Public enemy Number one

According to the local news a state in southern Russia has banned the sale of Soda to Children.... standing by for legislation preventing cigarette smoking indoors, or in public, or anywhere for that matter....

Click Here for the News article....

I wonder if I should get a lock on the refrigerator to preserve our Cola?

Winter's last stand...

The weather had been looking glorious here the past few days,

Our commutes were almost entirely Icy sidewalk free..... and there were signs of summer happiness all over the city.

Complete with brides and grooms venturing further out into the city squares without fear of being dirtied by the ever present snow piles....

Then today we wake up to more snow and snowing fast... I hope this doesn't last, we are supposed to have 12 Hours and 45 minutes of sunlight today... certaintly not conducive to SNOW?

Long Days....

We have been so busy enjoying taking trips around town, that we have neglected to notice the passing of the equinox. For our recent accomplishments we now know how to get a picture framed, and of course Nikki's favorite how to buy Porcelain from the factory and have discovered a couple new great restaurants. But I submit to you the most exciting news of today is on the weather page of the news!!!
Check out our sunrise data for today!!! Things are getting brighter here in ST Pete's, long gone are the dark and dreary days of January when we arrived....

Date / Sunrise / Sun set / Day Length / Change from previous

25MAR/ 6:45 AM / 7:25PM / 12H 40 Minutes / +5m 27s

One of my favorite things about Russia

What else could I be talking about besides Lomonosov Porcelain. A month ago one of my friends took me to a china store to shop for my sister's bridal shower gift- I immediately fell in love with the Lomonosov Porcelain. They make the most incredible, delicate, and colorful china I have ever seen. Lomonosov was founded in 1744, by Empress Elisabeth 1st. They created china for the royal family and other nobles. Today you can visit their factory and take a tour to watch how the china is still handmade and hand painted today. While I have not yet had the opportunity to take their tour, my wonderful husband treated me to a trip to the factory store this weekend!

I had no problem finding many things that I could picture perfectly in my home. But, after a few hours of contemplation we happily decided on the traditional Cobalt tea pot set and some special tea cups. I am pleased to report that Josh actually enjoyed him self and even picked out a tea cup that he wanted to purchase- I am so proud!

Busy Ballet Week

Sorry for the delay in postings- we have had a very busy week. Our weather has not warmed up much but we have enjoyed a few sunny days this weekend, a nice change to the snow that we slouched through this work week.

This week was an International Ballet Festival here in St. Pete's. Famous ballerinas come from all over the world to perform their favorite dances. Each night different ballerinas and ballets were featured. I was lucky enough to attend twice! This event was held at the beautiful Mariinsky theatre, which is a landmark in and of itself.

On Monday night Diana Vishneva danced in three different pieces. I am not normally a big fan of modern ballet but she was an incredibly talented dancer and I enjoyed the evening very much. On Thursday night Ulyana Lopatkina was the featured ballerina.

I had been told that she is one of the most well known ballerinas of today. I was not disappointed she too danced three different pieces, one a classical ballet called Diamonds which was breathtaking! Here are a few pictures I was able to snap after the performance. One of the most amazing things about ballet at the Mariinsky is the elaborate set and costume designs, unfortunately you can't see either from my pictures! I hope a am able to show everyone first hand when you visit!

Vodka Museum

Saturday evening we went to a Vodka Museum, as you can imagine the Russians take their vodka seriously. I learned a lot on the tour, like....
The Russians have experimented twice with Prohibition in the past 100 years. Apparently prohibition was as disastrous for the Russians as it was for the United States.

Dolls and Vodka do mix.

Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleyev, also famous for making the original Periodic Table of the Elements, has a wax figure display at the vodka museum because he was the first to standardise the Alcohol content of Vodka at a rich 40%. Whereas previously the content had varied from 15-40%.

A Display for one of Russia's original vodka families... Smirnoff. This causes some controversy because the American known Smirnoff resulted from one son of the original CMEPHOB (best attempt at Russian script as Blogspot won't recognize it) family selling the rights to the name and vodka, now some members of the original family consider that a mistake.

Here is the main reason for the tour, the post tour tasting! Three vodka shots and a spread of traditional vodka drinking snacks. Below is Nikki's appetizer plate, pickles, fish, and a processed pork fat on bread with mustard. As you can see Nikki loved it.......

Nikki eating her appetizers, she thought three shots of vodka was enough to convince her to eat a pickled lake fish.

Down the Hatch.

