Enisey, Enisey, Enisey

Tonight I went to the basketball game with the Park family and the Loomans. It was so fun. Despite what we all agreed was some pretty shady looking cheerleading uniforms, the game itself was quite entertaining. Although down about 14 at one point, the Enisey Krasnoyarsk team came back and won by 1 point. Even I was standing up and cheering. Good stuff. Of course again I had no idea what was being said but as with so many things here, the announcer was so LOUD and the music was so LOUD. The announcer would jabber something and then begin the Enisey..Enisey chant over and over again. The Americans on both teams seem to be the stars, but it was fun to watch......I went running this morning and finally remembered to take my camera along. Just so you know, grafiti must be universal because there is plenty of it here. And more importantly it appears there is someone out there who is trying to tell us that it is "its ok not to drink". The problem with the sign is that it is in ENGLISH and from what I can tell, no one here speaks ENGLISH, so I think perhaps they are targeting the wrong population. Just a thought. If you look close, under the first sign is one about Cannibus...hmmm not sure on the message there! But the other two pictures along the river are where I run each morning. It is very nice. ......I spent most of the afternoon with Iris and the boys. They were going to the dentist and I was curious about what a dental office would be like in Russia. I had a crazy visual in my head of something sort of primitive....it wasn't. Seemed fairly normal. Bummer I was hoping to have good story there, but not so much. We had Subway and Baskin Robin when we were finished. I thought I had hit the jackpot there as two very American establishments graced my presence. It was maybe not as good as home, but not too bad. I even risked it and had salami. Thanks to the Loomans who have continued to welcome me in, this has been a very pleasant stay by myself. .....I went to Cinnabon again today...just couldn't resist and although my plan was to just buy one, I bought two and here is why....because it is so darn hard to even order anything due to my lack of Russian and their lack of English that I decided I was not going to torture them any more than I had too...see it isn't about me..it is about helping them. They would thank me for it if they knew that was my strategy. So far I have only managed to eat one! So see I have control. .......Tomorrow I am off again to see Sy. We will be taking a car trip to get his passport photo. Somehow I think that it will not be a happy one! .......I am missing everyone terribly and this week is the all important District Accredidation in our schools and although you might think I am glad I am not there, I am not. I would be there in an instant if I could bring Sy with! So I will head to bed forever chanting Enisey..Enisey...Enisey. Hope you are all well. Oh and one final note...today was Astronaut day here in Russia or is it Cosmonaut day, hmm not sure But either way, I didn't know it existed but it does and there was a ceremony in front of the statue of Lenin to celebrate it. Just a little piece of information for you to put in your bag of useful (maybe useless) pieces of information!

Don't Try This At Home - Actually Do

OK, so I know that I have mentioned the driving here in several posts but really folks I have had lots of time to think about it and this is what I want you to do......get in the back seat of the car.....find the first teenager available (drivers license optional)............Let them drive out of town a little ways......then give them explicit instructions to GUN it going from 0 to 60 as quick as possible.....then once you are going at least 60, give them instructions to slam on the brakes going from 60 to 0. Do this at least ten times and add in there while they are going 60 to start swirving like they are missing potholes. Pretend there is at least a half mile of pot holes! .....And for your finale, find a place where there is a dip in the road, now drive about a half mile down the road from there and turn around.. ....Again have the teenager accelerate to AT LEAST 70 miles per hour while hitting the dip in the road......Did you catch air? I did...Not just the car, but me in the back seat as well, when my head hit the ceiling! I am not exaggerating here!!!!!..Yep today I was back to Achinsk (two hours of hell in the back seat of a car). ................... It was great to Sy though. He was outside when we got there so we were able to go to the "playground" and then he walked around the orphanage with me. I do think we are going to be in for a bit of a long ride home though. While we were outside, we took Sy over by the car thinking he would like to see it and such. Not so much....Sy was scared to death of the car...and all he could say was NYET, NYET, NYET!! And scream! Did I mention that we have to take him to get his passport photo in Achinsk. That is what we are doing on Wednesday. I don't think it is going to be a pleasant experience. So in an effort to try to ease him into the idea we walked around (very far from) the car and the other children all came over. None of them were scared, so I am not sure why Sy is so particularly scared. Any way, we also walked by another car and stopped. NYET We stopped in front of it and I touched it and he touched it but that was as close as it got. Did I mention that he loves cars? That's what they told me. Apparently the toy sized ones are about it!..........So I followed them in after the walk and they have quite a handful of kids. They are bundled up like eskimos with large winter coats, hats, scarfs, snow shoes. Under all of that are long sleeve shirts, shorts and tights. He was sweating when he finally got everything off. Me too! We played in the music room for about 45 minutes. I was very nervous because this was the first time that I was by myself. It went pretty good. We did a little of everything. Rolled around on the floor, lifted him up in the air, catch, stomped the bubbles and the highlight.............Sy blew his own bubbles. He has watched us do it enough, that when I put it up near his mouth, he blew and out came bubbles. He liked that! But all the fun came to a screaching halt when I pulled out his new coat to see if it would fit. Can you guess what he said...........................NYET. I didn't even try. I already know it will fit..actually a bit too big I would guess, but it will do. So we went back to playing and forgot about all of that. But as soon as the caretaker came in, Sy turned into, Hungry Man and off he went without looking back. Lunch is the big meal, so I don't blame him. The ride home was much like the ride there so I closed my eyes and clicked my heals together and said "I wanna go home" and poof there we were back in Krasnoyarsk! I wish!..........Since it is so nice here and my apartment faces somewhat west, I get an incredible amount of sun flooding in. It is hotter than the bajabbers in here! Oh well, off I go for a nice sunny run. Heard it snowed at home, geez that is too bad. You can blame it on Dean!.............One final note...I am a Cinnabon junkie! I tried but couldn't resist. This time though, I only bought one. That way I can only eat one and will have to walk back there if I think I must continue feeding my bad habit. I have no control! Most of you already know that though. I will leave you with two pictures of my travels to Achinsk. The first one, if you look real close is of fighter jet and to the right is a tank in downtown Achinsk, the other, taken from the prime location of the back seat is of the single lane tunnel you pass through on your way in and out of Achinsk. A friendly reminder of the good ole days I would say!

