Springtime in Piter

I think it got up to 15 or 16 today (Celsius), sunny ... absolutely lovely. And two children who think naps are for losers - at least Zoltan will grant us one, albeit too short. So what to do? Of course, go outside!

Terry and Zoltan left first, as it seemed at the time Alex might realize what a friend to her sleep really is. When Alex and I got to the playground, Terry looked at me and said "I had a great idea. How about one of us runs to the produkty across the street and we get a beer for me and a gin & tonic drink for you." (being Passover, I can't have beer) This is Russia, where a beautiful day outside must be enjoyed with alcohol in hand, so across the street Alex and I go. She was promised a juice box, as everyone else was getting a special treat.

The best part of the whole thing is when she and I were in the store looking at the non-beer options for me and after I make my selection I ask what I should get for daddy. "Get Daddy a beer." Good girl.

A day for the books

When Terry came home tonight I kissed him and told him I almost went for my passport today (as in, to leave him and the kids). Let's do a re-cap:

- Zoltan had my keys in the hole in the wall just below the 2 electrical outlets. How many seconds did we have before he bored of the hole and went for the outlet?
- Zoltan took the top rack off the silverware organizer. That one holds (among other things) the steak knives. When I got to him he had the cardboard cover off one knife and was putting the knife back inside.
- Zoltan refused to nap 3 times, and even refused to lay down in the stroller. He eventually took a pitiful 1h nap in the stroller almost entirely upright (there's zippered sides that let me recline him a bit)
- Due to said sleep deprivation he spent a lot of time screaming today, just in general.
- When getting ready to get Alex and I was setting up the stroller, he played in the fireplace in our foyer.
- Zoltan got hold of the metal 1 cup measuring cup and was banging it energetically on the kitchen table ... until he banged it on his fingers. Cue up the screaming.
- Zoltan managed to pull the completely full Brita pitcher off the countertop onto himself, drenching himself and the floor.
- Alex was her usual No-Nap self this afternoon, which also included a lot of screaming, tantruming, throwing things, pulling her brother, taking toys from him and other mischief.

Cafe Gerbeaud

How is it possible that I forgot to write about Cafe Gerbeaud? It was one of the very few things I was adamant we get to while on our vacation, because of course I'm not missing out on world-renown chocolate. It's in the middle of everything so we passed it many times, but always as we were on our way somewhere, or during a meltdown, etc. We did finally get there our last full day in town and I have to say ... it's OK. Alex and I got the Valhrona chocolate cake and the menfolk got coffee drinks (I think). It is definitely not worth its own trip but it was a nice pit stop before getting on the subway - think stairs, no elevator - while Zoltan slept.

Ripped off

The flight home was super rough - on the long leg we were delayed 3/4 hour due to a jacka** who never boarded the plane but his luggage was on so they had to find and remove the luggage. Then it was ridiculously hot and a bit turbulent so Terry was just hanging on. Zoltan and I did laps and laps up and down the plane, making friends all along the way. It's a good thing the kid is so personable.

We finally land, get our luggage, and Terry goes to the taxi stand for our ride home, as always. The traffic is nightmarish, the kids both fall asleep but Z wakes after 40 minutes and screams the entire 15-20 additional minutes til we get home. And then ....

the driver tries to charge us 2500 rubles for the ride. In a sedan. That usually costs 800 rubles. The minivan we ordered to get us to the airport because I didn't know "station wagon" in Russian cost 1150. We had been awake since 5:30am, we were exhausted from the travel and drained from listening helplessly to the screaming, and we were DONE. So, stupidly, we gave him 2000 and sent him on his way.

I console myself with the knowledge that the whole trip was way under budget even though we all know that wasn't the point. Ah, home sweet home.

Last photos of budapest

Here are links to the last photos not linked in previous posts. You can all as get to the Budapest page with all the albums here.

Daddy's taking us to the zoo tomorrow ....

... and we can stay all day, we're going to the zoo, the zoo, the zoo, how about you?

The Budapest zoo is walkable from our friend's apartment and of course kids and zoos go together like kids and candy so we decided it would be a good plan for our Wednesday. With the kids rising early on vacation (kak obuichna) we were at the entrance at opening time sharp, 9:00am. We figured we'd stay 2 hours or so, catch lunch somewhere, maybe play in the park a bit and try to get Alex a nap. Hahahahahaha.

This zoo is amazing. It's segmented into regions, so there's an Australia area, a Madagascar area, etc, etc. We ran into the petting zoo relatively early on. You climb a ladder to get over the fence where the very tame and friendly goats live. The kids were thrilled to pet them, as you can see. There's a sectioned off area where the goats can get away from people when it gets to be too much. Next to the goat area, but not for petting, is the guinea pig area. I have no earthly idea why we didn't get photos. Their outdoor space is a little mini village, with houses, cars, shops etc for them to run around and play in.

Another part Alex particularly liked was the animal hospital area, where we could see the sick/injured animals in their separate quarters. We were there so early the only human back there was the cleaner, but it looks like people can watch the vets take care of the animals.

