Зелёный Город / Green City

Today Wendy and I went for a walk in a section of the city called "Green City" this seems to be a massive "undeveloped" area, where people have built cottages right in the middle of forest. We thought at first we were wondering aimlessly and then we found some trails. This place is truly the most amazing part about the city of Nizhny Novgorod. 

Wendy really loves the style of the Dachas/cottages that are out here. There are bright colored ones, and strangely shaped ones too. 

Wendy and I found a swing out in the middle of the forest. I love Russian swings because they have bars instead of chains, which allows you to do the following...

Oh yeah... Its like being on a Russian roller coaster. Although you would need a lot of strong people to push in order to actually get all the way around with a person in it.

This was my absolute favorite part of the day. We stumbled onto a path that ended, when I asked the old man at the end of the path if we could get through, he started talking to us and I don't think we left for about an hour. He made us come into his garden and take apples and he and Wendy picked flowers. His name was Evgeni Kazamirovich. And he loved to talk (and I loved to listen).
                                                      

Evgeni is actually a Ukrainian man but married a Russian. He is 84 and as he put it "getting ready to head on to the next life." He studied in Kiev and is the youngest of 8 boys. He was a engineer by trade and helped build the largest hospital in Nizhny Novgorod. His wife was a doctor and his son followed the trade making him the 9th generation of doctors in his family. He had 6 relatives die in WWII and he used to have a cottage on the property but some young guys broke in to it last year, got drunk and burnt it to the ground. He made me take his telephone number so we could come out to his garden and help pull weeds. He says he will need help with the cucumbers and radishes in the spring. Wendy is very excited to help him with his garden. 

This is the lake right below Evgeni's property. You can just see the city in the background. Green city is truly right in the middle of the city. Very fun getaway on a busy day. 

Wendy snapped a shot of the sunset today from our balcony. Nothing like a sunset over Soviet block housing uh?

A breath of Bison

Wendy and I went to the Zoo here in Nizhny Novgorod on Saturday. It is called Лимпопо (Limpopo). One thing that is for sure is that Russian zoos knock the socks of any American zoo out there, the reason why? You might I ask. You can feed the animals here, which means they are total full blown beggars, which means they would knock down the fence to get to you if it meant tasting a carrot that you have in your hand. You could literally get bit by a fox or a badger if you wanted because almost every animal is just behind on fence that is easy to slip food through. We had one of the best times at a zoo of our lives. 

The front gates of the most amazing zoo ever!!! The top says Limpopo and the middle says zoopark.

 Here is Boris the Bison sweet talking Wendy into giving him a tasty treat. He asked for a kiss too, but Wendy said here heart belongs to someone else.

 How could anyone resist a mouth like this? Tossing a carrot in that mouth is like one of those carnival games where you have to get all the rings on a soda bottle.

This lady is selling food for animal feeding. It costs 15 rubles (50cents) for an ice cream cone filled with bread, carrots, apples and other tasty delights. 

 Feeding camels is and llamas is really fun because they use their lips to grab the food out of your hand. It feels so nice and soft you could just kiss them... uuhhhh I meant feed them.

 This little arctic fox was my favorite little guy in the whole zoo. Do you see what I mean you could just reach your hand through and pet him if you wanted too. I would not advise it though seeing as he is used to only food coming through the fence and your hand would not be spared.

 Wendy snapped a cool shot of a babooska feeding a llama. These llamas will actually pay attention to you because of the food. Most llamas could care less about humans, which is too bad because they are sooooo cute.

 A chorus line of owls, I'm sure at night when they are awake, the other animals are treated to an awesome barbershop quintet of "hoo, hooo, hoooooo, hooooo"

Can everyone see what I mean about the begging? Seriously, in America this animal would be behind a five foot gap and be totally disinterested in humans. Here I put the food in his little pay. I wanted to take him home with us too. 

