Tuesday, March 29, 2011

IWC general meeting

I don't think I've mentioned the IWC yet. It's the International Women's Club, and I think they have chapters in most major cities and in most countries. In Malta nobody I knew joined it and I was busy learning how to be a mom so I never even bothered to try to figure it out, here in Petersburg it's pretty big among the expat women and in fact a pretty great resource for lots of things that make life here wonderful (play groups, a list of recommended nannies and cleaners - remember we don't have grandparents here or even daycare - special tours at the top sights, etc etc).

One feature of the way IWC runs is the monthly General Meeting. It is the opportunity for all the IWC members who wish to gather, socialize a bit, and experience a presentation. This year's topics have included presentations from some of the charities we support; a writer who's been researching and writing about the Romanovs for most of her career; a discussion of the 900 day Siege of Leningrad.

Last week we had a man from the Mariinsky Ballet Company (something to do with their International Projects, I think he's the Director of but I don't want to mis-quote) come to talk to us about ballet. It was great. And by the way, the younger ballerinas especially wanted him to make sure we all knew that real ballet companies run nothing like Black Swan, even though they all do love Natalie Portman. This is the kind of thing that reminds me why we wanted to live overseas.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Orders!

We finally have orders, which means we can plan to come home. Terry sent the request to the travel agent to book our flights. Looks like it may actually happen. Not like there was really a question as it's a Congressional mandate to have home leave between posts, but like everything around here nothing is confirmed until after it already happened.

Oh and it snowed again last night with another flurry this afternoon. Glad I didn't put away the winter coats. I will probably be safe to pack them away the weekend we fly out, as we won't return until June ...

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

A dose of humor

A friend's facebook entry led me to http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/

I had to stop reading God of Cake at work because I was laughing so hard and crying from so much laughing. Maybe you need a sweet-toothed daughter to fully appreciate it? It brought me back to the day after her first taste of chocolate ice cream (a preschool birthday celebration) and her meltdown in the local producty as we left with our purchases of milk and bread "I want brown ice cream! Turn around mommy and get me brown ice cream!"

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Dangerous Playground

Today the playground was dangerous for none of the usual reasons (equipment long banned in the USA, broken bottles, wild older kids who don't care about knocking a 3 year old off the aforementioned deathtrap equipment) ....

Zoltan as usual tripped over his own feet and face planted into the ground, which has morphed from snow to a million tiny knifelike shards of ice. I actually wiped a drop of blood off his face. Photos to follow.

How excited are we that daddy comes home today?

Friday, March 11, 2011

Single motherhood

Terry's off for a week of training, leaving tomorrow. I am not 100% sure he won't come home to a family of 2 rather than 3 if Alex doesn't stop acting like a 3 year old and start behaving herself. (joking, sort of)

Friday, March 4, 2011

Don't forget to eat your pancakes!

March 1 is the first day of spring in Russia (patiently waiting for the laughter to subside. Hey it did get above freezing today!) In celebration, there is a Lent-ish sort of fabulous holiday that requires us to gorge on pancakes for about a week. Maslenitsa culminates Sunday March 6 with massive festivities in just about every patch of green-under-the-snow (aka parks) and blini are the showcase.

Also at the end of the day a stuffed animal is burned as an effigy of winter. Or something like that.

If I remember my camera there will be photographic evidence. We're planning to go the lazy route this year, and go to Tavrichesky Park, which is 1. walkable and 2. where we will be for Alex's ice skating lesson 1/2 hour before the thing begins anyway.

EDITED TO ADD: It was a very, very small 'do. At least I now know what's been done with the renovated building that was a rooftop restaurant in the summer and just gutted in the downstairs - it's the Center for Creative Development. The blinis were very tasty but we didn't get enough and the lines got LONG. Other friends went to bigger/better Maslenitsas and I'll get the full report for them. Next year we'll be more adventuresome.