The hippos live in a mosiac'd building (of course with access to outside too) and, as they are next to the elephants, there is a huge Ganesh at the entrance of the building.

Budapest really has its act together when it comes to playgrounds. The zoo had several places for kids to play, from the carved wooden insects to the ocean themed huge play area complete with a pirate ship (well, it has a gangplank), dolphins and a whale. There's even a zipline for older kids or kids whose parents hang on.

We loved the zoo so much we got Tshirts. We never get touristy stuff like that. And in the end we spent 6 hours there, only heading home because it was about to start raining.

Buda

Being geographically challenged, I never knew from minute to minute our first days in Budapest whether we were in Buda or Pest. Turns out everything is in Pest, and Buda is the old city. Terry had to explain it a few times, because the first time he just said the "Castle" was more of a complex than one big building and his explanations continued to expand until he finally described it as being like Mdina. Well if he'd only said that first!

We'd been debating the funicular and in the end, standing in front of it, we realized we'd have to pack up the stroller or split up and it wasn't worth the bother. So we walked up the hill. Several times on the way up we questioned that decision too but at that point there was nothing for it but to forge on.

We wandered the streets and saw the sights, which Terry will input with their photos as I don't remember the names of the buildings anymore. We definitely got to Fisherman's Bastion and took all the requisite photos from the vantage point. The adorable photos of Terry and Alex come from there, where we hid out during one of the many brief rain showers that day.

One pretty hilarious tidbit - the guy who cleans the square in front of the Matthias Church wears courtly attire (well, a tunic and breeches. The photos of him were all out of focus so Terry deleted them.) There was another courtly dressed guy with an eagle, you can see part of him in one photo but the ones that included the eagle were also, apparently, out of focus so they got cut too.

Budapest parks and playgrounds

The best playground I have ever seen in my entire life is in the City Park in Budapest. We only went into the one, although we could see 2 others from where we were. Here's a link to some photos. Alex lovey loved the huge slides and both kids rocked the sandbox. She didn't love the dragon that greets you when you enter but Z was unfazed.

Our first days

We weren't sure how the kids would handle the time change, the disruption to their schedules and surroundings, and the general aftereffects of travel, so we planned Sunday to be a lazy day. Good thing, as Zoltan woke around 2am totally pissed off and only slept lying on top of one of us, like back in the old days (aka from 4 weeks to 3 months old). He eventually slid off and went into the ubiquitous H formation we keep hearing about - never sleeping with our kids means we haven't experienced this fun aspect of parenting, the "being pushed out of bed by a creature the size of one's arm."

In general, Terry and I slept like poop.

We got up for good around 7am, and made a big pot of coffee. I had to run out for sugar and to discover what the Sunday hours of the local grocery store were. Interestingly, the Swiss embassy is on one side of this apartment building, the Iranian and Italian are within 3 houses of the other side, and Libya is on the corner. Tells you something about the neighborhood.

Our first day we met our friend and went for lunch, having Hungarian food for my first time. Yummy! The extra special bonus at lunch was the table next to us, where a lady first entertained Z by playing peekaboo, and finally held out her arms for him so I could eat some of my food. I love her.

The second day was Market day. The big indoor produce market is closed on Sundays but we love markets and needed fruit for the kids anyway so off we went Monday morning. This one is more touristy than some other one Terry heard of, but we still managed to drool over reasonably priced beautiful produce. We got bread and cheese and strawberries for an immediate snack (eaten at the playground across the street as the kids played, running up to us for one more berry and then back to whatever they were doing) and replenished our exhausted stock of paprika. Turns out there's 5 kinds of paprika and smoked paprika is only used on steaks. In case anyone needs to know.

When we got home from the market I tried to get Alex to nap while Terry explored the park with Zoltan. More on that next.

Budapest adorable-isms

1. Alex telling me she is always happy in Budapest .... because the whole family is together.

2. Waking each morning to the sound of children's voices, going into their room and seeing Z standing up in the pack n play, Alex sitting up in the bed, chattering to each other.

Budapest

We took advantage of a friend being posted to Budapest and the correlating free place to stay to visit the nation of Terry's last name, a.k.a. the country his great grandfather left to come to America. The trip occurred now because the children are as old as they can be before he leaves post (well, before we leave post, then come back to be alone meaning Terry can't take a day off work nor travel more that 2 driving hours away on the weekends, then our friend leaves post)

More posts and photos to follow. Initial impressions - we love it. We would love to serve here. Clean, convenient, friendly, YOU CAN DRINK THE WATER FROM THE TAP.

The flights there and back reinforced our tentative plans to put international travel on hold for a while (well, other than places like Vilnius, which is an overnight train ride, or Riga, which is a very short direct flight). Admittedly, being us, "for a while" means maybe until winter.

But I digress. The trip to Budapest was relatively uneventful except for the new Archos completely nor working, which we learned upon our return home was due to the fact that the new Archos can not use the same charger as the old one even though they look like they are the exact same. Fabulous to learn that on a trip involving 9 hours of door to door travel as opposed to 16 hours, which will happen in 2 weeks. In any case, Alex was entertained enough elsewise that she only watched 2 shows on the old Archos during the flight anyway.

