Larry here:
We are back at home. Sasha and I arrived last Sunday, Alison--after a business trip to Israel--returned yesterday.
We all stopped in London on our way home, and had a great time.
It's not a big culture shock to be back. This is familiar territory. California hasn't changed much.
Still, we can't believe we're not looking out on rush hour backup on the 12-lane Prospect Mira while we eat dinner. Or riding the Metro. Or dodging cigarette smoke.
But California is in all its early summer splendor, and we're enjoying our return.
A couple of postscripts: a box of supplies that Russian customs had refused to give to us because the box contained sudafed, came back to us in the mail. Last week. It gives us hope that our other packages we mailed as we left the country will follow.
I visited a Russian store today in Palo Alto and found many of the foods we'd eaten in Russia for sale. Even Baltika beer. We had pelmenyi stuffed with turkey tonight for dinner. Tomorrow we'll eat the round pretzels and finish the brown tea cookie that Sasha first tried in Moscow. Food triggers some great memories.
We look forward to seeing our California friends this summers. And following life in Moscow from afar.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Friday, June 12, 2009
P'ka Mokba
Alison's last day in Moscow:
I visited the New Tretyakov Museum again to see a poster exhibit. It focused on the period from right around the revolution to contemporary times. I went with a Fulbright art history professor and Cyprus-bound expat friend. Great fun, but sadly the signage was all in cyrillic, so I had to puzzle my way through most of them. Visually the pieces stood on their own.
I ate a last lunch at Le Pain Quotidien. It was 30 degrees, but they had good French food, iced lattes and air conditioning. What more is there to say, but ahhh!
I sat in the worst gridlock traffic jam of my life on the way to the airport. It took us over 3 hours to drive to the Domodedovo airport from VDnKh. Larry took an earlier flight and his airport ride took him 1 hr 10 minutes. I was miserable, I had to pee, I thought 'I am never going to be able to leave Moscow." Yet we somehow made it the plane.
The plane was a regular booze cruise, mostly Russians who were drinking heavily. Some had brought on their own hooch. The British Airway flight attendants were not having any of this and managed with a firm command and an arm on the shoulder to scold the drunk Russian males on board into submission. "We're not going to have
any trouble this evening, are we?"
Sasha made many friends wielding her tattoo skills and distributing Russian chocolates to seatmates and crew alike. Upon entering the immigration, our new Russian friends let us cut to the front of the line. We were in the UK at last.
And so you have it: as we decompress in England and gather our wits about us, I am sure we will post some final thoughts. What a long, strange trip it's been.
Larry:
Leaving Moscow wasn't quite as exciting. My flight left at 5:50 a.m., and I rode to the airport under cover of darkness on the MKAD, Moscow's version of the beltway. I had hoped for a scenic tour to the airport, past all the Stalin high rises, over the bridges, tripping memories of our four months in Moscow. But instead all I saw was car dealerships and lots of apartment buildings. During the flight, I followed progress of our journey on the plane's screen. I thought how far away we had been. Plenty of time for deeper thoughts later.
I visited the New Tretyakov Museum again to see a poster exhibit. It focused on the period from right around the revolution to contemporary times. I went with a Fulbright art history professor and Cyprus-bound expat friend. Great fun, but sadly the signage was all in cyrillic, so I had to puzzle my way through most of them. Visually the pieces stood on their own.
I ate a last lunch at Le Pain Quotidien. It was 30 degrees, but they had good French food, iced lattes and air conditioning. What more is there to say, but ahhh!
I sat in the worst gridlock traffic jam of my life on the way to the airport. It took us over 3 hours to drive to the Domodedovo airport from VDnKh. Larry took an earlier flight and his airport ride took him 1 hr 10 minutes. I was miserable, I had to pee, I thought 'I am never going to be able to leave Moscow." Yet we somehow made it the plane.
The plane was a regular booze cruise, mostly Russians who were drinking heavily. Some had brought on their own hooch. The British Airway flight attendants were not having any of this and managed with a firm command and an arm on the shoulder to scold the drunk Russian males on board into submission. "We're not going to have
any trouble this evening, are we?"