Adorable-isms

Alex: Mommy, let's play bus. Help me find more chairs.
Me: Honey, we don't have any more chairs
Alex: There's lots of things here we can put our tushies on.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Beer as far as the eye can see...

There's a company that provides duty free goods to diplomats, the best deals are on alcohol and very occasionally we and others at the Consulate place orders with them. They are located in Denmark, I'm not really sure where the goods are located, but in any case they aren't local so after an order is placed some time passes before the delivery - which occurs at the Consulate.  We ordered 3 cases of beer. As our car still isn't accessible, a friend drove Terry home with the goods.

That's the background. The story is that the shipment sat at customs for a few days, and then the cases sat in our friend's car. Short story - all 3 cases were "refrigerated."  Our fridge at home doesn't fit 3 cases of beer if we also want any of the food and drink we need to survive to also fit inside. What to do?

We opened the window in one room and now it's the "cold room." We're also slowly (as in, whatever we can carry each day when we go to work) carrying beer into the Consulate to store in a fridge there. Finally, we had some people over Saturday night and told them we were only serving beer.

The moral of the story - don't order beer through this company in the winter.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Peacock Clock

In Pavillion Hall of the Hermitage Museum stands the golden Peacock Clock. 95% of the time it stands dormant, but on Wednesday afternoons (usually) the Master of the Clock winds it up and it chimes the "hour". First, a spherical cage around the owl spins and bells attached to it chime. Then, the peacock fluffs out its tail feathers, displays them, then turns to show off to those standing on the other side (which is now the wall, so he's basically mooning the observers - but I am sure in Empress Catherine's court, was more open space). Finally, the cockerel on the right side starts singing/crowing. The whole performance is maybe 5 minutes.

Our Consul General had a great idea of a morale-boosting pick-me-up and suggested we organize a trip to see the Clock. When our folks contacted the Hermitage, they instead offered to have a special showing just for us at a different time and date. It was a great plan, except for the large tour group that happened to be in the room as people started gathering, and they got the bulk of the space right in front before the majority of us arrived. We got the kids to the front anyway, and those who really wanted to see the performance were able to do so.

Here's a link to more information about the clock, here's a YouTube video of its performance, and below is a clandestine photo of the clock (clandestine only because Terry hasn't edited it first, we're allowed photography there)

Lapland restaurant

At the far end of 5th Sovietskaya, on a residential street completely deserted on a cold winter's night, stands Lapland. At least, the eponymous restaurant. Upon entering, it's a great representation of a northern cabin, all light wood, high ceilings, some pelts and antlers around the rooms. Right by our table was a children's sized table with some Ikea toys to play with. They have a tasty home brew beer and a menu full of fish, game, and arctic circle berries in the sauces (cloudberry, arctic buckthorn, lingonberry - the last of which isn't quite so northern but close).

We got the bread basket, which had some unique pairings such as "gray bread" with beetroot and something I forget, maybe celery root? The butters were also doctored and tasty, I remember one had garlic and something else, the other had mushroom. We also had an amuse bouche, which usually makes me love a restaurant on the spot. It was tasty, although the server never identified it for us there was definitely a smoked fish, cmetana, and shredded beet. yum!

Terry ordered a salad with smoked rock trout for starter, and I had smoked cheese soup with venison. They were both a bit sweet for Terry but I thought they were fabulous. If only that had been my meal!  We made the cardinal mistake of ordering the same main as it sounded soooo good on the menu - braised venison with mashed potatoes, sour pickles and lingonberry sauce. The sides were fine but the venison ... I'm not a texture person, but it was like eating venison-scented mush. I couldn't finish.

Things picked up at dessert, where I had the buckthorn-mint sorbet and Terry had cloudberry - mine was better. The cappuccinos were also perfect. We will definitely give it one more try, next time with different mains! One complaint - yes expensive restaurants are, well, expensive, but seriously, our bottle of water was 450 Rubles ($15). It's the $2 water at the grocery store. All other markups I forgave, but the water annoyed me.