why must everything be harder here?

The challenges of living somewhere unfamliar are many, and widely varied. Trying to communicate with someone across a language barrier is always hard; finding your way around a new city is hard; but new challenges are always popping up and surprising me, such as the shower curtain ordeal.

Recently a new one came to light. Apparently Russians don't bake much. They must leave it to the experts. There are bake shops EVERYWHERE- and everything chock-full of sugar- but most people must refrain from making their own stuff at home.

There's a definite lack of cake and cookie mixes around, so initially I thought that maybe Russians were just very hearty people who make everything from scratch. But I've had a seriously hard time finding all the ingredients I need to bake stuff from scratch. Flour and sugar were pretty easy to find. No powdered sugar, though. Baking soda took a while. Baking powder was even worse. Brown sugar is practically non-existent, and chocolate chips and vanilla extract simply are not available. Forget about finding yeast. I've been from the farmer's market to small up-scale shops to giant Wal-Mart type grocery stores with no luck. I guess I'll have to resort to Net Grocer next time I want to make cookies. Sigh.

I can wait for cookies; however, Monday was a baking emergency- it was Jonathan's birthday. I was determined to make him a cake. I thought I'd remembered seeing muffin mixes and things of that nature at a fancy Finnish grocery store, so Monday morning I took the metro there, and lo and behold, they had Betty Crocker cake mix. Yay! I picked up a box and started looking for frosting. Searched around with no luck. Even asked an employee. (Cave-man style, pointing to the frosting pictured on the box and grunting. "WHERE?? NEED.") No luck. Gave up. In desperation I picked up a can of whipped cream and some sprinkles.

When I got back home, I realized that the mix needed eggs and butter. Crap. I went to the little store up the street. They had eggs, but butter does not come in sticks here. At least not the pre-measured way like in the US. Butter just comes in a giant brick.

I got back home and carefully packed chunks of butter into a measuring cup. As I was working at it, I noticed a funky smell in the kitchen. ?? I opened the eggs. One of them had broken- long ago, apparently- and spread yolk all over the outside of the other eggs. Ewww. Three at the end of the carton looked unharmed. I rinsed them off and carefully examined them. Cracked them open and they seemed to be fine. I immediately took the other eggs out to the garbage bin. I didn't want the whole house smelling like sulfer instead of vanilla.

In order to use our mixer, which only runs on 110 power, I had to get out the big transformer, which weighs like 30 pounds. I usually get Jonathan to help with that, but it was a surprise. And of course the mixer has a short cord. I nearly gave myself a hernia hefting the transformer onto the kitchen counter.

Finally mixed everything up, researched the conversion of celcius to farenheit so I could pre-heat the oven correctly, and set the cake to baking. It came out all golden-brown. I was gleeful.

Then, on to decorating. Has anyone else ever tried to frost a cake with strawberry whipped cream? And not even thick cool-whip, I'm talking the spray stuff in a can. It is NOT easy. The cake almost instantly absorbs it. Plus it melts. And it's pretty hard to write with, so I decided to use chocolate syrup. After some practice in the sink, I managed to sort-of write "Happy Birthday" in syrup on the cake. I topped it with a bunch of sprinkles and called it a day.

Here is the fabulous finished product. Don't laugh. This took me hours.



In the end, Jonathan loved it. And it was really tasty. So it was worth the effort, but man, I guess I'm going to have to order a case of frosting along with vanilla extract and chocolate chips from net grocer.

And don't even ASK about trying to find a birthday card in Russian...

event insanity

Our office is always getting invitations to stuff. I guess there's big demand for Americans to stand around at events and pretend we're important. The past week has been especially ridiculous, both in the number of invitations and because I've opted to join in on nearly every one that came through.

Sunday, I went to a jewelry exhibition with "Helen." Monday night, Jonathan and I went to a concert at Mikhailovsky Castle of a traditional Russian horn ensemble. Tuesday night there was a fancy stand-around-with-champagne type party to welcome one of our coworkers. Today, I just got home from the opening of a photo exhibition put on by the Guggenheim, and as soon as I finish my sandwich, tonight I'm going to the Russian MTV Music Awards.

What does one wear to the Russian MTV Music Awards??

I love our tailor.

Since the incident of the shower curtain, Jonathan and I have become regulars at the tailor's. Jonathan had some pants hemmed, we had our table cloth adjusted... okay, I know we could just get a sewing machine, but I don't want to spend that much money on something we wouldn't be able to plug in once we got back to the states. Besides, I'm not THAT great a seamstress, and our projects keep getting more complex. Recently we ordered some pants online that arrived sort of ill-fitting. Pants here are expensive, tend to have all sorts of "decorative" hideous excess stitching on them, and since women here don't have hips, they also don't fit; so, we've been ordering things on line. Of course that means that occassionally they don't fit either, but man, they took weeks to get here, I'm not sending them back. Hence, with the arrival this week of too-big pants for both of us, we took another trip to the tailor today.