Sasha made many friends wielding her tattoo skills and distributing Russian chocolates to seatmates and crew alike. Upon entering the immigration, our new Russian friends let us cut to the front of the line. We were in the UK at last.
And so you have it: as we decompress in England and gather our wits about us, I am sure we will post some final thoughts. What a long, strange trip it's been.
Larry:
Leaving Moscow wasn't quite as exciting. My flight left at 5:50 a.m., and I rode to the airport under cover of darkness on the MKAD, Moscow's version of the beltway. I had hoped for a scenic tour to the airport, past all the Stalin high rises, over the bridges, tripping memories of our four months in Moscow. But instead all I saw was car dealerships and lots of apartment buildings. During the flight, I followed progress of our journey on the plane's screen. I thought how far away we had been. Plenty of time for deeper thoughts later.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Post Office, part 2
Alison:
After the relative ease - by Russian standards - with which we sent books back to California, we trotted back to the Central Post Office to mail back our winter clothes. Turns out, books are easy to send, clothes not so easy.
In an airless, hot room were five queues. Per my usual technique I just jumped on one and was handed a form written in French and Russian, and was yelled to fill out all three. I think. That's when Julia appeared, a good Samaritan and my assistant for the next 40 memorable minutes during which the postal worker packed and unpacked my boxes three times, went through Larry's long johns and asked in Russian what they were and why they weren't listed on the form correctly. Understand, our stuff is so ratty after four months of continuous washing and wearing that I was pretty embarrassed I was not throwing it all out altogether.
Ms. Nasty Postal Worker made us fill out the form a 2nd time - in triplicate - while Julia explained that not all Russians were mean and angry. Julia and Ms. Nasty began to argue at one point and I asked her what was going on. She had been trying to explain that the process was difficult for foreigners to understand and Ms. Nasty spat back "that's not my fault!"
Note to others: go to DHL, they are right down the street. This was one Russian experience not worth repeating.
Postscript: our stuff will arrive in two months. Perhaps...according to Julia.
After the relative ease - by Russian standards - with which we sent books back to California, we trotted back to the Central Post Office to mail back our winter clothes. Turns out, books are easy to send, clothes not so easy.
In an airless, hot room were five queues. Per my usual technique I just jumped on one and was handed a form written in French and Russian, and was yelled to fill out all three. I think. That's when Julia appeared, a good Samaritan and my assistant for the next 40 memorable minutes during which the postal worker packed and unpacked my boxes three times, went through Larry's long johns and asked in Russian what they were and why they weren't listed on the form correctly. Understand, our stuff is so ratty after four months of continuous washing and wearing that I was pretty embarrassed I was not throwing it all out altogether.
Ms. Nasty Postal Worker made us fill out the form a 2nd time - in triplicate - while Julia explained that not all Russians were mean and angry. Julia and Ms. Nasty began to argue at one point and I asked her what was going on. She had been trying to explain that the process was difficult for foreigners to understand and Ms. Nasty spat back "that's not my fault!"
Note to others: go to DHL, they are right down the street. This was one Russian experience not worth repeating.
Postscript: our stuff will arrive in two months. Perhaps...according to Julia.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Time Warp: Moscow Central Post Office
Alison:
As we continue to pack and purge, we realized that we did not want to drag books and our winter clothes on the next leg of our journey. Solution: ship it home. After a confusing visit to our local post office, conveniently located downstairs, I found out that if you want to ship to America, you need to go to the central Moscow post office at the Chisty Prudy Metro station. So I packed three bags of books, grabbed tape, a scissors and a Sharpie and headed out.
Visits to municipal offices here in the Russian capital are usually an adventure, and this was no exception. The building looked reasonably Soviet enough, and there were many unhappy workers behind the counter. We must be in the right place, so we just jumped on the nearest queue and hoped for the best. That's our usual technique.
