Weather’s great, jetlag is terrible

OK, picture this. It’s a gorgeous, breezy 72 degrees outside on Saturday. I’m out in a t-shirt and sandals and some parents have their kids wrapped in winter scarves and quilted jackets. Oh, geez, it’s way too early. Don’t wish for winter any sooner than it really is! I met up with Matthew at 11 and we tried to find the most convenient way to downtown now there has been such an improvement in the sidewalks. Hmmmm, the improvements only go so far. Everything looks logical on google maps, but the reality is something else. At one of the major traffic circles I almost got hit by a car. This jerk blew out of the traffic circle right in front of me while I was still rolling forward. It was close; it was deja vu. That’s how it was hit 10 years ago. I’m glad it’s not turning into a “once every decade” thing. We finally get past the circle, but then we have to carry the bikes up some steps on the sidewalk. They didn’t build the circle with cyclists or disabled people in mind. But when we got down to Black Lake we were really impressed. They had been doing construction there for ages and must have gotten it finished by World Cup time. There’s a new bike path and some lovely places to sit and walk by the lake. Very attractive. We went and did our shopping and did a little exploring before we went into the food court of the shopping center. I had a tasty crepe filled with cherries. Crepes (blinyi) are something the Russian do very well. We decided that we should take the Metro home since it took us an hour to get into the city and we haven’t figured how to avoid the traffic circle and the steps yet. We’re going to have to google map it some more. On the way back, we discovered that the new subway station still isn’t open. It’s confusing because the announcements in the train no longer say that the previous stop is still the last stop and signs for the new station are all over the place. So we did get off at the right stop, went shopping some more, but then rode down to the new station to check it out and rode home from there to check out the sidewalk situation. Yeesssssss, they too are improved an there’s a lot of construction still going on. It was an easy ride home. I made my spaghetti sauce for supper the first time here. It tasted so good, I stuffed myself, went right to sleep and slep5 fo4 15 hours. Man, this jetlag is extreme. Glad I’ve got one more week of conferences and projects to get it regulated. Today I spent the entire day cleaning the apartment. It turns out that the summer camp teachers were all from Moscow and one o& them used my apartment for a couple of days. This lady was a pig. I cleaned her hair out of my bathtub drain and her personal hygiene products off my table. I had to check with the liaison about a few things. She immediately told the director how bad it was and the director offered to send a cleaning service over. By this time I was almost finished so I made a deal with her to have someone come and wash my windows. I can’t reach the top of them anyway. Tomorrow I’m going to stop in to see the kids and read to them before I have to go to my conference. It will be fun to see them again. Hope I sleep well tonight.