The Shipment Has Arrived!

Oh joy unbound, the shipment arrived yesterday afternoon!  They were actually about twenty minutes early and I really didn’t think it was them since the truck they pulled up in was a large panel truck, not a moving truck like the one that packed us out. Seems they opened the big wooden crate and moved it all from the big truck to the panel truck. I was a bit concerned since two moves doubles the chances for damage, but all was well and nothing was chipped, cracked, broken, or missing.

These guys were real pros, and while I realize that we must have had the smallest shipment of anyone coming this year, they still had everything into the apartment, unboxed, packing materials removed and electronics assembled in under ninety minutes. Cindy and I were working furiously with them to make sure everything was where it should be and trying hard to keep up with the three of them unpacking. The only real problem is that they on longer use upright hanging boxes for clothes on hangers. Instead they just lay the clothes on top of each other and that results in lots and lots of wrinkling. We’ll hang them up and see if things fall out.  When the guys left I gave the boss man a generous tip, something that I don’t think he was expecting, but took with great delight.  I saw him dividing it up with the other two guys outside and they both looked up and smiled. Believe me, they deserved it.

We have lots and lots of cooking stuff.  I can’t for the life of me remember why I thought we needed to have three sets of spatulas, cooking spoons, pasta tines, slotted spoons and other assorted stirring stuff.  And yet with all of that, I don’t have any long handled tongs, which is something I dearly love to use in the kitchen, so I’ll find one on the economy.  We have mixing bowls, lots of Tupperware, baking pans, two glass pie plates and plenty of pots and pans to keep me happy for the next several years.  I spent lots of time in the kitchen washing wine glasses, pots and pans and all the other storage stuff, while Cindy sorted out the clothes and bathroom stuff. By seven-thirty we were exhausted; we knew we couldn’t get it all done that night but we did try.  We stopped for the night and had a cocktail to recharge our batteries and then, instead of going out, we had a nice meal of cold chicken and salads and headed to bed rather early.

This morning I got Cindy off to school and started really hitting the house hard.  Got three loads of laundry done, turned the mattress and made the bed with the new sheets and mattress pad that was in the shipment. We now have a real comforter and our great pillows from WV, so we expect to sleep very, very well.  I was able to get the kitchen almost in order and then turned my attention to hooking up the 21” iMac and wireless printer. That took a bit longer than I had thought since I don’t have an Apple Airport here and using something designed for PCs takes a toll on my brain.  Finally got everything up and running and now it is just a question of slowly putting stuff where it belongs.  I’m hoping to tackle the TV/DVD/Cable Box later tonight but need to give that some thought.

Our cleaning lady came at noon so I took off to the embassy to do some shopping, sign up for TV cable access and get a haircut.  The shopping took about forty-five minutes and I got a lot of stuff that you just can’t get on the economy.  Granted, I probably didn’t need it all, but heck it was there and if you purchase more than US$100 they deliver it free to the apartment, which sure beats having to lug it all home on my back. I made sure I got lots of heavy stuff, tins of tuna, chopped clams, bottles of pickles, good honey in a squeeze bottle and a bottle of real maple syrup.  I can just picture having a steaming bowl of oatmeal the morning of the first snow and being able to pour maple syrup over it.  I also got some Joy dish detergent, since the stuff we purchased here really doesn’t do the job with glasses. I then got some frozen fish and meats and some skimmed milk, which they keep frozen or cold as appropriate for you until they deliver it tomorrow. Such a deal!

Getting the cable box was a breeze since the apartment is already wired; all they had to do was give me the box, the decoder chip (I was hoping for a decoder ring) and a few cables and remote.  Now I just have to figure out how to hook it all together.  Getting a haircut in the embassy was fun. It is a shop run by Russians with very little English but boy can they cut hair.  It was like being in Italy, they take their time and cut very little, very often. The last cut I had was in Charles Town and I was in and out in ten minutes, and it showed. This was a thirty-five minute cut, not including the shampoo, and she offered to shampoo it again after the cut but since I was coming right home to shower, I declined.

So, the minute the cleaning lady leaves, with the floors shinning, in come the ‘green guys’ to drill holes in the wall to hang mirrors, hooks, towel bars, all through plaster, which left a lovely white dust everywhere.  Guess who will be able to try out his brand new Swiffer, which arrived in the shipment?

Walking home from the embassy I saw a classic traffic jam.  For about a quarter of a mile the cars that were going the same way I was were just stopped, with horns blaring. As I got to the major intersection I could see one of the electric trams blocking the intersection due to the fact that there were two cars illegally parked at the curb and he couldn’t get around them. It would appear that these trams have no reverse because the tram driver was kicking the tires of both cars to make the alarms go off in an attempt to get the drivers to come and move them.  I watched for a while - it was vastly entertaining - but the noise of the horns was taxing my eardrums. 

From CC:  Every year, the first day of AAS includes an assembly where they recognize all of the countries (63 this year) that are represented by students attending the school.  The oldest student from each country is selected to carry the flag and it’s similar to the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games as they march around the periphery of the gym.  There were sometimes very loud cheers as various countries were called, the U.S. and the United Kingdom getting the loudest cheers (no surprise there).  As it happens the girl carrying the U.S. flag was an Asian – I got a kick out of that.  After the flag ceremony there was a short performance by some Russian dancers, we all sang the school song, and the high school music teacher sang a very jazzy and cute song about the first day of school.  At the end they explained the bread and salt ceremony and then served the bread and salt to all the newcomers as they left; there were at least 15 women who were posted at the exits dressed in traditional costumes and holding the baskets.  I can’t wait until next year when I will know to get there early enough to get a better seat; this year I was on my tiptoes at the edge of the room!

That’s it for today, best wishes to all, Cindy and Wm

Monday, August 30, 2010

Happy Birthday Megan!!

