The last few days at our place have been a little out of control. This morning Elena caught James with a bunch of 100ruble notes that he managed grab from the top shelf of the dresser. She noticed him carefully feeding the notes one by one through the small gap in the ajar balcony door and letting them flutter six floors to the street below. As James noticed her noticing he hid the bunch behind his back, stuffed one more note out and blamed Ryan!
During the lesson about not throwing anything out the window that followed, I don’t know why but I asked James if it would be ok to throw his favorite teddy out too? Without thinking he nodded and motioned approvingly toward the window. Elena with her quick wit applauded me for not volunteering Ryan in place of Teddy!
Later in the evening it was Ryan’s turn to do something silly.
Ohh man these kids are hard work at this age! My age, not theirs!!!
The stars and the moon finally lined up work wise for a weekend getaway! Getting the weather for the trifecta escaped us this time but we still made the effort and packed up the kids in their winter warmies and headed off to Mir Castle or Мирский замок in Russian.
In my Trip Advisor review I shortened the whole story to…. Quaint Belorussian town, nice castle, service as usual!!! So if you are bored already, have better things to do with your time or flat out lazy, just leave it at that and go to the photos. Otherwise, read on!
We called our favorite taxi driver Jenia, who was happy to take us on the 100km ride for a very reasonable price. Actually for what we paid you probably wouldn’t get far away from an airport in the states and nowhere in a black cab in London.
Our hotel was relatively newly renovated and actually located right in a wing of the restored castle with views over the small lake complete with ice fishermen. The rooms were nice enough but it was obvious that they were trying a little too hard to go hi-tech with all the electrics working through little remotes stuck to the wall where the switches usually would be. The remote above the bed (also stuck to the wall) was the master that controlled all the other remotes and to the kids delight also the motor drive curtains! At the same time they’d run out of budget for carpet underlay and mini fridges.
We settled into the rooms quickly and headed off to the city to stock up on wine, cheese and fruit that got left behind in Minsk during the usual tense moments that seem to be unavoidable before we go on any trip. Not far away from the hotel / castle there is a small town square with four little grocery stores with a selection of wines. Unfortunately there was nothing over 23,000 Rubles ($3) for semi sweet and the dry selection was limited to 15,000 Rubles ($2) across all the stores. In the end we chose the most expensive bottle we could find hoping it didn’t turn out to be overly sweetened grape juice with a hint of petrol on the nose.
Anyway, amazingly enough in all but one of the stores we were alone and the one store that had people in it had a que, at the alcohol counter. We couldn’t imagine how much of a discount they could have been giving based on the prices we had seen so it could really only be some sort of credit driving the trade. In any case either the cheap alcohol or credit on alcohol is Sad, very sad!
Things have warmed up a bit here. The difference between -30 and -12 I have learnt, is quite a bit. At -30 I need a double layer of thermals and socks while at -12 a single layer is fine. One thing I did notice with double thermals is that it is almost impossible to discretely clear even a mild wedgie!
Winter started more than six weeks ago and finally there is enough snow to take out the sanki (sled) and give James his first ever sanki rides! They weren’t without incident though, as you can imagine.
There was a heart-stopping moment for about a dozen morning commuters last Tuesday in a pedestrian underpass in central Minsk, Belarus. Shortly after 10am the peak hour rush was in frozen animation for several seconds while a projectile about the size of a 1/2 litre thermos flask ricocheted loudly in different directions down into the underpass. The object came to rest near 8-10 startled people. One bystander later said it was like a slow motion scene from an action movie!
Later in the day a slightly embarrassed expatriate worker came forward claiming that it was actually a Thermos knocked out of his backback bottle holder by the hand railing as he was maneuvering his bicycle down the ramp. He added that the thermos survived the heavy fall and still works fine even with a few dents, scratches and a slightly oval shape.
