Oh lovely little cake of yeast
Which beckoned from the store.
I loved your calories the least,
But I loved your chocolate frosting more.
And why did I write this lovely piece, worthy of Shakespeare? Because I found donuts!!! I even took a picture which I was going to include on the blog but I must have screwed it up because I can’t find it in my gallery anymore and, of course, the donut didn’t last 20 seconds after I took the picture. Which means I’ll have to go get another one so you can see that a Russian donut looks the same as an American donut. At least, that’s the excuse I’m going to tell myself when I buy another donut.
Valeriya and I decided we were going to start going swimming so we started tonight. I acquired the official papers I needed (Don’t ask.) and we walked over to the state-of-the-art Olympic pool about 15 minutes from us at the university. We had checked beforehand and had decided to get the 12-time pass, which you have to use within 3 months.
First you walk in through security, then you check your coat at the coat-check. After that I had to go into the little store and buy a bathing cap and flipflops. Then you go to the counter and tell the lady what kind of swim pass you want. (She was very kind and told me I could buy the senior citizen pass, even though I’m not Russian.) Next you go to the ATM, press the button for the kind of pass you are getting and pay your money. You go back to the lady and give her a copy of your receipt. I was supposed to give her a picture too, but forgot to bring it. She told me I could bring it the next time. She gave us our passes and another lady gave us our electric bracelets which trigger the locks on the lockers.
Then you change into your Flipflops in the lobby and go upstairs to the dressing room. Again, as in the clinic, it’s just one open room. No privacy, but lockers. You change, go through a narrow shower and then into an absolutely gorgeous pool. No kiddie pool in sight. This was serious business for serious swimmers who want exercise. No people standing at the end of the wall and yakking so that you can’t kick off when you get there.
And I have to say, it felt really good. Since it doesn’t get light here until 7:30 and it gets dark at 3:30, I really don’t get much exercise on my bike. Back and forth to work just isn’t enough. (It’s maybe a quarter of a mile each way.) I’m definitely going to make a regular habit of this. I’m going to see if I can’t get myself down there every Monday and Friday. My goal is to be able to crawl for 50 meters straight without having to revert to the breast stroke.
On another note, a couple of my kids are now using full sentences when they speak to me. That is just so exciting. They are catching on really fast. Thursday we’re going to do our Mother’s Day celebration and the moms are going to come. It will be nice for me to meet some of the moms since I usually just see chauffeurs and nannies. It will also be a longer day for me because it goes from 5 till 6. But I’ll just come in later on another day.
Monday, November 27, 2017
Sunday, November 26, 2017
Kazan 0, Moscow 1
Sonia and I were at our meeting place at 12:30 to walk to the team to get out to Kazan Arena for the soccer game.would you believe it, shortly after we get on, the conductor starts announcing something about the compressor. Obviously something is happening, but I’m not catching the whole thing. When we got halfway to the stadium and they kicked us all off the tram, then I got it. I also got that we should hold onto our tickets and show it on the next tram that comes by and we would get to the stadium. It’s nice to understand enough to get by.
The Arena wasn’t even one quarter full. Yes, it was cold, about freezing, but we were warmly dressed. The game was really stinky. Neither time had a decent attack. Everybody was just bunched up in the middle field , kicking it back and forth. Moscow scored a goal right before halftime and that was it for the entire game. The highlight, however, was when the Kazan goalie held a penalty kick right before the end of the game. He was superb. He was also the outstanding g player during the last match we saw. Maybe they don’t have more spectators because they have a lousy team. Geez, we’lol have to try basketball again.
We got shoehorned into the tram again on the ride back. We got off at our stop and quickly went to the Mexican restaurant. The waitress knows us by now. The food was xcellent, as usual. I tried tomato soup this time in addition to my burrito. Everything is so fresh. It tastes amazing. But even this place serves the food as it is ready, not waiting to bring everyone’s meal out together. We played Jenga while we waited and sat there for a long time. There were a couple of college students in there who started speaking English with us. They are from a state to the south of Tatarstan and are studying here in Kazan.
Now I’m just chilling and will get things ready for school in a few minutes. I plan on going to the pool tomorrow. I’ve been told a bathing cap and Flipflops are required. Oh, geez. I’ll let you know how that goes.
The Arena wasn’t even one quarter full. Yes, it was cold, about freezing, but we were warmly dressed. The game was really stinky. Neither time had a decent attack. Everybody was just bunched up in the middle field , kicking it back and forth. Moscow scored a goal right before halftime and that was it for the entire game. The highlight, however, was when the Kazan goalie held a penalty kick right before the end of the game. He was superb. He was also the outstanding g player during the last match we saw. Maybe they don’t have more spectators because they have a lousy team. Geez, we’lol have to try basketball again.
We got shoehorned into the tram again on the ride back. We got off at our stop and quickly went to the Mexican restaurant. The waitress knows us by now. The food was xcellent, as usual. I tried tomato soup this time in addition to my burrito. Everything is so fresh. It tastes amazing. But even this place serves the food as it is ready, not waiting to bring everyone’s meal out together. We played Jenga while we waited and sat there for a long time. There were a couple of college students in there who started speaking English with us. They are from a state to the south of Tatarstan and are studying here in Kazan.
Now I’m just chilling and will get things ready for school in a few minutes. I plan on going to the pool tomorrow. I’ve been told a bathing cap and Flipflops are required. Oh, geez. I’ll let you know how that goes.
Saturday, November 25, 2017
The Thanksgiving water faucet
Of course Thanksgiving is not a holiday on Russia. So, of course we had school. The kids had yoga class and after that we sent them in to the bathroom to wash their hands before lunch. Picture a communal washroom with 4 or 5 sinks and several bathroom stalls. Has I’m helping one little boy at a higher sink, I hear kids behind me starting to scream. One of the faucets had broken and was spraying water all over the place! I had my TA get the kids out of the room and told her to find the custodian. Meanwhile, I’m pressing down on the faucet for all I’m worth to prevent too much water damage.
It took him about 3 minutes to get there and shut up everything off. By this time, I was soaked from the waist down. I went back to the room and ate lunch with the kids before riding home to change. So it was a good day to be thankful that I live so close to the school and was able to get home to change. And since the kids were down fo their naps, I also took the time to enjoy a cup of coffee. What the hell.
The afternoon was uneventful. I got back home at 4:30 and started setting up for Thanksgiving dinner. There were three of us. We had sauerbraten, red cabbage, tortilla, cucumber sandwiches, apple crumble and baked potatoes, not necessarily in that order. We ended up having a three-hour conversation about child-raising techniques in different countries. With America, Germany, Spain, Russia and the UK represented, it was really and interesting discussion.
Yesterday I was again enlightened. I was informed that girls who are given feminized versions of masculine names (Alberta, Edwina, Josephine, etc.) grown up to be rude and bossy. When I told my conversation partner that my aunt was named Alberta, she just sort of backed down.
I went to bed early last night and got up early this morning. After puttering around here for awhile, Sonia and I went shopping. We walked through the open market to say hello to our friendly market ladies, the. We went straight to the print shop to print out the two soccer tickets we have for a great game tomorrow. It’s between Kazan (of course) and a team from Moscow which is higher I. The standings. It should be a great game.
Then she took me to one of the biggest honking stores Ive ever seen. It’s called Ashan, it’s basically like Walmart, with absolutely everything. They have a section where you can buy rice, spices, candy, whatever by scooping as much a you want out of a bin and paying by weight. So you don’t have to get a bag full of something you only need a teaspoon of. And they had large assortments of everything. They are as consumption crazy here as we are in the States.
We ate a quick pizza at the mall. I notice that many places here don’t put tomato sauce on their pizzas. Just cheeses and toppings. They are not bad. Sonia’s pizza margarita was covered with a layer of cheese which had some chunks of tomatoes on it. I had a mushroom and ham pizza. It had a different kind of cheese than Sonia’s, then had the mushrooms and pieces of ham on top of the cheese layer.
After our leisurely lunch break, we headed into the craft shop to find something to decorate the classroom in for winter time. I was pretty much told that this is what has to be done in a classroom in winter. I am not a big decorator, so I took a couple of pictures of possible things I could use and texted them to my TA to make sure I am on the right track. She approved, so I will stop on the way home from the soccer game tomorrow and pick them up.
We also went into The sport shop Decathlon. This is the place where I bought my bike basket. The store has moved to a new location, but the guy who sold me the bike basket was there and remembered me. He was so pleasant and made sure I got my store discount card. I can’t wait to really see if I get discounts from the stores where I have these cards some day.
Since this plaza is right next to my favorite “home depot”, of course we had to stop in there too. I’m looking for two wooden mallets that the kids can pound pegs into a board with. No luck finding them so far. Not in “home depot”, not in a kids’ toy store. I’m going to have to do more research on this one.
On our way back home, I stopped in to get my haircut. I ca Nutella my Russian is getting better because this time she didn’t cut it as short as she did the last time. She really understood when I said “enough”.
So now I’m in for the night. I wand to get some reading done, listen to “Wait, Wait...” and then eat leftover sauerbraten. I’ll be eating it the rest of the week. Sonia and I did decide, however, that after the game tomorrow we will stop at Amigo Miguel’s for a burrito.
I’ll let you know tomorrow how the game goes.
It took him about 3 minutes to get there and shut up everything off. By this time, I was soaked from the waist down. I went back to the room and ate lunch with the kids before riding home to change. So it was a good day to be thankful that I live so close to the school and was able to get home to change. And since the kids were down fo their naps, I also took the time to enjoy a cup of coffee. What the hell.
