The IRS (in residence snake) at AS' dacha!
Don't say it ain't cool.
I'm not a great expert, but it looks like a common European adder/viper
There is an antidote for its venom, but it's available only for locals and not for visitors. So, we heard a local physician advised intake of vodka in case of being bitten.
D.J. NB Rocking the Globe
Sunday, July 19, 2015
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
Dmitrov
Dmitrov. 65k inhabitants. 65km north of Moscow. 1941 was under Nazi occupation.
Little nice Kremlin.
See in Wikipedia's photos that till not long ago, the domes were black and now they are again covered in gold.
See in Wikipedia's photos that till not long ago, the domes were black and now they are again covered in gold.
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
Going Turuleca in Russia
Monday,
July 6th
Another rest day and
J is having enough of restive vacations.
NB is enjoying the
yard, running around with the dog and fighting over sticks.
NS took him to the
neighbor to see the 'turulecas' (i.e. the hens and cock for those of you who
know nothing about turulecas). He got two eggs as a gift and had them at
dinner.
Everyone paid a lot
of attention to the baby and NB worked on finding is place around. In general
he behaved amazingly with the baby, even if not very gently (mind you he is a
very little boyish boy….)
In the late morning we went to the forest with NaB to pick mushrooms
and wild berries (zemlyanika). We found little mushrooms as expected after Sunday (when
everyone go out to pick'em), but it was enough for an amazing mushrooms with
cream plate made by NaB.
The berries were the
most amazing part for DUE (me…). They have by far the best smell I've ever
smelled. Pretty amazing for such little fellows!
The woods were
obviously plagued with mosquitoes and the terrible creatures bite through your
shirt… in general, we survived them b/c of the tons of mosquito repellents J
put on us all. I had to use a hat - the monsters tried to bite me in the head!
While you keep
moving it isn't terrible (the girls said that it can be much worst in other
areas) - however, when you stop for picking berries and stay in the same place
for more than a few seconds you become a target.
Philosophical take
outs:
- When you enter the woods….mind the mosquitoes and not only the wolves
- The problem in the summer isn't always the temperature - geography makes a difference
- Always keep moving
- It's better to be a moving target than a stationary one
- If you are big you can still be bitten
- If you don't want the mosquitoes to bite you, you must keep moving even if you are bigger than them
- And so on….
Now, go tell that to
big armies….
At the evening we
took a stroll through the nicer part of
the village with NaB and baby, saw some old houses worth photographing and
returned home, for chicken soup dinner and sleeping.
Btw, we are
communicating with the world with modem netstick which is giving nice bandwidth
(when there is no rain, b/c then the electricity immediately goes off in the
whole village including cellular antennas).
When what makes you happy is a baby, a potato and a suitcase
Sunday - July 5
A rest day per se.
A rest day per se.
We stayed in the house, played in the yard and slept till late. NB
set a hammock with
grandpa, played a lot with the dog and ate a lot of berries from the garden. He
picked vegetables from their small vegetables garden and for the first time (ever!) ate a
potato. We were sure it is b/c the local potatoes are tastier than those at
home, however grandma NS said that these are Israeli potatoes….
The great
achievements of the day
- We started thinking about where to go to around the village and after leaving the village
- JB and NaB came from Moscow with the baby!
- JB and NaB came from Moscow with our main suitcase!
Weather got a bit
colder and there were two big showers during the day - during one of which
grandpa got stuck in the produkti (grocery shop). He brought local
strawberries for NB who enjoyed them a lot and very sweet kvas.
We finished the day
with a bonfire at the backyard and given the light till 22:00 we didn't even
pay attention how late it got. A quick shower (NB's feet were dark of mud), the
regular drama around teeth brushing and off to bad!
We found that there
is a nice historical city 30 something Km from here and aim at it tomorrow or
the day later (Mon museum is closed and on Wed there is an inauguration with
some local dances or something similar) - so we'll have to find what to do tomorrow
and the day after.
Had an amazingly tasty (very sweet) homemade wine from Krasnodar's
area (home of JB). The family says it's very similar to classic Russian (Kagor) wine.
A Story About a Russian Spaniel and Sticks
Saturday,
July 4th
Just now when
writing this post, I realized that we missed the fact that it was the USA
independency day.
This was a transit
day.