 No this is not photoshopped in. Those are actual feather bonnets on these ducks. I'm not sure what explanation evolution would have for this one, but I'm sure it couldn't be because it made them more attractive because those little hats just make them look plain silly, and ducks already look silly.

 I found Gandolf of the Goats. He told me I must go on a great journey to destroy a special necklace that was forged in the fires of Mt. Baaaaa. Then it got a little harder to understand him because I only studied two years of goat language when I was younger.

 Thankfully the tiger was behind glass and not some puny fence like the rest of the animals. It is truly amazing to put your face 10 centimeters from a tigers face. Their heads are huge!!!

People here in Russia love Wiener Dogs. We have seen a ton of them being walked on the street. Wendy decided it was a good chance to pay tribute wiener dogs of all nations by sitting on their great leader's statue... How rude!!! 

Hot-dogs Anyone?

Sausages and hot-dogs are very, very popular in Russia. And I wanted everyone to get a sense of what that means, so on my first outing to the grocery store by MYSELF (Wendy here speaking), I took a few pictures of the sausage aisle. And believe me, there are more than just these two pictures. 

Above is many different types of summer sausage, below are the hot-dogs, all shapes and sizes. 

 There was another couple of aisles that has hot-dog type sausages about as thick as a person's arm. They are wrapped nicely and Brian and I did buy one the other day. We ate it on a sandwich, not really sure what else to do with it. :)

They also have large yogurt, cheese and alcohol aisles. Think of America's options for dry cereal and then you will get a hint of these full aisles. Cereal here is very limited. I think corn flakes is about the only cereal Brian will get for a whole year. Poor guy, it is his favorite thing in the world! Other than dessert. 

McDonalds, yum. Just a treat on a nice day. 

Oh and by the way, I survived at the store by myself. 

And, here is a picture of the mushrooms we ended up with last weekend. We ate some that night and haven't died yet, so I'm sure we picked the good ones. 

Mushroom Delight

Wendy and I got invited by a cool gal from work named Natasha to go to the woods and pick mushrooms with some Russians and other European people. We totally agreed because what really can compare to picking mushrooms? At the beginning of the day when Wendy and I got up at 6:20 a.m I was thinking "This was a bad idea. We should have slept in and went to the zoo instead." Boy was I mistaken, we had the most fun day we have had in Russia! All of the people we met to go picking with were very fun and we enjoyed everyone in our picking group. 

 All of our crew walking along the train tracks going to find the perfect mushroom spot. At this point I had no idea how actually fun the day was going to be.

 It really is too bad that the biggest mushrooms are the poisonous ones. This one is by far the biggest mushroom Wendy or I have ever seen.

 From Left to Right  Daniela(Italy) Phillip (Russia) Natasha (Russia) Olya (Russia) Brian (U.S.A) Ivanna (Slovakia) Wendy (who knows where?)

 I caught this grasshopper along the trail and didn't realize how big he was until I actually picked him up and saw he was the size of a CHIPMUNK!!!

 This little guy reminded me so much of Mario Brothers on Nintendo that I wanted to eat it to get two times as big.

 Russia seems flat and boring, yet it has so many places that are absolutely beautiful like this birch forest.

This was a little pond off of the river, once again Russia does offer some seriously beautiful landscapes.

 If you ever get an opportunity to go mushroom picking with so Russians and European volunteers, you should definitely take it because it was a really really fun day for us and I am sure it would be for you too. 

Randomness

I have a collection of pictures from some random days when I took one or two; not enough for a whole blog post. So, here are a few of them!!

Last week on the first day of classes, a clown came to class. He did many magic tricks and some fun things along with music. The kids enjoyed it and so did we!

At the school we are required to have inside shoes and outside shoes. Lucky for me, I brought enough shoes to designate a pair to stay at school. But, as many of you know, Brian packs light. He did bring 2 pairs of shoes at least, but we had to go to a shoe store to find him a pair of inside shoes. Here he is, deliberating..."do I spend $15, or $11?"  Brian is also thrifty (cheap at times) and doesn't like spending money on things he probably won't be taking back to the states with us. I am the same way. It was a struggle to buy some kitchen items that we use everyday, but won't be taking back with us. 