After tortuing her fish Nikki decided there was no way she would eat it, and I ended up with two fishes.

Spring is in the air... or what is that.?

It is Saturday again, and it looks like it might be a good weather one, although the skies do not look as clear as they did last week. Here are the final pictures from last weekends romps around the town. Now I know a picture is worth a thousand words but I cannot quite publish the words Nikki and I exchanged when we turned the corner and saw this, yes it was sunny, but people still felt it was cold enough to walk across the frozen river and when we saw...

SUN BATHERS, and lots of them, all in various stages of public nudity.

I guess Spring has sprung.

Love is in the air

We haven't been very good about taking pictures of the wedding parties we see almost everywhere we go. It is a huge traditional celebration for wedding here in the city and routinely even middle class income families rent huge limousines (usually really stretched hummers) to chauffer the wedding party to many of the cities famous sites for pictures. It is nice because the smiles of a bride (one of the few times we are lucky enough to see locals smile in public) can really brighten our day. As the weather improves, I am sure our exposures to scenes such as this will increase.

A sunny day

This past weekend was absolutely gorgeous here in St Petersburg, we took a long walk around the city and snapped a few photos, the sunshine got us really excited for Egypt (only 3 weeks away) and for summer here in St Petersburg.The center square, with no snow in it! (But it was just a couple of degrees above freezing, if at all)

Notice the many people walking on the river, the strip of open water in the middle is supposed to prevent adventurous people from walking all the way across the river, But....
Apparently this guy didn't get the memo, after he hopped across the open spot on a floating chunck his buddy joined him and they both walked to V island. Not something you'll catch Nikki or I doing anytime soon, even though it would significantly quicken Nikkis commute.

In related news we are a mere few days away form the equinox and it is really apparent in how much more light we are getting here a day, last night it was still twilight at around 7 PM, a huge contrast to when our plane landed here at 4 PM on January 12th in pitch darkness.

language learning- addition

Apparently blogspot does not let me type in russian script, the ?????? below is the russian word pronunced like "probka"

language learning

An effort to balance out the blog- As you know we have posted a dozen times or so about what we eat, and I have not yet posted about my now 6 weeks in of language school which I attend 4-6 hours a day, so you may get the impression we spend most of our time eating. To combat that misperception here is a story about Language school.

So I am exposed to many new words every day and most of them get filed into that part of the brain where I never find them again but after many exposures they become closer to being a word I can say I and maybe use properly in context. Sometimes these words get exposed in contexts and I remember them as used improperly. Here is an example.

Looking out the window while we were trying to write something someday one of my teachers (I call her the grandmotherly one) said (in Russian of course) Look there is a big "??????." Having no idea what a ?????? is I look out the window and see a traffic jam (which is status quo for most roads in the afternoon around these parts, so it took me a while to realize she was talking about the traffic) Anyhow to describe what a ?????? is she drew a picture of a wine bottle on the blackboard and points to the long thin top. Ok I get it this is an international explanation for traffic jams, traffic works its way through the "bottleneck" ?????? must mean bottle neck. File that word in the to be used again sometime part of the brain.

So a few days later in a different class (with the teacher I call the young energetic one) we are talking about wedding traditions in Russia, low and behold the word ?????? comes up again. The teacher describes how at wedding parties "friends" of the bride and groom try to hit the bride and groom with the ?????? of champagne bottles at the wedding reception party..... So I am picturing bar style bottle bashing on the newly wedded heads.... Not being one to pass judgment on another cultures traditions I hold my skepticism and ask, "Doesn't that hurt?" The teacher replies of course it can hurt so the bride and groom try their best to avoid the ?????? as it is hurled at them.
So now I am picturing mass chaos and a scene from Grey's anatomy or ER at wedding receptions...1

Thinking this can't be right I finally pull out the dictionary and look up the word ??????. Which low and behold means CORK. Not bottle-neck.

This actually reveals quite a bit about how Russians think of traffic.. you see in the states when traffic gets heavy there is usually a way through the traffic jam but it is a narrow pass that only a couple of cars can fit through at a time causing everyone to slow down, right... hence the term bottle neck...
In Russia when traffic stops it is usually because someone has blocked the road, parked car, accident which can't be moved until Police and Insurance companies arrive, city truck driver napping in his truck, someone couldn't find a parking spot so they just put on the hazards and stopped in the middle of the road to run into the store.... Hence the Russian term for traffic jam is a Cork, as in nothing is getting by.