Beautiful Day #3

The weather has been so nice here. Dean must have took all the rain and snow back with him to Wyoming! That is fine by me. I spent much of the day outdoors and it was wonderful. I went to church today with the Looman's who have graciously taken me in to their lives while I am here. It has made this whole stay so pleasant and I can't thank them enough. The choir in the church was wonderful. Even though I had no idea what they were singing, it was still great. Iris translated much of the sermon for me and so I was able to follow along. We ate PIZZA ( I know, hard to believe that I had pizza again!) at Mama Roma's. For sure my mind was bigger than my stomach because we had lots of leftovers, but it was yummy. We went back to the plaza afterwards and the boys rode their bikes. They rode and rode and rode. I couldn't believe how long they went. They loved it. It was so beautiful out. I was invited over to the Park apartment but did not get the message in time. I hope to meet up with them tomorrow. Oh and I get to go to basketball game. Apparently there is a professional basketball team here and we are going to watch them on Tuesday. We saw a couple of the players at Mama Roma's. Should be interesting. And just in case you are a die hard basketball fan, you can got to: http://www.eurobasket.com/team.asp?Cntry=RUS&Team=1847 to learn more about them. Tomorrow I am off to see Sy. I can't wait. Enjoy the rain folks. The pictures are of the church, the Looman's, some poor horses with a bad job, and of the toy store!

Pizza

No doubt about it, I have had more pizza in Russia in this short period of time than I would likely get at home, though pizza is something I could eat daily no matter where I am. Today, was spent sleeping in (til 7), working on a project for work, running, and then meeting up with another American family and the Looman's for an afternoon of visiting. The Looman boys are still learning to ride their bikes. Because summer is so short here and the fact that there does not appear to be anywhere to really ride, they never get much of a chance to master bike riding. But they had it down pat after today and it was great to watch them go from wobbling to riding like little maniacs around the plaza area. We went to California Pizza for supper, followed by icecream. Both were good for me. This is sort of a boring post as I didn't see anyone climbing out a manhole, no aqua aerobics, or anything cool like that. The weather has turned beautiful here thank goodness. The whole time Dean was hear it was very drury, so too bad he missed all of this good stuff. I am sure he will be disappointed (yeah right, he is back home, so I doubt he will even blink an eye). Have no fear, I am a far cry from fitting in around here. No matter how I dress, I don't feel that I would be able to fit the dress code. I would have to wear these boots to even have a chance. So just try and picture me in those and know that there is not a chance that I will ever want to make the leap to live here any longer than three weeks! Guaranteed. Dean and I did an informal research study while sitting at a restaurant and determined that nearly 50% of all women who passed by were wearing something similar to this. WHY??? ....The Looman's said that the plaza area turns pretty interesting in the summer. The people may dress like Eskimos in the winter but come summer they turn into California girls. Minimal clothing is the norm. So all you guys, this might be the place to be in the summer! Well one more day of "rest" and then back to see Sy. I can't wait.