We arrived and the place was pretty busy- or so it seemed. A large woman in a red suit was in one of the dressing rooms, chatting away with someone else. We assumed she was discussing the fit of her suit with an employee, and patiently waited. After maybe 10 minutes, a woman at a desk asked us why we were there. "Um, to get some pants tailored," we said. "Go talk to the lady in brown, over there." So we walked over, translated as best we could the situation, and she sent me into the dressing room with my pants. Without my even having to tell her (thank god), she busied herself pinning them in all the right places.

After I changed, Jonathan went in for his turn, and suddenly there was a confrontation between the woman in the red suit and the tailor. I had NO idea what was going on, but there was actual YELLING. When Jonathan opened his dressing room door, the tailor pinned him up, all the while yelling at the woman in the red suit. Another customer, waiting in line, kept looking at me with pity, and finally said something (I think, by hand motions) to the red suit woman about shutting up because she was giving her a headache.

When Jonathan finished, we took our slips and left to get a coffee. Jonathan was sort of giggling to himself.

"So.... what was THAT all about?" I asked.

According to Jonathan's translations, here's what went down:

When we arrived, the woman in the red suit was not discussing her fit with an employee; she was talking about total nothingness with a friend. When the tailor started helping me with my pants, red-suit-woman FREAKED OUT and starting yelling about how she was there first. "Sure you were," said the tailor, "but you stood around talking with your friend for 45 minutes!!"

"So what? You're going to serve some FOREIGNERS before me??"

"Cripes, calm down, let me help you then."

"No. Why don't you go ahead and finish with the FOREIGNERS first."

"Well, then how about you take your business elsewhere."

"EXCUSE ME???"

"I SAID YOU CAN LEAVE!!!"

After this, much bitching and dirty looks at me by red-suit-woman ensued, but she refused to leave. She continued griping at the top of her lungs while the tailor finished with Jonathan, finally shutting up when asked by the other customer, but still didn't leave. Jonathan said she was basically saying the Russian equivalent of "Oh no you dinnent!!" :D

So. Not only do we have a tailor who does a great job on our stuff at a good price, she'll also go toe-to-toe with prejudiced bitches. Now THAT'S someone worth giving our business too. :)

return of the blog

So, being sick for the last 3 weeks has meant that I've had very little of interest to write about. Unless everyone would enjoy reading about me coughing non-stop... but probably not. I've just been sitting around, blowing my nose, trying to organize our apartment (we're nearly done, thank god), and sleeping a lot. For a few days there I actually forgot that I was in Russia.

Fortunately, my film was developed and posted on Shutterfly just in time to remind me. After the cruel embarrasment of getting film developed here, and them doing a mediocre job of scanning it, and it costing a ton of money, I'm back to sending it to Shutterfly, because (warning: shameless plug ahead) they do a great job, I don't have to think about it, and them developing it, scanning it, posting it on the site for you and returning your negatives only costs $3.99, INCLUDING shipping. Can't beat that. Sure, it does take weeks to send it overseas, but it also takes weeks for me to earn enough money to have it done by locals, not to mention work up the vocabulary. So Shutterfly it is.

My point being- a couple days ago I got the exciting message in my inbox that my last 5 rolls of film had shown up. Hooray! Since nothing interesting happened to me recently, I'll take this opportunity to tell you about the stuff I did months ago.

The oldest event of note was our trip to Peterhof. Peterhof was the country home to the tsars and is best known for its incredible gardens. We'll definitely have to make multiple trips to see everything, but we had a good start. It's across the Gulf of Finland from the city, and the best way to get there is by hydrofoil.

Off to the right is the hydrofoil we took, approaching the dock-



It's about a 45 minute trip across the gulf. Not much to see on the way, just some distant apartment buildings, oil rigs, and other boats.

Here's us on the boat-



And a view out the side.



Peterhof can be reached by land, but it takes much longer, and most importantly, you miss out on approaching it by way of the gulf. The walkway from the dock follows a long canal with multiple fountains...



and at the end of the canal is the palace, with more fountains. All the gold can be blinding in bright sunlight.





As if that weren't overwhelming enough, the rest of the grounds are also glorious. In about 3 1/2 hours we did a "quick" run-through of just the lower gardens.

More fountains and plants...



yet more...



and even more.



Yes, even the Gulf of Finland itself seems cleaner and more beautiful here.



I can't imagine the kind of upkeep the place requires, especially back when royalty were staying there. But I'm thrilled that they DO maintain it. Unlike the dacha, it's actually a relaxing escape from the city, complete with fresh air.

We can't wait to go back this fall, when the leaves change... it's sure to be breathtaking.

More photos to come in future blogs!

I'm not dead!

Just a quick update for anyone who's wondering where my blogs have gone. First, the rest of our posessions FINALLY arrived, which means we've been busy organizing them. And on top of that, I got a whopper of a cold. So I've been dragging. Even if I had the energy to type, there wouldn't be much to report. :P Hope this finds everyone in better shape than me...