place2place

budapesht as the russians say

I'm in Hungary and it's raining and the city is old and I'm loving it. Not much to say about the Aeroflop flight. It was much better than the stories I had heard from my mother in the 60's or even 10 years ago when Tanya's uncle told me the pilots are always over an hour late so that they get sped along without blood alcohol checks. But if I didn't have a drop of that countries blood in my stream, I'd say the food was terrible. Gellatinous coldcuts with huge chunks of fat and a hard boiled egg served with a sliver of rye bread and butter. Mmm! Desert was a 4 X 4 chocolate stale black forest tort. Thank God for the beverage cart.

It's been rainy off and on here but I did manage to get out and walk quite a bit. It's a beautiful city although many of the buildings look in need or repair. My housing is in an old 1810 building up on a hill overlooking the city. It's not centrally located and quite a walk from the embassy and the clinic but only a short ride on the metro. But when you're walking down old streets, smelling goulash, and looking over the castles at the Danube who cares?

But the language here is insane! It doesn't sound like anything familiar. Sort of reminds me of how we felt in Greece. No cognates. I got in the cab at the airport and showed the two addresses I needed; one to pick up the key and the other where I am staying. That conversation took about 5 minutes and I was about to get out of the car when he figured it out. Between the two of us, we tried speaking Hungarian, English, Russian, Spanish, French, and German!

off to school

Getting the kids going in the morning can be challenging. Camille, who usually sleeps until the crack of noon on weekends, gets herself up early to shower and dry her beautiful long hair. But she's not typically a morning person so getting her up early to go anywhere else but school is difficult. Stefan on the other hand, springs out of bed and immediately starts talking. "Okay! I'm ready for coffee! Can you help me with my boots?!" He's always got an exclamation mark and speaks in a loud voice. I'm the kind of guy who requires a few minutes of solitude to drink my strong cup of coffee (allowing it to work medicinally) and read the front page of the paper before engaging in dialogue. 

In our discord, we manage. I make our coffee and breakfast. He's a picky eater so it has to be just so (his way) or he looks pathetically at you and asks for something else. Camille only requires coffee. She'll make herself toast and eat a yogurt or cereal. While cooking oatmeal or frying an egg (not too dry or runny), I try and get him to go get dressed. He gets side-tracked with his cars which irks me. 

Last night it snowed and continued to fall all morning. I was making them coffee and asked Stefan to go get dressed. At the table, he recited his french poem and picked at his breakfast. I went to make his lunch for school and told him to go get his boots on. We didn't turn the hall light on and it was kind of dark. He got his coat on and pulled his book bag over his shoulder. As he walked out the door into the well lit hallway I realized, he had put his shorts on! 

Just another morning at the Chordas'!

forty-eight in moscow

If you told me ten years ago that I would be celebrating my forty-eighth birthday in Moscow, I would have thought you were crazy and needed something. Perhaps a therapist. I'd just finished my Master's, was working critical care in San Francisco, and was looking for my first NP job. Good times.

 

On my birthday this year, the day started out as always. Coffee first, then breakfast with the kids. Work got a little frazzled and then Dina met me with some friends to go to Cafe Pushkin (thank you Tamara for taking Dina there when we first arrived). It was fabulous! Entering the cafe, the servers are dressed in 19th century attire.  As they were pushing the champagne cart towards us, I eyeballed a very expensive menu and tried to come up with a polite way to ask for the "business lunch" menu. Dina said, "Ask them for the business lunch menu!" They were happy to oblige us and told us to go downstairs to the main floor. But we had a chance to glimpse at the fine decor of volumes of bookcases and ionic columns with sconces and barreled ceilings.

Downstairs, we were seated at a round table with elegant settings. The ceiling had baroque paintings with ornate molding. The business lunch menu was brought out: a choice of salad, soup, and entre. I chose the herring with boiled potatoes (thought of my papa and how we used to eat that for lunch when I was in kindergarden). The soup was borshch with smoked goose and for the main dish I had sea bass which I expected to be a steak like Chilean bass at home, but it was more like a trout pan seared and served on a bed of dill sprigs with rolled peppers and baby potatoes drizzled with a lemon sauce. 

After lunch, we walked to an old grocery store that reminded me of Troia's Market with italian nougats, fruit shaped marzipan, jellies, chocolates, and display cases of hams and cheeses. Only the interior was different with decorated high ceilings and art nouveau chandeliers.

From there we walked back to our apartment past a farmer's market that had mushrooms, flowers and handmade wooden toys then the church where Pushkin was married. A visual walking tour of Moscow. 

Stefan and I played games while Dina prepared a cheese and fruit plates with french baguettes for dinner. The kids helped Dina bake a chocolate orange cake and they decorated it with the marzipan fruits and candles that refuse to go out. Ha ha! We toasted with Russian champagne. I thought of long dead relatives I love and miss. I thought of home, which I miss. So glad for internet and all my friends and family.

С лeгким пaром! congratulations on bathing!

A couple of girlfriends and I  went to the banya, the Russian baths. Now that we've seen other covered with coffee grounds we feel much closer.

