Love and an Introduction to Siberia

Took a little hiatus, and we'll get to all the adventure-packed stories of our visit back home, but first, for the sake of my emotional health and sanity, I must update you fine folks on our current location, Noyabrsk, Russia.

Here's the backstory...
The whole reason Hubs and I are in Russia is because of Noyabrsk. In fact, we were originally supposed to move and live here in this 100,000 person town in the middle of Siberia instead of Moscow, an eleven million person hub. The town was established in the 70's by the oil industry, so it's still fairly young, but unfortunately has peaked in infancy. While the oil field does still run the town and provide the majority of jobs and probably pretty well-paying ones by Siberian standards, most employees work on a rotational basis, thirty days on, thirty days off, so there hasn't been the kind of growth this place needs to open a Starbucks. Or even a McDonalds. Yeah, I know. Whoa.

Hubs, therefore communtes to work from Moscow for a few weeks along with his travels throughout the Russia/Caspian Region on various jobs. And I stay in Moscow. But this week we have to be in Noyabrsk to apply for our multi-entry visa. Maybe one day I'll write an entry about how to get a visa in Russia, but I'm afraid my blood pressure may already by high today and my sanity near gone, so I'll save it for a day in the future, when things have stabilized a bit.

The flight itself wasn't bad. I had to work extra hard to not think about the horrible reputation Russian Airlines have for using poorly maintained planes that routinely crash and kill all their passengers. Maybe someday I can adopt the Russian "positive" attitude ("Another plane crash? Flights will be cheaper now, no?" insert deep Russian accent in there, and you've nailed it.) but for right now, I adopt the American attitude, wishing I had some Valium. In the end, Hubs and I compromised between the two and drank vodka. Viva la Russia.

We made it to the airport just fine. The system for arrivals is borderline hilarious and again proves my theory that they make up jobs for the billions of people in this country that otherwise would have none. We get off the small plane, hop on a bus that they cram as many people on as possible and drive us twenty feet to the gate. Seriously. I could see the gate from the bus, read the words on the signs, everything. I could also see from the plane that it looked like a prison gate, which was unsettling considering that Russian prisons are typically in Siberia. The bus was probably because someone's brother-in-law needed a job and public transportation in town wasn't hiring.

Once we loaded everyone on and drove 15 seconds to the gate, we waited outside the baggage claim building for our luggage to arrive. It was a beautiful day as you can see from the pictures, a little chilly compared to Moscow and downright freezing compared to Texas in August, but comfortable and sunny, a welcome break after our flight. But then you have to think about what it's like waiting outside in January. Isn't someones brother-in-law's cousin work in construction and need a job? Have them build a waiting area for Heaven's sake! Another thing to remember if ever you're flying to Noyabrsk, you cannot lose your baggage claim ticket. A concept completely foreign to yours truly. Even as someone who routinely has luggage lost or late, I always lose my baggage claim ticket and it always works out in the end. But here, you have to give them your ticket and they retrieve your baggage for you. One Russian woman was unfortunate enough to have lost hers and I felt so bad for her as she was digging through the trash and making her husband search high and low on the street and in dirty corners for it. I don't know what she had to do to eventually get her luggage, but she did manage to walk out with it, and as far as I could tell was not missing any toes or fingers for not having that precious ticket.

As for our luggage, my sweet husband is just too plain nice for his own good, letting anyone in front of him who put any energy into shoving their way up the line. He might argue that he was only letting in women with children or the elderly, but I call it collateral damage. Sorry. For ya. At any rate,

We made it to the hotel after a quick stop at the office and I was completely exhausted, still not yet recovered from the jet lag of our trip from Texas back to Moscow. Silly of me to think that getting a hotel would be easy. Our hotel clerk used the same technique Hubs does, which is to just push through the language barrier by continuing to talk in your own language. Usually this makes me laugh, but I was so tired and worried that we were encountering an actual problem with our passports that it wasn't funny until typing it out just now. Apparently, one of the only hotel employees who spoke English was out, so they had to call her and bring her back in so that she could explain to us that we couldn't stay without registration paperwork.

Huh?

A friend of mine had told me about this registration paperwork awhile back, so I was instantly mad at myself for brushing it off with, "Meh, if we needed it, the company would have given it to us..." No big deal. Just call someone from the office to bring it up or talk to the hotel clerk. But then suddenly neither of our phones were working, an issue we have yet to figure out since they work just fine now. By the time I was completely convinced that we would be sleeping in the streets of Siberia, we finally got a call back, and Dan's supervisor smoothed things over, we were handed a room key and off we went before they could change their minds.


