My My

We haven't been out to eat here as a family yet.  It's expensive, so we have just been cooking at home.  It also seems that we are busy enough that to throw the time in to go out to eat just hasn't happened.  But Sunday after church we felt it was time.  I did quiet a bit of asking around and if we wanted to try some Russian dishes we should just go to My My around the corner.  Close and cheap.

First, as an American I read this restaurant name and think "my, my".  But the pronounciation is actually "Moo Moo", as in the sound a cow makes.  This chain restaurant is easily identifiable with the red logo and black and white cow patches on the building.

Cafeterial style was a nice way to introduce ourselves to Russian food.  Salads, soups, rolls and entrees were simply laid in front of us and we went through the line saying "Ya hachoo" (I want) and a finger point.  Not much outside of the mashed potatos was identifiable so we each picked something different and enjoyed a smorgasboard of dishes.

Bland in spices, but flavorful in a mix of ingredients I found Russian food much more to my liking than Colombian food.  I can't say we were jumping up and down in excitment over this wonderful new menu but it wasn't bad.

The price was the best thing of all.  Cheaper and much more healthy than McDonalds, and less money than going to the coffee shop as a family we will keep this on our list of emergency places to grab a meal.  And if you visit us here we are likely to take you there, shuffle you through the line and let you decide if you like Russian food or not!

Vodka Repurposed!

Vodka runs through the veins of every Russian, thicker than blood.  Stacked on shelves in the supermarket, on the counter in bars and on the table in homes - it's everywhere.  I really have no desire to try a shot of the stuff.  I'm sure it would burn the whole way down leaving a painful hole in my stomach and ache in my head.

Last week a friend gave me 5 vanilla beans they had purchased at the post they were coming from - Madagascar.  Like gold I have had these beans tucked away safe from harm. I have been anticipating a bit of extra time at the grocery store to select a bottle of vodka to make homemade vanilla extract.  

Today day was the day.  That friend and I stood in front of the huge display of vodkas.  We both had the same purpose - vanilla.  We looked at bottle after bottle. We compared prices.  In the end I made my selction based on the lables.  I picked two .25 liter bottles that I thought would look absolutely cool sitting in my kitchen.  

Back home,
I got out my beans and carefully split them putting two beans in each bottle.  The miniscule seeds began to settle on the bottom.  A sure sign of full flavor.  I gave the bottles a shake and tucked them away in the dark pantry.  A shake a week for a few months and they will be ready for baking.  I'm thinking that this year all my Christmas goodies will be flavored with true Russian Vodka Madagascar Vanilla!

If you are a sucker for good vanilla like I am, this is actually a cheaper way to have vanilla that buying pure extract in the store!  Give it a try, the longer you let it age the more divine it is.

- Kris

The Experience of Shopping

"Getting there is half the fun!" is a quote that comes to mind as I think of what it's like to go to the grocery store.  "Fun" doesn't seem like the exact term I mean to express, maybe "experience" would be a better word.

In days of old, when I lived in the states, I would get in my car, back out of the garage and drive 10 minutes to Meijer where I would load my cart with everything I could possibly need and more.  After loading it into the car I would run a few additional errands then drive home, unload and put things away.   I never really worried about running out of anything and if I did it was a quick drive to Family Fare to pick-up a gallon of milk at the last minute.  

Then there was Bogota.  To do a good shopping trip I needed to walk 20 minutes to Carrulla.  There I would buy everything I needed and depending on the weather and my time constraints I would either hail a taxi and help the shopping attendant, who pushed my cart to the curb, load everything in or I would just pay the $2.00 delivery fee and enjoy a nice walk  home before my groceries arrived.  

Now I am in Moscow where it appears my feet are the only transportation available.  Shopping for a family of four has taken on a new responsibility.  Up to this point I have tried to plan a few meals and add a couple items to my stock-pile every trip to the grocery store.  But then it rained and rained and rained.  And I didn't want to haul my butt out in the rain to walk to the grocery store and back.  So we ran out of food and were completely scrounging for things to eat.

