It snowed again overnight, but just lightly, and by noon the temperature was touching forty and the big melt was in full force. We did sleep late, but not as late as yesterday since we had a luncheon to attend. Cindy was up and out on a search for croissants while I tackled the treadmill for 23 minutes. Despite her best efforts and multiple stops at various stores, Cindy was unable to find a fresh croissant so we enjoyed some other little pastry with our coffee.
Last night’s silent auction was quite nice. The organizing committee did a grand job of decorating the school and as we entered there were costumed greeters, a Brazilian dance group gyrating to a samba beat and hundreds of people surrounding tables of food, drink and chance. One of the main cafeterias had been set up like New Orleans with hundreds of gift baskets lining long tables named after various famous streets in New Orleans. This was the silent auction room and people seemed to be very generous in their bidding. There was one ‘French Basket’ that had lots of lovely goodies, and twenty minutes before the bidding was stopped it was already fetching $1500. We ended up the winners of a Ukraine Basket, which was filled with a small artificial Christmas tree and lots and lots of hand painted eggs. I told Cindy that it was the last Christmas tree we were ever going to purchase and since there were lots of people around she didn’t argue. I’m rather sure I’m wrong!
We had lunch today with our new friends, Katy and Craig, who moved here from Costa Rica. They are now settled in a magnificent apartment about a fifteen-minute walk from here. They invited us over for a glass of Prosecco to see their new digs and I’m relatively sure I’m going to move in with them and be their cook. They have a huge, not just by Russian standards, apartment with two large bedrooms, two and a half baths, living room, sitting room, dining area and enormous kitchen with a big table for family meals. There is a full-length enclosed balcony on both sides of the apartment and there is lots and lots of sunlight. The ceilings are tall and there is lovely decorative molding everywhere as well as grand glass chandeliers in most of the rooms. All of that, plus there is air conditioning in each of the bedrooms as well as in the living room. The apartment of course comes with a huge price tag, but it was wonderful for us to see how those in the private sector live, compared to educators.
We walked to a small Georgian café/restaurant for a light lunch. The joint didn’t have any wine that we wanted, so we washed everything down with local beer. Very friendly place and I’m sure if they go there often they’ll become regulars. The food was great and we had to depend on Cindy’s expertise with the language to figure out what was on the menu. I’m pleased to report that she did a great job (from CC: except for the pickles! They like to pickle everything and what I thought would be a nice mix of fresh vegetables was colorful and tasty, but not fresh.)
Our walk there and back was delightful since I didn’t even need to wear a hat; it was that warm and wonderful. Lots of melting and we could hear huge chunks of frozen snow sliding off of roofs and garages. The clouds are rolling in now, but the day was a true delight.
Hoping those of you in the USA have had a successful transition to Daylight Savings Time, which I consider to be a complete waste of time. Did I mention that when the Russians go onto Daylight Saving Time at the end of the month they will stay there year round? Yep, they want to keep a nice time difference between themselves and the rest of the Western World.
Happy Sunday, Cindy and Wm
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