The afternoon was uneventful. I got back home at 4:30 and started setting up for Thanksgiving dinner. There were three of us. We had sauerbraten, red cabbage, tortilla, cucumber sandwiches, apple crumble and baked potatoes, not necessarily in that order. We ended up having a three-hour conversation about child-raising techniques in different countries. With America, Germany, Spain, Russia and the UK represented, it was really and interesting discussion.
Yesterday I was again enlightened. I was informed that girls who are given feminized versions of masculine names (Alberta, Edwina, Josephine, etc.) grown up to be rude and bossy. When I told my conversation partner that my aunt was named Alberta, she just sort of backed down.
I went to bed early last night and got up early this morning. After puttering around here for awhile, Sonia and I went shopping. We walked through the open market to say hello to our friendly market ladies, the. We went straight to the print shop to print out the two soccer tickets we have for a great game tomorrow. It’s between Kazan (of course) and a team from Moscow which is higher I. The standings. It should be a great game.
Then she took me to one of the biggest honking stores Ive ever seen. It’s called Ashan, it’s basically like Walmart, with absolutely everything. They have a section where you can buy rice, spices, candy, whatever by scooping as much a you want out of a bin and paying by weight. So you don’t have to get a bag full of something you only need a teaspoon of. And they had large assortments of everything. They are as consumption crazy here as we are in the States.
We ate a quick pizza at the mall. I notice that many places here don’t put tomato sauce on their pizzas. Just cheeses and toppings. They are not bad. Sonia’s pizza margarita was covered with a layer of cheese which had some chunks of tomatoes on it. I had a mushroom and ham pizza. It had a different kind of cheese than Sonia’s, then had the mushrooms and pieces of ham on top of the cheese layer.
After our leisurely lunch break, we headed into the craft shop to find something to decorate the classroom in for winter time. I was pretty much told that this is what has to be done in a classroom in winter. I am not a big decorator, so I took a couple of pictures of possible things I could use and texted them to my TA to make sure I am on the right track. She approved, so I will stop on the way home from the soccer game tomorrow and pick them up.
We also went into The sport shop Decathlon. This is the place where I bought my bike basket. The store has moved to a new location, but the guy who sold me the bike basket was there and remembered me. He was so pleasant and made sure I got my store discount card. I can’t wait to really see if I get discounts from the stores where I have these cards some day.
Since this plaza is right next to my favorite “home depot”, of course we had to stop in there too. I’m looking for two wooden mallets that the kids can pound pegs into a board with. No luck finding them so far. Not in “home depot”, not in a kids’ toy store. I’m going to have to do more research on this one.
On our way back home, I stopped in to get my haircut. I ca Nutella my Russian is getting better because this time she didn’t cut it as short as she did the last time. She really understood when I said “enough”.
So now I’m in for the night. I wand to get some reading done, listen to “Wait, Wait...” and then eat leftover sauerbraten. I’ll be eating it the rest of the week. Sonia and I did decide, however, that after the game tomorrow we will stop at Amigo Miguel’s for a burrito.
I’ll let you know tomorrow how the game goes.
Wednesday, November 22, 2017
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, part 2
Since I had said I was going to cook sauerbraten and red cabbage for our international Thanksgiving, i figured I’d better get hoping and get what i needed because Thursday is. To a holiday here, so I knew I’d have to have everything ready by tonight. Since it has to marinate for at least two days, I hopped on my bike after work and rode through a steady mist to a new different grocery store I’d heard about that was supposed to have red cabbage. I hadn’t seen any in the other stores, but I really hadn’t paid much attention.
Bachetle is only about a 10 minute ride from the apartment. And holy cow. Picture the Pittsford Wegmanns, but more upscale. It had lots of wines and all the fresh veggies were wrapped in cellophane. They had a deli that stretched the length of the store. It’s not like I’ll be doing all my shopping there, but I will definitely be going back.
After I got home, I started marinating the meat and realized I’d forgotten the brown sugar for the red cabbage. No problem, I thought. I knew I was going to go to the theater where they do the plays in the Tatar language on Tuesday, so I figured I’d just stop at the grocery store on my way to the Metro station.
And that’s exactly what I did. I met my friend outside the theater and when we went through the security check, the guard lifted up my backpack and made me open it. He wasn’t expecting a bottle of vinegar and an onion. We got in and checked our coats and then I went to get earphones. There is a simultaneous translation in Russian and in English. The play was pretty good. It was a comedy set about 600 years ago and was actually very clever. The translation left a lot to be desired. It took me awhile to realize that “The elephant has wilted our sewings,” was supposed to mean “The elephant has destroyed our crops.” The translator was either using a dictionary from Shakespeare’s time or google translations. In spite of that, the play was very entertaining.
Today we worked on our Mother’s Day gifts because Mother’s Day is this Friday. We made flowers out of salt dough and then painted them. I’m sure the moms will be thrilled. But probably the most interesting thing was a conversation I had with my TA. She goes to seminars put on by the school psychologists every once in awhile to get new ideas about how to deal with kids. Today, after she came back, she told me that we should tell all the boys how strong and brave they are and we should tell the girls they are fine young ladies. Otherwise, they will grow up to be gay. Say what?
That one just about knocked my socks off. I told her that I totally disagreed with her. If you are gay, it’s because you were born that way. No, was the answer. That was true of only about 1% of gay people. The rest are socialized to be gay. Holy crap. I had heard rumors that Russians were homophobic. This was the first time I had any real proof of it.
After work I rode to the post office to pick up a package that arrived then rode on to my bread store and the bank before I came home to start cooking the Sauerbraten. Oh, damn, it smells so good , even if I did have to tweak the recipe a little bit because of the different ingredients. Lordy, I will have leftovers for a month, because I know that everyone else will be bringing lots of stuff too. And you know what? I don’t care! I will need something spicy in the evenings after that bland stuff at school.
I hope you all have a happy Thanksgiving.
Bachetle is only about a 10 minute ride from the apartment. And holy cow. Picture the Pittsford Wegmanns, but more upscale. It had lots of wines and all the fresh veggies were wrapped in cellophane. They had a deli that stretched the length of the store. It’s not like I’ll be doing all my shopping there, but I will definitely be going back.
After I got home, I started marinating the meat and realized I’d forgotten the brown sugar for the red cabbage. No problem, I thought. I knew I was going to go to the theater where they do the plays in the Tatar language on Tuesday, so I figured I’d just stop at the grocery store on my way to the Metro station.
And that’s exactly what I did. I met my friend outside the theater and when we went through the security check, the guard lifted up my backpack and made me open it. He wasn’t expecting a bottle of vinegar and an onion. We got in and checked our coats and then I went to get earphones. There is a simultaneous translation in Russian and in English. The play was pretty good. It was a comedy set about 600 years ago and was actually very clever. The translation left a lot to be desired. It took me awhile to realize that “The elephant has wilted our sewings,” was supposed to mean “The elephant has destroyed our crops.” The translator was either using a dictionary from Shakespeare’s time or google translations. In spite of that, the play was very entertaining.
Today we worked on our Mother’s Day gifts because Mother’s Day is this Friday. We made flowers out of salt dough and then painted them. I’m sure the moms will be thrilled. But probably the most interesting thing was a conversation I had with my TA. She goes to seminars put on by the school psychologists every once in awhile to get new ideas about how to deal with kids. Today, after she came back, she told me that we should tell all the boys how strong and brave they are and we should tell the girls they are fine young ladies. Otherwise, they will grow up to be gay. Say what?
That one just about knocked my socks off. I told her that I totally disagreed with her. If you are gay, it’s because you were born that way. No, was the answer. That was true of only about 1% of gay people. The rest are socialized to be gay. Holy crap. I had heard rumors that Russians were homophobic. This was the first time I had any real proof of it.
After work I rode to the post office to pick up a package that arrived then rode on to my bread store and the bank before I came home to start cooking the Sauerbraten. Oh, damn, it smells so good , even if I did have to tweak the recipe a little bit because of the different ingredients. Lordy, I will have leftovers for a month, because I know that everyone else will be bringing lots of stuff too. And you know what? I don’t care! I will need something spicy in the evenings after that bland stuff at school.
I hope you all have a happy Thanksgiving.
Sunday, November 19, 2017
Shopped till I dropped.
Oh my. I didn’t start out to spend money today. I cleaned the apartment this morning in preparation for the landlady’s meter-reading inspection tomorrow. Then I had to get some supplies for projects this week , so Sonia and I went into town. We went to the craft supply shop at the big plaza. Sonia was impressed. I got the few things I needed and then we took the escalator down. And what did we spy one the next level? A Sportmaster store.
Sonia had been looking for some crampons for her shoes. Being from Spain, she is not at all used to dealing with icy surfaces and is afraid she’s going to fall flat on her face and break something. We found some in this Sportmaster. As long as we were there, I figured I would look for a warmer winter coat. I’ve been told it’s not unusual to hit -22 degrees F. here in winter. I found a nice, long jacket that really keeps me warm. Sonia also found some snow pants. Then I ended up getting a couple of coffee cups at the grocery store in the mall because two of mine had broken. Plus, we ate fast food at Burger King. We’ve decided it’s not good when we go out together! All we do is spend money.
On the way home, we stopped in the little grocery store in our complex. A lady approached us and asked if we gave English lessons. Her family wants to move to Australia and they need to work on their English. I wouldn’t mind picking up another private student or two.
Then the international staff started texting back and forth. We had wanted to do a get-together and decided to do it this Thursday for Thanksgiving. I decided to do Sauerbraten. Now all I have to do is run out and find all the ingredients tomorrow and start marinating. I hope I can turn up all the spices. It will be a really eclectic meal; something Spanish, something British, something Russian, something Indian and something German. And not a turkey in sight.