The grocery store in our neighborhood is a 15-20 minute walk away.  Just this week my granny cart arrived and yesterday I decided that I was going to plan ahead a bit and stock-up on those necessary items.  No more hungry people in my family!  The walk to the store is a bit like traveling through many parts of the city in a very condensed format.  I begin on the embassy compound where we live.  Manicured lawns and trimmed shrubs give a nice quiet, park-like feeling.  When I pass through the metal gates I am confronted with a busy street and people bustling to and fro.  I cross the street and short-cut it through a bus depot type area where people are milling around smoking their cigarettes while waiting for their bus to arrive.  I skirt around the metro station where pigeons like to sit on the wire.  I watch the air for pigeons pooping and pigeons swooping as I also watch my feet so I don't step in a big gooey pile while dashing under the wire.  As I approached the wire today I felt something slam into my face.  As I was about to splay myself on the sidewalk spread eagle style I realized it was just a pigeon that underestimated his route and found my face a bit in the way.  Onto another busy street and I am almost there.

Yesterday I walked to the grocery store and piled the produce, milk, flour, sugar and canned goods on my list into the cart.  I quickly realized that I was at my max of what I would be able to get home alone.  I packed the canned goods into my backpack, loaded up the cart to overflowing and carried and additional two bags.  Upon entering the compound I realized for the first time that there are about 50 steps to climb up to my apartment.  Determined I dragged that cart up one step at a time with my fingers crossed that I would not drop the whole thing and have to clean-up eggs from the embassy pavement. 

Today I ventured out again to finish my list - meats, bathroom products and rice.  Once again the cart became over heavy and my backpack was popping at the seams.  I quickly noticed a slight imbalance in the wheels of my cart as I headed home.  I looked down and saw that the sad little pieces of velcro holding the bag to the metal frame  just couldn't handle the load.  For a bit of extra insurance I grabbed ahold of the bag with my hand and slowly dragged my load home.  By the time I reached the embassy a cramp was running up my arm.  

I stopped the cart at the bottom of the first step to show the guard my badge.  He took one look at my lopsided cart and came down to pick- up the whole 50 lb. load, frame and all.  Relief flooded through my soul.  He asked how far up the steps I needed to go.  "Our apartment is at the top." I said.  And he kindly, with a smile on his face carried the whole load up.  Fortunately I still remember my one Russian word "spaciba" I said with a heart overflowing with thankfulness. 

Back home I unloaded my cart, got out the scissors and zip ties and rigged up the cart a bit.  It will be interesting this winter.

Riding the "ъ" Bus

Several people suggested that I take a bus around the "Golden Ring Road" of Moscow to become acquainted with how the bus system works and how the city is laid out.  This turned out to be a great suggestion, possibly because of the amount of time I have looked at the map reviewing where I went.

Rather than being laid out in a grid fashion, Moscow has the old city centre, consisting of Red Square and the Kremlin, with a road running in a circle around it.  Called the "Boulevard Ring" it has two lanes running each direction and gardens in the medians.  The next ring out is called the "Garden Ring" which has four lanes of traffic each direction and no boulevards.  It was originally built in 1591 as a line of defense around the city.  1683-1718 the road indicated a customs border for those entering into the city to pay their taxes.  Markets began springing up around the outside of the ring as a way to evade taxes with the last of these markets being closed in the 1970's.  There are two more ring roads around Moscow, but  this is the road we were going to follow.

The Garden Ring is also referred to as the "ъ" ring, thus the name of the city bus we were looking for.  Moscow has a wonderful public transportation system in place.  The Metros or subways are timely and can get you almost anywhere.  The same ticket works on both the Metro and the busses.  Another great thing about the transportation tickets is that they are interchangeable and can be used for more than one person.  I bought a 20 ride ticket at the Metro station and just swipe it for each kid as they go through the turnstile to get into the Metro.  I used this same ticket for my bus ride.

I suggested this outing to a new friend so we left the embassy, walked a block to the main road and got on a bus for our 16 km ride right outside the American consulate.  Soon we arrived at Gorky park where we wanted to get out and explore a bit.  Walking on an overcast, cool day took us past gardens of flowers past their prime, summer amusement rides weary from the long hours and the almost empty wooden deck along the river that thrives with sun bathers on long summer days.  We stopped to watch three tap dancers as they practiced on the hollow sounding deck.  

Back on the bus a few stops later three gypsy women got on.  I actually don't know if they were official gypsies or from anther Baltic region, but to me they fit every description I have read of a traditional gypsy.  The boarded the bus and as one woman created commotion with the driver, the other two women effortlessly slipped under the turn-style.  They had clearly become experts in riding for free.  The last woman swiped her card and the bus took off.  They were dressed in long black velvet peasant style skirts with ribbon between each layer of gathered fabric.  Jet black hair was piled on their heads covered in silken scarves tied in a mysterious, intricate fashion.  I found them striking and mesmerizing not because of their beauty but because of an unseen force that they carried with them.