Our room was beautiful. Large, with plenty of shampoo and shower gels, eye covers for the late night daylight and a large tv. We fell straight to bed and dozed. Until our room phone rang and we were told that we were given the wrong room number. The room we were actually supposed to be in is about half the size and with paper thin walls. When I say paper thin walls, I'm not talking about your college dorm, people. I'm talking I can hear everything and our neighbor seems to be on Skype for hours at a time. With a small child. Who screams. Screaming child via Skype. That was our soundtrack our first night in Siberia. Eesh. It wasn't bad for me, I was completely exhausted and slept for ten hours straight, waking only periodically when the screams were particularly loud. And let me tell you, there is nothing more terrifying than waking up in a strange country, in a new city and thinking theres a woman and child who have somehow managed to get into your room. The sound was that close. And the hotel must know it's that bad because we had a pair of complimentary ear plugs on the bedside table.

Frankly, we were spoiled by our trip home to renew our visas. And maybe Russia wasn't too fond of her new guests abandoning her so soon into our acquaintance.Writing about it now helps calm the nerves I sometimes get at the possibility of failing at this grand adventure. I don't always have the best attitude when I'm in the moment, and sometimes it comes out in eye rolls, pacing, pestering Hubs, vodka and yes, even elbowing small children. (But usually only when they're cutting in line. Usually.) But, I have to remind myself that we won't fail at this because the "this" is "us". And if at the end of the day, we love each other despite our crabby days and babushka sucker punches, if we can make each other laugh and feel at home half a world away, it doesn't matter if a tear falls or a meal is skipped or if we are sleeping on the streets of Siberia because a hotel won't let us in, we haven't failed each other.

And, to start a new day, the next morning our hotel neighbor played Aerosmith's "Greatest Hits" album. And random Aerosmith background music? Now thats something I can get behind.

Cheers to neighbors near and far, without whom, our stories and our soundtrack might be lacking.

Love and a Long Week

No big, funny event to talk about today.

That's not entirely true, I guess. I got my first double call today in Moscow from a dear friend who looks after me while Hubs is gone. For those of you who don't know what the double call is, it's a technique I've used with friends and my mother to signal emergencies. Let's face it. With the invention of Caller ID, we all ignore some calls if they're not convenient or you don't have the time for what you know will be a long catch-up sesh. But if the caller immediately calls back (the double call...) then you have to pick up. At the risk of past bosses finding this out, I have excused myself from some really important meetings because of the double call and only a handful of times has it not been worth it. But I only have one friend with enough attention-seeking issues to abuse it and I won't say his name or the bar he manages in Corpus Christi in order to respect his privacy.

Contrary to what some people may think, I don't lounge in bed all day. But today, thats all I wanted to do. We're almost done with week four of Hubs being gone and it's getting a little rough. To make matters worse, he hasn't had phone reception since Monday, so I don't even get to hear that goofy laugh, witty one-liners, or tender, loving voice. I miss it all.

I have to interject now and let everyone know that, no joke, Coldplay "The Scientist" (you know, "nooooooobody saaaaaaaid it was eeeeeeeeasaaaaaayyyy...") song just came on in the coffee shop we're sitting in. I can't make this stuff up. I would cry, but there are too many Coldplay jokes out there to not crack a smile.

Anyway, the double call wasn't an emergency for my friend, it was for me. I'm still not sure if she knew that I was moping or not, but had she not called again, I probably would not have left my bed. But I don't have to describe what being sad and staying in would have looked like. We've all done it.

Instead, I want to talk about Hubs. I want to laugh and remember instead of be sad and wait for him to get home.

Here recently, I've been sharing our wild love story to a lot of people I've met. I don't mind, in fact I love telling the story and every time I remember a detail I had forgotten and it takes me back to a time so recent but, having come so far in such a short time feels like forever ago. So here's our story. Some of you have heard it, some of you are a part of it, some of you are in for the surprise of your life when you hear it. But I do believe that you will all love it.

