Rainy Day Feeling

Cold, wet, windy and once again I got caught in the middle of it.  Why does it always rain here on Tuesdays?  I walked down to the embassy to get a haircut and some household stuff at the Liberty store. It was grey, brisk and windy, but no hint of rain.  The minute I step out of the embassy, the heavens open and it rains to beat the band. Fortunately, I had on a raincoat with a hood, but carrying groceries in a driving rain while trying to keep everything dry, presented quite the challenge.  At least I was moving, which is more than I can say for traffic. The minute it starts to rain, traffic backs up for kilometers due to accidents and all you can hear are car horns blaring, as though that will really get traffic moving.  

Incidentally, the USA usually gets very horrible marks when it comes to our embassies throughout the world. They are usually concrete cubes with very little architectural excitement to them. Compared to most, this one isn’t bad. Here is a picture. 

US Embassy with a Seven Sister in the background

Speaking of Moscow traffic, here is a clip sent by one of our readers, Judy, in San Diego. You need to have a strong stomach to watch this:

Click here: Video: Moscow motorcyclist's crazy high-speed commute — Autoblog

The dinner party last night was lovely, but lasted too long.  We had invited two single women who are elementary teachers and live in our apartment complex to come and have a home cooked meal. They arrived about 6:30 and we had drinks until about 7:00.  I made a Provencal Lemon Chicken; the recipe is similar to one that a friend sent me from Marcella Hazan. She only uses salt, pepper and two lemons, I use a bunch of other stuff.  Basically, you clean the chicken and rub the inside and out with lots of coarse salt and then rinse and dry the chicken.  You then take two lemons and soften them up by rolling them on the counter with your palm applying lots of pressure to break up the pulp inside and get them juicy.  Pierce the lemons all over with a fork and then rub course salt all over the outside of the lemon and slip them into the chicken. Seal up the cavity, rub the entire chicken with salt and pepper and herbs de Provence, and place the chicken breast down in a roasting pan and place in a 350-degree oven for about forty minutes.  I also like to put sliced carrots and quartered onions around the chicken and let them caramelize as the chicken cooks. Just before the time is up, raise the temp to 400 then take the bird out and flip it over and place it back in the hotter oven for another forty minutes.  It should be exuding clear fluids, smelling like heaven and brown like a berry when you remove it.  Transfer it to a cutting board, cover lightly with foil and let is sit for ten minutes while you place the carrots and onions on a serving dish, and drain the lemony juices into a serving pitcher to pour over the chicken.

To round out the meal, I made roasted garlic smashed potatoes with olive oil and Parmesan cheese and buttered green peas with mint.  I cut up the chicken and got everything to the table where Cindy served while I placed the bread pudding into the oven and sliced up some whole-wheat baguettes.   The ladies sure did love having a hot meal and they were very generous in their praise.  After we had eaten and enjoyed some wine, I served the hot bread pudding with crème fraiche and real maple syrup.  I made the bread pudding with old French baguette pieces and real dark Russian bread, which made for lovely contrasting colors.  I plumped a generous handful of raisins with some local brandy for about two hours and caramelized a Granny Smith, cut into small pieces, with butter, cinnamon and sugar.  I mixed that with the raisins and then tossed all of that with the cubed bread before adding the mixture of eggs, butter, sugar, milk, Ricotta cheese, cinnamon, nutmeg and fresh black pepper.  I cooked it for forty minutes at 375 until everything had set up and it offered a bit of resistance when poked in the middle.  Just what was needed on the first really cold night of autumn.

A few of you have asked for a bit more detail on what Cindy really does all day.  Well here is all you’ll need to know, directly from Cindy’s article in the AAS Newsletter.

 http://www.aas.ru/files/filesystem/Dispatch_October_2010.pdf

Arnold the Terminator is here in Moscow promoting Silicone Valley and hoping to get more American companies to come and do business in Russia.  What he fails to recognize is that there is so much corruption and graft that most international companies just can’t make a go of it. IKEA has halted the expansion of its stores in Russia because they don’t like to be shaken down by every contractor and petty politician.  However the American Chamber of Commerce loves to have him come over and play and he does great interviews.  Here are some pictures of him in Moscow playing politician and tourist.