We arrived, rinsed, did test runs in the sauna and steam room. We were admonished for not wearing hats. Everyone wears these cute little felt elf hats, if you don't, the heat will ruin your hair, says the banya attendant. I don't get how your hair isn't getting just as hot since you are trapping the heat in the hat, but fine. I love felt, hats and anything elf-ish, I don't know why I'm resisting. Must buy hat. I now have a great excuse for my hair. I went in the Russian banya without a hat.

After the sauna we had our choice of ways to shock our bodies back to a normal temperature: hop in a frigid bath, or pull a rope to tip a bucket of cold water over yourself, or go for a swim in the pool. The pool water was chilly, but not impossibly cold, it felt refreshing to swim under fountains in the sun filled room. Then we scrubbed, not with designer products, but with a homemade coffee ground scrub offered by a very nice Russian. It looked like the the worst spray-on tan ever and I smelled like an espresso for the rest of day, but three days later, my cuticles are still nice, so I think they may be onto something.

Since the process is sauna, plunge, scrub, rinse, repeat, we were due to go back in the sauna. This time, the banya attendant, wearing two hats, locked the door behind us. She opened the oven with a horrific metal-on-metal screech, she poured water inside which made the room get hotter. She flung ladle-fuls of eucalyptus scented water around the room. Then she waved a towel over her head--Pittsburg Steeler fan style--drawing the hot air down. Everyone sits in silence, in the dim sauna, wearing their elf hats. Try not to have a giggle attack.

She stokes the oven again, then dips a bouquet of evergreen branches in water and shakes Chirstmas-tree scented water over all of us. It feels like a sacrament. We are allowed to whisper "thank you." The hotter the room gets, the more giggly and claustrophobic I get. I have to finally just close my eyes and mentally watch a Youtube video of Anodyne. The banya attendant waves the towel around one more time, driving the temperature up higher--the blast of heat sort of reminds me opening the front door in Niamey--she pauses dramatically, and unlocks the sauna door.

Whew. Pull the rope of the bucket and let icy water splash over you. Do not scream.

We didn't want to miss out on the experience of being beaten with branches, which is suppose to open the pores and be part of the theraputic banya experience. Buying a bunch of branches, the attendant asked me, "Oak or birch leaves?" "Which are softer?" was my answer. So then my friends and I beat on each other with oak leaves. It feels pretty much how you would expect it to feel, wet and leafy. 

Back to the curtained-off the dressing rooms where you can order pots of tea, and I've heard, in the men's facility, vodka. We walked home in a blissed-out state, even without the vodka.

trip to ashaun

Yesterday I went with my friend to AWAH (pronounced "Ashaun). It's the Russian equivalent of a Walmart/Cosco store. The space is located inside a huge mall which you have to walk through to get into it. Boutiques, shoe, fur, jewelry stores, dry cleaners, and restaurants. Finally we got into AWAH with our super-sized shopping carts. The large isles are a square figure 8 with about 30 long smaller isles running through each box. The Russians are aggressive with their shopping carts and no one will hesitate to let you cut across. It felt like a roller derby.

Yards of seeds to plant a garden, jars of marinated mushrooms, and hundreds of salami's and sausages. In addition to the usual electronics and cuts of meat was a 100 foot isle of smoked fish of every kind you could possibly imagine. Some whole with there heads on: trout, salmon, pike, mackerel, and eels. At the end of the isle was the herring and caviar section. Next time I'll have to take a picture.

i touched ray davie's guitar strings

We finally got off the embassy compound today for the first time since we've been back from St. Pete's, I think. It's like living in a minimum security prison and I forget that I can leave--I don't know what it is! It's so easy to just stay on the ship.

We visited the Novodivichy Convent, really a fortified village for the Tsar's sisters--another world heritage site to check off the list! A fresh dusting of snow made the place absolutely enchanting, and slippery.

Then we went to lunch at the most contrast-y place possible, Hard Rock Cafe Moscow. Peter sat right under Paula Abdul's tassels.

More pictures of the day at the convent at flickr.

mr no teeth

" Your tooth didn't fall out in the bathtub?"

"Nope, maybe while I'm watching Sponge Bob. That would be so romantic," he tells me.

Peanut butter on crackers did the job.

lounge weekend

After an active week at work and Stefan being off, we went to a very nice relaxed dinner party at our friends house. Great fajitas! And dessert! The walk home literally took less than 5 minutes.

Yesterday we had plans to go out to Red Square but one of our friends got sick and we ended up lounging around most of the day. I listened to classical music in the morning, folk rock in the afternoon, and R&B and rock in the evening. The kids played Wii and socialized out with friends on the embassy compound. I did manage to complete a continuing education course on line on diabetes (required to keep my license updated) and got to the gym with Dina for a work out. So basically a lazy weekend for us.

We are finally getting two people on board this coming week that we hired. So hopefully the work load will ease up for the nurse and administrative assistant. It took half a year to hire them and we're still down a nurse. We've managed good patient care but the ordering of supplies and routine administrative issues have fallen to the way side. Now we can get back up to speed.

I travel to Yekaterinburg in the Ural's in a few weeks.