so close, so tantalizingly close...

Well y'all, sorry I haven't written much lately, but every day for the past, oh, 2 weeks, I've been promised that the rest of our things will arrive. And they haven't. Consequently I've been spending my days getting amped up and then disappointed. We are told that tomorrow, seriously, honestly, we mean in this time, that our things are FINALLY going to arrive and we'll FINALLY be able to truly settle into our new place. I hope I'm not jinxing it by blogging about it. But one of our coworkers did mention the happy arrival of their possessions, and our stuff was on the same truck, so barring some sort of disaster, we will get our things tomorrow. So, I'll be busy sorting through all that for the next few days, which means further blog delays. Sorry.

In the meantime, I leave you with something totally awesome. We've been looking for a place that delivers pizza so we have something to munch on while we unpack. What I found was: Mr. Pizza.



It's fabulous because the website is in English and you can order online. Not to sound like a lazy American or anything, but I've been concentrating all my food vocabulary on hoagies, not pizza, so I'm relieved that I have time to study up AND get pizza at the same time. Also, the pizza's pretty tasty.

The best part about the whole thing, though, is the hilarity of the text on the website. The crowning glory is this notice that you receive when you place an order:

"If everything is correct, please press the submit order button to complete the process. Mr. Pizza or Mrs. Pizza will call you after receiving the order to confirm. Thank you for welcoming Mr. Pizza into your computer!!! Now it is time to LET HIM OUT!!!"

Yes, tomorrow, while we LET OUT!!! our belongings, we will LET OUT!!! Mr. (or Mrs!) Pizza at the same time. I just hope you LET ME OUT!!! of guilt for not writing a more interesting blog this week. :)

dacha, schmacha

Last Tuesday, much to our delight, the pile of excess junk in our apartment was finally removed. Hooray! No more oodles and gobs of lamps! To our disdain, however, we still haven’t received the rest of our stuff. We’re still waiting, not-so-patiently, for the day when everything will finally be settled. Sigh.

In the meantime, we decided to take a long-anticipated weekend at the dacha.
For those who are uninitiated, a dacha is pretty much a summer home/cabin in the woods. A dacha is more than just a place, however; it’s usually accompanied by a certain aura. Surrounded by nature, close to a body of water; slightly rustic, but still has some comfortable amenities; a place where you can feel completely away from the city- breathe some fresh air, take a sauna, get some sunshine, grill some fish. A dacha has an air of purity and relaxation.

At least, most dachas do. Ours did not.

This dacha is owned by our office. It was apparently included in a lease for another building, and so it was decided that it would be a nice little perk for employees to enjoy on weekends. This perk has been in place for some time, but recently it has been deemed a waste of money. First thing to go was the dacha keeper, a sweet little old lady who lives near the dacha and takes care of it during the week. You know, trims the shrubs, vacuums, makes sure things are in good working order. About 6 months ago, the office decided that paying her, oh, $50 a month or something ridiculous was an unnecessary expense. “Surely our employees can clean up after themselves!” Perhaps, but when you go up for the weekend to relax, are you really going to mow the lawn and caulk the cracks and dust the shelves? Um, no. Most of the Americans here have hired housekeepers for their real apartments. Who was the genius that thought on their day off they would suddenly feel like cleaning?

Armed with this information, we took a few precautions. We brought a set of sheets and our own towels, but we figured otherwise things would be pretty neat. It’s not like we work with total animals, right?

Wrong.

The dacha was a pit. First of all, the poor lawn is embarrassingly overgrown. The neighbors must be worried about their property value. It looks like white-trash central. Second, it seems that people can’t clean up after themselves in even the slightest capacity. Thank god we brought sheets, because when we went to the bedroom, we were greeted with hairy pillowcases on the bed. Ew. Thank god we brought flip-flops, since the floors were dingy. Yeesh. Thank god we didn’t plan on cooking while we were there, since even the “clean” dishes were slimy, and we didn’t see much in the way of cleaning materials. Actually, the lack of sponges and soap led us to throw away two glass baking pans. When we opened the fridge, we were greeted with these two pans, which were uncovered, had been in the fridge for god knows how long, and were filled with greasy-looking potatoes and watermelon. Oh, and a fork was still stuck in one of the potatoes. How thoughtful of the last person- making it easy for us to just dig right in! Mmm-mmm!! Lest we be blamed by the next visitors as the culprit, we decided to chuck the whole business before it came to life.

