Quality of Life Status +2

Around these parts we celebrate the small victories- today we successful received and set up our AFN box. Yes my friends that means we now can watch some American TV, fantastic isn't it! Fear not tv is not the only things that keeps us going here- this morning on my walk to school as I was crossing the bridge - was possibly the most beautiful sight- the sun rising. This marks the first noticeable sign that winter may end. Even if the days are not warmer they will be longer. Two successes in one day- not too shabby.

Ballet

I went to see Giselle on Sunday night with a few of my girlfriends. This was my first Russian Ballet performance and it was beautiful! We opted to attend the performance at a smaller theater that is close to our house and I am glad that we did as the theater was amazing. We had great seats that were close to the stage and reasonably priced. I am consistently amazed at the respect for the arts here in St. Petersburg. Every museum and theater is always full of children of all ages that are actively listening and enjoying the culture that surrounds them. Sadly I could not take pictures during the ballet but I was able to snap a few of the theater before the performance and during the final bow. I am sure this was the first of many more ballets that I will enjoy- hopefully next time I can drag Josh along with me.

Move Complete!

Nikki and I always daydream about the one day when we settle down, and actually buy a house we plan to live in for more than 5 years or so, and of course we dream of what that home will look like, and my dreams always involve having a Man Cave big enough for a ridiculously large TV, couch, computer and Bar. We have obviously never had the luxury of that much space, and judging by our current average of a move every 14 months I don't see it in our near future. However even without a dedicated bar, for the following reasons we shipped 11 cases of wine to Russia (call this the denial stage of why we aren't addicts...)
Reason number one- Fueled by the prospect that good wine is outrageously expensive in Russia
Reason number two- We will use a stockpile of Californian wine as gifts to locals who help us out
Problem number one- our apartment is quite small
Solution- we now have a Wine Hallway
As you enter our home and walk to the kitchen you are met in the hallway by the wine shrine as it were. SO there is a picture. Last piece of furniture, Last box removed from the house, This Move is FINISHED..... Put it in the books, Our third move together is complete! Now that is something to drink a bottle of wine too!

ErminaDan and all those that were left in suspense on the acquisition of this wine bar/shelving at IKEA, the Trip took an hour and 20 minutes there, 4 hours of shopping/maneuvering the products around the Store/ Loading the car, and 2 hours home (afternoon traffic is much worse than Morning) for a total trip time of 7+ hours to get the furniture. Not terrible, but again the IKEA is 9 miles away as the bird flies...

Driving a city crazy

First and foremost Nikki and I love our apartment mostly because we love our location, and we can walk to most things we need. It is a very refreshing experience coming from the states where we drive everywhere to going days without touching the car. However we met our match on Friday when our final shipment arrived and we found ourselves saddled with 12 cases of wine and spirits we shipped from the states (Really, what were we thinking,,, Like there is a shortage of alcohol in, of all places Russia.....) But there is a shortage of inexpensive quality wine and Whiskey has a street value on par with girl scout cookies on an Army outpost in Iraq,,, as in how much money do you have in your wallet? So we felt justified with the 12 cases. But now we need a wine rack, or wine bar, or just a really sturdy shelf to store these bottles in.

That meant a trip to the Ikea.... the source of apparently all furniture in Russia....

We had spoken to a friend who said one time it took him 7.5 hours to get to and home from Ikea... and to plan the trip carefully... by the map the Ikea we choose to go to (there are 2 in/around the city) is only 9 miles away as the bird flies..

But a Jeep Grand Cherokee is no Bird... and the streets of ST Petes are no open rolling sky... Nikki and I left the house at 9am, Ikea opened at 10, so an hour must be plenty of time to get to the Ikea. Then we met...

Complete Lack of Understanding and/or total Disregard for Street Lights

Two things of interest occur in this photo, first the T at the bottom of the street light, Nikki and I think they mean something to the Trams/ street trains that run on the tracks, because they certainly mean nothing to us.