We woke up very early this morning to some strange loud high-pitched chirping noises which we identified as the CO sensor indicating dead batteries; oh joy.  So we got up and noticed with some alarm and shivering that it was 44 degrees outside.  I felt like I should check the calendar again to make sure it was still August! We are told that nothing this summer has been normal and we can certainly accept the fact that August has been a month of extremes. A sixty-degree differential from high to low in one summer month seems a bit excessive.  When we were packing to come here we never in a million years thought we would need to have raincoats and sweaters in August.

Today is the big moving day, if it all goes as scheduled. We are looking forward to several hours of trying to figure out where to put things. This apartment is smaller than we remembered as we were packing up in WV and we already suspect that our two small closets will not be able to handle the clothes we sent on hangers.  Time will tell and we can always improvise if necessary.

I certainly hope that last night was the last night I had to improvise in the kitchen.  I knew we would not be up for cooking tonight or tomorrow since everything will be in chaos for a few days, so I decided to cook a few meals ahead that we can eat cold.  I had purchased a big chicken on Saturday, along with a package of fresh chicken livers.  I jury rigged a roasting pan out of heavy-duty foil on a cookie sheet and cut up the chicken and coated half with BBQ sauce and the other with Jamaican Jerk sauce.  I then arranged the all the livers on the same pan and coated them with the same ratio of sauces.  While they were cooking I cut up some onions, carrots and potatoes and started to slow cook them in the frying pan.  Once the livers were done, I removed them to a plate and rearranged the chicken to give each piece more room to cook.  We each had a piece of chicken, a couple of livers, and the caramelized veggies, with a fresh tomato as a token to salad. The rest I have ready to use as necessary for the next two days.  I’m planning on making a nice pâté out of the livers, if I can find a bowl big enough to make the pâté.

I think I’ve mentioned how I’ve used many of the empty six-liter water jugs. I cut them into various sizes and some have become ice cube storage devices, others are used for watering plants and today I cut one to use to pre-soak whites in hot water and bleach before tossing them into the washing machine.  Works like a charm and I’m sure my whites will be whiter than white! It being a Monday I’ve got lots of laundry to do and we want to have everything done and organized before the shipment comes later this afternoon.

When I’m in WV and I need to go to the store, I simply put some money in one pocket and a credit card and driver’s license in the other and I’m off to shop.  Living in Moscow as an expat requires that you carry a bit more than you would need in WV.  Here is a photo of the basic minimum that you need to have with you at all times.  As Karl Malden used to say, “Don’t Leave Home Without Them”

Tools of the Trade

Starting at the twelve o’clock position is the document case, which contains all the numbers you need in an emergency, a phrase card to help you communicate, directions in Russian and English to get to the school and to your apartment, medical emergency information, addresses and numbers, Metro signs and information translated into English, and a Metro Map.  All thoughtfully provided by AAS.  Next is a change purse since Russians love it if you have exact change for purchases. Everyone is very patient as someone counts out endless coins. Below that is the most important card we have and it is called a Kartochka.  It must be carried at all times and it identifies you as a diplomat with the USA Mission in Moscow. It is basically your get out of jail free card. You can use it to go through the diplomatic line at immigration in Russia, if they ask you to open your luggage you show them the card and they wave you though, if you are stopped in your car, you show them the card and off you go.  Clearly something you want to keep safe!

Below that is a WV driver’s license that you need to carry along with your international driver’s permit, which is kept in the car. Next is a medical card, just in case.  Below that is a card that has a chip in it that allows you to get in and out of the apartment complex gate. Credit cards are used by some of the larger stores but they are mostly used at ATMs to get rubles or dollars.  Above that is the Metro Pass; always have to have one of those with you. To the left are car keys, keys to the house and the black thing is a chip that opens the door to our apartment unit.  Above that is cash, rubles and dollars for use in stores or at the embassy. Next to that are the ID cards that get us into the Embassy and allow us to use the shops.  They scan the orange one with every purchase to make sure we are eligible. A pen is handy to write down stuff like directions, or to draw something that you can’t say. The cell phone is a lifesaver and I always carry it here, something I don’t do in the USA.  Kleenex, because my mother always said I should have Kleenex and a handkerchief. 

I sent all of my shoulder bags in the shipment so I’ll be happy to have them here to replace the cheap little bag I’ve been stuffing with all of the above. It will make organizing everything ever so much easier. (Cindy has to carry even more stuff for access to classrooms, offices and parking at AAS.)

We rearranged some of the bedroom furniture yesterday and last night we noticed that the headboard kept banging against the wall; NO not because of that - we were just reading - but every time we moved in bed the headboard would smack the wall.  I was up in a jiffy and came back with duct tape and a piece of Styrofoam from an appliance we unpacked and in minutes had the situation under control.  Praise the inventors of duct tape!

We luckily didn’t hear much about Glenn Becks little ego rally in DC but I did note with amusement that Fox continues to be Fair and Unbalanced:

Park Service officials have stopped giving crowd counts after previous controversies. But an estimate commissioned by CBS News, using aerial photography, put attendance at between 78,000 and 96,000. ABC News reported more than 100,000, while Fox – and Beck -- estimated it at above half a million.

Imagine that CBS and ABC can almost agree on the number of people at the rally and then for them to realize that they were 400,000 short. Certainly Fox would have had no reason to inflate their numbers yet again. Does anyone know what King’s niece and Sarah P got for appearing at the rally??

From CC: Today was the open house for all parents and students, not just the new families, so the school was jumping.  I mostly stayed out of the way of the families and spent my time helping teachers with technology, some of whom spot me in the hall or email me to ask for advice or help (sometimes I don’t have a clue but at least I know how to find the right person).  That presentation had a down side – everyone knows who I am now!  I also had an hour-long meeting with my Titans of Technology, as Wm calls my Russian tech team members.  They are warming up to me but they remain wary of everything I say to them and probably will stay that way for quite some time. I’m trying not to rock the boat and let them keep most of their routines, but I’m going to have to put my foot down and change the way they respond to support calls so that they are more specific to the problem (not just a general “we got your message”).  All in all it was a very good day. 