When I met Hubs the first time, it was through mutual friends and he was actually dating someone that I knew. We didn't talk, just a quick introduction and that was it. Fast forward about three years and there were are at a bar, with quite a few different mutual friends. I was freshly out of a relationship and had decided that I would never date, much less marry. I didn't have too much longer before I turned 30 and would be labeled a Career Girl rather than a confused 20-something who can't seem to hang on to a man. So when a tall, handsome man walked in, I purposely ignored him. How cliche, right? Like I should instantly like this guy because he was significantly taller than me? Whatever. Ignore. But he recognized me and says, "hey, I know you." And then he walked off. Oh boy. Where did this guy know me and what embarressing thing had I done to make it memorable? I wish I could say this was the first time this kind of thing had happened, but I had already learned that people will remember the crazy things the lanky tall girl does, whether she notices them or not. And my friends know exactly how to convince me to do stupid things.

Once I mustered the courage to ask him how he knows me, and the relief that came with it not being embarressing for me, we hit it off. We chatted every now and then and I gave him my number. I will swear till the day that I die that I gave him my number because I thought we would be friends. Not that it mattered, he didn't call me anyways. Not for an entire month. And the only reason he did was because he was talking about me to ANOTHER mutual friend (how we didn't meet sooner is beyond me...), our friend put it together, made some texts, which I played very uninterested (he didn't call me for goodness sake!) and THEN he called and we made plans for dinner the next night.

Our first date was a Friday night. I found this incredibly strange. Who plans a first date for a Friday? I mean, if ot goes bad, you've wasted a good going out night. And you can't use the "I have to be up early for work" excuse. But that's Hubs, he doesn't think like that. The idea that our first date could be a train wreck didn't even cross his mind. It sounds so silly but it's the Friday Night Date concept that started to get my somewhat jaded heart ready for loving him.

We talked for hours, then an impromtu trip to the dance hall. Which led to planning a second date wade fishing. Yep, wade fishing. For those of you who know what people look like when they're wade fishing, you can understand what a bad choice for a second date this was. But, I had decided with this one that I would be myself to a complete fault. And the quicker he could see me without makeup, and not being a fan of mornings, the quicker we would know if we're just wasting each others time. He picked me up at 6am, I wore the rubber waders in the form of oversized overalls and out we went into the water. I baited my own hook without any help while still squealing every time I thought a shrimp was going to attack my hand as I was goin in. And silence. We just fished. We didn't need to talk and fill time with empty conversation but we learned that we each love outside. We love birds and sun and water and all the noises that come with it, we don't need to muddy it up with talking just to talk.

Not that we didn't talk ever. It seemed that when we made plans to meet for lunch or dinner, we would need to block off at least two or three hours because there was always a story to tell or laugh about and getting to know each other was so fun. Hubs is an easy person to talk to because he oozes honesty. That little part of his brain that should tell him, "hey that story probably won't impress the ladies..." just doesn't exist and I love that.

Hubs instantly adapted to my off-beat group of friends, our weird hours, even weirder jokes and affection for spontaneous karaoke. You always know where you stand with him, which makes it near impossible not to like him. And he routinely sided with my buddies in our famous shit-throwing battles (proverbial, not literal...) which also helped his likeability.

I could go on and on and on about the small qualities that I saw in those early months that Hubs and I were dating. Little did I know that I would later eat my speech about taking things slow and not jumping straight into talking about marriage. Because just under four months to the day of our first date, we were engaged. And the only reason it wasn't a month earlier was because he had to order the ring...

And those little things that impressed me so much about his character have turned out to be on a much larger scale than I imagined. Which is exactly whats keeping us so happy here so far away from home. If it weren't for his laughter and humor, our story about buying buttermilk instead of milk would have had a different ending. If it weren't for his super social awareness powers, our attempts at guessing what the Russian means without actually knowing Russian would probably have us in a Siberian prison. If it weren't for his thoughtfulness, I would probably cry myself to sleep every night being so far away from home. If it weren't for his easily talked into an adventure spirit we would never have been crab hunting, exploring random cities, dancing in a Russian night club, or a whole host of other crazy things we've tried. If it weren't for his kind heart, we wouldn't be blessed tenfold that kindness by way of friendships old and new. And if it weren't for the combination of all those things, on top of the added qualities like honesty, compassion, hard work, dedication, and enormous capacity to love it wouldn't be near as exciting as it is to look forward to the adventures that will come in the next fifty years.

I miss you so much, honey. Come home to me soon.

Cheers.

Love and the Banya

The long-awaited Banya Blog. Obviously, there will be no pictures, I don't think there allowed in there... I tried to copy some from the website, but no such luck. If you want a visual, the official website has some good ones here.