(Sidebar on Licensing)

By the way we are fully licensed to drive in Russia, which involved paying some fees, stamping some papers and realizing that we had the 15$ International Drivers License from AAA, so all must be ok...? certainly nothing of the "dummies street signs of Russia Class", Luckily (or unfortunately depending on your perspective) they use most of the street signs of europe, and knowing them has only inhibited my ability to drive anywhere as I may be the only one doing what the sign says at any one point in time, to my demise.

But I digress so, Back to the Picture

Second and perhaps most important. Notice that the truck on the other side of the road has stopped/parked to be blocking the only streetlight facing the oncoming traffic. We sat here for almost two iterations of this light before we realized that the oncoming traffic was not, not stopping out of complete disregard for the light (as would not be surprising) but because they had no opportunity to see the one and only light facing them.... The driver of the large truck is sound asleep in his cab, He must be waiting for someone who he said he would meet at this intersection. Perhaps the intersection will be easier to find if there is a Multi-car pileup at it from blocking the light. Not to mention there are countless other poles/ wires to hang another streetlight from... but again I digress...

On to Another Rule learned with Trucks, and this one is somewhat in our favor with our large American SUV...

Like on the Sea the Law of Gross Tonnage Applies to driving in ST Petes...

To set up this photo it is important to know that Left Hand turns are strictly prohibited unless expressly authorized by Streetlight left hand arrow or blue passageway signs above the intersection. To compensate for the lack of abundant left hand turns, U turns in the middle of roads, away from intersections, or three right hand turns in rapid succession at intersections are the norm. With that said notice this Truck is turning left, from the middle lane, with cars at both his right and left, at an intersection that does not allow left hand turns (see the blue signs at the top of the picture) , while the Light is red..... Awesome... better yet in the second picture you see he is actually making a U-Turn... blocking the entire intersection...

Another Observation,


Feel Free to Drive on the tram tracks as a third lane, unless the tram happens to be occupying them.
Two things about this photo, First Notice that again the only street light facing us at this intersection is on the other side of the tram tracks,, you can barely see the top of it over the tram.

Second there is no distance or buffer space between the Tram and traffic, not terribly dangerous , just odd to us. Other than the lack of traction from our tires on their tracks when we do venture into the "third lane" the tram tracks provide a relatively easy alternative to sidewalk driving in congestion.

Even if you could see the lane designators on the asphalt, a lane is merely a recommendation, like NASCAR when you need to get ahead three wide is the way to be.

The street cleaner you see in the front right of this picture brings me to another interesting topic, It has snowed here on average every other day about 1-4 inches depending on the day. But there is a noticeable lack of huge piles of snow in Parking lots or at street intersections like you would see in Wisconsin or elsewhere in the states. These trucks solved that mystery for us, here is a close up.

These trucks carry the snow on the street to the river or canals where they are dumped, hence the absences of large piles of snow, and maybe the reason we are strongly discouraged from eating products form the local fisheries.

Anyhow when it was all said and done we made it to Ikea and got our furniture to store our booze. By the way we are not alcoholics, but driving everyday in ST Petersburg could totally drive you to drink.

The alienating experience of getting to the Ikea was only rivaled by the strange experince inside the Ikea, maybe Nikki will indulge a post about that shopping experience, as it was equally as strange as the driving for us.

Happy Valentines Day!

To all our family and friends, we wish you all a Happy Valentines Day, we miss you!

We have proof that there are others in the world that celebrate Valentines day! In our courtyard this morning a heart was drawn in the snow.

Taste testing....

In our first month here we have probably set patterns of things that we will enjoy through our entire time here, one of the more fun things for us to find has been our new favorite beer. The local big beer company is called Baltika, they use numbers to tell the differences in their beer, you can learn all about Baltika and their varied brews by following the link, here. There are atleast 9 different varieties of numbered Baltika beer and so far we have tried most, we are still looking for 1 and 2, so far our favorite is the Heffeweizen (#8). Here are some pictures of us on saturday night experimenting with two new brews, as we have alluded to before, and this post definetly confirms, all will be well here in Russia for the Kaser clan...

Cooking Shears, an International must have

A few years ago, Nikki and I were in Korea and marveled at how often times at Korean BBQ, aka Beef and Leaf restaurants we were given scissors to cut our meat with, while we found this odd we got used to it and actually enjoyed it after a while.