Just a picture of a pretty house I saw, I love the bright blue on this one! This is in a smaller town about 30 miles from Nizhny. We went on a day excursion last Saturday, hoping to get into a fun museum/factory of matryoshka dolls. Well, the factory ended up closing at 1PM, about 1 hour before we got there. And then we had to wait at the train station for 3 hours for the next train back to the city. It was a slow day. :)

We did enjoy walking the streets though and looking at the houses in the smaller town. Does anyone notice anything strange about this next picture? 

Mushroom picking in the forest is a very popular thing to do right now for Russians. I think we will have our first opportunity to do that this Saturday. We were invited by some people at school. I don't think I will be eating any of the mushrooms, since I'm a little unsure of which mushroom is which, but it will be fun to get out of the city once again!!

KREMLIN WALLS

Before you read this blog post, I just wanted to bring to attention that my cousin John lost his fiancee in a car accident. He is obviously devastated, so if you remember, please pray for her family and all mine as well. John if you get a chance to read this, and we are so sorry and words can't do anything in this situation,please know that we are praying for you .

Wendy and I had a chance to explore some of the city finally. We found the river front and the Kremlin which was quite fun to see. The weather here is beginning to get cold here and Wendy often longs for the hot Portland temperatures. 

 WENDY IS A GOOD PHOTOGRAPHER, SHE IS EXPERIMENTING WITH THE WIDE OPEN, FLAT RUSSIAN LANDSCAPES HERE.

THIS PLACE IS CALLED ПЛОШАД МИНИНА (PLOSHAD MININA) IT IS ONE OF THE MAIN SQUARES OF TOWN. 

 WENDY AND I WALKED ON THE WALL OF THE KREMLIN. MOST EVERYWHERE ELSE IN NIZHNY IS WEED INFESTED AND OVERGROWN. HOWEVER, THE KREMLIN IS NICE AND PRUNED AND SPOTLESS.

 WENDY AND I DOING OUR JOB WATCHING FOR INVADERS. WE HAVEN'T YET SEEN A PAYCHECK FOR OUR WORK THERE, BUT I GUESS THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT DOESN'T REALIZE WHAT IMPORTANT WORK WE ARE DOING.

 THIS IS A SLAVIC CHURCH INSIDE THE KREMLIN. WE WILL HAVE A POST LATER JUST ABOUT SLAVIC CHURCHES. THEY ARE VERY BEAUTIFUL.

 THE KREMLIN IN NIZHNY NOVGOROD IS UP ON A HILL. IT MUST BE THE BIGGEST HILL FOR LIKE 60 KILOMETERS BECAUSE IT IS SO FLAT OUT HERE.

WHEN WALKING DOWN THE WALL WE CAME ACROSS THESE PEOPLE PANTING. I THOUGHT "WOW THEY MUST BE OUT OF SHAPE." THEN WE TURNED THE CORNER TO FIND THIS MASSIVE SET OF STAIRS.

A Juneau Type Day

I asked myself...Are we in Juneau?  It was cold, wet, foggy, and just plain YUCK out yesterday. But, of course, being an Oregonian myself and knowing exactly what to do on nasty days we survived. 

First: we went for a walk. Why not right?  We headed across the main road to see if we could walk to the Volga River from our apartment. We wandered some fun neighborhoods, enjoyed lovely flower gardens, and finally saw the river. 

It was a bit of a drop though, so we realized getting to the river this way was not quite possible. On a nice day this will be a great view!

Second:  I baked my first cookies, with no baking powder and powdered vanilla. They are between a sugar cookie and a snickerdoodle. But they turned out quite delicious and we ate our fair share. 

I also made some applesauce to throw in the freezer. Overall, it was a successful, rainy day.