Tuesday I’m going to the Tatar theater. They perform Tatar classics there. They speak in Tatar, then they translate it into Russian and after that they translate it into English. So the same joke gets three different laughs. I suspect it’s similar to what we know in Germany as Bauerntheater (farmers’theater or country theater).
OK. Enough for now. I’ve got to get up early tomorrow.
Sonia had been looking for some crampons for her shoes. Being from Spain, she is not at all used to dealing with icy surfaces and is afraid she’s going to fall flat on her face and break something. We found some in this Sportmaster. As long as we were there, I figured I would look for a warmer winter coat. I’ve been told it’s not unusual to hit -22 degrees F. here in winter. I found a nice, long jacket that really keeps me warm. Sonia also found some snow pants. Then I ended up getting a couple of coffee cups at the grocery store in the mall because two of mine had broken. Plus, we ate fast food at Burger King. We’ve decided it’s not good when we go out together! All we do is spend money.
On the way home, we stopped in the little grocery store in our complex. A lady approached us and asked if we gave English lessons. Her family wants to move to Australia and they need to work on their English. I wouldn’t mind picking up another private student or two.
Then the international staff started texting back and forth. We had wanted to do a get-together and decided to do it this Thursday for Thanksgiving. I decided to do Sauerbraten. Now all I have to do is run out and find all the ingredients tomorrow and start marinating. I hope I can turn up all the spices. It will be a really eclectic meal; something Spanish, something British, something Russian, something Indian and something German. And not a turkey in sight.
Tuesday I’m going to the Tatar theater. They perform Tatar classics there. They speak in Tatar, then they translate it into Russian and after that they translate it into English. So the same joke gets three different laughs. I suspect it’s similar to what we know in Germany as Bauerntheater (farmers’theater or country theater).
OK. Enough for now. I’ve got to get up early tomorrow.
Saturday, November 18, 2017
Spain and black spaghetti, part 2
I had a great start to the weekend. Yesterday when I got home from work, I figured I had finally better make plans for the winter break or I wouldn’t get anything. My break is from 27 Dec to 10 Jan. I was toying with bike trips in Spain or Greece, or just a trip to room. I googled Spain tours and Greece tours and they are all in spring. But Spain offered some bus tours of Andalusia, which is the particular area I am interested in. I didn’t know which one to choose, so I whatsapped my Spanish friend Sonia quickly to see if she was free and ran over to her apartment, which is in the building about 500 feet from mine. We found a great 9-day tour which gives me time for an extra day in Segovia and Madrid. We found a reasonable flight AND a good deal on a hotel near the airport. And Sonia lives right around the corner, so she is going to pick me up when I get into Madrid. The flights will be long because of time waiting for connecting flights, but I will finally get to see this historic and culturally important part of Spain that has always interested me. Glad I got that taken care of.
Today was also very, very pleasant. After cleaning up a little and Skyping to Germany, I met Anna downtown. We walked to the Hermitage Museum and looked at an exhibit of Imperial pottery, made in St. Petersburg. It was a lovely exhibit with a combination of old and modern. Then we walked all the way across town to the bookstore with the collection of English-language books. Two surprises: it was smaller than I had expected and it had a wonderful collection of English-language materials for young kids. Both Anna and I fond books we thought we might enjoy. The store owner happened to come in while we were there , heard us speaking English, thanked us for patronizing her store and offered us a cup of tea. We sat right down at the table in the store and drank tea and ate chocolate. We even started browsing through our books. I’ll guarantee we’ll be going back there.
We left the store and walked through the passage connecting the mall to the hotel and took the elevator up to the 25th-floor restaurant. It was already totally dark in Kazan and the view of the city all lit up was breath-taking. It was a very noble establishment but everyone was casually dressed. It seems pretty obvious that a lot of well-off foreigners use this hotel when they come to Kazan. The wait staff all spoke English.
We shared a bruschetta appetizer, each of the four pieces of bread having a different topping. We shared two pots of tea. I had the black spaghetti with shrimp and Béchamel sauce and Anna had a salad with roast beef slices.it was finally a meal that wasn’t too bland. In fact, it was excellent. My whole bill with tax and tip was $15. The view alone was worth that.
I caught a bus home and am in for the night. My stomach is still full!
Tomorrow is clean-up and shopping day. The landlady come Monday to read the meters. The place had better look good. And I get to skype to Germany tomorrow night. That will be fun.
Today was also very, very pleasant. After cleaning up a little and Skyping to Germany, I met Anna downtown. We walked to the Hermitage Museum and looked at an exhibit of Imperial pottery, made in St. Petersburg. It was a lovely exhibit with a combination of old and modern. Then we walked all the way across town to the bookstore with the collection of English-language books. Two surprises: it was smaller than I had expected and it had a wonderful collection of English-language materials for young kids. Both Anna and I fond books we thought we might enjoy. The store owner happened to come in while we were there , heard us speaking English, thanked us for patronizing her store and offered us a cup of tea. We sat right down at the table in the store and drank tea and ate chocolate. We even started browsing through our books. I’ll guarantee we’ll be going back there.
We left the store and walked through the passage connecting the mall to the hotel and took the elevator up to the 25th-floor restaurant. It was already totally dark in Kazan and the view of the city all lit up was breath-taking. It was a very noble establishment but everyone was casually dressed. It seems pretty obvious that a lot of well-off foreigners use this hotel when they come to Kazan. The wait staff all spoke English.
We shared a bruschetta appetizer, each of the four pieces of bread having a different topping. We shared two pots of tea. I had the black spaghetti with shrimp and Béchamel sauce and Anna had a salad with roast beef slices.it was finally a meal that wasn’t too bland. In fact, it was excellent. My whole bill with tax and tip was $15. The view alone was worth that.
I caught a bus home and am in for the night. My stomach is still full!
Tomorrow is clean-up and shopping day. The landlady come Monday to read the meters. The place had better look good. And I get to skype to Germany tomorrow night. That will be fun.
Spain and black spaghetti
Thursday, November 16, 2017
Let’s get physical!
I forgot to mention that my movie ticket only cost $2.58. Eat your heart out, Regal Cinema!
Fun fact: when you go to a restaurant here with other people, it doesn’t matter how many people are in the party, the waiter serves the first dish that comes out of the kitchen. They never wait until the food for the entire party is ready, so someone always ends up watching another person eating for 10 minutes until his food arrives. Weird system. In general, the food’s not spicy enought for me.
Fun fact: The kids love croutons in their soup at lunchtime. It’s just the old, stale bread that hasn’t been finished up from the previous week that’s cut up in small chunks. But the kids will ask for it by the handful.
It’s snowing like crazy at the moment. I think I’m about to experience a Russian winter. I just did my homework and checked the latitude of Rochester and Kazan. Kazan is 12 degrees of latitude further north than Rochester. Holy crap. I just went out and bought a warmer hat. Now I’ve got my eye on a long winter coat. I will be walking to school soon. I don’t want to ride if the roads aren’t cleared and my impression so far is that that will never be the case in Kazan. Although I shouldn’t rush to judgement. I’ve seen street sweepers out there. They don’t seem to be very effective, however. Every car in Kazan is covered in mud. It’s also illegal to wash your car in your apartment parking lot. Only if you own a place out in the country, can you wash it yourself.
I learned something else interesting. The Russian Duma (legislative body) just declared that it’s no longer mandatory to teach the Tatar language in schools in Tatarstan. If a kid wants to voluntarily take Tatar lessons, he can sign up for a class after hours. This has some people worried. They see it as an attack on the culture and are afraid the language and their heritage will be lost. It sounds like it might be the first step to insert more Russian influence into Tatarstan. This only applies to public schools. Private schools can teach it if they want.
So, now on to the physical. Every school teacher in Russia has to get a physical once a year. It includes a chest x-ray for TB and for the women, a pelvic exam. Yup, you heard me right. What the hell do they expect teachers to be doing in school?! And they expect you to bring a passport picture. In any case, our school contracts with the cheapest clinic it can find and the clinic only does the exams on Wednesdays. So, according to our nurses at school, they had sent all of the paperwork for us foreigners on ahead to the clinic so that we could be processed in a reasonable amount of time and not have to translate everything there.
We show up at the clinic, with Valeriya, Matthew’s Russian wife as a translator. This clinic looked like something an American woman would go to to get an illegal abortion. We got there shortly after 8 and there were already about 20 people milling around. Then we find out that the guy at the clinic who supposedly processed our paperwork in advance had quit his job. So, Valeriya’s standing there filling out all the paperwork in Russian for us and about 30 more people come into the clinic. You don’t take a number, you don’t wait in line, you push and shove. Finally we get to go to the back and stand by the first doctor’s door where they draw blood. What the hell for? As we are waiting, about 8 people just simply push ahead and jump the line. Some of them were even from the other branch of our school! Damn.
After about an hour of this crap, we just said screw it, got our documents back and went back to school. Matthew was smart enough to take a video of the entire scene to show the boss how impossible is was. So now we will have to find another solution. We actually already have but I’m not going to put it in print. I’ll let you know when I get the official documents.
Boy, I thought getting Medicaid for my dad was a pain in the ass, but this bureaucracy tops them all.
On a calmer topic, Mothers’ Day here is in November. We will have to prepare a present for the moms and they come in on one afternoon and put on a program for the kids. Can’t wait to see what this will be like.
We’re headed for the mexican restaurant again tomorrow. Saturday I want to finally get to the big bookstore and Sunday is going to be cleaning and Skyping day. The landlady comes Monday to read the meters so I’ve got to be ready for her.