We woke up, had
breakfast we the family and enjoyed some quality time with SB the baby. JB gave
us a short lift to the metro station on his way to work (yes….more Moscow
traffic) and from there we got to the Elektrichka suburban train station.
Pros:
- The train station was renovated and air conditioned
- Police people were nice and helped people who had problems with their tickets
- There was free Wifi
- We found ice cream
- 0.5L of Kozel tap beer (9ILS/$2.4)
Cons:
- We had a lot of time to wait (not anyone's fault)
- There was nowhere to change money
- The near playground was private and had a guard assuring that only people related to the block use it. NB was upset
The train was rather
new and with air conditioning everywhere - except for the cabin we picked…. So,
after 15 minutes of ride we changed cabin and had to share our seats with other
people….how terrible :-)
Notes to self:
- Never sit on the sunny side. It nulls the effect of the air-condition
- These trains don't have toilets…. Not good when you have a 2 hours ride with a 3 yrs old or other type of bladder sensitive humans
Even though NB
didn't sleep for a moment, he managed the ride quite well, got his second ice
cream today and played a lot with grandpa and the old lady that sat with them.
The got off the
train in a train stop. It's a stop and not a station, because it's really a
stop and nothing else. A quick phone call and a non-marked taxi picked us and
took us to the dacha.
The house is a 1920's wood house that the family is slowly
remodeling with a lot of self-made work and which will be amazing when
finished. The yard is already amazing with berries of two types, various
vegetables to pick and eat (cucumbers, green onion, parsley, courgettes), and it has its own 10 meters deep
well. Heat, how water and cooking are gas based and water relies on electricity
as it is being pumped from the well. The house was sold after its owners passed
away and their daugher married a Norwaigean, which seems to be a trend mainly
in northern parts of Russia (No, we are not going to get into
political-correctness troubles trying to draw relative lines between Russian
and Norwegian women even though we could have had attribute these opionions to
local 3rd parties).
The village itself was built at the beginning of the 20 century
around a dammed river which created a lake after which it is named: Zaprudnya (derived from the name of a lake made of a damed river).
A good word about
the weather - it's been amazing. 23c or so during the day and 18c-19c at night.
NB was ecstatic to
finally meet his soulmate - Sansanech, the 9yrs old family's Russian Spaniel.
Emotion seems to be mutual. Over the next two days the two were engaged in a
run and run interaction, fighting over sticks. Both of them like to accumulate
sticks and are very strongly attached to theirs. The boy doesn't understand why
the god is eating the sticks, and the dog doesn't understand why the boys
accumulates/holds sticks without giving them to him. There were some incidents
of a child shouting at a dog and a dog jumping on a boy trying to get a stick.
All in all it seems both sides are enjoying the relationship as they are coming
back for more.
We arrived to the
village around 14:00 and after a noon nap walked down to the lake were NB and
grandpa played and papa gave a ride over the lake on his back to an 'I'm very
tired' type of boy …. I'm sure there were some reports on a new type of bald
monster in the lake. The rise of a new legend!
On our way back we
met the 'nice drunk-man' type (as it is known locally). They were sitting on
the shore, at their 60's/70's and loudly discussing whether NB was a boy or a
girl. They were very glad when J shouted at them back 'Malchik, malchik!'
We saw lots of
classic wooden houses with wood decorations around the front facing windows.
Neat!
The village looks
peaceful even if not perfectly being taken care of.
We had a pilmeny
mainly dinner and off to sleep. Too much traveling for two days…
Da, Moshna! (or how did we manage to get on vacations)
Friday
- July 3rd
The morning started
with a short verification call to Transaero TLV office
"Shalom"
"Da!"
"Hebrew or
English"
"Iivriit
efshar" (I guess it's the liiteral translation of 'Ivrit Moshna')
"Our tickets
say we can take 20Kg of luggage each. What's the maximum per luggage
piece?"
"Haaa…with us
there is no maximum weight per single piece. You can divide the way you want
want the sum of your allowances"
"Thank you.
Another question if I may - we have a new passport and the number on the ticket
is of the old passport."
"Where are you
going ? To Moscow only?"
"Yes"
"So, there is
no problem. The number is not important"
"Thank
you"
End of call. I guess
she intended to say 'have a nice flight'.