Don't always know what to expect

We are now almost two months into our 32 month adventure in Russia, and so far life has been grand. There have been a couple of times however where we really don't know what is going on around us and more importantly why. Below you will find a picture of one of those examples. Last weekend we went to the Big Grocery store and found the entrance we usually use blocked by several shopping carts, but there were lots of people in the parking lot, more than we had ever seen there. We entered the parking lot through what is usually the exit for us and saw this..

Yes that is a rock concert in the Parking lot. Notice the many "fans" I especially enjoy that many brought their carts still filled with groceries out to observe the festivities.

Here is another photo from a distance, two things stand out in this one, notice the Outstanding Parking of the blue car (unfortunately, par for this course), and of course the rock concert stage in the distance..

All in all nothing too interesting, just another day at the grocery store.

Indian food anyone?

We first discovered a very good Indian Restaurant thanks to our friends about three weeks ago. We have returned to this restaurant three times since, so we think it finally deserves its own picture as part of the We won't Starve segment, you can see our other great restaurant posts Here, Here, There, and Finally here. Now that I think about it odds are we post about 1 out of 5 posts on Food, time to start running I suppose. Anyhow here is the picture and yes the Food is great and spicy!

Sunshine Bound

After talking to my parents this weekend I realize that Nikki and I have been unintentionally secretive about some impending excitement in our future. So in the interest of full disclosure I will let the cat out of the bag, We are heading to Egypt in April. I think April 4-11th to be exact. Anybody want to join us? (Honestly now is a great time to travel, something about the Dow tumbling 50% in 18 months and rampant wealth destruction has eroded the travel/tourism/vacation market?)

We are staying in Sharm el Shiek, which for anyone who knew me at my last real job in the army (that’s you Linville), yes it is the same Sharm el Shiek that is close to the MFO south Camp. This marks the very first time that a location where the Army Deploys soldiers to has led me to a vacation idea. But look at this place...

For comparision here is a recent Russia photo

So sunshine bound we are! and of course we will take a few day trips (by plane, maybe some camel action too) to see some pyramids.

We are obviously very excited....

Quality of Life Greatly Improved

A FEW days ago, (FEW Reference self apparent in a moment) Nikki posted about the arrival of our AFN Decoder Box. I realize many of you may not realize what exactly this means. As a Navy Brat and now ten year Army veteran,

(I know ten years..it feels like three or four years, but not ten.... SEP 28 1998 was the date on my enlistment contract... I had to look at it myself a few months ago when my pay stub said 10 years of service to confirm that it had really been ten years... what a ride, but that is another post entirely)
Anyhow..

AFN has been a reoccurring significant part of my life, and I tell you what a long way AFN has come. AFN provides us with American Television Programming. As a teenager in Belgium AFN was one channel, with year old programming at best, but we loved it still! Now our AFN box pumps into our household over a dozen television channels and up to date programming, to include something I thought I would have to live without for a few years.......

GONZAGA BASKETBALL, Yup thats right at 8AM Sunday Morning I got to watch the Alma mater defeat San Diego to secure an undefeated Conference schedule for the third time since I graduated. It was about a day delayed, but still a Great Treat. GO ZAGS!

By the way Nikki loves this picture because it shows my hippie morning Hair-do, this is by far the most hair I have had since high school as I am practicing my Calvary scout skills and blending in with my surroundings here in the motherland. I know that ErminaDan among others had asked for a hair-photo, so hair it is!

Ski Trip

Yesterday Nikki and I went skiing with a group from Nikkis school. The ski slope was about 100km (60 Miles) NorthWest of the City, on the way up we followed the bus, as this was the only map we could find, we thought it lacked some detail, however it did show us that there are multiple ski areas within a two hour drive of our home. We did venture home on our own and found our way without serious incident.

And the roads to get there are quite pretty in the winter.

The Ski Slopes themselves were not huge, as the hills around here aren't exactly mountainous, however the slopes did provide us some new experiences,

Like Nikki's first time on a Puma Lift! The tow lifts that have a disc that you put between your legs and let it drag you up the hill. This lift definitely adds some work out to the trip up the hill as well as down. The biggest lift on slopes on the hill were served by both a chair lift and a tow bar,,, they both started and stopped at the same point, call me crazy but these relaxing Americans will take the chair lift when given the choice...
Speaking of ways up the mountain, here is an adventurous couple on a gasoline powered sled attached to a para sail,,,, fun to look at from the lift, but you won't catch us on one anytime soon.

All in all we had a great day and we are looking forward to our next opportunity to ski Russia!