Fun fact: when you go to a restaurant here with other people, it doesn’t matter how many people are in the party, the waiter serves the first dish that comes out of the kitchen. They never wait until the food for the entire party is ready, so someone always ends up watching another person eating for 10 minutes until his food arrives. Weird system. In general, the food’s not spicy enought for me.
Fun fact: The kids love croutons in their soup at lunchtime. It’s just the old, stale bread that hasn’t been finished up from the previous week that’s cut up in small chunks. But the kids will ask for it by the handful.
It’s snowing like crazy at the moment. I think I’m about to experience a Russian winter. I just did my homework and checked the latitude of Rochester and Kazan. Kazan is 12 degrees of latitude further north than Rochester. Holy crap. I just went out and bought a warmer hat. Now I’ve got my eye on a long winter coat. I will be walking to school soon. I don’t want to ride if the roads aren’t cleared and my impression so far is that that will never be the case in Kazan. Although I shouldn’t rush to judgement. I’ve seen street sweepers out there. They don’t seem to be very effective, however. Every car in Kazan is covered in mud. It’s also illegal to wash your car in your apartment parking lot. Only if you own a place out in the country, can you wash it yourself.
I learned something else interesting. The Russian Duma (legislative body) just declared that it’s no longer mandatory to teach the Tatar language in schools in Tatarstan. If a kid wants to voluntarily take Tatar lessons, he can sign up for a class after hours. This has some people worried. They see it as an attack on the culture and are afraid the language and their heritage will be lost. It sounds like it might be the first step to insert more Russian influence into Tatarstan. This only applies to public schools. Private schools can teach it if they want.
So, now on to the physical. Every school teacher in Russia has to get a physical once a year. It includes a chest x-ray for TB and for the women, a pelvic exam. Yup, you heard me right. What the hell do they expect teachers to be doing in school?! And they expect you to bring a passport picture. In any case, our school contracts with the cheapest clinic it can find and the clinic only does the exams on Wednesdays. So, according to our nurses at school, they had sent all of the paperwork for us foreigners on ahead to the clinic so that we could be processed in a reasonable amount of time and not have to translate everything there.
We show up at the clinic, with Valeriya, Matthew’s Russian wife as a translator. This clinic looked like something an American woman would go to to get an illegal abortion. We got there shortly after 8 and there were already about 20 people milling around. Then we find out that the guy at the clinic who supposedly processed our paperwork in advance had quit his job. So, Valeriya’s standing there filling out all the paperwork in Russian for us and about 30 more people come into the clinic. You don’t take a number, you don’t wait in line, you push and shove. Finally we get to go to the back and stand by the first doctor’s door where they draw blood. What the hell for? As we are waiting, about 8 people just simply push ahead and jump the line. Some of them were even from the other branch of our school! Damn.
After about an hour of this crap, we just said screw it, got our documents back and went back to school. Matthew was smart enough to take a video of the entire scene to show the boss how impossible is was. So now we will have to find another solution. We actually already have but I’m not going to put it in print. I’ll let you know when I get the official documents.
Boy, I thought getting Medicaid for my dad was a pain in the ass, but this bureaucracy tops them all.
On a calmer topic, Mothers’ Day here is in November. We will have to prepare a present for the moms and they come in on one afternoon and put on a program for the kids. Can’t wait to see what this will be like.
We’re headed for the mexican restaurant again tomorrow. Saturday I want to finally get to the big bookstore and Sunday is going to be cleaning and Skyping day. The landlady comes Monday to read the meters so I’ve got to be ready for her.
Sunday, November 12, 2017
Mozart and Mathilda
I forgot to mention yesterday that the Basket-hall has squat toilets in the ladies’ room. It’s a porcelain hole with places to put your feet on either side. I’ve seen the, in other countries, but it was the first time I’ve seen them in Russia.
So, Skyping didn’t work last night, but we made a WhatsApp call. At least I got to talk to everyone. The next time I’ll remember to push the camera button however, so we can all see each other too. We didn’t make contact until about 4 and then we talked for half an hour. That means I slept in until 10.
After I got up and got going, I took my 5-liter water bottle out to the water Automat and filled it up. Then I walked down to my old bank, took out more money and deposited it in my new bank. It’s right near the subway station and my bread bakery. So I stopped and got bread and took the subway into town. I’ve got to take a picture of the bakery for you next week. It’s a little, nondescript gray building with no entrance. If you want bread, you wait in front of a little window tha5 the guy opens when he sees you and you tell him what you want. Sometimes the line is 10 people long. And when you’re standing at the window, you can see all the bakers patting the dough and putting it in the oven. You end up with piping hot flat bread. It’s phenomenal.
I had wanted to go to to the big bookstore that the guy told us about yesterday, but since I started out so late and had tickets for the 2 p.m. showing of Mathilda, I decided to push the bookstore off until next week and get tickets to The Magic Flute instead. So when I got off the subway I walked up The Hill to the opera house. I go to the counter and ask for tickets for Dec. 20 and the only thing they have left is standing room only. I tell her I’ll take two tickets and she tells me the price. I didn’t hear her correctly through her inch-thick plexiglass and and screechy microphone so I asked her to repeat. You would have thought I had asked her to sacrifice her first-born child. Finally, the lady behind me in line told me the price (less than a dollar a ticket. Take note, RPO, they sell out weeks in advance.)
It’s interesting that 99.9% of cashiers go out of their way to help you. The small number who don’t are usually older women. Maybe they are just pissed at the raw deal they’ve gotten in life and now have someone they can take it out on. Who the hell knows. But I got my tickets.
Then I walked down to the place where I saw the neat Tatar hats and, of course, they were all too big and I didn’t like any of them anyway. So I walked back to the mall with the movie theater and ate two slices of pieces at the food court. It’s important to know that it was two slices, because when you order two, you get a free cup of tea with it.
I went into the movie theater and took my seat. They have as many trailers and commercials as in the States. It was good that the movie didn’t have an awful lot of complicated dialogue and that I remembered some of my Russian history. I got the gist of it and enjoyed it. It didn’t feel like 2 hours and 10 minutes.
After the movie I caught the subway back towards home and stopped at the grocery story. I got what I needed and walked home. Then I had a nice long FaceTime chat with Mary Ellen. I was so glad she could watch me make my penguin project for school and critique it for me.
And now, since I’m still tired from the late chat with America, it’s about time to turn in. The only other thing of note today was that I noticed a Stockmann department store in town. It’s a very prominent department store chain in Finland.
Tomorrow I’m making binoculars out of toilet paper rolls with the kids and were going on a lion hunt. In the evening, I have tutoring. So enough for now.
So, Skyping didn’t work last night, but we made a WhatsApp call. At least I got to talk to everyone. The next time I’ll remember to push the camera button however, so we can all see each other too. We didn’t make contact until about 4 and then we talked for half an hour. That means I slept in until 10.
After I got up and got going, I took my 5-liter water bottle out to the water Automat and filled it up. Then I walked down to my old bank, took out more money and deposited it in my new bank. It’s right near the subway station and my bread bakery. So I stopped and got bread and took the subway into town. I’ve got to take a picture of the bakery for you next week. It’s a little, nondescript gray building with no entrance. If you want bread, you wait in front of a little window tha5 the guy opens when he sees you and you tell him what you want. Sometimes the line is 10 people long. And when you’re standing at the window, you can see all the bakers patting the dough and putting it in the oven. You end up with piping hot flat bread. It’s phenomenal.
I had wanted to go to to the big bookstore that the guy told us about yesterday, but since I started out so late and had tickets for the 2 p.m. showing of Mathilda, I decided to push the bookstore off until next week and get tickets to The Magic Flute instead. So when I got off the subway I walked up The Hill to the opera house. I go to the counter and ask for tickets for Dec. 20 and the only thing they have left is standing room only. I tell her I’ll take two tickets and she tells me the price. I didn’t hear her correctly through her inch-thick plexiglass and and screechy microphone so I asked her to repeat. You would have thought I had asked her to sacrifice her first-born child. Finally, the lady behind me in line told me the price (less than a dollar a ticket. Take note, RPO, they sell out weeks in advance.)
It’s interesting that 99.9% of cashiers go out of their way to help you. The small number who don’t are usually older women. Maybe they are just pissed at the raw deal they’ve gotten in life and now have someone they can take it out on. Who the hell knows. But I got my tickets.
Then I walked down to the place where I saw the neat Tatar hats and, of course, they were all too big and I didn’t like any of them anyway. So I walked back to the mall with the movie theater and ate two slices of pieces at the food court. It’s important to know that it was two slices, because when you order two, you get a free cup of tea with it.
I went into the movie theater and took my seat. They have as many trailers and commercials as in the States. It was good that the movie didn’t have an awful lot of complicated dialogue and that I remembered some of my Russian history. I got the gist of it and enjoyed it. It didn’t feel like 2 hours and 10 minutes.
After the movie I caught the subway back towards home and stopped at the grocery story. I got what I needed and walked home. Then I had a nice long FaceTime chat with Mary Ellen. I was so glad she could watch me make my penguin project for school and critique it for me.
And now, since I’m still tired from the late chat with America, it’s about time to turn in. The only other thing of note today was that I noticed a Stockmann department store in town. It’s a very prominent department store chain in Finland.
Tomorrow I’m making binoculars out of toilet paper rolls with the kids and were going on a lion hunt. In the evening, I have tutoring. So enough for now.
Saturday, November 11, 2017
Go, Unics Kazan, part 2.