That’s it for today,  Cindy and Wm

Arnie with Ambassador

Just hanging on the Metro

Great Earmuffs

New Gym Attire

Neither of them could decide what 8 track to play

Autumn Ends

Happy Columbus Day! Wish he had bumped into Russia so Cindy could have the day off.

And just like that, it was gone. Autumn seems to be over.  The sun has turned traitor cold but Joni sings it much better: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3EofN3Flag&feature=related

Quiet day today, it being a Monday, there were the normal loads of laundry as well as shopping and cooking. We are having two guests for dinner this evening so I’m making some comfort food for a cold and windy night.

We finally got rid of the water cooler that we were renting.  It stood in the dining room like a loud and uninvited guest.  It was always either chilling water or heating it and the noise could be heard from the bedroom at night.  We purchased a big plastic pump that fits the five-gallon jugs, no muss, no fuss and no noise.  It really works better than the cooler since you can fill any size vessel as opposed to little glasses.

I feel a little bit like Jimmy Stewart in a Rear Window. I can only look into the parking area but every Monday and Thursday, there is a well dressed gentleman who arrives around lunch time in a chauffer driven car and comes into our building. He is here for two to three hours and then he departs.  Could be a nooner or could be he is taking Russian lessons; I’ll never know but it is intriguing nonetheless.

Need to get cooking for the dinner party.  Here is a wonderful picture of Moscow at night taken from a commercial flight over the city.

Moscow at Night

   

  For those of you that have the day off, have a wonderful time!!  Ciao, Cindy and Wm

10.10.10 Perfection

10.10.10 was a perfect day in Moscow.  The natives are a bit restless since they know they’ll pay with very bad weather later for the lovely weather now, but we are content.  This was a day made for walking in parks and that is exactly what we did.  I found some new routes and Cindy and I explored them together reveling in the warmth and watching in amazement as the locals tried to become solar collectors as they absorbed as much sunshine as possible.  We found a little park that had two lovely ponds filled with ducks and geese and old men along the banks with fishing rods. We must have walked for about two hours and ended up at a local brew pub called Sixteen Tons, where we shared a great cream of sorrel soup and a chicken sandwich, washed down with a pint of their local pale ale.

Romeo and Juliet was a grand experience.  The production was held in the New Bolshoi since the Old Bolshoi is still closed for repairs.  It is scheduled to open in November after having been closed for three years.  It really didn’t matter; everything about the production was so wonderful that they could have done it in a high school gym for all I cared.  The music, choreography, costuming, and the sheer athleticism of the dancers had my heart racing from the overture to the curtain call.  I’ll attach some photos of the New Bolshoi; it is really quite lovely.

Entrance to the New Bolshoi

Grand Facade

Clean Well Lighted Bar

Great Frescos

We are second tier, left side, last row

View from our level

AAS has a visiting author who is here for a week and she is accompanied by her husband, his brother and the brother’s wife.  They were also invited to the ballet last night and we were all supposed to be picked up by bus at six pm. Cindy got a call at five pm saying that the bus was stuck in traffic and that we were to take the guests to the Bolshoi by Metro and meet everyone else in the lobby.  We dutifully met at the gate and walked them to the Metro and shepherded them down the escalator, into the Metro and out again at the Bolshoi.  No one had told us that the Old Bolshoi was not yet finished; in fact I had been led to believe that the production was to be there.  We took lots of pictures of the guests in front of the Old Bolshoi, whose façade is complete. I couldn’t for the life of me find out where to enter and then I saw lots of folks at the top of the hill entering the New Bolshoi, so we walked over there and found the others. There were about twenty in total because all the directors from the international schools in the Central European Region were being hosted by AAS.