Ciao for now,  Cindy and Wm

Sunday Fun in the Rain

A rainy Sunday and we are loving it.  We were able to sleep until 7:30, a record for us for the past week. We also managed to get to bed early last night after a lovely party at the apartment of one of the AAS principals.  It was raining to beat the band last night but we didn’t have to leave our building to get to the party. There were about forty people at this potluck, all from AAS. There was great food in great quantity and decent wines and lots of beer, the preferred drink of the youths. They also like to drink Red Bull with vodka, which is their answer to Irish Coffee. It was nice to meet more of the teachers and to get to know some of the support staff in an informal setting.

This morning Cindy ran and I walked and it started to rain like crazy. I found shelter under an awning of an apartment building and Cindy was semi-protected by large trees with great canopies, but both of us were wetter than we wanted to be. It let up after only five minutes and Cindy ran home while I got some fresh bread for breakfast. We decided that our adventure for the day would be to go to the Euro Mall and look for a belt that Cindy needs.  This is a huge, very European mall directly across the street from the train station that serves Kiev and Eastern European countries. The Metro got us there in just under six minutes and we wandered around the mall looking at all the high-end stores and wondering who can really afford to shop there.  As well seasoned international travelers, you would think that we would have looked up the Russian word for belt before leaving the house, but it didn’t happen. We had to go to about four stores before Cindy could find a belt small enough for her.  I glanced around at all these skinny Russian women that look like they just left a modeling job and wonder who these belts were made for, but then I see an equal number of plump babushkas and realize that they are the market.

Once Cindy had found the perfect belt, it took another twelve minutes to pay for it.  There were no lines, just a lot of service intolerant staff.  There were four young ladies behind the cash register and they didn’t have a clue as to what they were doing. It was really hysterical to watch this farce, one kept looking under the counter, like there was someone under there that she needed to consult with about this huge sale of one belt. Two others were enthralled by something on their cash register computer, while the fourth kept running the barcode reader over the belt like a wizard incanting a spell.  Service is not something that comes naturally to Russians.

The Kiyevsky Rail Terminal is an architectural gem.  It is on the Moscow River and affords great views of the city. Large fountains and gardens surround it and the inside looks like a cross between a grand cathedral and a French rail station. There is even a bit of a French influence at the entrance to the Metro. It looks just like the Parisian Metropolitain.  There is a picture of it that I took with my cell phone at the online version of this blog or as an attachment to this. You can even see one of the Seven Sisters in the background.  

Moscow Metro

You can see for yourself how magnificent this place is by clicking on this link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiyevsky_Rail_Terminal

After all of our shopping we found a little – well, a very large - café that had Illy coffee and had a delightful espresso macchiato to celebrate our successful shopping spree. On the way home we took some time to admire the fantastic mosaics and murals in the Kiyevsky Metro Station. There must be about fifty of them all over the place, truly amazing for a Metro station.  I’ve placed a few photos at the online site.

Detail of Mosaic in Kiev Metro

Kiev Metro

 We got home before it really started to rain again and dropped off our stuff and took care of a few odds and ends before heading out again, this time confined to the neighborhood. We went to the market to get Cindy some teatime things.  She wanted to be able to make tea in her office without having to trudge down four flights of stairs, so we got her tea bags, cubed sugar, UHT milk and some cookies - you can’t have a wet without a dry, or so my mother always said.  After our quick shopping, we walked over to the German Beer Hall, which is almost connected to the market and had a lovely little Sunday lunch.  Sunday lunch is a big tradition in most of Europe, but it doesn’t appear to be that big of a deal here. We were one of three couples in this cavernous hall, but that didn’t translate into superlative service. We did have a lovely German lunch, with Cindy opting for the smoked salmon and potato pancakes, while I had the Nuremburger wurst, which was really fried weisswurst, served on a bed of mashed potatoes with peas, fried bacon and fried onions.  I washed mine down with a lovely Munich lager and Cindy had a small glass of dark beer.  It was all divine.

We are home now and in for the day and getting things ready for our shipment, which we have been assured will be delivered tomorrow at five thirty.  We sent all of our stuff more that two months ago and even though Cindy made a detailed inventory list, we are still sure that we’ll be surprised at some of what we sent and some of the things we should have sent. I can always bring things we forgot back here to Moscow when I go to the U.S. in late September.

From CC:  The so-called perfect belt is an odd muted shade of green, but with a gray pantsuit it will be better than brown!  Now that we’ve looked up the word for belt, what we really need to learn is, “how do you say ___ in Russian?”  Actually I have a link and just learned that phrase, a bit late – somehow Russians just cannot figure out what you’re asking when you want the Russian word for something, even when you’re holding the thing in your hand and pointing at it (this has happened to me before).  Two clerks in two different stores spoke some English, and both times when I asked, “what is this called pa Russki?” (at least I knew how to say “in Russian”) they turned the belt over and tried to read what it said (leather, I believe) and then they tried to read the price tag, and we kept pointing at the belt and trying variations of “what is the name” “what do you call it” “ how do you say it” – and they had NO CLUE what we wanted to know.  ?!?!   One finally said, in perfect English, “We don’t understand each other.”  You got that right!

Ciao, Cindy and Wm

Singing in the Rain

My exploratory walks were curtailed yesterday; called on account of rain!  It rained on and off all day, when I went out it rained, when I was in it didn’t.  Really, I would get halfway to the market with the sun shining and the sky clear and then bang, I was soaking wet.  I dried out in the market since it was very hot down there and then headed home with a heavy bag and a six-liter jug of water.  Oh my how beautiful it was and how happy I was that the sun had returned and then, bam, the heavens opened again and in two minutes I was soaked to the bone.  Luckily, I was about to wash a load of darks so I considered this a pre-wash for the clothes I had on.