So, Emma, Sonia and I went to the Unics Kazan bastball game tonight. The name is pronounced “uniques” and not “eunuchs”. What a great game. On the Kazan team there was a guy from Gabon, a Spaniard, a Nigerian-Canadian and several Americans. The league’s motto is “One league - one language: basketball”. During their warm-ups, the Kazan players even do yoga poses! After a sloppy first half, we got our stuff together and pulled out an exciting win. There was a nice atmosphere in the arena. Sonia and I headed home after the game and Emma headed out to her dance class.
We took a bus home, which reminded us why the subway and the tram are preferable. Lordy, traffic is so bad in Kazan and people drive like bats out of hell. You’d better find a route where you only have to turn right. I can’t begin to explain what a left turn looks like here, but it isn’t pretty, especially if it involves crossing tram tracks.
In the morning Sonia and I had been shopping. I needed some stuff for next weeks’s projects and Sonia needed a scrapper for her ceramic stove. We found both -.PLUS, Sonia find a screen for her phone and a really great stereotypical Russian hat with the ear flaps to keep her warm during the winter. It’s really gorgeous.
We stopped in a bookstore in the plaza we were at and asked the guy if they had any books in English. They did, but they were only the classics. On the way out the guy told us about another shopping center that has a bookstore with lots of literature in English. That’s going to be on of my goals tomorrow. Plus, I bought a ticket to go see the movie Mathilda tomorrow. It’s only in Russian with no subtitles, but I really want to see it. It’s about an affair one of the czars had with a ballet dancer. Will fill you in more tomorrow.
It snowed this morning while we were underway, but it warmed up over the course of the day. So by the time we took off for the basketball game, it had gotten slightly milder. It still does not mean that it was warm, however.
I’m getting excited that I will be able to Skype with my work buddies in the States. It’s party night for them and I’ll be able to talk with them all. But I have to be up at 0 dark 3 a.m. to do it. SO YOU ALL HAD BETTER BE APPRECIATING MY EFFORTS. 😁👍 And don’t expect me to be too alert.
We took a bus home, which reminded us why the subway and the tram are preferable. Lordy, traffic is so bad in Kazan and people drive like bats out of hell. You’d better find a route where you only have to turn right. I can’t begin to explain what a left turn looks like here, but it isn’t pretty, especially if it involves crossing tram tracks.
In the morning Sonia and I had been shopping. I needed some stuff for next weeks’s projects and Sonia needed a scrapper for her ceramic stove. We found both -.PLUS, Sonia find a screen for her phone and a really great stereotypical Russian hat with the ear flaps to keep her warm during the winter. It’s really gorgeous.
We stopped in a bookstore in the plaza we were at and asked the guy if they had any books in English. They did, but they were only the classics. On the way out the guy told us about another shopping center that has a bookstore with lots of literature in English. That’s going to be on of my goals tomorrow. Plus, I bought a ticket to go see the movie Mathilda tomorrow. It’s only in Russian with no subtitles, but I really want to see it. It’s about an affair one of the czars had with a ballet dancer. Will fill you in more tomorrow.
It snowed this morning while we were underway, but it warmed up over the course of the day. So by the time we took off for the basketball game, it had gotten slightly milder. It still does not mean that it was warm, however.
I’m getting excited that I will be able to Skype with my work buddies in the States. It’s party night for them and I’ll be able to talk with them all. But I have to be up at 0 dark 3 a.m. to do it. SO YOU ALL HAD BETTER BE APPRECIATING MY EFFORTS. 😁👍 And don’t expect me to be too alert.
Friday, November 10, 2017
Big shout out!
In case it doesn’t work out with Skyping tonight, here’s a big shout out to all my good buddies meeting at Tully’s. Happy birthday, Michelle and Laura.
A short and stressful week
Fun fact: Our school serves dinner rolls to the kids for dessert. They are rather sweet and the kids love them.
So, Tuesday I get back to school after the Moscow trip and head to the accounting office with my calculator to pick up my pay envelope. Hmmmm, I come up quite a bit short. When I point this out, the ladies say that’s what they were told by the boss and he is on vacation till the 10th. I tell them I will be back then. Later that afternoon, as I’m sitting in the room with my hand in a batch of home-made play dough that I’m mixing up, in comes one of the ladies and says that they called the boss at his vacation spot and asked for clarification. I should come and sign for the rest of my pay. I tell her I’m not coming down now with my hand full of blue play dough, I’ll be down later. Okay. I hop on down with my trusty calculator when I’m finished, pick up the rest of my money and calculate. I’m still $6 short. Oh, they say. We deducted 500 rubles for your meals. You did WHAT? You didn’t do that in September, why would you do that now. And I’m supposed to be apply to eat at school for free. Nope, they’re not buying it.
I go home that afternoon and get out my contract. There it is in black and white that I’m supposed to be able to eat at school for free (especially since kindergarten teachers are required to eat with the children). Wednesday I go back to the accounting office armed with my trusty calculator AND my contract and get my 500 rubles back. Don’t mess with my pay stub, people.
We had a pirate party at school on Wednesday where the kids got to dress up and yesterday I hid a “buried treasure” in the classroom. They had fun doing that. This coming week we’re still going to talking about jungle animals so we’re going to make binoculars out of toilet paper rolls to be able to “see” them better in the distance.
Today was another bureaucratic journey to the tax office and the police station this morning. The guy from school went with us to translate and fill out forms. There were Sonia, Matthew and me at the tax office and Emma joined us later at the police station. This was, without a doubt the most modern-looking Russian office I have been in so far.
Everyone who works in Russia must have a tax number. The big boss needs it to pay our taxes. Also, It qualifies a person to collect a pension from the Russian government later. That would be a hoot. If it means working 40 quarters like in the States, forget it.
Immediately after the tax office, we walked over to the police station. We all marched into one little office where they took our passports and migration papers separately and recorded the, in a book and on the computer. Don’t ask me why. I don’t even know why we had to appear personally. But it kept me out of class for the morning.
We were gone from 8:30 tp 11:30. Between waiting in government offices and traffic here, you probably lose three years of your life.
But that wasn’t the end of our exciting day. Before we can go to our physical next week, we had to have chest X-rays to show that we don’t have TB. So, at 5:30 we all hike over to the clinic where I had my blood work done to control for my med dosage a few weeks ago. Sonia and I got to go first, which meant we both were told to go into this sort of locker room together and strip to the waist. No separate cabinets, no privacy, just strip. It didn’t take 5 minutes for the both of us.
On the way out of the clinic we stopped at the pharmacy counter to buy the specimen bottles we will need to fill up and take with us on Wednesday. Oh, joy. They make teachers go through all this, which is fine, but the food servers don’t have to wear gloves and they give food that one kid doesn’t finish to another kid. That seems sort of counterproductive.
Now I’m just relaxing and looking forward to the weekend. Tomorrow night we’re headed for a baseball game and Sunday I’d love to see the movie “Mathilda”, about the czar who had the affair with the ballet dancer. I’m hoping I’ll find it somewhere with English subtitles.
Two interesting little asides. I bought what I thought was cherry jelly and it turned out to be red currant. It’s absolutely delicious.
The other thing is, the boss’s three-year-old son is in my class. The family was on vacation in Turkey for a week. At the breakfast buffet the kid must have gone up to the waiter and said, “Excuse me. Juice, please.” So it seems total immersion in a language does pay off. The kid was certainly not afraid to use his English.
I’ll fill you in tomorrow and shopping, basketball and other adventures.
So, Tuesday I get back to school after the Moscow trip and head to the accounting office with my calculator to pick up my pay envelope. Hmmmm, I come up quite a bit short. When I point this out, the ladies say that’s what they were told by the boss and he is on vacation till the 10th. I tell them I will be back then. Later that afternoon, as I’m sitting in the room with my hand in a batch of home-made play dough that I’m mixing up, in comes one of the ladies and says that they called the boss at his vacation spot and asked for clarification. I should come and sign for the rest of my pay. I tell her I’m not coming down now with my hand full of blue play dough, I’ll be down later. Okay. I hop on down with my trusty calculator when I’m finished, pick up the rest of my money and calculate. I’m still $6 short. Oh, they say. We deducted 500 rubles for your meals. You did WHAT? You didn’t do that in September, why would you do that now. And I’m supposed to be apply to eat at school for free. Nope, they’re not buying it.
I go home that afternoon and get out my contract. There it is in black and white that I’m supposed to be able to eat at school for free (especially since kindergarten teachers are required to eat with the children). Wednesday I go back to the accounting office armed with my trusty calculator AND my contract and get my 500 rubles back. Don’t mess with my pay stub, people.
We had a pirate party at school on Wednesday where the kids got to dress up and yesterday I hid a “buried treasure” in the classroom. They had fun doing that. This coming week we’re still going to talking about jungle animals so we’re going to make binoculars out of toilet paper rolls to be able to “see” them better in the distance.
Today was another bureaucratic journey to the tax office and the police station this morning. The guy from school went with us to translate and fill out forms. There were Sonia, Matthew and me at the tax office and Emma joined us later at the police station. This was, without a doubt the most modern-looking Russian office I have been in so far.
Everyone who works in Russia must have a tax number. The big boss needs it to pay our taxes. Also, It qualifies a person to collect a pension from the Russian government later. That would be a hoot. If it means working 40 quarters like in the States, forget it.
Immediately after the tax office, we walked over to the police station. We all marched into one little office where they took our passports and migration papers separately and recorded the, in a book and on the computer. Don’t ask me why. I don’t even know why we had to appear personally. But it kept me out of class for the morning.
We were gone from 8:30 tp 11:30. Between waiting in government offices and traffic here, you probably lose three years of your life.