At the end of the production we were all to march across Red Square so that everyone could see St. Basil’s at night and see the great lights on the GUM department store.  Click on any of the photos to enlarge them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUM_(department_store)

The ballet ended at 9:25 and we didn’t get to the bus until about 10:20 due t othe walk across Red Square. Traffic was horrible and by the time we got to our drop off point it was 11pm and the restaurant we wanted to go to was closed, so we walked another fifteen minutes to the Temple Bar where we arrived just fifteen minutes before the kitchen closed.  It is an upscale, expensive place but what could we do. We had an enjoyable time and didn’t get home until 1 am, far, far too late for us.

Tonight will be early, very early and we hope to catch up on some well-deserved rest.  Happy Sunday, Cindy and Wm

Hermitage Garden Walk in Moscow

We went to a little TGIF party at the apartment of the Principal of the Elementary School. He invited all the elementary teachers and staff to come over to unwind and it was a loud party.  It is funny to see how quickly these teachers have become a team and how much they seem to enjoy one another’s company.  We had a good time talking with everyone and stayed for about an hour before coming home for dinner.

I had made a lot of stuff for Cindy to eat while I was gone but she didn’t eat much of anything so I had to use up what was left.  (I ate a lot and it was all delicious – he just left a bit too much!) The obvious answer was soup, so I made a rich chicken soup with lots of veggies. I cooked the rice in a separate pan and then when everything was ready just spooned some of the rice into a bowl and covered it with chicken soup. Cindy had made a great salad the night before that we didn’t get to so we started with that and some dense, moist, thickly crusted brown bread.

This morning was another beauty and we went out for a run at about 9 am.  I had decided that if I could run so much at the airport, I should try to get back into running again.  Cindy took off like a flash and I was more of an afterglow, but I managed to run for a total of about ten minutes, not consecutively, but not bad for day one.  I must say the legs are holding out but the breath control is shot to heck. Walking is great but it doesn’t do much for the breathing. I’ve a long ways to go, but I’ll get there. 

We ended with espresso at our local café, where we can also pick up a free copy of the weekend English language newspaper, which always has interesting articles, and reviews of cultural events and restaurants. One of the exciting things about getting rid of Mayor Yuri is that now everyone is turning against him and especially his taste in art. He was quite close to a sculptor who did lots of commissions for the City of Moscow, most of which have been universally despised by the citizens. They are now thinking of getting rid of most of his work.  Here is a funny article on the subject: http://www.mn.ru/local/20101007/188107997.html

After breakfast we made plans for a long walk in the city. I had noticed a really lovely church on one of my wanderings but didn’t head over to it, saving it instead for a time when Cindy could come.  We wandered down the main drag towards the Kremlin and then went under the street to some side roads that lead to the church. It has five spires of white and blue, topped with gold leaf onion domes, very Bavarian. It was a modest church with a lovely garden and we enjoyed being the only ones in there.

We next headed for the Hermitage Gardens - set on the grounds that house the New Opera and several other theaters - including an outdoors theater. We knew we were near the gardens when we saw all the limos decorated with flowers lining the street. It is a tradition to go to as many of six or eight particularly beautiful places in Moscow, with your entire wedding party and guests accompanying you, to have photos taken.  There were at least four wedding parties wandering around the grounds posing everywhere. It was a perfect day with lots of sunshine and lots of great color.  I’ll post some photos of the gardens online. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Hermitage_Garden

Victor Hugo in Moscow

Garden Walk

Heart Wind Chime in a Heart Garden

Victor again

Garden Cafe

Garden Fountains

After that we just walked and walked and walked on back streets having a ball finding little things of architectural interest, or little restaurants, shops and theaters tucked away on side streets.  We finally got home and realized we had been walking for three hours.  It was grand.