Besides this grossness, you can tell that what repairs were attempted were shoddily done. For example, someone tried to spruce it up several times by giving the inside a fresh coat of paint; however, they didn’t bother to scrape or sand first, so now there’s this thick, chunky layer of paint on the walls, making them look deformed, and where it’s cracked, all 9 layers are coming off at once, so an inch-thick piece of dingy paint curls away from bare wood underneath. Classy. Also classy were the piles of dead wasps on the windowsill in the bedroom.

These pictures don’t do it justice. I tried to be nice to the poor dacha by framing it nicely and using low lighting. I swear to you it was filthy. You can tell by looking at it that it used to be nice, which makes it even more depressing.

The front of the building…



The overgrown lawn...



The grass-stained, peeling-paint-covered back of the building...



The dingy living room.



Well, we said to ourselves, at the very least, we can get some fresh air, some sunshine, and a good meal. We decided to start with a good meal and fresh air, and began walking to some restaurants we saw on the drive in.

The fresh air was a joke. The walking trail, which leads to the beach, the restaurants, the occasional store and more dachas, was sandwiched between some trees and a highway. Which means you’re in the shade, but as you walk, you’re breathing in the fumes from diesel-engine, run-down, non-emission-standards cars and trucks. Greeeeaaaat. As for the good food, the restaurants were extremely pricey and didn’t have anything more than standard cheap bistro fare. No fresh fish? We’re 10 feet from the Gulf of Finland! C’mon! We’d soon learn why there’s no fresh fish. First, though, we found an affordable place and had a mediocre meal, and decided that for dinner that evening, we’d save money by getting a frozen pizza. We bought one and a couple beers from a produkti and headed back to put them in the fridge.

All is not yet lost, we told ourselves at this point. There’s still the beach. We’ll wade a little bit, sit in the sun and read a book. We gathered up our beach blankets, some reading material, and headed toward the beach. As we walked along the trail to the beach, breathing in the pollution, we couldn’t wait for that fresh sea air. We saw the beach getting nearer…



And took a deeeeep breath of.... RAW SEWAGE!!! Mmmm!!

It was then that we looked to our right…



and our left.



Apparently locals don’t take any better care of their surroundings than Americans. Well, we thought, okay, it will get better as we get closer to the water. We pressed on, and… nope. It wasn’t the trash that stank. It was the WATER. The lime-green foam washing up on the beach was all the confirmation we needed. My god, how polluted can the Gulf of Finland be? Apparently, really, really polluted. With a deep sigh, we trudged through the mockingly white sands back to the exhaust-ridden walking path.

On the walk back we did encounter a small bit of nature that hadn’t been destroyed somehow. First we came across a hyper-color caterpillar on the trail. I’m wondering if we found some new species of caterpillar made technicolor by hanging out near the filthy gulf too long.



Also, since the air is moist from being next to the gulf, there were a ton of snails around. We had a good time watching them slime up the foliage.





And, at least we still had the sauna. It seemed to be the one place in the whole dacha that hadn’t been destroyed somehow. Probably because, by their very nature, saunas are clean, which means that the dacha’s previous visitors stayed far, far away. We also had a working oven, frozen pizza, a TV, VCR, and a very bizarre selection of videos left by past vacationers. We took a steamy sauna, then settled into to pizza, beer, and Home Improvement reruns, complete with 15-year-old commercials. Good times.