I don’t know what happened but I just saw this assignment topic on CNN called ‘Eye on Azerbaijan’. With my two years of experience way behind me in the 90′s I thought I’d go through a few of my old photos to see if there were any worth sharing. What a trip down memory lane that was sorting through to find something decent to post. Anyway, I got some together and posted my first ever iReport at CNN. It ended up being the 2nd most read post in the assignment series right behind one called ’10 surprises about Azerbaijan’ and with a title like that of course it’s gunna get clicked!
More and more people are beginning to be able to support themselves from income from their personal web presences. Photography is one area that has recently stood out as one that can generate income for all levels of photographers. While I’m still struggling to monetize some of my better images others with only a few years in the photography business are making an excellent living while really taking the time to actually live! One such person is Trey Ratcliff who with only a few years taking photos his site Stuck in Customs has 150,000 of hits per day on his photos! Yes per day! Monetizing that sort of traffic to some extent can’t be difficult but the way Trey has gone about it is truly admirable. His doesn’t accept paid advertising, he doesn’t endorse products and doesn’t do contract photo shoots. All he does is provide plenty of free content, personally interacts with his massive online community and then sells his stuff at reasonable prices. Go check out what he has for you!
After failing a couple of roast lamb legs in recent times I went for a rack of pork today with a recipe that I found on Taste.com.au. Looking for as many healthy options as possible (without going OTT) Richard and I rode the 6km round trip to Komorovski Market hoping that the little old ladies in the free section (home grown produce) still had some good veggies and also to lessen the chances of eating at midnight which has happened more than once before. We found the market a lot busier than usual with most isles making you feel like you are in a flooded river full of black coats jostling you for no apparent reason. Unusually on this trip we didn’t run into any really super rude sellers and got what we needed in pretty good time. With back packs full I snapped this quick photo of an old lady making garlic chains to pedal to the rivers of people.
The preparation for this meal was surprisingly simple and not at all messy. Finally dinner was up around 5.30pm with an hours help from Daylight Savings which we hadn’t noticed had kicked in until timing the roast. Probably the last time I’ll be at the market at 9am on a Sunday morning!
The roast pork turned out pretty good. The crackling wasn’t that crackly but then we didn’t eat it anyway as we were going for the healthy option. The 2.4kg rack was turned into a small slither of one rack with a little stuffing and no roast apples. Yummy!
Just out of curiosity I pushed the little microphone button on the google maps (maps.google.com) page and dictated an address off the top of my head. Here are the strange / funny results…
1. it’s kevin place scrotum I c t 2615
2. I did ask evan place (I tried to drop the state and post code)
3. 87 place curtain
4. meskerem play scripts in icy t 2605
5. ice skatin place cookin I ct 2605
6. ice skatin place curtain I c t 2605
7. ice skatin place clifton act 2605
8. thanks kevin place curtain act 2605
9. thanks kevin play scripts in a c t 2615
Maybe it’s my accent?
For those of you who don’t know the address see if you can work it out!!! Comment with your guesses.
With a long dreary three day weekend on the weather charts for Minsk and the only hope for some sunshine being a little cloud seeding by the government for the May 9th celebrations I thought I might pop over to Warsaw in Poland for a looksee. The 8.40pm train looked great getting me in at about 6am. As usual I cut things a bit fine before travelling and attempting to purchase my ticket 15mins before the train didn’t pan out so well. Negotiating my way to the front of the line with 5mins to spare the cashier said “you have to buy that ticket from the international cashier” pointing towards other windows with zillions of people waiting. Weighing up pushing my luck any further I decided I’ll settle for a dreary weekend and headed home.
While pottering around feeding on the last of the pelimeni and sour cream, surfing the internet and chatting on Skype with home (who btw thought it was hilarious that I missed my train) I noticed that there was one more train to Warsaw. This time it was just after midnight arriving at 8ish in the morning. With the trip back on again, bag still packed and family taking even more piss out of me I flew out the door with yet again time pressure to not miss my second train for the day.