Budapest drivers...

.... always stop for pedestrians in the crosswalk. Always. At least, in our 6 days it was consistent. Of course, as we couldn't bring ourselves to trust that, we stopped at the curb and planned to let the cars pass. But they never did. And seemed a bit annoyed for us making them wait when, had we just nonchalantly crossed when we first got to the street, we would have been halfway across by the time they got to us.

They also wait for the green man when walking, or the green bike when biking. Even when there is nothing coming for miles and miles, like at 9am on Sunday.

Our fabulously appreciating cabin

So we have spent most of the last 2 nights untangling a property nightmare that makes me wish we lived in the USA just long enough to sort this out. The long story slightly shorter: our cabin was reassessed, as the entire municipality was, a couple of years ago. Apparently the assessors didn't see the cabin the first time around, and still came up with an appraised value of the property that was just slightly lower that what we bought it for so we thought nothing of it as it was a down economy.

Then, they found the cabin and decided it was worth a lot. And created a Supplemental Tax Bill that we never received telling us how much more we needed to pay based on this. Mind you, our tax bills went up substantially in this time, almost doubling from one year to the next, and then fully doubling the next year. So without this bill we never received we had no reason to think they weren't taxing us enough. And I was informed by the county office that it was my legal duty to inquire as to whether a supplemental bill was ever issued, even though the regular bills never had trouble finding my address.

Now we have the Delinquent Tax Notice. Of course. And after 2 entire evenings spent on the phone, we finally have a straight answer regarding for what value the property was assessed. Lo, miracle of miracles, apparently our little 700 sq. ft cabin is worth 50% more (in a tanking economy) than we paid for it (in an up economy).

Think we should sell?

Tandoori Nights

There is an Indian restaurant highly recommended among the expat community. A similarly named restaurant is located 2 doors down and we've been warned that they profit from the confusion. Saturday night we decided to finally, almost 2 years into our tour, try Tandoori Nights. As we walked in, the front part of the restaurant was crowded with Indian men watching cricket. Good Sign #1. The menu was a bit hard to decipher, their recommended dishes were a range of North and South Indian cuisine, so we weren't sure where the chef was probably from. Still, we figured it would be best to stay away from our Malik's favorites so to avoid the inevitable comparisons. When we ordered the Karachi Chicken the server warned us that it was spicy. Good Sign #2. I had a craving and couldn't resist to I asked if they would make a nimbu pani even though it wasn't on the menu. He said no problem. Good Sign #3. I did ask for sweet and it was definitely a bit salty, but I won't hold it against them. Yum, yum, yum. After a couple bites of the chicken I could not longer use my taste buds but Terry was in heaven. We brought the leftovers home and left a generous tip to thank them for using chili powder. During the course of our meal, another thought occurred. Expat Indians largely if not universally speak English. Meaning, we can order takeout from the very good but mostly South Indian restaurant that's on the way home from work. Wooo-hoooo! I hate that it took us 2 years for these realizations, but am grateful that we have 2 more years to exploit the information.

+9 Centigrade

Today's temperature. Yeah, spring is a fickle, weak little thing who flirts with winter and lets him walk all over her with 5 inches of snow on March 31. But ... Let The Thaw Begin.

Love America's Love of Convenience

We have plane tickets for our home leave, and a corporate apartment for the week of consultations in D.C. In the confirmation email Terry received from the management company, there included a paragraph to the effect that if we wanted groceries in our apartment when we arrived, they recommended using Peapod and they would be happy to have the items placed in our apartment.

O M G

So, 22 hours or so after the children last slept, when we have nothing left to give, no patience, no strength, barely the capacity to physically prevent them from doing things that might kill them, we DON'T have to draw straws to see which one of us goes to the grocery store on a Sunday at dinnertime?

America, I love you.

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.

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 ...

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!"

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?

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)

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.

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.

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.

It wasn't the frozen lock

We got lock de-icer (yes, this product does exist and even has what it is in helpful English) and the locks still won't work. SO now we wait for warmer weather to use our car again. Those studded snow tires, that brand new battery, just going to waste ....

It was so cold ...

Sounds like the beginning of a joke, but the joke is on us if anything. So our car has been having troubles with the locks - the automatic locks aren't working properly so some doors don't unlock with the auto locks, some don't lock, and in general when it gets below freezing there's liquid in the driver's side door so the key can't even get in the lock all the way so we have to go to the passenger side, unlock it, then lean across the entire seat to unlock the driver's side because the passenger side auto locks don't lock OR unlock anything.

We have some concerns about the car surviving the tour. Especially as we have another 2 years here. Terry keeps saying the problems are cosmetic, the engine is solid yadda yadda

Today proved me right. The drivers' side lock was as usual nonfunctional and today the passenger side made the clicking sound but didn't raise the lock enough to actually open the door. He couldn't drive to the grocery store because he couldn't get into the car.

How thrilled are we that Okey Express opened last month about a 15 minute walk away? Can't carry as much, but can get the necessities purchased. Now we're looking into anti-freeze stuff for the lock. Exciting times.

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.