Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Wordless Wednesday


Yep, I'm a big honking geek

I have fallen in love, sort of. I've said before the Russian language has gotten its hooks into me in a bad way, and the love affair seems to only be growing, maybe in light of our impending breakup (at least temporarily). After a recent lesson on Pushkin wherein my teacher impressed upon me his significance to Russia and why he is THE poet of the country my current dream is to read (and most importantly, duh, understand) him in his mother tongue. The more Russian I know, the more Russians I speak with, the more certain I am that no translation between these 2 languages can ever properly capture the essence.

I am also once again signed up for the distance learning, but this time there is a new course - Consular Russian. I'm learning the language and idiom necessary to talk to visa applicants about their plans to visit the USA. And I am loving it.

I had said that if I passed the language test in December I'd slow way down, and it is true I no longer do much homework, but ...

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Sennaya Ploschad haul

In the regular grocery stores right now, we can choose from apples, pears, oranges, and mandarins. And some globe grapes that aren't worth the necessary de-seeding for the littles.

Today we ventured to Sennaya for the first time in a long time. We got: 2 kilos kish-mish grapes; 1.5 kilos finger bananas (first time ever seeing them in Piter!); 1 kilo mandarin; 1 mango; 2 kilos granat; 2 kilos apples; 1.5 kilo pears; 1 kilo plums; and 1 fruit item I had never seen before but described to me as like an apple and sweet (1 piece was 1/2 kilo). Veggie-wise we didn't get as much, but still the kilo of zucchini, half kilo of winter squash, pack of snow peas will get us partway through the week.

Because the kids get up so early, we're in and out and back home by 10:30am, so no traffic, no parking troubles. It's a good day, and I can't wait to gobble up the fruit salad.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Ice skating @ Elagin

Both kids have been talking about skating lately. This is due partly to the partial thaw then re-freeze of the city a few weeks ago, which rendered all sidewalks mini-rinks. But, as Terry is hell-bent on getting Zoltan into hockey, the day will have to come sooner or later that he dons skates and hits the ice (hoping, of course, not to really "hit" the ice too hard or too often).

Elagin island - already our family favorite place - has a free, open, outdoor ice rink. I think in the summer they just call it "ground" or maybe "pond". Terry and Alex already have skates, so for the price of 400 rubles to rent skates for Z and me for an hour, the family had a great morning! Both kids said they wanted to go again, although Zoltan said another day - not again today.

 Lunch ended up taking forever so we didn't get home until deep into normal nap time, and both kids had fabulous naps. There's nothing like fresh air and exercise :-)

Thursday, January 17, 2013

That's our flag!

There's some big international soccer tournament thing going on soon. Posters and billboards are up all over town. There's one on the way to detsky sad.

As we walked past the other day, Zoltan stops to look at it. He studies the row of flags at the bottom, which indicate the countries that will participate.  He gets excited, points and yells "That's OUR flag mommy! The bottom left."  Yup, the one I figured he was going to notice. It's red, and white and blue. One stripe of each. For the Russian Federation.

I guess it's better than last summer, when he yelled at the top of his voice upon seeing any flag at all (mind you, this was in Washington, DC) "Look mommy, a flag of Russia!"

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Things to come?

Last night at dinner Zoltan put the opposite end of his fork into his mouth, drew a breath, pursed his lips and blew out. I was astonished, so he did it again before I could say anything.
"Did you see adults doing that outside?"
"YEP. It's my blowing stick." Big smile, so proud.

Now, he could have seen this outside any office building in the USA, or quite frankly any weekend at his grandfather's. Please, please, do not let my boy pick up smoking when he gets older.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Wordless Wednesday


One Little Word

This phenomenon has apparently been going on for several years but I'm only hearing of it this year. I'm not exactly au courant in general so why would this be different?

One word, that is meant to be a theme for your year. It can be something you aspire to, something to remind yourself of, something to think about. You determine what it means to you.

At first, I hesitated to write anything about my word on the blog. It seemed too revealing, too much information put out into the world for strangers to know (the irony will be apparent in a moment).


So ... here it is. My word for 2013.

TRUST

http://aliedwards.com/blog/one-little-word