We left the dacha in better shape than we found it. Besides throwing out the health hazards in the kitchen, we washed the sheets and towels so they wouldn’t be hairy for the next people. There wasn’t much else we could do. Rather, there was MUCH more that could have been done, but it would have been futile. As it turns out, the office has decided that renting the place at all is too much of a perk for its employees, so after the lease runs out this fall, it will return to the hands of its owners, who have a LOT of work on their hands. Guess that means no more drunken revelry for our coworkers; they’ll have to confine their filth to just one place. As for us, we’re not sad about seeing it go; only sad that we won’t have, and apparently never truly did have, a place to just get some fresh air.

red-letter day

Monday I accomplished an incredible feat. I ordered a sandwich at Subway. Yes, I realize that this doesn't sound like much in and of itself. But man, that is a LOT of Russian vocabulary to remember. Meats, vegetables, breads. Do I want mustard? Mayo? Salt and Pepper? Not to mention the accompanying chips and drink. And cookie. The cookies at Subway here are really good. I'm quite proud of myself for getting an entire meal, all by myself, without getting laughed at or having to get out a dictionary.

Yes, practically everything is more difficult to accomplish here than back home. For example...

We are still only half-moved in to our new apartment. The majority of our items are still in Antwerp, and the things that are NOT ours still darken our entryway. It's leading us to a sort of stressed indifference. I can't stand all this crap all over my apartment, but there's no point in trying to organize everything until the rest of out crap arrives. Sigh.

The one thing that could not wait, however, was getting a shower curtain. We're fairly certain that our long-awaited collection of possessions does not include a shower curtain. Nor was one included with our welcome kit of dishes and linens. After two days of taking baths, the novelty wore off and we set out to buy a shower curtain.

We looked into many small shops in the area that sold toiletries, hardware, fabric and small appliances, but no sign of shower curtains. ?? Is there some sort of special shower-curtain store here that we don't know about? Are they only sold on the black market?

Finally we found a high-end kitchen and bath store. The kind of place that sells artfully simple faucets that only 2 percent of the population here could possibly afford. After drooling over the hardware (who knew a mere hot water knob could be so beautiful?), we finally found shower curtains. Just in time, too- the last ones in the store, and they weren't planning on ordering more. They were apparently imported from Britain. Seriously. Do Russians shower at all??

Since we have our bath and a guest bath, and since they are enormous tubs, we ended up needing all 4 of their remaining shower curtains, which came out to almost $100. Certainly not the kind of sum I'd like to pay for a friggin' shower curtain, but it was either that or wait another month until our car arrives and we can drive to Ikea. Sigh.

We brought them home and set them up and delighted in our first shower, until we noticed that the water wasn't draining. It was then that we realized that the curtanis were dramatically too long. Our master bedroom and bathroom are in the loft, which seems to have been added as an after-thought to our apartment. It's a good thing my spouse and I aren't very tall, because the ceilings are maybe 6 ft high. Then the tub is propped up quite a bit from that, which means that there's just enough room between my head and the ceiling to fit my hands inbetween to scrub shampoo on my hair. The curtains were made for normal showers, you know, the kind that can comfortably accomadate people over 5'5". Consequently, most of the curtain was piling up in the tub, blocking the drain. After a week of wrestling with them for every shower, and releasing the water they collected afterwards, we decided it was time to find a tailor.

Tailors are also not particularly common around here, apparently. Which surprises me. There are shoe-repair shops on practically every corner, which leads me to believe that people fix things before replacing them. Wouldn't that apply to clothing, too? We found a couple recommendations for tailors and set out last weekend to find them. The first one, a 20-minute walk away, had a mysterious sign on the door, stating that they would be closed on weekends through the month of August. Sigh. The other, a 10-minute walk, metro ride, line switch, another metro ride, and another 10-minute walk away, also had a sign in the door- a faded one stating that they had moved to another location. Over a year ago. Several more metro stops away. Argh.

This left us with only one solution. Since I'm the one who has spare time on weekdays, I would have to drop off the curtains at the first shop. Eek. Maybe I can order a sandwich, but I certainly don't know how to ask for alterations.