I knew Cindy would be late coming home and we were supposed to go out to a party at about eight, so I arranged a cold dinner that could be served at any time with just five minutes’ notice. At the store I purchased another slab of smoked salmon; I’m becoming addicted to this type of salmon. I also saw some fresh blinis, one was the normal buckwheat, one looked like it had chives and the other was green, spinach was my guess.  I sliced the salmon quite thin and arranged it on a tray with some capers and a type of egg salad I made with mayo and whole grain mustard and pepper.  I also had the rest of the ratatouille ready to be served with some lovely bread.  When we were ready to sit down I quickly fried the blini to get them toasty brown and hot. Cindy had already been able to read the Russian and told me they were broccoli and not spinach and it took only seconds for them to exude the familiar aroma of broccoli.  We placed the salmon on a hot blini, added some of the egg mixture, topped it with capers and then placed another blini on that and did it again.  The warmth from the blini really enhanced the salmon’s flavor and we declared it fabulous.

We headed to the party and I was immediately looking for an exit. It was really crowded and noisy and they didn’t have anything I liked to drink. It was fun to try and listen to the teachers come up to Cindy and thank her for the presentation.  Seems that they were really inspired by the talk and impressed by the presentation, which kept them entertained, amused and focused. You really couldn’t have a conversation since the noise level was off the charts. Didn’t seem to bother any of the young folk, but we were a bit distressed.  Someone cracked open a bottle of decent dry white wine so we shared a tall glass of that and watched the kids start to dance.  These are mostly twenty- and thirty-somethings and “dancing” would not be the word that I would use to describe what they were doing.  They were just jumping around and waving their hands, and periodically someone would just yell. It was painful and reminded me again that white men can’t jump or dance!  I decided to inject a bit of ballroom dancing into the energy of the evening and picked out one of the more enthusiastic jumpers and invited her to DANCE.  She picked it up pretty quickly and seemed to really enjoy dancing. Soon there were lots of folks who wanted to see what the grey haired guy was doing.  It was fun to dance but after that song they started playing music that I couldn’t even listen to, much less dance to, so Cindy and I decided to beat feet and head home.

This morning, Saturday morning, I really couldn’t understand why Cindy was up and ready to run at 7:30. It took me a few seconds to remember that she had to go into school today for the New Parent Open House.  Ah, the price you pay for being a sought after administrator in an International School.  I volunteered to drive her to the school so that she would have an extra half hour for a relaxed cup of coffee and breakfast. My plan was to drop her off and then head to Auchan for much needed basics in the grocery department.  It was a glorious morning and the traffic to her school was almost non-existent.  The school was jumping with lots of cars and people walking into the school so after we conned the guard into letting me drive up to the main door to drop her off, I headed back to the highway.  In the ten minutes it took to drop her off the traffic had doubled and continued to double every ten minutes.  By the time I hit the cutoff to Auchan I was in stop and go, mostly stop, traffic. It took me thirty-five minutes to go ten kilometers. I’m told that the traffic on that road, the main road to St. Petersburg and the airport, is always jammed but now with all the road construction, it is impossible.  I finally made it to the exit for Auchan and was able to find a decent parking place right away.  As I stepped out of the car I asked myself, why did I have on shorts and a short-sleeved shirt?  I had basically just dressed automatically not realizing that the temperature was in the low sixties, even though I had gone out for a run earlier in the morning.

Auchan was a zoo!  School starts in Russia on September first, it always starts in all of Russia on September first, regardless of whether it falls on a Saturday or Sunday. It always ends on June first, set your watches.  So, this was the last weekend to shop for school supplies for little Ivan and Natasha and it was bumper to bumper with the shopping carts.  Shopping in large stores in Moscow is a contact sport and not for the faint of heart. I had my list and was damned if I wasn’t going to get everything on it, so I plodded into the masses and just kept on going.  I found most of what I wanted and when I came to the wine, I decided I might not get back here for awhile so I purchased ten one liter cartons of Italian white wine and a liter of red and one of rosato.  I’ve talked about how difficult it is to check out since they view the cart as the mother ship and the family fans out and gather their groceries in red hand baskets and brings everything back to the mother ship that has been in line for a while.

Well, I got faked out again today.  I got behind a no-nonsense guy who had six big bottles of water and a few groceries.  No sooner was he starting to unload his stuff when up come wife, mother, father, and two kids, each laden with big red baskets of goodies.  I had been had and there was no escape since there were three carts behind me by now.  I finally got up and unloaded my cart and started packing things away into my bags, when the cashier tells me the price of everything and I hand her a Visa card.  Now I swear I’ve used a Visa card there before but I was wrong and she wouldn’t accept any card. The bill came to 3, 440 rubles and I wasn’t expecting to pay cash so I didn’t know what I had in my pocket. Turns out I was able to scrape together 3,420, which as most of you know, wasn’t enough.  So here I am unable to ask if I can go to the cash machine and the lines are very long and the people are looking at me with daggers and words I didn’t want to understand. Finally I looked in my basket, handed her back a 20-ruble chunk of cheese and the crisis was over. I did feel rather silly and you can be sure I’ll be carrying a lot more cash in the future.