My experience from earlier in the evening I managed to go directly to the correct cashier in the adjacent building to the main terminal (important information for catching a train from Minsk to Warsaw) where this time there was no line at all. Just one single cashier dimly lit in her booth alone in the huge building. Great I thought as I approached her again with only about 15mins to spare. Of course nothing is that simple in Russia or even Belorussia. It was her break!!! The dreaded ‘technichki perireef’ sign clearly noted on her window that from 1155pm to 0010 she was on technical break and not going to serve me. She did manage to tell me that there would still be plenty of time after her break and before the train to purchase the tickets and indeed there was, I finally made it.
Train wasn’t the newest but it was nice enough. Strange design almost European in design with three seats facing a wall with a small sink in the corner. The bottom row of seats turns into a bed as to be expected and the top bunk was permanently out. I didn’t mind the configuration as I didn’t have any surprise travel buddies to accommodate for my third train ride in a row. The one unusual, obviously soviet inclusion that I did get a kick out of was the apparent vanity cabinet above the sink. Upon opening it I found as to be expected in such a cabinet a mirror and a shaving outlet which came in handy for charging the notebook. The kicker was the neatly arranged and snugly clipped in vodka decanter and three shot glasses obviously carefully thought through to match the number of seats in the compartment.
The ride was pretty uneventful just the border crossing was a bit of a pain. It takes a good two hours with customs and immigration on both sides pretty intense as you could fairly expect crossing from the Russia to Europe. The worst is the 45mins of jolting and banging as they do some pretty serious work to get the wheels the right gauge for the tracks on the other side. I managed to get about three hours sleep after doing some urgent work as is usually the case as I head anywhere for days off or vacations.
Long lost in a pile of junk paper of bank statements, 4th grade homework, unpaid bills, etc. I just found this classic hand written note.
When J wakes up
Change diaper
feed the boy: 4 spoons (spoon is inside the tin) of “Kasha” and add milk (2%, warm).
can give him some banana (if still hungry)
Play time
then around 2h later can give a litte snack (cheese or bread) a little drink (juice is on the tbl) * mix water 3 * 3oz.
should sleep now.
I’ll be on the phone or online
Kiss
Hope be back for lunch.
So after the shock of waking up in the deep end of the pool I got to, following the list to the letter. Things were going well for the first few points and I was thinking that I’m a super dad until the food wasn’t enough and the begging started. So i simply repeated the steps so far that had worked well pouring more food, juice, food and milk into the kid. Problem solved for another 30mins or so until it was poo time. Hey, that wasn’t even on the list! Negotiated the situation well enough though and with just one more oz of milk he was back to sleep.
During an enjoyable evening meal at the Barcelo River Maya Resort just south of Cancun James started a debate with Richard. At first it seemed like a general conversation but actually (after checking Wikipedia) it seems that they actually followed general debating rules pretty well. OK so James did all the talking and acting and Richard just sat there but all the motions were correct and fully in character.
If you happen to be traveling from Monterrey, Mexico to Moscow, Russia in low season and you have a US visa DO fly Delta via Atlanta. The small plane we had to Atlanta was very new, so smooth and far from full, I thought we were in a private jet. Then on the 767 to Moscow I had at least 15 seats to myself which meant I could catch the Atlanta city views leaving, have dinner watching the movie (which was somewhat fittingly, Greed is Good) from a comfortable seat, nap in the center three seats, have breakfast watching the sunrise over the artic somewhere and then see the Moscow city sights on the way in. Really very good and probably even better than business class. I couldn’t stop thinking how nice it would have been with all the family there too! Richard would have loved it, James would have explored the whole cabin, plenty of room for Ryan to sleep, Babuliya could have made nice beds for everyone out of the abundant pillows and blankets and while they are all happy Mum and Dad were certainly going to be happy.
While Richard and I were at the Monster Jam this afternoon Tatiana was busy training James. By the time we got home he was already walking around with semi-confidence. The icing on the cake was the little dance at the end!