Tonight we have been invited to see our favorite version of Romero and Juliet (Prokofiev), at the Bolshoi no less!  We are so excited and can’t wait to see what they have done to the Bolshoi during the three-year renovation. It only opened a month ago. Here is one of the best bits with the incomparable Nureyev.  The Sharks and the Jets it ain’t!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI9akyHz_wc

Lots of details tomorrow, Cindy and Wm

Back in the USSR (Happy Birthday John)

Moscow welcomed me home with a beautiful - albeit cold - morning. Sparkling sunshine and crisp air made the quick morning walk a delight. I’m now sitting here waiting for the water man to come and remove the water cooler. It makes too much noise and we don’t need something that big.  The water man is like the cable guy, they give you a five hour range of times when they might come and you had better be here or they’ll not reschedule for weeks. 

The flight home was easy and on time. I had two checked pieces of luggage and one carry-on, which is a lot of luggage for me but I purchased lots of things in Germany that we can’t get here, including a new piece of luggage to carry all the goodies.  Lufthansa continues to be an excellent airline with great service from check-in to touch down.  It took one minute to check in at the priority counter at Frankfurt International.  Within this minute the bags were tagged and boarding card issued along with an invitation to the lounge (Star Alliance Gold Card works wonders overseas), and all of it done with a big smile.  It took quite a while to get through security due to the heightened tensions in Europe.  I had to play a little bit of my harmonica, just to prove it wasn’t filled with C-4 or some other plastique.  One of the security women clapped when I played the opening strains of La Marseillaise.  Click on the button on the right to hear: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Marseillaise

The plane to Moscow was an Airbus 320 and Lufthansa has a funny way of dealing with Business Class.  Every seat on the plane is exactly the same in terms of pitch and width. (31.3”/17.3”) which makes it difficult to sell Business Class in terms of comfort. So what LH does is to block the middle seat for Business Class and then they have these clever little trays that come down from the middle seat with a place for your elbow and an insert for a glass.  You can then lift up the armrest and all of a sudden you have 19.8 inches of width.  They have these little trays on the first eight rows of the aircraft and they have a sliding partition so that if there are only a few folks in Business they will move the partition to make the first four rows business and the rest coach.  Well yesterday I was in row 8 on the aisle and there was someone on the window but no one in the middle seat when they closed the doors.  I knew where the little latch was that releases the tray and I engaged it and lowered the tray to the delight of the guy on the window. 

I don’t know if it set off an alarm but all of a sudden a flight attendant was there telling me that I couldn’t have the tray down, that was only for business class.  I gently inquired as to what difference it would make since the seat was empty and we weren’t asking for any business class amenities.  She said that if others see it they would want to do it. I reminded her that the rows behind me didn’t have the tray and the two rows ahead of me had three per row so they couldn’t use them. I smiled and promised to raise the tray and lock it before landing so no one would see it on the way out.  She smiled and said that would be okay.  Gotta love the Germans, play it by the rules until you are called on it.  Other than that, it was a swell flight. They don’t have any entertainment on the 320s since they are used for flights under four hours and I guess they figure you should be able to entertain yourself for that long. They do, however, provide a beverage service with free wine, beer, juices, sparkling wine and soft drinks.   They also serve a hot meal with two choices; yesterday was a very good chicken breast with fresh veggies and the other was a Bavarian wurst with potato salad and cabbage.  Just like the old days where the tray had a salad, hot bread and butter, cheese, a little chocolate bar and a delicious Zwetschenkuchen, plum cake.

We landed about ten minutes late and I was sure that I would have to wait for the 7:30 train to Moscow since I knew there was no hope of getting my luggage and getting all the way to the train station in twenty five minutes.  I cleared customs in two minutes and looked to see which carousel my bags would be on. In the amount of time it took to go to the bathroom and get a luggage cart, they announced our luggage was coming up. My two bags were among the first to arrive and I decided to try for the 7pm train. I was off in a shot and it felt like that old O.J. Simpson ad for Hertz. I was tooling down the airport terminal, evading folks as I sprinted with my cart to the ticket counter. I had exact change, got my ticket and started the long sprint to the train arriving just in time to toss my bags into the car and hop on as the doors closed and we took off.  I was huffing and puffing like a sixty-four year old and dropped to my seat in exhaustion. 