Friday Final Post

Well as I mentioned, I spent the afternoon with the Looman's at their wonderful home outside of Krasnoyarsk. We had pork sandwiches, french fries and milkshakes. It doesn't get any better than that folks! And the grand finale...aqua-aerobics. Let's just say, it was not a pretty sight for me and the swim suit, but it was a blast. The gal leading it spoke Russian obviously and was shouting out orders from the deck and counting up and down from 8. I thought I might have those numbers learned by the time I left, but not so much. Although I think I have 3 down because it sounds like "three". That makes it easy. There were only four of us and apparently I was her focus because she was constantly correcting my obviously poor form. Straighten your arms, don't splash, faster, work harder. All I could do was laugh because I had no idea she was talking to me until about the third time she would repeat herself and everyone looked at me and then translated what she said. It was quite an experience. I met another American missionary family that came over to the Looman's. DeDe came with us to aquaaerobics...... Here is a funny thing....the water was very deep, like to my chin deep. I was the tallest one there! The fourth gal that joined us was maybe 5'4, so picture how the water was for her. We were all drowning as she had us moving 100 miles an hour and we were creating a small tsunami with each movement! A memorable occasion for sure. ...... We stopped at the local grocery store where Iris showed me different things I could buy. It is universal...don't eat the hotdogs! I had pretty much figured that and had taken that approach with ALL meat. I think I will stick with that. Tomorrow is another day of rest. I think I will sleep in...6 am if I am lucky. Good night!

Friday - Post #2

Ok, so there are times when you wish you had your camera...that was today. Let me start this off by saying that there are a LOT of manholes in this town. They are everywhere. I am very aware of them because as a child, I once fell in one. Not a pleasant memory but anyway...so two things...first, one of the manholes has a huge hole broke out of it. It is in a very public space and even though I know it is there I fear I am going to fall into it. (I think that might be residual effects of my past experience, just guessing here!) So what I really was going to comment on is that today I saw at least 4 people crawling out of a manhole. At first I thought, "oh they must be workers who were fixing something" BUT then I saw a young women come climbling out wearing her very nice Chartroose (sp) jacket. Very odd I might say. A bit alarming if you are me running by, but odd to say the least! .....Today I used the washing machine...Now that might not seem like a big deal but everything on it is in Russian so it makes it a bit more of a challenge. I had no idea what cycle I was using but the one good thing it did have was the water temperature was in numbers (30) so I errored on the conservative side and went with the coldest water setting. On top of that, there was laundry detergent in the apartment. Again, not as easy as it sounds since it too was in Russian. The real question here was: Is this bleach or is this detergent? I went with the smell test and guessed it to be detergent. A conservative person would have washed their whites first, but not me....I went for it and stuck in the darks...So what do you think happened? ............................I was RIGHT!!! Thank goodness because I would have looked awfully funny wearing my clothes once they were bleached and like I don't already stick out enough, this would have accentuated it. So now I am off to visit Iris and her family, an American familyliving right here in Krasnoyarsk. Very exciting. I will get to practice my English on her! And the highlight might be me attending aqua-aerobics with her and her friends! I am a bit hesitant on this one for two reasons: 1) I don't do aqua-aerobics even in the US 2) I don't have a swim suit and so Iris is planning to loan me one. She is a bit smaller than me, so that could be a challenge! And after two cinnabon rolls this morning, even more of a challenge! I will let you know how that goes.

Friday - Post #1

Well I figured I better try this layout since I may come back to this blog mulitple times now that I am sitting in this apartment by myself. I was sad to see Dean leave, because now truly I am alone, and that is a bit nerve wracking and frankly BORING! I have never been real good at talking to myself but I will likely master it before I leave here. Remember I mentioned Cinnabon? Well I had Dean walk down there with me yesterday so that I could "stock up". BAD IDEA!! I bought four, and they are all gone! Nervous twitch I have is to eat. And they were REALLY good I might add. So I will be taking a bit of a break from them. You see the good thing about Russians is that they, like me, like sweets and pastries. The bad thing about Russians is that they, like me, like sweets and pastries! I have little to no control and nothing is too far from my apartment........ On a separate note, I do not get to go back to the orphanage til Monday. I kind of figured that would be the case, but asked to go Saturday. They said, NYET. So I will travel there Monday, Wednesday and Friday (with Cindy) and then pick Sy up for GOOD on Saturday. They inspected the clothes I brought for him last night and it looks like I will pass...just barely. I did not bring a snow suit, which seems to be an issue most of the time, but I did bring tights (yes tights for my little boy) and lined pants. So we will see their reaction when we take his clothes on Friday. Visiting Sy on Monday will be interesting since I will be by myself with him. He really took to Dean, which is great, but I wonder how he will react when it is just me....... Observation of the day...DOGS. Dogs here in Krasnoyarsk remind me of the stray cats that seems to be abundant in Greybull. Apparently very few of the people have seen the Price is Right, you know, the part where Bob Barker would say, "Help control the pet population, have your pet spay or neutered!"(BTW, I miss that show!) They are everywhere. Heck they have learned how to hang at the cross walks with all the people so that they don't get hit while crossing the streets! Although (and some of you might not want to hear this) we have seen come casualties from dogs who perhaps didn't obey the stop signs...... And finally....to end this on a positive note...one really good thing is that my apartment is just across from the river walk, so I have a quick street crossing and then I get to go for a really nice morning run. That is where I am headed now.