I've been wanting to go to a banya for awhile now. It's kind of a staple here in Russia. In fact, Hubs actually beat me to it because they have a banya at his rig site in the middle of nowhere. So imagine a forest, twenty miles away from the nearest town or person, a couple old, nasty trailers with bunk beds for sleeping and a complete banya. Something we would consider a luxury is a necessity, even to all the dirty oil men out there working. Fascinating.

So, my friend that I lunched with last week has been a few times, so she offered to take me and I quickly accepted. Hubs had given me a bit of an idea about how it works, but I went in with a pretty open mind and I was so excited to really get into the heart and soul of Russian culture.

The banya we went to is the oldest in Moscow and it is beautiful. 1100 ($33) Rubles will get you in for three hours and you add on other things that you may want. They have everything you can imagine as far as spa treatments go. Scrubs, wraps, massages, you name it. They also serve cafe style food, teas and, of course, booze. Your bill can really start to add up.

This particular banya has two levels, the upstairs is a little more expensive at 1700 Rubles ($55) and offers a little more privacy, but it was closed for renovations. Besides, I wanted to full Russian banya experience, like everyone else. Little did we know that Tuesdays are senior citizen discount day. Now, we haven't actually confirmed that, but its the only explanation for why we were the youngest people there by at least 50 years. No joke.

There's something you should all know about Russians. For the most part, modesty is not a priority to them. But before you judge them, think about this... Before the fall of Communism, there really wasn't such a thing as privacy. A friend of mine helped me understand this by telling me a story about her experience at a doctor's appointment. The doctor wanted her to strip down, even though she just needed a prescription for something like a cold. She, being from America, refused and demanded a new doctor that wasn't such a creeper. But they weren't being creepers, thats just the way they do things. Secondly, after the fall of Communism, Russians went from only receiving propaganda, to being able to get their hands on popular magazines. And these magazines were usually Playboys, and various fashion magazines. This all influenced norms in style and behavior.

So, now that we have some insight into the Russian brain, on to describing this banya experience.

Here's the breakdown. You walk in, rinse off and head to the steam room, a large room with wooden benches and a stove. Actually, from what I've read, it is two stoves. One with the fire that heats up the rocks in the other stove. These rocks heat up and once everyone is in the room, one of the staff throws water on the rocks to create the steam. And boy, does it get hot in there. You just start sweating like crazy, and you feel like you're breathing straight steam. You really can't stay in more than ten minutes or so, partly because it's uncomfortable, but I think it's also unhealthy.

You can buy these branches that are bundled together and you hit yourself with them. It's supposed to promote good circulation and let me tell you, it really does feel great. We didn't pay for a Babushka to hit us with the branches, so I'm not sure how great that would feel, but I'm sure I'll find out as I get bolder.

As soon as you get out, you stand under a bucket, placed high on the wall, pull a string and POW! The coldest water ever is poured on you. I knew it was coming and this was the part I told me friend that I probably wouldn't like. Surprisingly enough, it was awesome. Couldn't get enough. And it's good for you! The heat and sweating cleans out your blood vessels by expanding them and releasing toxins, and by immediately going cold again, those blood vessels retract, leaving the toxins out for disposal.

They also splash some type of oil on the walls. It smells like peppermint and even though my sinuses were fine to begin with, I felt like they were completely cleaned out. I'll definitely be going back at the first hint of a sinus infection. My lungs were squeeky clean afterwards! There really are tons of health benefits to this including circulation, kidney health, better immune system, heart health and it releases endorphins.

You take some breaks inbetween, sitting and having tea and snacks in a waiting room type area, and you are free to bring your own masks and scrubs instead of pay the spa prices. But you really don't need them. My skin felt so great after a few trips even without the aid of scrubs and such. Very, very refreshing. (once you got out of the heat...)

I'm sold and we've already planned to make it a weekly trip. And for those of you who will make fun of my new ritual, I can't wait till I look like I quit aging at 29. You'll be sorry. All of you.

Cheers to doing as the locals do. Only the Russians could find a way to be healthy without working out and eating healthy foods.

Love and the Beach

Monday was a real treat for me. I got to hang out with some new friends. You may know them, Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh? Yeah, no big deal.