We reached a bit of a snafu when half way through our trip the bus stopped and dumped us all off.  As confused as the rest of the passengers we followed to another bus preparing to leave.  After a few minutes the new, bewildered looking driver let us on.  Several people tried to say something but he was making them all pay.  Not wanting to cause any ripples it seemed worth it to me to re-pay the $1.00 fare.  Another woman was not to be cheated and talked the driver into letting her through another door.  

We stood the entire ride so we could better see out the windows.  Large Stalin architecture covers the city.  Several buildings stood out but I am not oriented enough yet to know what they are.  We soon found ourselves back where we had started, in front of the American consulate.  

Settling In

We landed in Moscow 1 1/2 weeks ago and so my mind has been soaking up the new atmosphere that we are now living in.  I haven't been out sight seeing yet but rather just settling into how life will be for the next two years.  So here's a little run-down on what I've been up to.

Sleep - Moscow is an 8 hour time difference from Michigan so the fuzzy-head feeling of travel is just now wearing off and we (well not Elena) are able to get out of bed without hitting the snooze button 10 times.  I did sneak in a nap yesterday!

School - We arrived on Thursday night and hit the ground running.  New student orientation was on Saturday and the open house on Monday.  The girls started school bright and early Tuesday morning.  We are all thankful the bus comes an hour later in the morning than it did in Bogota!  They were a bit overwhelmed by the size of the school (3 times bigger than their last school) and lack of warmth and friendliness they had at the old school, but I'm guessing in about a month they will be very settled in and have forgotten what it was like the first week here!

Suitcases -  Our suitcases, including the door-checked carryons did not arrive when we did, nor the next day nor the next.  If fact if took 8 days for us to receive our luggage.   We knew the luggage had made it to Moscow by the third day, but the airport seemed very reluctant to hand it over.  So this meant that every night we dropped our one set of clothes into the washing machine so we could wear them again the next day.  I was so thankful for the generosity of other teens on the compound who made sure my girls had a variety of outfits to choose from.  When the suitcases did arrive there was a broken jar of cherry pie filling in it.  That wouldn't have been so bad but because the suitcases sat, the moisture had spread leaving many clothes moldy.  So I spent a lot of time soaking, scrubbing and bleaching.

UAB - Our airfreight actually arrived before our luggage did.  For most of us this was wonderful because clothes were packed inside.  Elena had outgrown every stitch of clothing she owned in Bogota, so she was still stuck with nothing.  One of the 4 boxes had gotten wet on the outside so you guessed it, everything was moldy.  Some of these things went straight into the trash and other things were given many hours of soaking, scrubbing and bleaching.  I'm really hoping that no water gets into our two shipments still to come!

Grocery shopping -  We have to eat so I have braved the city and begun to figure out what it will look like to shop here.  I've already placed an order on Amazon for a grandma cart to pull back and forth because there is no "domocilio" (delivery) or taxis to load everything into here.  I have to get my stuff home on my own.  I'll blog more about shopping later.

Social - Living on the compound is great.  If the CLO office has a back-to-school coffee I could pretty much show up in my jammies.  Both weekends have found us on the green in front of the apartments enjoying dinner with lots of other families.  

the Metro - Saturday was pretty much dictated by getting Elena to and from her new soccer club.  Club is a very weak term for the organized scrimmages but a perfect way for her to keep her foot on the ball and gain more confidence.  To get to the fields meant walking to the Metro, transferring lines and walking to the field.  This took a bit of planning and going over the map with my neighbor.  All went fairly well.  This morning I attempted the Metro again on my own and managed to make it to a PTO coffee.  I was only 30 minutes late.  I'm going to love the easy and consistent transportation around here.

So all in all I'm beginning to make my way around this city and new life.  I haven't had my camera out yet.  That's right, not one picture which is so unusual for me, but within a week or so I'm sure I'll be snapping pictures all the time and I can't wait to share them with you!