In short order, a postal worker looked at our package while I muttered something like "kaneegee b California" ("books to California") and we were off. She took our package, weighed it and then took the 6KG stack behind the counter and began to wrap it. Yes, wrap it, in kraft paper. No boxes, no tape. Just string and paste. We were instructed where precisely to put our addresses.
Fortunately, a young Muscovite was there to help translate "sea or air" - we opted for "sea" although now I'm wondering if that means our package will wind up at the bottom of the sea. She then grabbed a huge pile of stamps, glued them from an actual pot of glue, took our 1,000 ruble note and we waved goodbye to the package.
All I can say is I wish I had taken my video camera.
As we continue to pack and purge, we realized that we did not want to drag books and our winter clothes on the next leg of our journey. Solution: ship it home. After a confusing visit to our local post office, conveniently located downstairs, I found out that if you want to ship to America, you need to go to the central Moscow post office at the Chisty Prudy Metro station. So I packed three bags of books, grabbed tape, a scissors and a Sharpie and headed out.
Visits to municipal offices here in the Russian capital are usually an adventure, and this was no exception. The building looked reasonably Soviet enough, and there were many unhappy workers behind the counter. We must be in the right place, so we just jumped on the nearest queue and hoped for the best. That's our usual technique.
In short order, a postal worker looked at our package while I muttered something like "kaneegee b California" ("books to California") and we were off. She took our package, weighed it and then took the 6KG stack behind the counter and began to wrap it. Yes, wrap it, in kraft paper. No boxes, no tape. Just string and paste. We were instructed where precisely to put our addresses.
Fortunately, a young Muscovite was there to help translate "sea or air" - we opted for "sea" although now I'm wondering if that means our package will wind up at the bottom of the sea. She then grabbed a huge pile of stamps, glued them from an actual pot of glue, took our 1,000 ruble note and we waved goodbye to the package.
All I can say is I wish I had taken my video camera.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Riding through town on Tram 39
On our "to do" list forever has been a long north-south tram ride on one of the city's last tram lines - #39. We picked it up in the middle of a heavy fluff (called pukh) storm at the Chistye Prudy metro stop. We ran around many familiar sites. The tram line is just high enough above the street level to see some fun things like the Darwin Museum and the Moscow River. Oh and is that a nuclear power plant near Leninsky Prospect Metro station, right across from the Buck Rogers-esq Yuri Gagarin statue?
Looks like four cooling towers to me, smack in the middle of the city. Ah Moscow!
--Alison
Looks like four cooling towers to me, smack in the middle of the city. Ah Moscow!
--Alison
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Our Last Sunday in Russia
Larry:
We joined some friends for a leisurely daytime cruise down the Moscow River. It was a great way to say "desvedanya" to Moscow. We saw all the sights during our one and half hour cruise, from Kievskaya train station to the famous monastery we never visited, to Sparrow Hills and its bicyclists and ski jump, and on past the cathedral, the Kremlin and to the Stalin Tower where Alison and I couldn't find each other last week. Boat traffic on the river is sparse, and the river is wide, so it was quiet out there.
It is heavy pollen (aka Pukh) season, and even on the river, we couldn't escape what seemed like a snowstorm of the stuff.
From the river, we took a taxi to the Goose Pub, where two geese honk out greetings to everyone who enters the restaurant.
Then we came home and packed. We leave on Thursday.
We joined some friends for a leisurely daytime cruise down the Moscow River. It was a great way to say "desvedanya" to Moscow. We saw all the sights during our one and half hour cruise, from Kievskaya train station to the famous monastery we never visited, to Sparrow Hills and its bicyclists and ski jump, and on past the cathedral, the Kremlin and to the Stalin Tower where Alison and I couldn't find each other last week. Boat traffic on the river is sparse, and the river is wide, so it was quiet out there.
It is heavy pollen (aka Pukh) season, and even on the river, we couldn't escape what seemed like a snowstorm of the stuff.