Well we found another use for the shears the other day while we were making tacos. Soft Tortillas are very hard to find, but this flat large sheet of tortilla like bread is fairly easy to find, thank god for the cooking shears.

Good eats

Here are photos from our newest discovery on the culinary front. This is a Georgian restaurant, the bread dish on front of Josh was awesome, it is a baked cheese and egg concoction. Notice the sword shaped skewer on Nikkis plate, what a delight. We think we can confidently feed guests for a solid week now with all the restaurants we have found, so go ahead and starting planning your trips to come see us.

Slip Sliding away

Many of you recall Nicole's post the good, the bad, and the Russian, as a follow up to her conversation on Icy sidewalks here is a picture I took on the way to school showing a typical gauntlet faced on the sidewalks on our morning commutes.

Notice that most people walk on the side of the iced over sidewalk in a hunt for some traction, which only puts them perilously close to the street, or better yet the slope into the canal.

People would rather walk on the side of the sidewalk as the sidewalk itself is one solid sheet of ice, this is thanks to the street/sidewalk cleaner pictured below, notice the rotating brush on the back of it. You might think that this tool would effectively brush away loose snow and ice to leave a hazard free sidewalk.

In actuality this machine simply smoothes the ice, and melts the thinnest top layer of ice, think of it as the sidewalk Zamboni, removing anything that might have provided you some traction on the ice. These things come careening down the sidewalk at top speed, both Nikki and I have already been chased off a sidewalk or two by these "helpful" street cleaners.
In other news our car is now happily parked in its secured on street parking spot, about a 5 minute walk from the house. We took our first big trip to the big grocery store on the other side of town yesterday morning, all went well, except we bought a DVD player that only works with Russian DVDs, there's an expensive lesson in regional DVD copyrights.

Here is a photo of our car, I know it is dark, but this picture was taken at 3:30 in the afternoon, it is hard to plan all of our photos around the few hours of daylight we recieve. However it is definetly staying brighter longer each day!

The joy of moving!

The great news is that we received most of our shipments. (We are still awaiting our food and wine shipment!) The flip side of that is that we have a small apartment, very limited storage space. So the fun of unpacking and finding a place for everything began. As we were unpacking the thought that we still have 8,000 pounds of stuff still in storage is unbelievable to me. It sure seemed like we had packed an awful lot of stuff. We were thankful that nothing too major was broken or opened and we only had some small things that we know were not supposed to end up in Russia. One of the oddest things that arrived was the glass shelves to my china cabinet- they were carefully packed with my china. Why the movers packed the shelves for Russia when I didn't bring the china cabinet escapes me but at least they are not broken.

After a fewdays of hard work the boxes started to disappear and things began to find there place. Josh of course packed way too many clothes and our closets are over flowing :) (Sadly we still have more clothes in our next shipment too.)

Josh has begun the set up of his new "man room" that doubles as our guest room.

And finally we have found a place for our dishes, pots and pans. We were so happy to receive our things however it was much easier to keep things clean when we only had one towel and two mugs.

Nicole's First Day of School

Exciting News today. Nicole left for her first official day of work today at her school. She is of course nervous and excited. Here she is all bundled up for her commute across the bridge. It is still pretty dark outside for 8AM. Although it is getting brighter every day. In just our three weeks here we have noticed a definite trend toward brighter longer days. Lets all hope Nicole has a great first day of school!

Bright sunny day, and what's in store on parking

So yesterday it was gorgeous outside, except that it was around 13 degrees (F), but it was our first day here without a cloud in the sky and with the sun shining brightly. That allowed us to see how bright it can be and how much the colors of our surroundings come alive in the light. Also it appears that when the sun is out the tour buses show up, and they park all over the front of our building. That is going to make parking for our car a real headache come the summer... I guess we will be using the garage that is a healthy 5 minute walk away.
Here is Nicole in front of the Hermitage, look at how bright it is.
We are sure that we had noticed the statues on top of the hermitage before, however we had never seen them so dominating the skyline as they do without the cloud cover.