I exited the store and entered into a tempest of epic proportions. The rain was coming down sideways and with great velocity and volume. I’m not sure if I mentioned that I was in shorts and a short-sleeved shirt and was pushing a heavy card over pocked asphalt and dirt. Ah, what a rewarding experience.  Finally got to the car, unloaded the groceries and headed back to the mall to see how I might get dry.  I wandered into a big store called OBI (think Home Depot, right down to the orange vests that the workers wear) that I know is always overheated.  It was as warm as usual and I lingered as I purchased a towel bar and hooks. Finally I was dry enough to go get a decent espresso before heading back to the car. I covered my head with a plastic bag from OBI and made it to the car in a flash, turned on the headlights and navigated my way out of there and onto the highway home.  It was jammed! It took almost an hour to get home, a trip that would normally take 20 minutes.  The combination of construction, rain and stupid drivers made it a nightmare and I’m so happy I bought enough wine to not have to repeat the trip for a month or so.

From CC: The open house was fine, but clearly the parents were there to meet their kids’ teachers and see the school, not to meet people like me.  Ah well, when the boss says to show up, you ask what time.  The good news was that I found someone who could drive me home and therefore Wm didn’t have to add a side trip back to the school to his traffic woes.  I can’t imagine handling all of the household duties on my own like all of the single people who have just moved here have to – it is so nice that Wm is here to do the shopping and organizing, not to mention the cooking and cleaning.  Beyond that, he’s my psychological support system and darn good company to boot!

Happy Weekend,  Cindy and Wm

Walking the Moscow River

Friday, August 27, 2010

Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa!  I know many of you who get the blog via email were perhaps a bit perturped as your system crashed from trying to download 12mb of photos.  I can’t for the life of me understand how the one photo turned out to be 3+ mb, and how it got into the attachment box three times is just a mystery. From now on I’ll only place photos in the online version, which is much easier on everyone.

Speaking of Latin, I began my wandering yesterday with a visit to the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, the largest Roman Catholic Church in Moscow. This church was built in 1911, closed in 1937 and re-opened in 1996. One of only two neo-Gothic churches in Europe, this tall building underwent a very complicated restoration process as it had been completely re-shaped both inside and out while used successively as a place to store vegetables, a hostel and office space! Stalin didn’t much care for religion! The final restoration was completed in 1999.  You can see from these photos, a link, not a download, that it is marvelous from the outside with a rather stark interior.   I stayed for a bit, said a prayer for my mother, and was off to get lost once again.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Catholic_Cathedral_Moscow

My objective was to head down to the river and wander around to get a better perspective on downtown Moscow.  Rather than take the easy direct path, I meandered all around the place wandering through neighborhoods and business areas, and taking lots of underground passages to cross major streets.  There is almost no way to cross streets without going underground.  They simply don’t want to stop traffic, which as you know is already out of control, so people just go through the passages. There is a whole world underground, a thriving economy based on tiny, really tiny, little stores that are no more that five feet wide and three feet deep. You can get anything and everything. Sometimes when you go down, you can smell fresh bread or pastries, other times you smell urine, it all depends. The folks that run these little shops are usually open for about 12 hours a day and they sit in these claustrophobic places all day long.  I would go nuts.

After strolling about for ninety minutes, I finally took a street that headed downhill, assuming correctly that it must end at the river.  The Moscow River curls around the city in strange ways.  On the way to the airport you might go over the river six times. Moscow, surprisingly, is also known as the Port of Five Seas. With the completion of the Moscow Canal in 1939, which connects the river to the Volga River, Moscow has access to the White, Baltic, Caspian, Black and Sea of Azov.  There is a lot more shipping that goes on here than I would have ever suspected.

There is a lovely walkway along the river and once I found a passageway under the busy street, I was free to walk for miles, with no streets to cross or cars to dodge. This walk affords spectacular views of Moscow and I’m really looking forward to taking a cruise on the river.  There are scores of boats of all sizes that take tourists on cruises, dinner cruises, night cruises, etc.  Very much like Paris, these are modern glass-enclosed boats, some with open decks, others sealed against the elements.  One of the favorite starting points is at the former Hotel Ukrainia, which is now a Radisson Hotel. This was one of the Seven Sisters and until 1975 it was the tallest hotel in the world. It is an Art Deco marvel and it took Radisson three years to clean it up and get it ready for opening this past April.  You can take a quick look at it here:

http://www.radisson-hotels.ru/royal-moscow

For the next hour or so I just enjoyed the sights and sounds of the river and the city and found myself near the Kremlin, which meant I had gone too far since my objective had been the embassy.  I then crossed over the highway and headed back, passing lovely old buildings facing the river. Occasionally a gate would open for a car to enter or leave and I could see the ornate courtyards with their private park-like setting and great fountains.  I finally reached the embassy and I was soaking wet from sweat. The day was cool and breezy but I only have an emergency Tote Coat, the kind that folds into itself. They are great if you are caught in a rainstorm but they do not breathe.  I did some very quick shopping and headed back to the apartment the fast way, since I had some frozen food products and the SDSU bag was really heavy.  Got back about three and a half hours after I had started and felt like I had learned just a little bit more about Moscow.  I also realized that this week I have walked more in Moscow that I did for a full year in Bahrain.

Speaking of Bahrain, things seem to have gone to hell in a hand-basket since we left:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/27/world/middleeast/27bahrain.html?pagewanted=1&hp

As promised, I spent a little more time and energy on dinner last night, just to see what I could do with limited utensils.  Some of the frozen stuff I got at the embassy was to be dinner, yellow-fin tuna fillets and brussel sprouts to be specific.  Cindy had been working very hard and I knew she would be a bit tense the night before her big presentation, so I wanted to make a special meal that would distract her and force all of her attention on food.  I first cut up some tomatoes into wedges and let them sit in a dressing I made, similar to Caesar dressing, but with more garlic, balsamic and herbs. After it had sat for about an hour, I placed it over a bed of arugula and served it with hot French bread.  Dinner with baked Tuna Oreganato, a Sicilian dish that we both love. Normally the tuna is covered with an herbed breadcrumb crust, but I went down and dirty and simple using just lemon juice to hold the oregano and garlic on the fillets. These only take about six minutes in a hot oven.  To accompany the fish I made garlic couscous and parboiled Brussels sprouts finished in a frying pan with butter and garlic until they got all brown and tasty.  It was nice to know I could do a proper hot meal with what is in the kitchen, but I still wish our shipment would get here.

