plain Caesar options) and Terry had vegetables with Feta. Turns out he was the big winner on that course. My salad was oozing with too much dressing and the dressing had way too much anchovy in it. It was fine, to be honest, but nothing to love. The pesto drizzled over the chicken was nice but the chicken itself was tasteless, which was strange given that it was so moist. Terry's salad was so fresh and refreshing. The dressing was light and just the right amount, it was basically a Greek salad with really good ingredients. Yum!

Main: I wasn't too hungry so I got the smoked tomato soup. Delicious! We tried to figure out how it got the smoky taste which was strong but more in the finish than the first taste. I have to imagine they smoked tomatoes then cooked and pureed them into soup. Terry got a spaghetti with spicy tomato sauce and salami. I didn't taste but he wasn't impressed.

Dessert: T stayed simple with ice cream and cappuccino. Turns out he's definitely the overall winner for tonight. I figured the desserts are all outsourced so there's a decent chance the apple strudel is tasty. Wrong! The pastry was heavy and soft and the fruit tasted lemony. It did come with cinnamon ice cream, which was tasty. In a city where a cheap blini takeout place serves loose leaf tea, I don't know what higher end places see in Althaus brand. The jasmine tea was worse than the stuff I got $3 for 100 bags in Chinatown.

Final verdict: If we actually want to go out for Italian food, we'll definitely be back. The standout dishes were good enough to warrant trying other dishes to find a full winner meal for each of us, and the location can't be beat.

Gotta love the Jews

My kids have waayyyy too many toys. It's ridiculous. We hide half of them and rotate every month or two because all at once they are overwhelming. So, because Hanukkah is 8 days of giftgiving madness, I asked my mom to substitute some of the toys with donations in the kids' names. She said fine, but she wanted Jewish charities. Fair enough.

In the spirit of getting the shopping done early, mom made the donations last month. We received in our Thursday mail run the nice notifications that a donation had been made in the names of our kids. The envelope also included .... drumroll please ....
Thank you notes and envelopes for A & Z to send back to mom to thank her for making the donations.

Pictures from Peterhof

Here are the photos from Peterhof. Again sorry for the delay.

Photos of Tsarskoye Selo

Sorry for the delay.  I have been fighting  a cold so I am going to bed earlier then usual.  This has slowed down the editing process.  Anyway here are that photos from Tsarskoye Selo.

Hurricanes are in Town

On Monday the Carolina Hurricanes were in town to play the St Petersburg SKA in an exhibition game. Lynne tried to put together an outing to game for the consulate. Unfortunately by the time we went to purchase the tickets there were only 7 seats left and none of them together. The CG was able to get some tickets from the NHL people on the ground. So, a bunch of Consulate people went to the game in the end. I would like to thank the NHL for helping us out with the tickets. All in all the game was really fun. The Ska ended up winning 5-3. It was interesting watching the Hurricanes play on the larger ice and with international rules. Also North American hockey is just tougher. Most of the hitting and all the fights were won by the Hurricanes.

One strange thing about the arena is that you cannot drink in the stands. During intermission everyone piles out to the concourse to get drinks and food. Then quickly drinks and heads back to the stands. It is very odd that you can drink almost everywhere in the city but not in the hockey arena’s stands. Last observations is that during the lineup announcement all the Hurricane players came out and perfectly lined up along the blue in nice orderly fashion. While the Ska players came out some lined on the blue line some skated around behind the blue line. They were very laissez faire about the whole thing. After being here for so long it reminded me a lot of Russian society. It is orderly but only so orderly.