Jonathan wrote up a detailed set of directions for me, in Russian. So yesterday afternoon, I grimmaced, loaded up my backpack with the offending curtains, and made my way to the tailor.

I arrived and opened the outer door to the shop, then the second one stuck. I jiggled the handle. I double-checked the hours on the outer door. Hmm, should be open. The inside handle looked like it might be broken. I played with it again. Nope, still wouldn't open. I heard people talking inside. I decided to knock. The door swung open and I was met with a glaring babushka, who rattled something off and pointed to a small hand-written sign on the inner door. I managed to stammer out "I'm sorry, I speak Russian poorly" before she slammed the door again. I looked at the sign. "Обед, 1500-1600." Whatever that means. I got out my dictionary and looked up обед: "Dinner." Ahhh. Apparently I interrupted their lunch hour. Oops.

With 45 minutes to kill, I crossed the street to "Блин! даналдс," otherwise known as Blin! Donald's, a blini-themed variation on McDonald's. The inside is eerily similar, with red and yellow plastic furniture, toys for kids to climb on, and disgruntled employees in polyester uniforms. I ordered some chocolate ice cream and ate it very, very slowly. Finally at 4:00 I decided I'd go back and try out the rest of my apologetic vocabulary.

This time the door opened with ease, and amazingly, the employees were friendly. Perhaps they'd all been gone during my earlier faux-pas. I started to read Jonathan's directions to them, but they took the sheet from my hands to save me the trouble. After inspecting the shower curtain and some mumbling among themselves (maybe they'd never seen one before?), they agreed to the job and asked me to come back on Friday. Joy! Only 2 more days of baths before at least one aspect of our apartment is complete.

So with the help of some kind locals, a few things are slowly being accomplished, and my Russian is slowly improving. The sad ending to all of this is that today my Russian teacher informed me that she's going to be out of town for the next 6 WEEKS. Ugh. I'm going to completely forget everything I learned. Of course, if our things ever arrive and we get to start decorating this place, I'll hopefully have lots of real-life practice...

stuff galore

So we're currently about half moved in to our new apartment. The rest of our belongings are still on their way. Theoretically they're supposed to arrive this week, but no one's given us a specific date yet, so I'm wary of believing anything.

Right now we're trying to make room for what we have coming, which has been an adventure. Let me explain the amazing excess of furniture that came with this place.

First of all, apparently the person who lived here two people before us was some kind of filthy bachelor who never cleaned or even routinely took out the trash. Consequently, the person right before us, "Martin," said that when he moved in, there was an unholy stench in this place, and most of the furniture was destroyed. I should make it clear that these places are furnished for you, so he couldn't just replace it with his own stuff. Once the destroyed parts were taken away, and the odor started to dissipate, there was almost nothing here, so Martin claims he had to "beg" for furniture. I can certainly believe that essentials were missing; for example, there is no built-in closet in the master bedroom, so he requested some wardrobes.

But really, he went a little TOO far, and managed to CRAM this place full of furniture. Such as with lamps. He took an amazingly belt-and-suspenders approach to lighting. When we arrived, in nearly every room there was an example of a lamp on a table right next to a lamp mounted on the wall. Sheesh, how much light do you need? There was also an enormous dining room table with about 3 leaves in it, and with it, of course, a ton of chairs. Because that took up so much room, the wide assortment of living room furniture- a couch, love seat, two wing-back chairs, a coffee table, a TV stand and two bookcases- was squeezed into a space probably 8 ft by 8 ft. I have no idea where he checked his email, because there's no computer desk; I don't know what he did when he came in the door, because there's no front closet, and with his setup, when you opened the door you were basically in the middle of the giant dining room; I don't know how he walked around this place without stubbing his toe or tripping all the time because it was stuffed with wall-to-wall furniture and rugs. (Why all the rugs, anyway? There's such beautiful hardwood under them!!) And besides all the things that were actually on display, as we've wandered around the apartment we've been finding even more pieces and parts tucked away into nooks and crannies. Even more lamps in the guest room closet; another mirror hidden between the wall and the washing machine; yet another table leaf under the bed. AHHHH!

