It is now Saturday morning, and it is DAMN cold. My phone says 27 degrees F, but the wind bites right through you. I just went to fill up my drinking water jug and saw how much spilled water had frozen on the automat. Yikes! And Sonia and I want to get out and do something’s this morning.
But let me back up now to Wednesday. It was picture day at school. You know how you send your kids to school in their nice clothes on those days and make sure their hair is combed and they don’t have cornflakes smeared all over their faces. Well, here the photographer brings props like skis, bathrobes and Christmas trees and poses the kids with the stuff. I’m not sure what the intention is, but it’s Intersting to see. I guess it made me think of US family Christmas letters, somehow.
Thursday we had our Mother’s Day party. Russian Mother’s Day was last Sunday. Since the boss’s kid is in my class, the boss organized a party in our party room at school. Everybody worried that everything had to be so “perfect”. I tried to tell my TA that the parents don’t need perfect, they’d like things to be genuine. In any case, we got down to the party room after the moms changed their kids into good clothes in the classroom and all 7 of them sat on the chairs will the kids sang to songs for them. Of the 7 kids, the 4 who practiced the least did the best job and the other 3 just ran around the room while the moms watched. Then the boss had a entertainer come in who did a project with the kids, pictures were taken and then we all got to eat cake. The parents were all very pleasant and all say that their kids are learning English, but some of them let their kids just run around. The hired photographer is trying to take pictures of one mom and her kid, and another kid will run right in and photobomb and that mom doesn’t say a word. Things are pretty much the same the world over.
I got home around 6:30 and at 7 I met Sonia to head out for the ex-pats’ club. It was a really great gathering again. Russia, the USA, the UK, Spain, Uzbekistan, Turkey, Peru, Lebanon, and South Africa were represented. I’m sure I’m leaving some country out, because there were 24 of us there. This really gives you a change to hear a lot of different viewpoints.
The Peruvian guy had just opened a restaurant in town, so we decided to meet there on Friday. We were hoping to get some really good, spicy food, but it was disappointing. The spaghetti was way over cooked and it just doesn’t beat our little restaurant, Amigo Miguel. In any case, we had another nice crowd. This time it was Russia, the USA, the U.K., France, Spain, Usbekistan, Lebanon, Austria and the Netherlands. I made it till about 10 again.
As I mentioned, this morning was cold!!! Sonia and I met at 12 because she didn’t get back from the party until 5. She had to return a blender she bought which made the lights dim and it also smelled when she plugged it in. So, this is how that works. The security guard at the store pointed us to the machine where you pull a number and wait until it is called to go to the register indicated on the overhead screen. A nice young man named Alexander listened to our story. The fun part was explaining how the lights flickered when she plugged it in. I needed both hands for that one. But he got it. She gave him the blender and the receipt. He wanted to know whether she wanted an exchange or her money back. She wanted money. She then had to show her passport. He next printed out a form that had 5 separate pages. He filled in all five and she signed in 6 or 7 different places. Alexander’s manager had to approve it. After everything was official, Alexander took us to the cashier around the corner where we waited in line again. The cashier entered everything in her computer and then gave Sonia her money. This whole thing took awhile.
We left there and I quickly went into a store to buy a pair of tights to put on under my jeans. And I’m so glad I did. I mentioned that it was cold, right? We headed to the subway station and took the Metro To the soccer team’s shop to get a jersey for her brother for Christmas. It was a pretty nice place and could have been a fan shop for any sports team in Europe. The guy spoke English and we talked about the World Cup Matches coming up next year in Kazan. (Many people consider Kazan the “sports capital” of Russia because of all the eevents and training facilities here.)
After that we set out for the shopping mall to get a puzzle that I had seen there last week. It’s a picture of Amsterdam with lots of bikes in it and it figured it would keep me busy over the long, cold winter. We also went into another appliance store and found another blender for Sonia. I’d laugh if we end up returning this one, too.
After picking up a Sudoku book for myself (I haven’t done any in ages.), we headed back to the subway station. After getting off at our station, we stopped for my bread and we went into the bank before we walked home. The guy from Uzbekistan was right. If you have a good on your coat to protect yourself from the wind, you will make it through a Kazan winter. But the tights help too.
No comments:
Post a Comment