With all the rain and cold weather we have been having, the quality of the air has gotten noticeably better, so much so that I was able to put away our facemasks that have been hanging by the door.  Sleeping has been a delight what with cold fresh air perfumed by the heavy rains; just wish we could sleep longer. This 5:30 am stuff ain’t what I thought retirement would be all about!

From CC:  It’s over – the presentation, that is.  It went well, mostly thanks to my Titans of Technology, as Wm is calling my Russian tech team.  I think everyone was impressed when the PowerPoint went directly to the videos without more than a few seconds’ pause – no muss, no fuss.  I can’t take credit for that but I’m sure glad someone knew how to do it.  I got lots of nice comments afterwards, and the best part was that those who had specific comments got the message, that this was meant to get them excited about technology and to give them good ideas.  Even one of the gym teachers stopped me in the hallway this afternoon to say he had already taken two ideas from the presentation and incorporated them into the curriculum.

Needless to say I had a rather relaxed afternoon where I even had time to sort out some of the piles of information on my long-neglected desk.  I also took time to choose some more furniture for my office – before you know it I’ll be settled!

PPS: I seldom will PS Cindy but she is being her usual modest self.  Two people have stopped me in the compound to tell me what a great presentation it was and how poised and gifted Cindy is as a public speaker.  My heart was bursting with pride!

Happy Friday,  Cindy the Orator and wm

From my Cell Phone

Same Cell Phone, different light

Moscow News Continues to Entertain

Thursday, August 26, 2010

I might have figured out why that guy is switching license plates every day.  Yesterday it was announced in the Moscow Times that four men dressed in national police swat team gear robbed a man who was exiting a bank and carrying a bag with US$ 600,000. They beat him and his bodyguard (who I suspect will be looking for a new position when he recovers) and then sped off in a car with, drum roll please, fake license plates. They are still at large and I’m looking every day in case they come back for more plates.  There is some serious thought being given to the fact that there might have been a ‘inside’ person who told the robbers when to be there and who would be carrying the cash.

The paper also had an interesting article about Bono, who is in town for a U2 concert. He met with President Medvedev in his dacha resort on the Black Sea. They talked about fighting poverty, fighting AIDS and their respective tastes in music.  What they apparently did not discuss was global warming and carbon emissions. Bono, for all the good he might be doing, is almost singlehandedly tossing more carbon into the atmosphere that anyone can imagine.  He flies all the time in his private jet for weekend jaunts, even when commercial service is available. This week it took 200 trailer trucks just to get the set for the 360 Concert from Ireland to Moscow! As the paper reported:

“Last week, Carbon Footprint calculated the impact of U2's world tour. Ironically, U2 is outspoken about their commitment to the environment, but carbon output of their tour this year is far bigger even than Madonna's high-maintenance carbon-heavy tour. U2's carbon emissions will equal that of 90,000 people flying from Dublin to London, and are equivalent of the waste created by 6,500 average British or Irish people in an entire year (equal to leaving a standard 100 watt light bulb on for 159,000 years). "To offset this year's carbon emissions, U2 would need to plant 20,118 trees."

Speaking of insensitivity, the Moscow Times has been getting all over Mayor Yury Luzhkov.  Mr. Mayor has been in office since 1992 and continues to enrage Muscovites with his selfish and boorish attitude.  During the worst of the heat and smoke that Moscow endured, he was vacationing in Austria and had to be told by Putin to get his butt back here.  He did so with great reluctance and after one week here, hightailed it back to Austria. Days after he left a new report came out on some of his ‘generosity’.

The report, which could deal a new blow to the mayor's reputation in connection with this summer's wildfires, said Luzhkov has ordered the city to spend 105 million rubles ($3.4 million) to send elderly and disabled residents to various health sanatoriums to recover from “unfavorable weather conditions."

Luzhkov also has ordered the city to invest 256 million rubles into Mosmedynagroprom, an agricultural company that produces honey and other foodstuffs and is owned by the city government. The producer, located in the Kaluga region village of Medyn — informally known as “Luzhkov's Mansion” — also cares for the personal bee farm of Luzhkov, a well-known beekeeping enthusiast, Lifenews.ru reported.

Mr. Mayor’s second wife Yelena Baturina, twenty-seven years his junior, is the only female billionaire (in US$) in Russia and the 275^th richest person in the world. She married in 1991 and didn’t have a dime, he became mayor of Moscow in 1992 and she immediately went into real estate and had a virtual monopoly on government contracts regarding housing and new buildings.  This suggests that perhaps the bidding process was flawed and many people are very upset at the audacity of this corruption.

I needed to get new Metro Passes for us so yesterday I sat here in the office in front of the computer and practiced my numbers and polite greetings.  I approached the ticket counter, exact change in hand, said what I had to say, gave over my money and lo and behold, much to my surprise and amazement, I got exactly what I wanted!  Progress, very slow, but in the right direction.  Pleased with myself I took off to wander the green streets of Moscow. Two hours later, I had finished my exploration of an area near our apartment complex but in a direction I had never traveled. There are some new high-rise offices that house shops, restaurants and cafes, some of which we all know - Starbucks, le Pain Quotidienne and McDonalds - but there were others that are quite local and worth investigating for possible dinner venues. 

Beyond the high-rises things quiet down and I came across yet another large park, surrounded by apartments and directly across the street from the tram shed, or as Cindy likes to say, the place where trams go to sleep at night. This is an old building that must have been very pretty, red and white brick, green wood trim and huge. It takes up an entire city block, right there in the middle of a residential area.  I must say these electric trams are very quiet and you have to look both ways often since they sneak up on you if you’re not careful.