But that wasn’t the end of our exciting day. Before we can go to our physical next week, we had to have chest X-rays to show that we don’t have TB. So, at 5:30 we all hike over to the clinic where I had my blood work done to control for my med dosage a few weeks ago. Sonia and I got to go first, which meant we both were told to go into this sort of locker room together and strip to the waist. No separate cabinets, no privacy, just strip. It didn’t take 5 minutes for the both of us.
On the way out of the clinic we stopped at the pharmacy counter to buy the specimen bottles we will need to fill up and take with us on Wednesday. Oh, joy. They make teachers go through all this, which is fine, but the food servers don’t have to wear gloves and they give food that one kid doesn’t finish to another kid. That seems sort of counterproductive.
Now I’m just relaxing and looking forward to the weekend. Tomorrow night we’re headed for a baseball game and Sunday I’d love to see the movie “Mathilda”, about the czar who had the affair with the ballet dancer. I’m hoping I’ll find it somewhere with English subtitles.
Two interesting little asides. I bought what I thought was cherry jelly and it turned out to be red currant. It’s absolutely delicious.
The other thing is, the boss’s three-year-old son is in my class. The family was on vacation in Turkey for a week. At the breakfast buffet the kid must have gone up to the waiter and said, “Excuse me. Juice, please.” So it seems total immersion in a language does pay off. The kid was certainly not afraid to use his English.
I’ll fill you in tomorrow and shopping, basketball and other adventures.
Tuesday, November 7, 2017
A short week
I’m going to be all screwed up this week because Monday was a holiday. I’m already trying to remember what I did yesterday.
But now I remember. Emma, Sonia and I all went to a nice coffeehouse for brunch . We sat around for three hours and just yakked. Then I came home and solidified my lesson plans. And watched a lot of Grace and Frankie.This morning I was up early for school. It was bone-chillingly cold and foggy, but I pedaled to school. We only had 5 kids today and everyone was in a really good mood.
We are starting a unit on jungle animals so we talked about them in circle time. I had bought a whole bunch of plastic animals to illustrate what I was talking about. This week we will make a zoo and paint it. A couple of the kids made snakes, which they had a good time with.
When it was nap time, I went down to the accounting office to pick up my pay. Boy, am I glad I always take my calculator with me and stand right there to figure it out. I came up about $100 short. “But that’s what the boss told us your pay rate was.” “That’s not what he told me." “But the boss is on vacation until the 10th.” “Ill be here. We will discuss this again.” I went and reported it to the department head and then went back to my room to make play doh out of cornstarch and hair conditioner.Not only was it easy, but it smelled good.
Just as I have my hand in the bowl and am squishing the crap out of it with my fingers, in comes a lady from accounting who tells me they have called the boss on his vacation and he apologized to me for giving accounting the wrong information. I should please come down to accounting and pick up the rest of my money. Uhhhh, my hand is full of blue play doh. I don’t think I’m available at the moment. After class was over in the afternoon, I went back and collected the rest, to be sure!
So then I headed to the post office to pick up a package that had arrived. As I’m sitting there waiting my turn I’m thinking, crap, the school guy took my passport this morning to re-register me with the police in Kazan after my stay in Moscow (where I also had to be registered at the police station) and he didn’t bring it back to me yet. So, of course I couldn’t pick up my package, put I did manage to mail some postcards. So I’ll have to run to the P.O. again tomorrow before I go tutoring.
You have to really stay alert in this place!
But now I remember. Emma, Sonia and I all went to a nice coffeehouse for brunch . We sat around for three hours and just yakked. Then I came home and solidified my lesson plans. And watched a lot of Grace and Frankie.This morning I was up early for school. It was bone-chillingly cold and foggy, but I pedaled to school. We only had 5 kids today and everyone was in a really good mood.
We are starting a unit on jungle animals so we talked about them in circle time. I had bought a whole bunch of plastic animals to illustrate what I was talking about. This week we will make a zoo and paint it. A couple of the kids made snakes, which they had a good time with.
When it was nap time, I went down to the accounting office to pick up my pay. Boy, am I glad I always take my calculator with me and stand right there to figure it out. I came up about $100 short. “But that’s what the boss told us your pay rate was.” “That’s not what he told me." “But the boss is on vacation until the 10th.” “Ill be here. We will discuss this again.” I went and reported it to the department head and then went back to my room to make play doh out of cornstarch and hair conditioner.Not only was it easy, but it smelled good.
Just as I have my hand in the bowl and am squishing the crap out of it with my fingers, in comes a lady from accounting who tells me they have called the boss on his vacation and he apologized to me for giving accounting the wrong information. I should please come down to accounting and pick up the rest of my money. Uhhhh, my hand is full of blue play doh. I don’t think I’m available at the moment. After class was over in the afternoon, I went back and collected the rest, to be sure!
So then I headed to the post office to pick up a package that had arrived. As I’m sitting there waiting my turn I’m thinking, crap, the school guy took my passport this morning to re-register me with the police in Kazan after my stay in Moscow (where I also had to be registered at the police station) and he didn’t bring it back to me yet. So, of course I couldn’t pick up my package, put I did manage to mail some postcards. So I’ll have to run to the P.O. again tomorrow before I go tutoring.
You have to really stay alert in this place!
Sunday, November 5, 2017
Go, Rubin Kazan, part 2
I didn’t set the alarm this morning and slept until almost 9. I met Sonia at 10 because we had to find I place to print out our tickets for the soccer game tonight. I remembered having seen one near our bank. So we headed on down the street and I was right. They place printed them for $0.05 a page. Wow. That was cheap. The. We ran into the bank and came back to the open air market. The ladies wheee I bought my pumpkin and cottage cheese joked with us for awhile. The we went to another stall where we were trying to find a spatula for Sonia. That vendor didn’t have one but she took us inside an indoor market that we hadn’t even realized was there. It was way better than the market we had gone to a couple of weeks ago. They had all sorts of spices and fruits and just about anything else you might need. The stall the lady took us to in there didn’t have on either, so Sonia will try at “home depot” this week.
We quickly ran into the grocery store and got a few things included Oreos and Kleenex’s almost as good as German kleenexes, and headed back to her place, which is in the same building my little “mom and pop” grocery store is. She downloaded Netflix on my iPad for me, since she can have x number of people on her account and she hadn’t filled her quota yet.
I headed home and got some stuff done before Sonia and I met again to eat at Amigo Miguel before we headed for the soccer game. The food was great again. I tried tacos. They were not what we are used to in the States but were very good. And they were spiced very nicely. And the restaurant even has different games on a game table that you can play while you are waiting. We got through one game of Jenga before the food came.
We took the tram to Kazan Arena and got there about an hour early. It was cold, but I had on a hat, three shirts under my jacket, one shirt of which was a hoodie, snow pants, winter boots and two pairs of gloves. I was glad I did, because it started to snow in the 2nd half of the game. I stayed nice and warm. The game was fun, but neither team could shoot a goal. Guess I’ll have to wait until the next game.
But next week we want to catch a basketball game and I promised her I would also go to an ice hockey game with her. Tomorrow morning we’re going to meet our colleague Emma for brunch.
So now it’s back to Grace and Frankie on cable TV. How neat is that?
We quickly ran into the grocery store and got a few things included Oreos and Kleenex’s almost as good as German kleenexes, and headed back to her place, which is in the same building my little “mom and pop” grocery store is. She downloaded Netflix on my iPad for me, since she can have x number of people on her account and she hadn’t filled her quota yet.
I headed home and got some stuff done before Sonia and I met again to eat at Amigo Miguel before we headed for the soccer game. The food was great again. I tried tacos. They were not what we are used to in the States but were very good. And they were spiced very nicely. And the restaurant even has different games on a game table that you can play while you are waiting. We got through one game of Jenga before the food came.
We took the tram to Kazan Arena and got there about an hour early. It was cold, but I had on a hat, three shirts under my jacket, one shirt of which was a hoodie, snow pants, winter boots and two pairs of gloves. I was glad I did, because it started to snow in the 2nd half of the game. I stayed nice and warm. The game was fun, but neither team could shoot a goal. Guess I’ll have to wait until the next game.
But next week we want to catch a basketball game and I promised her I would also go to an ice hockey game with her. Tomorrow morning we’re going to meet our colleague Emma for brunch.
So now it’s back to Grace and Frankie on cable TV. How neat is that?
Saturday, November 4, 2017
Wonderful architecture, part 2
If you go anywhere in Russian and stay overnight, you have to register with the police. Fortunately, if you’re a tourist, the hotel does it for you. So, I got up early this morning and had my good breakfast. Then I went back to the room and made sure I had put everything in my suitcase, and went to check out. I got the police form from the receptionist and headed for the subway. I didn’t have to leave for the airport till about noon, so I figured I would stop off on my way to the Aeroexpress train station the Aeroexpress train takes you directly to the airport without stopping.) to check out the mosque. It was an an neighborhood with an interning mixture of architectural styles, as you can see from the pictures in the previous post.
The mosque itself was beautiful and was only built in 2015. There were completely different entrances for men and women and it was interesting that many of the women wore the same kind of aquamarine coat. After visiting the museum in the mosque for half an hour, I walked back to the subway station and rode over to the train station. I caught the train to the airport and had to ask where my terminal was when I arrived.
The security is strange. I had a half empty bottle of water in my backpack side pocket and not one person questioned it. I was really sort of surprised at how superficial I felt the security was. After I was through, I found my Aeroflot domestic flights counter and waited till I got called up. It took about 15 minutes. When I get up to the counter, the lady tells me it’s to early for me to check in. I should come back tomorrow. Now, I knew that I had just checked out of my hotel, so I could have been wrong on the date. I told her to look at my paper again and check her computer. Finally she found me and issued me a boarding pass. Whew, that was a close one. I would have camped out in front of that counter before I let her tell me I couldn’t get on the plane. She apologized and I went through another rather relaxed security check and then on to my gate.
