Love and Helpful People

Sometimes a smile isn't the same in any language. That was the lesson we learned yesterday. I was under the impression (probably because I learned it in Sunday School) that when you smile at someone they can't help but smile back, even if they're having a bad day.

Fact. This is not true. You can smile at most Russians and they will not smile back.

But, that doesn't mean that you're alone. And it doesn't make them bad people. Just not "smile at you all the time people" is all. We had the most helpful person from Dan's office here in Moscow take care of us tremendously yesterday! He called a cab for us to get to the offices, told us a little bit about Moscow and how to act. (My favorite was avoid crowds because they may be protestors. My response... Really? The entire city is a mob...) He helped us buy a phone, because, as if the language barrier isn't enough, it's near impossible for a non-Russian to get a phone and sim card. And he took us home via the Metro and showed us how to buy Metro passes. So now, should we see a mob of protesters, we will know to avoid them, call for emergency help and run down to the Metro if they chase us.

When we first met, we exchanged pleasantries and we explained our to-do list and desperate need of help since we didn't speak Russian. He responded with the blankest look to Dan and says, "Wow. Brave Americans."

Now, I know that comment should NOT have given me the warm fuzzies, but it did. I'm proud of us. And I'm happy to be here for the next two years, living, experiencing and creating our story. It's hard, really hard, and thats part of what this blog is for, to focus on the stress through comedy-colored glasses. We left family, friends, jobs, our favorite bar and comfort. I'm just so thankful that Hubs and I both can see that its a good trade for excitement, adventure and blind faith.

Doesn't everyone have to make those sacrifices, though? We give up things and sometimes it not by choice, but luxuries are taken away, our story changes and we're out of our element. It happens and it works to create something beautiful. Something to be proud of.

Cheers to all of us brave Americans.

Love and Tourism

Today is the day! The day we shamelessly act like the Americans we are, camera around our neck, confusion on our faces and map in hand. At least, we would have a map in hand if we knew where to buy one...

First stop? Red Square! We grab a coffee on our way and thankfully, the lady behind the counter knew some English. (Unlike last night at dinner, when I had my first espresso because the lady didn't know that I just wanted a regular 'ol cup of coffee.) The hike to Red Square is about a mile from our apartment, so we just took everything and everyone in while we sipped our coffee and tried cooling off. Yeah, cooling off. Anytime you go inside anywhere with a coat on, it is unbearably hot. So, most of the time, the weather outside really isn't so bad.

We get to The Kremlin and realize we don't know a thing about anything tourist-y. Remember, we're figuring out everything on our own, including tourist traps. So we keep a keen eye out for any place people are walking in to without a ticket. Mostly because we're tired of the hassle it always is trying to get anything without knowing the language. For today, we just want to be content seeing everything. We can map it out like responsible tourist later. For now, we're hippie-fly by the seat of our pants tourists. Very Bohemian.

What amazing buildings! St Basil's Cathedral is just as bright and beautiful in person as it is in all the pictures we're been pouring over the last eight months! And The Kremlin? So spectacular. You can turn in a complete circle in the center of The Red Square and still not take in all the beauty and detail of each building! I wish I could give a good history lesson, but that will have to be another post, because even if I had followed the elementary school field trip tour, I wouldn't have understood a word that teacher was saying... Will research immediately and give a better update.

From there we wandered. I really like wandering with Hubs. You learn a lot about someone when you do, you know. Like what stores grab their attention (or what large gun t-shirts do), how aware they are of their surroundings and what they notice about people. Hubs notices haircuts. Specifically what he calls "I hate my dad" haircuts. Cracks me up. We found a lot of interesting stores accidentally today and had a blast doin it together.

On the way home, we stopped at a fresh market down the block from our apartment. It hadn't been open during the week, so we walked through and scoped out some of the freshest fruits and veggies. Finally, we got brave enough to buy some pickles. When we found out how cheap they were, we were hooked. We brought home potatoes, garlic, onions, lemons, lettuce, and a pear. All fresh from the ground and looking absolutely delicious! Dinner posts will not be the same from here on out.

We bought a couple of Stella's from a street vendor and went home, threw our onion, a clove of garlic and some diced ham into a skillet with our chicken we bought the other day and had this concoction over a bed of chipotle couscous. (thanks mom for the chipotle cubes!) We're pretty proud of ourselves. Especially since every day we've been in this apartment, one of our neighbors has been cooking the most delicious-smelling foods and I'm certain they're purposely leaving their door open for the rest of us stuck eating hummus every meal of the day to smell it. Who's laughing now, neighbor?