We invited one of the new assistant principals over for dinner last night. He is divorced and living alone so we thought we would make sure he had a decent meal.  I made a variation on a ratatouille, with tons of carrots, eggplant, onion, tomatoes and garlic.  I served that on a bed of lamb’s lettuce and shaved aged Parmesan on top.  With that was a cold pesto/penne salad, and a plate of cheeses, pickles and liverwurst. I had purchased some crusty fresh bread and we were off to the races.  It was nice to hear about his perceptions of the school and his experiences in other countries. He most recently came from Zagreb and the Director there is a dear friend of mine, so we had lots to talk about.

It dawned on me that I’m repeating many meals, even though we have only been here for three weeks.  I realized that I’m rather limited by my two pots and one pan, but that is no excuse for getting lazy in the kitchen.  I’m motivated now and can’t wait to see what I’ll come up with for future meals.  Here is a photo from last summer in WV of Chef William and his two students, Patrick and Hannah, as they learn how to debone a chicken at Chez Embee.

Cindy will be late tonight, as she must stay at school to rehearse her presentation on Web 2.0 that she’ll be giving to the entire faculty tomorrow. Now I personally think that this Web 2.0 is just a word game enabling booksellers to sell more books, but AAS thinks it is important and therefore Cindy needs to think it important and she has put a lot of work into this presentation.  So, if this goes out before she gets home, ignore any mistakes. 

Ciao for now, Cindy and Wm

From CC:  At least Bono knows how to keep a contract – a friend from AAS went to the concert last night and it rained the whole time and the stage was NOT covered.  My friend was seated under an overhang, but the musicians were soaked to the skin and played the entire concert!  Foolish maybe, but true to their fans.

Wm is right, I had to stay late due to the technical difficulties with the presentation.  I created a PowerPoint document with many slides but then other people were meant to contribute and it got longer and longer.  Some of them were sending changes to me an hour after our rehearsal ended at 3:00, a rehearsal which had already caused me to make several significant changes.  (Presentations by committee are not to be recommended!) The real complication was the YouTube videos that we had inserted, but my tech guys were on it and had everything running just right when they called me at about 4:45 to meet them in the projection room above the theatre.  However, they tried and tried and tried again but the videos wouldn’t play and the PowerPoint kept crashing.  They finally hit upon the solution: Switch it to a Macintosh!  Ha … ha … ha.   AAS is like most other schools in that they are mainly PC-based because of the cost, but so many teachers favor Macs and of course I LOVE Macs.  I’m saving this little incident in my fact file in case the topic of changing platforms is ever broached – heck, I’ll be the broacher.

Cross your fingers for me at the presentation.

Walking the Clean Streets of Moscow

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

What an interesting mix of reactions to the online blog.  About half of you prefer to stick with the email and the other half like the idea of an online version.  So, for the time being, I’ll do both, as I try to learn more of the secrets of online blogging.  Always feel free to ask me to drop your name from the email list if you so desire.

I took a three-hour walk yesterday afternoon, just because it wasn’t raining and I needed to do a few things at the embassy.  The embassy part was much faster than I had thought it would be, mostly due to the fact that I got there at about 11:45 and most of the offices I wanted to visit were closed for lunch.  I did some quick shopping at the Liberty Store, solid white albacore in water and Hellmann’s Real Mayo in a squeeze bottle. I tell you, I’m living the best of all possible worlds, foreign when I want, domestic when I need, and it is lovely.

After leaving the embassy I took a leisurely stroll around the Garden Ring Road and ended up at one of the Seven Sisters buildings that is very close to the Embassy. These were built from 1947 to 1953 in what was called the Stalinist Style, which is a combination of Russian Baroque and Gothic styles. Up close you can see lots of little architectural touches that remind you of great buildings in New York City, which is, coincidentally, the technology they used to build these. They are used for many things now - some are apartment complexes, others used my ministries or universities - but they have all been refurbished and look spectacular.  The one thing they all have in common is the gold leaf on the spires and the Red Star on the top of the tallest spire.

Directly across from this building is a modern mini mall filled with the most expensive shops I’ve seen thus far in Moscow. The exclusivity of these shops might explain why there was no one shopping in them.  All the clerks in all the shops seemed to be women and they were dressed like fashion models.  The one shop I went into was the Nespresso store, made famous by George Clooney’s ads.  Several of you have told me about your Nespresso makers and how much you like them.  I certainly hope you got a good deal on yours since the cheapest model they had in stock was about US$500, and that doesn’t come with any of the coffee capsules. I must say however, they are stylish, make a heck of a good cup of coffee and they are neat and easy to use.  I have an old reliable espresso maker at home and love it, but geez it is messy. The capsule idea is brilliant for those of us who like an occasional espresso and don’t want it to take ten times as long to clean up as it does to drink it. For those of you who don’t know about this, check out this link. (I think there is a dress code you need to adhere to before opening it, it is that classy.)

http://www.nespresso.com/#/ru/en

After having spent enough time in this mall to feel really poor, I decided to go for the cheaper thrills of walking though parks and courtyards.  It doesn’t take long to leave the main drag and find a parallel side road that is filled with trees, mini parks and large houses or apartment complexes. This still remains the biggest surprise to me, along with how clean everything is. I had expected Moscow to be blighted with concrete communist style building, devoid of green, but it is just the opposite, at least in the area where we live.