We got to the metro station at 7:45 and I started hauling my three bags toward the Metro stop.  It is a fact of life that train and metro stations in Moscow are built with the assumption that everyone is traveling with one small bag. The doors don’t open to allow two bags through, the turnstiles are too narrow so you have to push one bag and pull the other, and there are certainly no luggage carts.  I struggled down to the metro, hopped on at exactly two minutes to eight and hopped off at exactly eight ten and proceeded to schlep my bags to the apartment.  Cindy was waiting for me with a lovely dinner and cocktail service that would rival any first class flight.  Her little uniform was also adorable.  Before we had cocktails I had her sit down and I started to unpack all the bags.  I had purchased five bottles of assorted booze, two pounds of German coffee, a big bag of Gummi Bears, a big tin of Mozart Kugeln (great candies from Vienna), two blue pashmina shawls, a bottle of German honey, four back issues of the International Herald Tribune, a small computer bag, and four bottles of sparking water. All of that in addition to my clothes, computer and accessories, earphones, iPod and toilet kit. Now you know why I needed to get a new suitcase and why the two bags were so heavy.

Ok, the water man cometh and goeth so I’m going out on the town.  More later, wm

I set out to visit Chekhov’s Moscow home and was very disappointed that it turned out to be the writer Anton’s home and not the navigator Pavel Andreievich of the USS Enterprise from Star Trek.  However, since I was there I gave it a look-see and the garden was worth the walk. Good thing too since the museum was closed and the garden was all I could visit. No Cherry Orchard and no Seagulls, what a bummer. It was a good two-hour walk and it was just an incredible fall afternoon.

Anton's Home

Pavel's Home

Best from Moscow, Cindy and Wm

Get Away Day

Off to the airport in ten minutes.  I know my flight on Lufthansa will be smooth and professional.  I doubt if the flight attendants will be able to do this:

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/870755--video-flight-crew-dances-through-safety-demo

More tomorrow when I’m back in Moscow.  William

Nerobergbahn

I decided to walk last night instead of having dinner.  It was such a beautiful evening I didn’t want to waste it inside.  After about two hours of wandering, I was a bit hungry and got seduced by soup.  I was walking in an area new to me and there was this little hole in the wall that just sold soup.  I had the chicken broth with a poached egg in it and it was divine.  It came with a slice of piazza brot with garlic and I had a glass of wine with it.  A perfect meal for a tired walker.  Got to bed early and was up at six and walking by six thirty.  It was fun to watch the city wake up and the day promised to be perfect in terms of weather. 

I was done working by noon and came back to the hotel and changed into walking clothes and it the pavement.  I walked up to the Nerobahn, which is a water/gravity propelled tram that goes about 500 meters to the top of the Neroburg, small mountain.  Walking there was about two miles and it took me places I’ve never seen in Wiesbaden.  There is this darling little park called Nerotal, Valley of Nero, which goes almost the entire way from city to the bahn.  On one side the hill goes straight up, the first third filled with very, very expensive and beautiful old stone homes, that the rest is vineyards.  Wiesbaden use to produce mediocre wines at best but now they are experimenting with some new varietals and some of them are really wonderful.

The little Tram that could.

I got to the bahn (train) stop and found out that it wasn’t going to be running for a while so I walked up a forest path to the top of the hill, about 1000 feet.  It was a lovely walk and quite strenuous and it got me a tad upset when a group of about twelve seven year olds passed me on the hill.  I think I might have lost a step or two from my youth.  On the top of the hill there are jaw-dropping vistas of Wiesbaden and the surrounding area. The weather was just perfect, about 70 degrees and crystal clear.  There is also a Russian Orthodox chapel!!  I just can’t escape them.  On the way down the hill I came across lots of mushrooms that looked good and I was hoping those kids would come by again so I could test the mushroom on them.  Here is all you need to know about the tram.

Russian Chapel on top of the Neroburg

View of Wiesbaden from the top of the hill.

The Tram on the way up the hill.

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

Dinner tonight with some of the DoDDS folks and tomorrow I’m out of here in the morning for my flight back home.  Got to get ready now so I’ll sign off for now.  William