I love today.

Cheers to the tourists who made us feel a little more at home. Or at least looked more lost than us.

Love and Whatever That Is

We've made it to our apartment and now the fun begins. What is all this stuff?

Our front door key is (no joke) a skeleton key that must be inserted a certain angle then turned a certain way and basically it takes five minutes to lock the front door. You also have to have said key to lock it from the inside when you're in. This is no big deal unless the only in-flight movie you watched was "The Pianist" a movie about a Polish Jew hiding out during the Holocaust, being locked into different flats and almost starving to death because it was locked from the outside. Needless to say, Hubs doesn't go anywhere without me.

There are two doors to get in to our apartment, both heavily padded. Not sure what that means. Nor do I really want to know. And that is all I have to say about that.

There's some toilet-sink looking thing that we don't know how to work and even if we did, what the heck is it for? Hubs' guess is a foot wash. I'm not even making an attempt. I embarress myself enough as it is walking out around town wearing Northface.

Some things are really cool! Hubs' favorite part are the full-length mirrors throughout the apartment. This is a first for my 6'10 husband, this seeing his whole self in a mirror. Although slightly terrified by his own reflection at first, he has since overcome and now I can't get him away from that thing. I don't blame him. He is a handsome devil.

We were brave the first day and ventured out. Found a McDonald's right down the street and felt a little more at home. Although it was the largest McDonald's I had ever seen and it was packed! I guess if we Americans would get our happy asses out of our car and go inside to get our greasy food, it would probably be that busy too. At first we felt right at home, until we saw a picture advertisement for what we think is a breakfast taco and includes a piece of bacon, sausage, egg (that part was sketchy), potato and what I imagine was ketchup.

We found a French Bakery and bought our dinner and breakfast and everyone was really nice. Its easy to assume someone's being nice when you don't actually know what they're saying. But even had they been rude, the food was totally worth it.

After our afternoon out on the town, our confidence was up pretty significantly. We may not know any Russian, or how to use public transportation or where anything is, but we made it just fine and even got some tasty treats. Because a smile is the same in any language. I always say. So we used this new confidence to find a grocery store. Hubs gets the credit on that one. Hubs and Google Maps.

You would not believe this grocery store. It was nicer inside than most museums I've been in. Such intricate molding and statues inside, it was beautiful! It really did look almost cathedral-like with its high ceilings and artistry. The deli/meat market was in the center and held all sorts of foods and meats in its windows framed by rich mahagoney. If you're trying to get a mental image of what we looked like in all this, just imagine Beverly Hilbillies, only decked out in yuppie winter wear. Which is probably why a security guard tailed us all the way to dairy. (please, please let that be why...)

I know I say this a lot, but we don't speak or read Russian. Which made grocery shopping interesting. First on the list? Milk. We found the dairy section alright, then couldn't decifer the milk from the cream. And a popular brand, apparently is Parmalot. Now, all I know about Parmalot is the powdered stuff we had to take on camping trips when I worked in Tennessee and it's pretty awful. So we skipped that and grabbed a small carton of something that said 1.5%, which we thought we understood.

The rest of our trip was uneventful (minus that security guard following us and mumbling in his radio). We found couscous, pasta, spaghetti sauce, hummus, cheese and a delicious-looking meat pinwheel thing. (What kind of meat? Who knows. Green stuff inside? Meh. Your guess is as good as mine.) The eggs are possibly sketchy. The date on them was March 21st and we bought them on the 30th. We'll let you know very soon if that was an expiration date or a "we just got these from whatever animal laid it" date. Then we had to order some meat from a pretty burly woman behind the counter. Terrifying experience. I'm just glad she didn't have a giant meat cleaver in hand when we pointed at our meat of choice and smiled. That smile is still the same in any language, right? But we even survived that. Hallellujah. Things got even better when we found the wine and discovered that box wine is universal and cheap in any country.

After a couple declined credit cards, we finally found one that works and snuck out with our four bags of groceries costing us a total of $83 or 2,715 rubles and headed home.

The meat pinwheel thing was delish! It was turkey with some green stuff inside. Maybe pesto. Maybe finely diced and gooey spinach. Hopefully not green beets because I liked it and I've sworn to everyone that I hate beets. Hummus? Yum! Felt like home. The cheese we picked out tasted kind of like provolone, but we're still not sure what kind it actually is. And the wine? A much deserved bottle of cabernet from the south of France. We were pretty proud of ourselves.

Then, we decided to try the milk. Hubs loves milk, and since this was a taste test, I even granted permission to drink straight out of the carton. So he takes a huge swig of the cold, milky goodness to wash down our delicious meal....