The FIVB beach volleyball Olympic qualifiers tour made a stop in Moscow over the weekend and I was able to go on Saturday and on Monday. Saturday was qualifiers, so there were lots of teams playing, mostly men's teams. Monday was the women's playoff day and by far my favorite.

What always strikes me as funny about beach volleyball fans is the fact that they are ready to play. It's like they're just waiting for Phil Daulhausser to get injured so they can stand up and say, "Good think I wore my board shorts today... Sub!" In the land of Speedos, I have never seen so many pairs of board shorts. Not even in our coastal town back home. So strange.

I went on my own, packed a lunch and basked in the sun. It was heavenly. Speaking of Heaven, I then heard some people behind me speaking English! I don't normally go up to people when I hear them speaking English, as tempting as it is some days. Mainly because people are weird. Even English speakers in a foreign country like Russia. In fact, in my experience, I'd say it's a pretty good indicator that one is bat-shit crazy if they're in Russia and English is their first language. But I was in a pretty specific group of people and after finding some courts, I was really jonesin' to find people here to play with.

They ended up being really nice! The guy was from Belgium and his girlfriend or wife was from Russia, but a small town outside of Moscow. We chatted about living in Moscow, volleyball and, of course, Hubs. I still can't go five minutes without dropping a Hubs Bomb into the conversation. My new Belgium friend played beach ball on the national level until he his achilles ruptured. (I can hear the collective virtual "oooooowwww" from here...) Then he moved into coaching. When I told him about the courts in Gorky Park, he seemed excited to play!

After the tournament, I went for a quick walk around Victory Park, where the tournament was being held. It didn't have the garden-like atmosphere I found at Gorky Park, but it was nice all the same. Lots of food and trinket stands, memorials and people eating ice cream and strolling around. The park has a rich history and is a place to pay respects to vetrans of war as well as the strength of a nation. Napolean himself camped out here back when he had the city surrounded and waited for the people to give him the keys to the Kremlin. Now, it hosts fountains and monuments to great wars and vistories. It really is a special place.

So, even though we didn't win (Walsh/May-Treanor came in 2nd to China), it was a fantastic day. I still haven't heard from my new friends, and I might not. but the conversation alone is another indicator that I'm gonna be ok. That life isn't so different here. And to wrap it all up, I got to take in a pretty amazing view of a pretty amazing city. A pretty amazing home.

Cheers to new places, faces and views.

Love and Lunching

I've really hit the meeting cool people jackpot here in Moscow. There is no other way I would survive being away from Hubs for long periods. The other day, I had lunch with one of my cool people and I feel that I should share because the whole experience pretty much sums up what living in Moscow is like.

It started off easy enough, I suggested a cafe that another friend had discovered, so we start walking the right direction. Only we took a wrong turn somewhere, not enough to get us lost, but enough to not be able to find our destination. Oops. Sorry.

So, my friend suggests a place that she's familiar with and off we go. Only we walk a few blocks and she says that maybe it's not the right direction. Oops. Again. Here we are, Red Square in the background, an American and a Canadian walking in circles trying to find a place to sit and eat.

We were close to La Cantina, so we headed there and sat on the patio ready to people-watch and chat. And what a great time we had chatting! And that's the cool part about meeting people overseas. So many similarities. You can't hear or tell a story without the other person laughing before the punchline because we both know the end of the story. We swapped market shopping stories, language barrier stories and husband stories. (All good, Hubs...) And there's a connection. Because I get bullied into buying fruit that I don't want too. And I don't know what to say either when someone starts chattering on in Russian. And I love my husband so much that none of it matters, just like my friend. I won't say that other people don't understand what its like to make sacrifices that don't feel like sacrifices because the love and affection you feel for that person drowns out the rest, but she understood that concept specifically in the way that I did. In the pack your things, tell your friends and family goodbye and hang on.

We ended up staying on the patio for close to four hours talking, laughing and making plans. All the while being interrupted by various transients as they pass by. One spoke English, kind of. It was more like drunk-anese because every time I thought we understood what he was saying, he threw us for a loop. By far the hardest one to get rid of. Other than that, it was an assortment of Babushkas and transients chattering away in Russian. Thinking about it now, I guess I would target the two English-speaking women on a patio for four hours straight on a Thursday.