When I got there, I noticed that my Russian phone was deed. Since my Uber app is on that phone, I figured I’d better recharge it before I got to Kazan. There was only one recharging station and two of the 6 outlets didn’t work. So I had to wait until someone else unplugged after about 20 minutes. I was a le to get it juiced up to about 50% before I looked up and noticed that my gate had been moved. I grabbed the phone and my suitcase and my backpack and my jacket and took off. I was there on time so it worked out fine.
Both flights to and from Moscow were excellent. I have the impression that Aeroflot pilots use much Less of the runway to take off than American pilots do, and they seem to rise more steeply. Maybe I’m imagining things. For the 1.5 hour flight, we even got served a lox and cream cheese sandwich and an apple. Not bad.
Kazan airport is pretty small so I got out right away. I took a taxi back home and was here in a half and hour. So know I’m just loafing and will finish unpacking tomorrow. Tomorrow night Sonia and I are going shopping and to a soccer game. I’m going to have to dress warmly for that one.
Enough for now. More tomorrow.
The mosque itself was beautiful and was only built in 2015. There were completely different entrances for men and women and it was interesting that many of the women wore the same kind of aquamarine coat. After visiting the museum in the mosque for half an hour, I walked back to the subway station and rode over to the train station. I caught the train to the airport and had to ask where my terminal was when I arrived.
The security is strange. I had a half empty bottle of water in my backpack side pocket and not one person questioned it. I was really sort of surprised at how superficial I felt the security was. After I was through, I found my Aeroflot domestic flights counter and waited till I got called up. It took about 15 minutes. When I get up to the counter, the lady tells me it’s to early for me to check in. I should come back tomorrow. Now, I knew that I had just checked out of my hotel, so I could have been wrong on the date. I told her to look at my paper again and check her computer. Finally she found me and issued me a boarding pass. Whew, that was a close one. I would have camped out in front of that counter before I let her tell me I couldn’t get on the plane. She apologized and I went through another rather relaxed security check and then on to my gate.
When I got there, I noticed that my Russian phone was deed. Since my Uber app is on that phone, I figured I’d better recharge it before I got to Kazan. There was only one recharging station and two of the 6 outlets didn’t work. So I had to wait until someone else unplugged after about 20 minutes. I was a le to get it juiced up to about 50% before I looked up and noticed that my gate had been moved. I grabbed the phone and my suitcase and my backpack and my jacket and took off. I was there on time so it worked out fine.
Both flights to and from Moscow were excellent. I have the impression that Aeroflot pilots use much Less of the runway to take off than American pilots do, and they seem to rise more steeply. Maybe I’m imagining things. For the 1.5 hour flight, we even got served a lox and cream cheese sandwich and an apple. Not bad.
Kazan airport is pretty small so I got out right away. I took a taxi back home and was here in a half and hour. So know I’m just loafing and will finish unpacking tomorrow. Tomorrow night Sonia and I are going shopping and to a soccer game. I’m going to have to dress warmly for that one.
Enough for now. More tomorrow.
Friday, November 3, 2017
Ode to the Moscow Metro system, part 2.
Have you ever seen Sheldon and Leonard on The Big Bang Theory play three-dimensional chess? Well, I feel like a live figure in a three-dimensional chess game when I go into the Moscow subway. You have to go down or up so many different levels and you have to walk long, long ways underground if you are at a station where more than one line meets and you have to transfer. Notice in the last picture of the previous blog that there are some metal barricades. These are to keep the crowds going up and down the escalators separated. Now imagine that a couple hundred people are getting off the train and all want to go up or down that single escalator. It’s like you’re being funneled into a cattle chute and you can only go with the flow (literally) and step on the escalator when you get pushed there with the rest of the crowd. This is not for the claustrophobic. The population of Moscow has just grown so much and it’s not like you can rebuild a subway station every couple of years. And today there were a lot of police hanging around in the subway because of the big holiday coming up. It happens to be the 100th anniversary of the Russian revolution on Monday, even if they now call it Unity Day.
So, after eating a good breakfast again, I headed for the subway. I wanted to see a building that was supposedly built like a ship and is being restored, then I thought I’d jog over to checkhov’s house before heading up to the Jewish Center. I had a hard time finding the building. It turns out that Moscow addresses also mean the places could be in the back courtyard of the building in front of it. This was the case today for just about everything I visited today. So what I do is ask two or three different people where the place is. If two people out of three give me a similar answer, that’s the direction I go in.
It turns out that this “ship” is right next to the American Embassy. With all its buildings, the complex takes up must of the block. I asked one of the guards there about the “ship” and I understood where I had to go. Unfortunately, they were really doing a lot of renovation on it and it didn’t look much like a ship to me at all. So I moved on up the street towards Chekhov, but ran into Dostoevsky before that. Man, I think there’s a museum for Russian authors on every damn corner! So I figure, OK, you’ve read Dostoevsky too. Stop in there. Would have been great, except that it was 11 am and the place didn’t open until noon. Nope, ain’t doing that.
I headed back to the subway and rode to the stop from which I could walk to the Jewish Center. This was well out of the center of town and appeared to be in a Jewish neighborhood. I first went to the the Jewish Community Center which was guarded by two policemen with machine guns. One of them told me it was the wrong place but would only tell me, “One more.”when I stopped a little further and asked a lady, she sent me through a back alley, but I found it. It is an entire complex with all sorts of meeting rooms and this great museum and tolerance center, as it is called.
The museum helped me understand why Russia had had such a large Jewish population. (Russian conquests of other countries with large Jewish populations). It was a very interesting account and a great exhibit. Lenin came off pretty good. The had one positive quote from him about Judaism. But you will not find anyone here who says something negative about Lenin. And I swear, in one of the old historical news clips, I’m sure I saw Leon Trotsky. He was a revolutionary along with Lenin and had to escape the country because he and Stalin disagreed . Stalin had him murdered while he was living in Mexico in1940.
But Stalin was mentioned several times in this exhibit and he did not come out looking good. They did not even attempt to hide his anti-Semitism. In general, the man is not talked about here, but in this case, he was such an integral part of the Jews’history in Russia, they couldn’t avoid it.
After spending about two hours there, I took the subway in the other direction to the Trekiakov Art Gallery. What a wonderful collection of Russian paintings and icons. I’m always so amazed at how someone can just take different colors and make it look like something.
I spent three hour there before I took the subway home. The same street musicians were belting out tunes at the corner, but there was no drunk breakdancing. I stopped at the Italian place for a nice meal of cannelloni and tomato juice. (Did I already mention that tomato juice is a big item on menus here?)
So, tomorrow I fly out. On the way to the train station to go to the airport, I’ll make a quick stop at the mosque.
Sonia’s already got us booked up for a soccer game on Sunday. Monday’s a holiday so I don’t have to be crack to school until Tuesday. Hooray!
So, after eating a good breakfast again, I headed for the subway. I wanted to see a building that was supposedly built like a ship and is being restored, then I thought I’d jog over to checkhov’s house before heading up to the Jewish Center. I had a hard time finding the building. It turns out that Moscow addresses also mean the places could be in the back courtyard of the building in front of it. This was the case today for just about everything I visited today. So what I do is ask two or three different people where the place is. If two people out of three give me a similar answer, that’s the direction I go in.
It turns out that this “ship” is right next to the American Embassy. With all its buildings, the complex takes up must of the block. I asked one of the guards there about the “ship” and I understood where I had to go. Unfortunately, they were really doing a lot of renovation on it and it didn’t look much like a ship to me at all. So I moved on up the street towards Chekhov, but ran into Dostoevsky before that. Man, I think there’s a museum for Russian authors on every damn corner! So I figure, OK, you’ve read Dostoevsky too. Stop in there. Would have been great, except that it was 11 am and the place didn’t open until noon. Nope, ain’t doing that.
I headed back to the subway and rode to the stop from which I could walk to the Jewish Center. This was well out of the center of town and appeared to be in a Jewish neighborhood. I first went to the the Jewish Community Center which was guarded by two policemen with machine guns. One of them told me it was the wrong place but would only tell me, “One more.”when I stopped a little further and asked a lady, she sent me through a back alley, but I found it. It is an entire complex with all sorts of meeting rooms and this great museum and tolerance center, as it is called.
The museum helped me understand why Russia had had such a large Jewish population. (Russian conquests of other countries with large Jewish populations). It was a very interesting account and a great exhibit. Lenin came off pretty good. The had one positive quote from him about Judaism. But you will not find anyone here who says something negative about Lenin. And I swear, in one of the old historical news clips, I’m sure I saw Leon Trotsky. He was a revolutionary along with Lenin and had to escape the country because he and Stalin disagreed . Stalin had him murdered while he was living in Mexico in1940.
But Stalin was mentioned several times in this exhibit and he did not come out looking good. They did not even attempt to hide his anti-Semitism. In general, the man is not talked about here, but in this case, he was such an integral part of the Jews’history in Russia, they couldn’t avoid it.
After spending about two hours there, I took the subway in the other direction to the Trekiakov Art Gallery. What a wonderful collection of Russian paintings and icons. I’m always so amazed at how someone can just take different colors and make it look like something.
I spent three hour there before I took the subway home. The same street musicians were belting out tunes at the corner, but there was no drunk breakdancing. I stopped at the Italian place for a nice meal of cannelloni and tomato juice. (Did I already mention that tomato juice is a big item on menus here?)