As always, our
vacation started with an exhausting week of tedious tasks that we had to finish
before leaving and on top of that new tasks that kept popping as if someone was
enjoying watching us running like rats in a lab's labyrinth.
After two
consecutive nights with little sleep, we hopped into the taxi on our way to the
airport.
The GetTaxi driver
was chatty and once he heard we are flying to Russia he was quick to share with
us his experiences from his Moscovite snobbish novorich family. It was a funny
ride. +1 to GetTaxi and our driver. We also found out that if we order a GetTaxi
ride before we take off back to Israel it's ok**.
The security
screening went swiftly and we approached the check-in counter after little
queuing. NB insisted on holding his passport, which provoked the check-in lady
to order J to take it from him 'because he will destroy it'…. - A Soviet touch
some would say.
Later she got soft
and preached us about how good it is to teach children different languages,
tried to speak Spanish to NB not before declaring - "I'm Russian!"
(well… actually no my dear. You are an Israeli who knows Russian from its
parents…and manners god knows where from)
She liked us very
much and the check-in went smooth too. Lucky us.
By that time, we
already knew that the flight was being delayed by one hour, which meant we had
more than three hours to enjoy at the airport. NB was (again) excited from the
fountain, from the moving walking rails and was in general running all over the
place. D tried to do the impossible and buy a music CD, but it was impossible -
the 'sale' price was $18….WTF1: Didn't these people hear about digital music
delivery? iTunes anyone? WTF2: Who pays them and how do they maintain
their business?
Dead tired and with
a child that needs to get his noon nap we found out that the main treat of the
lounge in the airport is that it is significantly quieter than the main hall on
a July Friday noon. An important observation about the lounge: they don't have
hot cocoa - nor they have any games for children... So, we had a blast convincing NB that the
luggage carrying cars are sooooo exciting.
We finished that
part of our day, with a quick boarding to the flight.
As we were waiting
to board - a Hebrew speaking stewardess was hysterically shouting with a teacher intonation "Mr. X and Mr
Y, this is the last time we are calling you to board Alitalia flight no…. - the
flight is going to take off without you and everyone are waiting for you"
We felt pretty happy
not to have to meet that lady….
The seats on the
plane were re-organized (more rows were added), so NB got lucky and got a view
of the wings.
The space for the
legs was the greatest we have ever seen in an economy class flight ever. Kudos
to Transaero. Service was good, we got drinks several times, food arrived
quickly and NB slept half of the time.
Rest of the time he found a buddy one row behind us and played who best roars
like a lion.
In the little spare
time we answered questions like "Como va el avion?" "With
engines under the wings" "and how does engine work…" and so
forth. I'm sure you got the idea.
We started getting
the enjoyable part of the Russian experience when people let us skip the queue
so that NB gets to the toilet. Another toilet related note: when you see people
queuing for the toilet in TLV's airport lounge - don't wait with them, just try
to open all the toilet doors - it's seems some people tend to queue even in
front of empty toilets…
For the boys reading
this post - the aircraft was a shiny new 737-800, that took off impressively
quickly and also landed with a very short runway. It also cut a 1:50 hours
delay to 0:50 by speeding up the flight.
We landed in an
airport we never visited before. Vnukovo airport is renovated and all the
operation was very efficient. Stuff and border police were nice and by the time
we arrive to the luggage picking area
our suitcases were already there. Nice!
The family picked us
up for a short ride on the rush hour of Moscow (rush hour is from 8:00am to
22:00) and it took us about a hour to get home. We got a glimpse on the cutest
new baby. Later we had a great Russian Sushi*** meal (Nubi was the happiest on
earth to have Kasha\buckwheat) and plummeted asleep.
That was our first
yellow day in Russia 2015. Spakoyney Nochi.
Notes
* There are WiFi
networks everywhere in Moscow. And by far, there are more open networks than in
West Europe (even if it means there is only one open WiFi…). In the Metro there
is free WiFi courtesy of the Metro company if you just mind to share with them
your country of origin and phone number.
** Regulations
say you cannot order a pickup from Ben
Gurion airport from a company other than the one working with the airport.
There was a big fight about it with GetTaxi and it seems they've found a way to
circumvent it.
*** Russian Sushi
has some variations and combinations not seen at home. Very thick rolls with
lots of cream cheese and smoked/baked fishes
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