Of course, to fill all this furniture, Martin must have had SO MUCH STUFF. And he must have figured we do, too. He kept telling us that as soon as he moved out, we needed to high-tail it over here, because otherwise they might come in and take things away, since he'd had to practically get down on his knees for it in the first place. But now, here we are, desperatly crossing our fingers that they will agree to get rid of the giant pile of excess stuff that we've created. If they don't, I may have to sell it on the black market. I can't live like this. I believe in feng shui, people. This much stuff is doing bad things for my chi.

I really wish I'd taken before-and-after pictures, but the second we walked in last week, we were so clausterphobic that we pretty much instantly started re-arranging things. Consequently, I only have "after" photos, but you'll have to take my word for it.

Here are a few pics of things as they stand right now. Keep in mind that we've been here for about 3 days, so stuff's still messy.

This is how we've arranged the living room, with room at the end for a future computer desk:



Here's our now-tiny dining room and kitchen:



Here's the guest bedroom- note the extra lamp!! Just incase!!!



Our master bedroom, complete with rug:



And best of all, here is the enormous pile of things we're praying they'll take away:



The impending arrival of the rest of our stuff is making this whole mess even more stressful. We've already planned locations for most of our things- based on the excess crap being removed, of course. But that's just for the things we remember. I've gotten so used to living with 1/3 of our stuff, I can't believe there's more. Like, I'm sure I have a lot more clothes coming. Yikes. I remember packing things up 10 months ago and thinking "Should I give this to Goodwill? Nah, I love this shirt, I NEED this shirt." And now, 10 months later, I can't mentally identify a single piece of clothing that's coming. I shouldn't even open the box when it arrives, I should just ship it back to a Goodwill donation center in the US, because I can obviously live without it.

Actually, scratch that- I just remembered that at least a small portion of what's coming is super-hearty winter clothes. I keep forgetting that it won't be 75 degrees here year-round. Rats. Okay- guess I'll have to open the box, pull out my sweaters real quick, and THEN send it to Goodwill before I start looking closer and saying "Oh yeah! I love that shirt!"

Anyway, for now I'm trying to stay calm and optimistic. We're at a point where we can't organize further until the next steps occur. Nothing to do now but wait and hope...

movin' on up

Well everyone, I'm sad to report that this will be the extent of my blog for this week... because, amen, at last, we are moving out of our temporary place into our permanent place today. Hooray!! When we get into our offical quarters, we will be settling down for the longest time we've ever spent in the same apartment. So once we're in, I want to make sure everything's just right.

There are a few cons about leaving our current place- the old-fashioned high ceilings, the cute little old doorman, the really big kitchen. And we've gotten to know this neighborhood- our favorite produkti is so close, and our favorite ice cream shop. But, there are many many pros to the new pad. First of all, the location's great- a shorter commute to work, closer to the metro, and closer to a park. The building is awesome- it has a great gym, a sauna and a pool, and a nice courtyard. And inside the apartment, we get some modern amenities such as controlling our heating (which aparently is a rare feature- most people are stuck with whatever setting the city decides on), having our own washer/dryer, and best of all, free DSL!

Yes, everyone, I won't be griping about this friggin' dial-up much longer. Just a little bit more for now though... truly, it's been horrible. I mean, besides the slow speed, it only connects like 1 in 5 times. I'm always getting some message about the "remote computer not responding" or some crap. Plus having to go buy a calling card once a week for more minutes. Argh. At last, I'll be able to find out the weather for the day in less than 15 minutes, or know that when I stay up late to write an email to someone back home so they'll get it today that I won't be cursing the computer at midnight when it won't connect. Like it's doing right now. Grrrrr.

Here's hoping I actually get this up today... and soon, so soon, I'll be updating you on our new digs. Woohoo!