From the river, we took a taxi to the Goose Pub, where two geese honk out greetings to everyone who enters the restaurant.
Then we came home and packed. We leave on Thursday.
Friday, June 5, 2009
At the American Center
Larry:
I spoke twice this week at the American Center, which is a State-Department-funded English public library here in Moscow. Speaking there is considered part of the teaching-in-Moscow experience. It was one of the highlights of the trip. As was the after-party at a nearby beer restaurant.
The center wrote up this blurb for its website on one of my speeches, and included a picture, too, which you can find here:
http://amcorners.ru/lecture-protecting-reporters-sources-us
I spoke twice this week at the American Center, which is a State-Department-funded English public library here in Moscow. Speaking there is considered part of the teaching-in-Moscow experience. It was one of the highlights of the trip. As was the after-party at a nearby beer restaurant.
The center wrote up this blurb for its website on one of my speeches, and included a picture, too, which you can find here:
http://amcorners.ru/lecture-protecting-reporters-sources-us
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Moscow Summer Camp, Day 4
From Alison:
Today is the fourth weekday without any school for Sasha. She had the option to go to day camp, but we could not motivate ourselves to make the 45 minute trek to her school for another week. Plus, she simply did not want to go. When her preschool ended last year in California, she was bawling. This year, simply no reaction. She was truly glad to be done. I can relate: great experience, time to move on.
We started the week's festivities with a trip to the Bolshoi, just mommy/daughter date, to see the Nutcracker. Sasha's favorite DVD right now is Barbie Nutcracker, so I figured, this is going to be a great jumping off point to many more mommy/daughter ballet adventures. Clearly, my expectation were too high.
After spilling chocolate sauce all over a white dress I stupidly agreed to buy her to initiate her into the world of ballet appreciation, Sasha began to yell and cry. This was at the the Scholode cafe across from the theatre. Not a good sign, but I went forward, ever optimistic. She refused to watch the parade of women and girls in their prettiest frocks entering the theatre. OK, I thought, that's one of my favorite thing, but hey, maybe not her cup of tea. We moved to our seats - fifth row center, orchestra. I pinched myself as the LIVE orchestra began to play. I am in Moscow, watching the Bolshoi, listening to Tchaikovsky.
And then the fun started. She would not stop talking. For a minute. Not even when the German lady next to her shh'd her. She would not stop moving and fidgeting. And - whistling - right along with the orchestra. She even shouted "hey, that's not supposed to happen now." I tried everything to engage her. I threatened. I pleaded. I slumped in my seat, a luckless wretch, while the annoyed stares of our seatmates bored into my back like laser beams.
I sadly realized that the amazing costumes and matching headpieces, the exquisite corps de ballet, and expensive tickets were all wasted on her - my chocolate spattered daughter was unable to sit through the most kid friendly ballet in existence. I practically wept in frustration as I dragged her out of the theatre at intermission and into the Metro. I will not recount here the conversation she and I had on the ride home.
Today is the fourth weekday without any school for Sasha. She had the option to go to day camp, but we could not motivate ourselves to make the 45 minute trek to her school for another week. Plus, she simply did not want to go. When her preschool ended last year in California, she was bawling. This year, simply no reaction. She was truly glad to be done. I can relate: great experience, time to move on.
We started the week's festivities with a trip to the Bolshoi, just mommy/daughter date, to see the Nutcracker. Sasha's favorite DVD right now is Barbie Nutcracker, so I figured, this is going to be a great jumping off point to many more mommy/daughter ballet adventures. Clearly, my expectation were too high.
After spilling chocolate sauce all over a white dress I stupidly agreed to buy her to initiate her into the world of ballet appreciation, Sasha began to yell and cry. This was at the the Scholode cafe across from the theatre. Not a good sign, but I went forward, ever optimistic. She refused to watch the parade of women and girls in their prettiest frocks entering the theatre. OK, I thought, that's one of my favorite thing, but hey, maybe not her cup of tea. We moved to our seats - fifth row center, orchestra. I pinched myself as the LIVE orchestra began to play. I am in Moscow, watching the Bolshoi, listening to Tchaikovsky.