And immediatly he spits it out and drinks the tap water (yuck!) straight from the faucet. Must be bad. It is bad. Literally. Because we bought buttermilk. I bet our checkout lady felt much better about all the declined cards she had to deal with us knowing that those stupid Americans would be drinking buttermilk that night. I knew I saw a rare, faint smile as we were leaving.

Quite a day, indeed. Not sure what we're eating, pretty sure I tried conditioning my hair with body wash and the only television we have is "The Walking Dead", which I swore I would never watch, but it's really not that bad and I didnt even have any nightmares last night!

Cheers to the smiles we give, intentional or not.

Love and Travel

As much as we complain about airports, security and packing according to TSA regulations, I think we forget about how much easier it all makes the leaving. When all four of our bags weighed exactly 50 pounds, therefore avoiding a major charge by the airline, I was doing the happy dance from check-in to the plane. No tears here, all high fives for the team that crammed that last sweater in, or perfectly calculated the file folder that weighed exactly .5 pounds. For that, I am eternallhy grateful to all airport security, especially the cranky ones who hate their jobs. And I sincerely apologize to family and friends who may have felt brushed off. I'm sure we'll call you crying next month in a Bortsch-induced fit of homesickness.

Once we got on our plane, set for 14 hours across the Atlantic, we were feelin' pretty good. Still not sure why we, both over 6' tall, got a middle and window seat while Grandma, maybe 5' (maybe), got the aisle, but we'll get to her in a minute. For the time being, we were in that moment of bliss when we realized that the wine was free and we hadn't really thought about the likelihood of our luggage not making the transfer from our connecting flight. Life was good, pure and we had our choice of movies on our own personal mini tv. Complete bliss.

Grandma was feelin' real good. I don't know how she did it, but she managed to fall asleep immediately after takeoff. Do the math, people. Now, we're stuck. And no amount of old 30 Rock episodes can save us now. But, in true honeymoon fashion, we were still all smiles and wine (still free!) Until Hubs fell asleep, leaving me alone with a full bladder and an empty wine cup. Not only was my only way out blocked by a sleeping 90+ Thai woman, but both her and Hubs were passing gas the whole time. The silent but deadly type. You know.

Finally, in a Cirque du Solei move I will never be able to duplicate, I managed to make it over Grandma without even a flinch from her. Fresh air at last! I go to take a lap and am hit by a wall of foul teenage boy BO. Hey, Russian Club Hockey Team, it may be dark, but I still know you're in here. Yikes. Not important, I needed to hurry back to my seat for plenty of time to fold myself back up in it.

From there the flight was fairly uneventful, and Grandma ended up being a real nice lady once she woke up for the last hour of the flight and wanted to talk the whole time. Real nice. Now comes that terrifying customs/baggage claim experience. I really do believe that there's some type of electric waves that make you forget where you put your passport five seconds ago and spiral out of control into a frenzied panic, throwing the items of your carryon everywhere. (Although, Hubs would ask if that electric waves follows me and applies to my car keys, wallet, book, charger, and anything else I'm using) I try and be extra sweet to the lady behind the plexiglass checking my passport, although that probably made me more suspicious, and next time I'll try to match her sour face, (what does she have to be so sour about? She knows where her baggage is...) and off we go to claim our bags. Talk about anxiety. I don't even know whats in these bags anymore after the packing, repacking, throwing out and starting over we've done over the course of the last week and a half, but I know it's important stuff that we need and I don't want it to have exploded in cargo or be lost in Moscow, Idaho. (a real city, by the way...)

Despite our anxiety, our luggage was fine, and thankfully, a significant distance from the stinky hockey team's bags. So here we are, ready to take over Russia!

But how do we get where we're going? Right. Our taxi driver. The jolly looking man with a cross between a rat tail and mullet who, despite our best efforts to tell him we don't speak Russian, insists on talking to us. Including questions about our temporary apartment that, from my understanding of non-verbals, he doesn't think exists. Off we go!

Driving in Moscow can be tense if you're not a super-defensive driver like myself. I was completely confident in our driver cutting people off and turning at the last minute, but apparently Hubs was white-knuckled the whole drive while I enjoyed the scenery. And the conversation I didn't really understand. In my mind, we were home.

Fast forward through a really long cab ride (our driver did know the English word "traffic"), a super-hidden secret apartment and an elevator that nearly took off an arm each, and we really were home. Home. Together. Happy.

And so we start our story.
Cheers to those who made it happen.