- Kris

First Impressions of Russia

The wheels touched down on the tarmac and the plane burst into applause.  The girls and I looked at each other and started to laugh.  "Welcome to Russia" seemed to be the greeting.  Weary we made our way smoothly through immigration then stood waiting at the luggage belt.  We waited and waited until all the luggage had been claimed.  We stared at the empty belt with our shoulders drooping a bit realizing our luggage had not made the same journey we had.
The woman at the lost luggage counter was nice.  Her heavy accent caused me to look at the girls frequently hoping they had caught a word I had not.  She handed over reams of paper for me to fill out.  Each time I made a small mistake she grabbed the paper away sighing "no good, no good" and had me start over.  Perfection was a must.  She ask that I list and claim a value for everything in the 6 suitcases and 3 carry-ons that had been door checked back in Grand Rapids.  I really had no idea.  The girls and I settled in on the task starting with the memorable items.  "1 flute, 1 camera, 6 maple syrup, underwear - "what do you think girls, 30 pairs?" - t-shirts possibly 20?
She asked the girls to wait with her while I walked the papers over to customs.  This seemed logical.  I would be happy to clear my list of things so that as soon as the suitcases arrived they could be delivered.  The gentleman was nice.  I slid the papers across the desk and he began copying.  New papers with my lists and luggage tag numbers added to the stack I had given him.  He paused and asked a question to clarify an item then began copying again.
Eventually the red stamp came out.  Boom, boom, boom.  Three stamps carefully placed on each page. Papers were placed in different piles then he handed me the remaining stack.  I trudged with my papers over to the original desk where the girls were waiting.  The woman took the papers, inspected them then began ordering them into more piles.  She handed me a single paper.  "This is your copy."  A phone number was circled and a tracking number underlined.
We walked out the exit and into Chad's arms.  It took him awhile to realized we had no luggage.
It's been three nights now.  Each evening we change into Chad's boxers and t-shirts.  I drop our clothes in the washing machine so they will be clean the next morning.  A new friend spent a fair amount of time on the phone for us today.  Apparently the suitcases have made it to Moscow, they just seem to be a bit reluctant to hand them over.  A bag of clothes sits by the door.  Some new friends to the girls raided their closet for "teen" clothes.  A fresh look in the morning will be a welcome site!

- Kris

Camping

7-9

Returning to something I loved sheds a new light of perspective to me.  It's part of the whole "cultural shock" phase I've been going through, but in a way it's refreshing to take a new look at an old activity and decide if I want to fall in love with it again.

We headed out on a camping trip with my sister yesterday.  It's is a tradition we have had for years.  We load up the cars with all the belongings necessary to have optimal summer fun for two weeks, squeeze the kids in and drive to Ludington State Park on Lake Michigan.  Days spent here are some of my favorite memories.  The kids often reminisce about the fun we have had - camping.

The first clue that we had changed and maybe the kids had grown up a bit was when Damon, now almost 18, said "this isn't as fun as I remember it being."  The full abandon of childhood has shed it's skin and the activities of childhood no longer entertain.   

Because we have either 1- gotten rid of our stuff, 2- had it shipped to Russia or 3- it's packed away in storage in Virginia, we a going the minimalist route on this excursion and borrowing only the necessities. Because I have become more used to a more minimal style of living I couldn't get over my surprise at all the crap that campers kept pulling from their cars.  The first things to come out when new people pull in seem to be items constructed from PVC piping - games, wood holders, kayak racks, table platforms...  In what is supposed to be a get-away people bring their homes with them - including tacky yard art. Gone is the relaxation of nature with tiki torches burning, Christmas lights sparkling, and plastic floor mats spread out on your little designated piece of earth.  

Camping in this manner seems to attract the lazy of society.  I don't say anything, ever, because I would never want any of my friends to think I was talking abut them.  I'm not.  I'm talking to America as a whole.  You are fat.  Leave this blessed country for a few months and when you return you will be shocked at the size of the people who inhabit this land.  I can attest that part of the problem is that you are carrying super sized drinks of all sorts around all the time.   Marketing has worked and essential to being an American is to supersize me including my waistline.  

I had never noticed how when you car camp you move in with people you don't even know. All the drama of Suzzie and Joe is now on display for everyone within 4 campsites and the fact that Nancy's kids are out of control is now something to deal with  at all hours. 

Despite my complaining the enjoyment of camping is returning.  I'm tuning out the culture that I don't care for and enjoying the nights around a campfire, roasting marshmallows to a perfect brown perfection, squishing them between two layers of graham crackers and chocolate then taking a delicious bite. 

- Kris