We ordered the business lunch. These things are awesome. Only 250 rubles ($8) and it comes with soup, a salad and an entree. Today's special was salmon soup, Greek salad and tilapia with rice. Everything was so good leading up to the entree, and I was so wrapped up in conversation that I took the biggest bight of tilapia I could fit on a fork. And thats when I bit down on multiple bones. Now, it doesn't help that I am married to a master fisherman who's filleting skills are out of this world, but I just can't handle bones in my fish. Yuck. Yuck. Yuck. However, if you're on a diet, it is better to have some because you eat very slowly. Like one half-inch flake at a time slowly. Regardless, a delicious meal.

Not ready for our lunch chat to be over, we ordered coffee. Five minutes later, a gentleman at another table ordered coffee and got his in a couple minutes. Thirty minutes later, another gentleman ordered coffee and promptly received his. Eventually, we decided that we should ask again and sure enough, got our coffee. Service in Moscow is so different. Our waitor didn't even blink an eye when we ordered coffee for the second time. Meh. No big deal.

So. To sum up our afternoon... We got lost. Twice. Found a patio with Red Square within our view. Two panhandlers later we received our meal. The preparation was different than I'm used to. Three panhandlers and a drunk later we asked for coffee. Five stories, one panhandler and a second request for coffee later we received said coffee. Ten missed calls and messages collectively later we parted ways. It was a great, great day.

And this is only one instance of the good fortune I've had with great friends.

Cheers to new friends and the stories they bring to the business lunch table.

Love and Independence

Halfway through writing that last blog about holidays, I realized I needed a whole new entry to properly explain Russia Day.

As you just read, we have bad luck with Russian holidays and Russia Day was no exception. But, I tried to ignore the fact that we really need an answer on the second apartment that we've picked out. (even though our contract has been waiting for approval for over a week now...) And instead, I wandered to Red Square to see how people celebrate this holiday. I told a friend of mine here that I was headed that way and she promptly responded cheerfully, "Have fun! Watch out for protestors!" This, of course, made me laugh, and also made me desperately want to find said protestors.

I think I found them. Let me explain.

I walked to a park that was lined with metal detectors and military personnel. Lots and lots of military personnel. I walked all through the park and in the end, I walked right past a major protest without knowing it. I guess I was looking to hard to see what was in front of me. Either that, or the media has sensationalized all of these protests that have been going on. According to one news report I read here in Moscow, protestors claimed to have 100,000 people in attendance to protest Putin in power, but police report 22,000 and another source said 10,000. I imagine that these protest leaders are so passionate about these protests that when people start showing up, the say to each other, "Look at this!! There must be 1,000,000 people here!!" Then the police report a smaller, group that is large enough to make them look tough, overworked and underpaid. I don't know who gives the lowest number. Cranky Babushkas who watch them invade their park, probably. I found the picture online and I have no idea how I missed this. I told a friend of mine about the experience and she said that she's not sure about the legitimacy of these protests. She said that most of the time news stations use stock video and photos and the clips that they show may not even be in Russia at all...

After being disappointed by not finding the protestors, I continued on the Red Square, where surely they were celebrating somehow. And I was getting hungry and I figured I could snack on some street food once I got there. But by the time I got there, they weren't letting anyone in. Everything was blocked off and they were only letting in military. And, get this, there were even MORE military personnel here! Where are they coming from?

In all seriousness, it is a pretty crazy time here in Russia. No cause for alarm, these large protests are very peaceful. (It's the soccer fans that get crazy...) I'm not here to talk Russian politics. I really don't know too much about it. But I do know that they passed a law banning protesters of any number, punishable by large fines ($5,000+ USD) And some top protest organizers had their homes raided by Russian police on the Monday before Russia Day. It's an interesting time to be in Russia, to say the least.
I did stop and get some Kvas, a traditional Russian drink. It tastes kind of like prune juice beer, but its non-alcoholic. Well, it's maybe 1% alcohol content because it's fermented rye bread, but thats practically a kids drink here. Sarsaparilla would probably be the closest equivalent you could find in the States if you really want to try it. Hubs tried it and did not like it one bit. I, on the other hand, knew I wouldn't like it and prepared myself for the worst-tasting beverage, only to be pleasantly surprised.

Other than that, Russia Day was kind of a letdown. I was hoping to experience the culture and pride of Russia, but was severely dissapointed. Unfortunately, I think the day was one big near-miss. Apparently, Red Square was blocked off because they had a huge commemorative concert, and the protest made it on the BBC News that night. I went to the food court in the mall and had a piece of pizza at Sbarros. Not very Russian, except for the keg beer served at all the food court eateries, including Burger King, KFC and Churches Chicken (or Texas Chicken here in Russia...) but I didn't even do that!