And then the fun started. She would not stop talking. For a minute. Not even when the German lady next to her shh'd her. She would not stop moving and fidgeting. And - whistling - right along with the orchestra. She even shouted "hey, that's not supposed to happen now." I tried everything to engage her. I threatened. I pleaded. I slumped in my seat, a luckless wretch, while the annoyed stares of our seatmates bored into my back like laser beams.
I sadly realized that the amazing costumes and matching headpieces, the exquisite corps de ballet, and expensive tickets were all wasted on her - my chocolate spattered daughter was unable to sit through the most kid friendly ballet in existence. I practically wept in frustration as I dragged her out of the theatre at intermission and into the Metro. I will not recount here the conversation she and I had on the ride home.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Hot Weather, Da!; Hot Water, Nyet!
Larry:
This is supposedly Day 8 of life without hot water in our neighborhood. But it's really the first day we've had any problems.
Our neighborhood is supposed to be without hot water from May 25 until June 6, as part of annual shut off. But we didn't notice cold water until a few days later. At that point, we switched on the backup water heater in our apartment, and actually had hotter water than we were used to.
Then today, after a muggy Moscow day, we returned home to ice cold water. Sasha just attempted the first shower, which lasted 30 seconds. We've sent an email to our landlord, to find out what else we can do. If this is a Russian effort to get us to leave, we're ready. We are out of here on June 11.
Alison just re-read the notice from the city, which says we're supposed to be without hot water from 7 of May until 21 of May. Now we're really confused.
This is supposedly Day 8 of life without hot water in our neighborhood. But it's really the first day we've had any problems.
Our neighborhood is supposed to be without hot water from May 25 until June 6, as part of annual shut off. But we didn't notice cold water until a few days later. At that point, we switched on the backup water heater in our apartment, and actually had hotter water than we were used to.
Then today, after a muggy Moscow day, we returned home to ice cold water. Sasha just attempted the first shower, which lasted 30 seconds. We've sent an email to our landlord, to find out what else we can do. If this is a Russian effort to get us to leave, we're ready. We are out of here on June 11.
Alison just re-read the notice from the city, which says we're supposed to be without hot water from 7 of May until 21 of May. Now we're really confused.
A Day in the Golden Ring
We made it out of Moscow recently to Sergiev Posad, the closest of the quaint towns in the Golden Ring.
We took a bus out there, and came home on a packed commuter train. In between we toured Trinity Monastery of St. Sergius, which was impressive. As were the tulips.
Note Alison's headscarf in keeping with the monastery's request. Men have to remove their hats. Kids' headgear was open to interpretation.
Riding back to Moscow on a packed Sunday afternoon train.
We took a bus out there, and came home on a packed commuter train. In between we toured Trinity Monastery of St. Sergius, which was impressive. As were the tulips.
Note Alison's headscarf in keeping with the monastery's request. Men have to remove their hats. Kids' headgear was open to interpretation.
Riding back to Moscow on a packed Sunday afternoon train.
Having a Wonderful Time at Moscow Summer Camp
Sasha is out of school. She would like to watch TV all day and night. So in a pre-emptive move, we are keeping her busier than ever. We have been to Starlight Diner, an amusement park, the Bolshoi Ballet, a kids' store called "Wow Town," and on a playdate. Today Alison took her to the zoo, and Larry took her to the playground at Patriarch's Ponds, where Sasha said that the swing was too tight. Also on the list of things to do are a Moscow River boat cruise, the Dolphinarium, and the Darwin Museum (if it rains). We have babysitting reinforcements coming in tomorrow, so that may be enough to keep her occupied until we leave.
Sasha also likes to stay up with the sun. These days the sun is setting at 10 p.m. This makes for long days at camp.
--Larry
Sasha also likes to stay up with the sun. These days the sun is setting at 10 p.m. This makes for long days at camp.
--Larry
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