So, tomorrow I fly out. On the way to the train station to go to the airport, I’ll make a quick stop at the mosque.
Sonia’s already got us booked up for a soccer game on Sunday. Monday’s a holiday so I don’t have to be crack to school until Tuesday. Hooray!
Thursday, November 2, 2017
Toast in Moscow, part 2
I’ve decided that the only thing I don’t like about the hotel room is that the duvet feels as heavy as one of those lead coverings you have to wear when you are getting x-rayed. But I certainly can’t complain about the breakfast. I had American scrambled eggs, German cold cuts and French crepes. And TOAST, real toast. I can’t believe how much I miss toast. It just tasted so good. I really dove in and enjoyed everything. Them I went over to the subway station and rode downtown, heading right for Red Square.
Since a big holiday is coming up on Monday, they were putting up the reviewing stands where all the government officials will review the parade. It used to be the big communist holiday but they kept the holiday and just changed the name to Unity Day.
People were already forming a line to something and when I asked what the line was for, the told me they were waiting to get into Lenin’s Mausoleum. He is still revered and respected here, but you’ll never hear stalin mentioned anywhere.
Since I wasn’t interested in Lenin, I walked around to Czar Alexander Garden and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I came back onto RedSquare and visited the Historical Museum. Then I walked to the other end of the Square and went into St. basil’s Cathedral. That’s the one with all the colorful towers in the pictures. It’s amazing. It’s actually 4 churches all built on to each other at different periods. It’s a series of mazes and icons. Holy crow, just walls and walls of icons, one more beautiful than the next.
Then I went into GUM, the very famous department stores which borders Red Square. It is more than 120 years old, and looks like a 3-story mall in a mansion. Dior, Gucci, you name it. You just can’t afford it. And there were ice cream vendors in every hallway and people were standing in line to buy it.
I left the store and turned in the direction away fro m Red Square but realized it wouldn’t get me to my subway station so I reversed. But the police weren’t letting anyone back onto Red Square, I presume because of the holiday parade preparations. So I turned around again and kept walking. I was glad I did because I found a great little restaurant that served cabbage rolls. I’ve been trying to get some since I’ve been here. These were great, with a little sauerkraut with them. For dessert I had “pigeon milk”, a sponge cake layered with cream and topped with chocolate. Boy, was I glad I couldn’t back to Red Square. I never would have found the restaurant otherwise.
After lunch I headed for the Museum Of Moscow history. There are A number of building and you can choose how many you want to visit and pay accordingly. On my way there, I accidentally got off the subway one stop too soon. When I walked out of the station, I was staring at on of the most imposing cathedrals I’ve ever seen. I took a few minutes to take some pictures, then got back on the subway to get to the right place.
The part I enjoyed the most was an exhibit of pictures of Moscow taken between 1917 and 1923. There were juxtaposed with pictures taken from the same spot in the last few years. It was amazing to see what had survived and what had been destroyed. Some of the recent “contrast” pictures were even cameras on the street relaying actual pictures to a computer screen placed next to the picture from 1917. Very creative.
There was a nice young employee there who spoke English. I asked here if she could show me on my tourist map where the Jewish Museum was. She laughed and said she didn’t really know how to read paper maps so she pulled out her phone and googled it. Now I at least know where I am headed tomorrow.
By this time it was already 6 and I was getting pooped. So I headed home. Next to the MacDonald’s at my subway station some street musicians were playing. The singer was doing some Eagles stuff and the group was very good. There was one drunk there trying to breakdance to the whole thing. It wasn’t quite working out for him.
So now I’m in for the night. I watched a little of Russia Today. Boy, they are doing their best to convince the viewers that Russia didn’t interfere in the US elections. And they are certainly having an effect on some people. Several acquaintances have told me how scared they are of Hillary Clinton. It’s all very surreal.
Tomorrow I’m going to hit a few more museums. I want to see on of the art gallerys and the Jewish museum in particular.
Since a big holiday is coming up on Monday, they were putting up the reviewing stands where all the government officials will review the parade. It used to be the big communist holiday but they kept the holiday and just changed the name to Unity Day.
People were already forming a line to something and when I asked what the line was for, the told me they were waiting to get into Lenin’s Mausoleum. He is still revered and respected here, but you’ll never hear stalin mentioned anywhere.
Since I wasn’t interested in Lenin, I walked around to Czar Alexander Garden and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I came back onto RedSquare and visited the Historical Museum. Then I walked to the other end of the Square and went into St. basil’s Cathedral. That’s the one with all the colorful towers in the pictures. It’s amazing. It’s actually 4 churches all built on to each other at different periods. It’s a series of mazes and icons. Holy crow, just walls and walls of icons, one more beautiful than the next.
Then I went into GUM, the very famous department stores which borders Red Square. It is more than 120 years old, and looks like a 3-story mall in a mansion. Dior, Gucci, you name it. You just can’t afford it. And there were ice cream vendors in every hallway and people were standing in line to buy it.
I left the store and turned in the direction away fro m Red Square but realized it wouldn’t get me to my subway station so I reversed. But the police weren’t letting anyone back onto Red Square, I presume because of the holiday parade preparations. So I turned around again and kept walking. I was glad I did because I found a great little restaurant that served cabbage rolls. I’ve been trying to get some since I’ve been here. These were great, with a little sauerkraut with them. For dessert I had “pigeon milk”, a sponge cake layered with cream and topped with chocolate. Boy, was I glad I couldn’t back to Red Square. I never would have found the restaurant otherwise.
After lunch I headed for the Museum Of Moscow history. There are A number of building and you can choose how many you want to visit and pay accordingly. On my way there, I accidentally got off the subway one stop too soon. When I walked out of the station, I was staring at on of the most imposing cathedrals I’ve ever seen. I took a few minutes to take some pictures, then got back on the subway to get to the right place.
The part I enjoyed the most was an exhibit of pictures of Moscow taken between 1917 and 1923. There were juxtaposed with pictures taken from the same spot in the last few years. It was amazing to see what had survived and what had been destroyed. Some of the recent “contrast” pictures were even cameras on the street relaying actual pictures to a computer screen placed next to the picture from 1917. Very creative.
There was a nice young employee there who spoke English. I asked here if she could show me on my tourist map where the Jewish Museum was. She laughed and said she didn’t really know how to read paper maps so she pulled out her phone and googled it. Now I at least know where I am headed tomorrow.
By this time it was already 6 and I was getting pooped. So I headed home. Next to the MacDonald’s at my subway station some street musicians were playing. The singer was doing some Eagles stuff and the group was very good. There was one drunk there trying to breakdance to the whole thing. It wasn’t quite working out for him.
So now I’m in for the night. I watched a little of Russia Today. Boy, they are doing their best to convince the viewers that Russia didn’t interfere in the US elections. And they are certainly having an effect on some people. Several acquaintances have told me how scared they are of Hillary Clinton. It’s all very surreal.
Tomorrow I’m going to hit a few more museums. I want to see on of the art gallerys and the Jewish museum in particular.
Wednesday, November 1, 2017
Welcome to Moscow, part 2.
The escalators in the Moscow subway are just as steep and endless as I remember them from 50 years ago. But let me start at the beginning. This morning I tried to call the hotel to ask about it’s shuttle service from the airport. They refused to speak to me about it. They said that, since I had booked a package deal through Expedia, I would have to make any further arrangements through Expedia. Screw that. I had already looked into the express train from the airport and had printed out a map of the subway system to know what transfers I would have to make. It worked out great. The trick is to memorize the name of the last station of the line of the direction you have to go in so that you get on the train in the right direction.
The subway stations are beautiful. I remember being impressed all those years ago. But the number of people could give you a panic attack. At one point we were literally moving at a crawl for about 500 feet until we got to the escalators. You couldn’t move left or right or back. It was really weird. since I’m so short, I couldn’t even see where I was going and just had to follow the jacket in front of me.
It wasn’t a long walk to the hotel but I missed the entrance because I should have walked under an arch into a courtyard. I wouldn’t have figured that out if a lady on the street hadn’t explained it to me. After I checked in, I went to an Italian restaurant around the corner. I thought it was going to be a little hole in the wall, but it was really big and had a piano player. It wasn’t a great pizza, but I am full. The crust wasn’t baked enough for me.
The hotel room is small and not bad, as you can see from the pictures. I’m close to a subway station and not too far from Red Square. I’ll get a multi-entrance subway ticket tomorrow and see what I can see.
Damn, this TV station is trying hard to convince the viewers that Russia did not influence the election in last November.
The subway stations are beautiful. I remember being impressed all those years ago. But the number of people could give you a panic attack. At one point we were literally moving at a crawl for about 500 feet until we got to the escalators. You couldn’t move left or right or back. It was really weird. since I’m so short, I couldn’t even see where I was going and just had to follow the jacket in front of me.
It wasn’t a long walk to the hotel but I missed the entrance because I should have walked under an arch into a courtyard. I wouldn’t have figured that out if a lady on the street hadn’t explained it to me. After I checked in, I went to an Italian restaurant around the corner. I thought it was going to be a little hole in the wall, but it was really big and had a piano player. It wasn’t a great pizza, but I am full. The crust wasn’t baked enough for me.
The hotel room is small and not bad, as you can see from the pictures. I’m close to a subway station and not too far from Red Square. I’ll get a multi-entrance subway ticket tomorrow and see what I can see.
Damn, this TV station is trying hard to convince the viewers that Russia did not influence the election in last November.
Welcome to Moscow.
My hotel room in the Hotel de Paris in Moscow. Note the TV! It even has an English language station called Russia Today. Pretty interesting point of view. Sounds like the Russian version of Fox News to me.
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