Cheers to the near-misses and the stories not seeing them creates.

Love and Holiday

It's official. Russian holidays have screwed us on every deadline for important paperwork. And I have no idea how these holidays work. I mean, I'm all for an extended break or any reason to celebrate, but this is getting to be ridiculous.

It's partly our dumb luck. We're magnets for it, in case you haven't noticed. And luckily for us, we think it's all pretty hilarious. But, you can't help but wonder what the universe is thinking when every...single...deadline falls on a holiday.

It started when Hubs went to Russia for the first time to do the medical testing for his work permit. The company had to schedule his flight literally the night before because Christmas was coming up, and after that, Russia has the month of January off. Technically, it's only the first ten days, but we have confirmation from office staff that since January boozefest is so crazy, they don't get anything done while they're out of the office or the first week they're back. I've named this week "recovery week" and its an in-office holiday. I'm certain its celebrated by making the rounds to cubicles throughout the office, swapping stories and hangover cures. I wouldn't be surprised if they had vodka hour in the break room that week.

So, applying for our first visa over a month-long holiday pushed our time back a bit.

Then, we're so close to getting our visa, we have collected all of our paperwork, filled out the application and the day we go to send everything to the consulate is a holiday. International Women's Day. This is a predominately Communist holiday, apparently (I looked it up on Google...) but I'm not sure what happens except no work. Of course, this year it fell on a Thursday, which means they also took Friday off. And we were left waiting again.

We made it to Russia in March and we lucked out with the holidays for awhile. March and April, when we really didn't need anything done in a hurry, didn't have any non-working holidays. (Not even Easter...)

And then May. May 1st is International Workers Day and no one works, but they take to the streets and protest work. Putin even joined them out there this year. Which is crazy, because if he's protesting his job, he should probably just step down. It doesn't seem like people like him much right now around here. This holiday landed on a Tuesday this year, so Monday was also listed as a non-working holiday.

Then came May 9th, Victory Day! Everyone loves Victory Day here. They pass out ribbons in the street for weeks before, the whole city cleans up and repaints everything to look nice and every other day, they take the tanks out for a practice run before the big parade down the main highway leading to the Kremlin. It really is a pretty cool experience. We missed the actual day because we were in Dubai, but we caught a practice run and watched some videos on YouTube. Victory Day is celebrated in many countries in Europe, but on May 8th. It's the day Nazi Germany surrendered, ending the Second World War. People remember and recognize WWII vets, expressing their thanks with flowers, wreaths, marches, and fireworks galore. Victory Day fell on a Tuesday this year and, you guessed it, Monday was also listed as a non-working holiday.

The fact that these holidays are so close together made it impossible to get anything done that entire week and a half. (Always factor in the in-office recovery time...) And where it became a problem for us was that we had to get paperwork and medical testing done before leaving Dubai since our visas expired June 30th. Important emails weren't forwarded to us and people couldn't be reached by phone. On top of that, we were being kicked out of our temporary apartment on the 2nd (you remember that story...) and roads were closed on major roads to get to our new apartment because of street cleaning and practice runs.

We found out the day after Victory Day that employees here in Russia work on Saturdays to make up for their weekday holidays. Helpful information had it come the week before. I don't blame them for keeping that hush-hush to the rest of the world. I'm sure everyone's main project on Saturday workdays is to avoid work. It would be for me, thats for sure.
This week was Russia Day. A day that celebrates Russia claiming independence from the USSR. It's kind of like their Fourth of July. I found out that it was originally called the Day of the Adoption of the Declaration of Sovereignty of the Russian Federation. But they renamed it. It fell on a Tuesday this year. I'll give you one guess as to what people here did on Monday...

The timing on this one was bad for us because we're waiting to hear back on the apartment that we chose three weeks ago. The paperwork has been sent to the legal department awaiting approval for a week prior to holiday. Then holiday. Definitely makes from some anxiety since this is our second attempt at permanent housing, and our experience with Russian holidays has taught us that for every one day off, there is anywhere between one day to two weeks of in-office recovery time. Don't they know that my mother asks me about the apartment every day? I swear, if we lose this one, I'm giving her the phone number so she can just call them for a daily check-in. We Americans work through hangovers, you can too.




Cheers to holiday. And the day sometime in the future when we will be able to appreciate them.