Traffic here is always horrible but it is the worst in the morning and evening commute and during lunch, when it appears that everyone wants to get to the same place, on the same road at the same time. There were many intersections that were suffering from a bad case of gridlock and try as they might, the large hated, baton waving traffic cops could do little to sort things out.  Later in the day, just as I was heading to the apartment, it started to rain and that created even more confusion and chaos. There was an interesting article in the paper today about Moscow Traffic:

A group of Italian engineers from the University of Parma’s Vislab are testing sensory technology that allows unmanned vehicles to avoid obstacles on the longest-ever road trip of driverless technology. But Moscow drivers, it turns out, are not ready to share the roads with autonomous vehicles — so the automatic driving mechanism had to be turned off.

For the 13,000 km journey from Italy to China, the driverless vehicles travel in pairs, with the driverless vehicle taking cues from a lead van being driven normally. But in Moscow, drivers cut in between the vehicles, blocking the signal, and the unmanned vans’ impulse to stay within the traffic lines was futile given the chaotic driving patterns, project leader Alberto Broggi said Tuesday. “It was impossible. In crowded areas, if no one is respecting the rules, there is no way to navigate. The only thing you can do is avoid hitting someone,” Broggi said, who is monitoring the journey and troubleshooting from Parma.

When Italian drivers think that Moscow traffic is horrible, we’re talking world class horrible!

I walked to about three fancy hotels/newsstands looking for a copy of the International Herald Tribune but couldn’t find one.  There do not seem to be any international English language papers available here, with the exception of the locally produced Moscow Times.  Every other major city in the world has lots of options but not here.  You can subscribe to the IHT but at a cost of more than US$1200 per year. I’m perfectly content to read it online for free.

This is cute. Apple doesn’t like German humor, who knew there was such a thing?

http://www.tuaw.com/2010/08/20/no-comment-apple-germany-says-nicht-to-eipott/

Okay, time to get this into an online format, which might take a moment or two.  Best to all, Cindy and Wm

Tuesday, August 24th

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

There is a challenge associated with shopping in Moscow that I’ve not encountered anywhere else in the world. Here you have to be ever vigilant when purchasing anything that is liquid, to make sure it has not been opened, some removed, and either left partially empty or filled with something to make it look full. This is true with water, milk, cream, car windshield clearer and anything else that is liquid. There are very few things here that are tamper proof, so you need to be on guard. Shortly after we arrived and Cindy picked up her car, she was told to get the best possible windshield cleaner possible because the cheaper ones are often partially emptied by store employees and then filled with water. They then can sell the stuff they have stolen, and I’m sure diluted, on the ever-present black market.

Being forewarned I was forearmed and when I went shopping at Auchan the first time, I was very careful in looking at the various solvents for the car. Sure enough there were three different cleaners, one was twice as expensive as the next best and three times more expensive than the cheapest, but, it had a tamper proof seal under the cap. The other two did not have anything under the cap and the cap was not sealed as it is on water bottles. (If you have seen Slumdog Millionaire you know that that seal is just an illusion). Looking more closely at the cheaper products, I could detect a difference in color, subtle shadings, in almost all of the bottles. Needless to say, I selected the most expensive.

That incident started me thinking about other liquid products that I purchased and I became much more aware of this widespread practice. I have found cream containers that have had the cap seal opened and the tamper proof foil opened, I’ve found big jugs of water that have had the cap seal broken and a cup or more taken out of the jug. It now takes me a lot longer to shop since I’m constantly looking at the containers to ascertain their safety. I’m sure other shoppers just assume I’m a bit touched, and they might be right, but I don’t want to get cheated or sick because I wasn’t vigilant.

Speaking of black markets, I’ve not found one yet for caviar, but I have come across an interesting little scam, that I can’t figure out. There is one little spot, in front of a newspaper and beer kiosk, where I have watched people taking off car license plates and replacing them with other plates. This is not an auto shop, it isn’t a department of motor vehicle outlet, it is just one little parking spot next to a kiosk that provides a bit of shelter and privacy. Every day that I’ve walked past this spot, there is someone replacing plates. My thought is that the kiosk sells black-market plates that have the right seal or something, but that is just guesswork. The cars are not particularly elegant or recent models so I don’t think it is trying to retag stolen cars, but hey, what do I know.

We were up at six this morning thanks to the garbage truck alarm. Our bedroom faces the garbage container area for the apartment complex. There are eight large containers and since garbage isn’t sorted or recycled, each container has glass, cans and other noisy objects that shake, rattle and roll as they are being dumped into the trucks. This is a daily event, but not always the same time, so I suppose we need to close our window to dampen the noise, but that means no fresh air. Choices, always choices. Anyway, it was a brilliant morning and Cindy used the extra time to take a quick wake-up walk while I stripped the bed and started a load of whites, before making coffee. Today the cleaner comes back and I want to make sure all the bedding is cleaned and ready. Since we don’t have our shipment yet, we are still using the only set of sheets and pillowcases that came with the apartment.

Last night I repurposed the remains of the Basque Chicken, took the meat off the bones and added this and that to make it a Creole Gumbo, which actually turned out to be quite tasty. To start the meal I made a caprese salad with pesto and served that over some fresh greens with a ring of fresh poppy seed bread. One of the great advantages of shopping every day is that you come across some things that weren’t there the day before and you know won’t be there tomorrow. Such was the case yesterday when I found a display of beautiful fresh Brown Turkish figs. We were to full after dinner to eat them but this morning I cut them up for breakfast and my what a feast. They were perfectly ripe and not too sweet and just bursting with flavor.

Here is a very interesting site that provides a nice background on Moscow. I keep forgetting that Moscow is in Europe and that it is the largest, by land mass and population, city in Europe. This link has some lovely pictures of the grand train stations, some Metro shots, a bit about food and don’t miss the very end of the article on toilets, priceless!

http://www.anaga.ru/travel/moscow.htm

Cindy has a dinner party tonight at the Director’s home so she won’t be back in time to proof this. Just wanted you all to know that all mistakes are mine and mine alone!

Best to all, Cindy and Wm