Swan Lake

Brian and I are having a fun week I guess. First, the circus, and now a ballet. We saw Swan Lake last night for the first time and both enjoyed it. The theater here is pretty well run and the two ballets we have seen have both been great. Each with a live orchestra of course! Ballet is pretty popular here in Russia (of course) and it seems both genders enjoy going to the shows. I am glad Brian enjoys it. A bonus for me!

Swan Lake is about a prince who falls in love with an enchanted princess, a swan during the day, a woman at night. Unfortunately for him, he gets tricked into confessing his love to the wrong lady (whoops)at a ball. But he runs (dances) to the lake to find his true love and as the story goes, they drown themselves in the lake together because they can never be alive and in love since he confessed his love to the wrong person.

Just a picture of the stage, it was really fancy. I couldn't take too many pictures since I wasn't supposed to be using my camera...

End of the show, everyone was taking pictures at this point. Russian people love to use their cameras!

Still winter here. Although the spring birds are chirping and sound so beautiful. Today it was 7 when we walked to work. BRRRR, and there is so much snow laying everywhere. Supposedly it will warm up to the upper 30's and 40's next week. Then I think we will drown in the amount of water that will be everywhere. I need my XtraTough's! (boots from Juneau)

Today I saw an accident as I was walking home. Seems typical here. We see more car accidents than in the states. In Russia, after a car accident, any car involved must stop right where it happened and not move until the police come. Even if it is in the middle of an intersection. If there are injuries, the police will come quick. If no injuries the drivers involved may wait hours...literally, hours for a police officer to come. Even though I miss driving, I am happy I don't have to drive here in Russia. The traffic can be terrible sometimes.

Happy Easter! Christ is Risen and not left in the tomb! Brian and I will be celebrating with our pastor and his wife and another American family. We are thankful to have friends to celebrate with. Russian people don't celebrate Easter until May 5th, so it will be a holiday for us foreigners. 

Until then! Enjoy all those Cadbury eggs for me and Easter egg hunts. 

Circ Du Nizhny

Wendy and I have been in search of really fun things to do out here in Nizhny. For those who read our post about the endless winter, well... it is still a blizzard outside. So as of right now a lot of indoor activities are what appeal to us.Our new friend Fransisca suggested that we all go to the circus, we had wanted to go earlier this year when they advertised that they had "boxing bears" I thought it would be so cute but we never ended up going. 

 This is the outside of the circus building. Some people told us that it went under a 20 year remodel, which by Russian standards seems fairly reasonable. The latest and newest metro stop took something like 16 years to complete.

 Here is Wendy with our German friends Fransisca and Sven. They are from Frankfurt and are going to be here for another 2.5 years. We really like them and had a Hobbit party with them last Friday.

 So the idea of the circus was 5 continents... A king lost his crown and we had to go to 5 continents to help him find his crown. This was the Arabian part I suppose, sometimes it was a little hard to tell where we were in the world. These camels were really cool and I wondered about how heavy they are. Could they kill you if they stepped on you?

Our favorite part was the bears. They had four bears running around the arena doing tricks. I wanted to take one home with me, but seeing as we are taking care of other people's cats and this might cause problems, I decided against it. The bar in the far middle is doing summersaults. All the animals in the show were spot on with stunts until a big crane looking bird flew into the crowd and a staff guy had to come collect it (oh and a pigeon did the same also).

Here is a big dog in a hamster wheel walking while a little dog on top is walking the opposite way. We really liked the dog part and they had a bunch of dalmations (not 101) but still like 10 or something. 

All in all our circus adventure was a success and even though we might not make it back, we were really happy we decided to go. So if you find yourself in Russia with not a lot of things on your schedule, you might think about giving the circus a try. 

Ice and Snow

One can always pick out the cars that haven't been driven all winter long. At this point, I think it would be difficult to drive them anywhere without some serious tools to get them out of the snow!

Brian and I  walk by men and women who are pounding away at the snow on the sidewalks. Actually it is more like ice! They have a tool that breaks up the ice and then they can shovel it off to the side. Sometimes we would rather do this job than go to our own work! Quite silly I think. Anyway, here is a picture of how deep some of the ice/snow patches are that the workers have to pound through sometimes!

Another month and I will start labeling my blog posts "sun and flowers" or "heat and fun". But not yet. :)

Shopping in the Market

Brian and I went to one of the market's in our area today to have a look around. They sell just about anything in a cluster of booths and indoor stalls. Each booth has something a little different. Some are full of food products, some have veggies and fruit (more of these when it isn't winter), some are like a superstore, full of soap, cleaning supplies, toilet paper, tools, makeup, tooth brushes...you name it, you can find it. 

And of course, like most countries, they have a meat section. I don't really feel comfortable buying the meat here, makes me a little nervous, being so exposed to people and bugs and who knows what!

Fancy dresses! Whoohoo, watch out ladies, a new fashion is coming from Russia! Just kidding, most younger women don't shop at these markets. They save up their money and come to American to shop in our stores. 

Below is one of our favorite finds so far. Value Village meets Good Will meets a garage sale. Perfect. Although every time I go here it is freezing outside and there is no heat inside, so searching endlessly through clothes while my hands start to freeze doesn't appeal to me. Today though, Brian had a good find...see the last picture on blog. 

This particular booth focuses on noodles, pasta and some canned goods. In general we haven't found food to be a better deal to buy at the market. We go to the big supermarket (like Winco or Walmart) and buy our food. But we are able to find some things like cilantro and cumin powder! That was my new find today, cumin powder! They actually do have it here. 

Brian really surprised me today. We went into our little second hand clothing store and he starts looking through the jeans! Okay, well we didn't have any luck, but on our way out he stops by this jacket. And ended up buying it. So, finally, after four months of crazy cold winter, Brian has an appropriate jacket to wear. Now all the Russian people with stop fussing over him. And it cost a whole $2.50. Sweet deal, and totally a perfect price for my husband. 

Spring is here?

So by calendar standards, all the Russians are telling us that Spring is finally upon us. However, one were to look outside it is hardly anything that even remotely resembles spring. 

Life for us here is still somewhat basic, we must work during the week and then on Saturday, Sunday we try to find something fun to do, or just stay at home and relax. Wendy secretly in her head counts down the days until we finally get to go to Jerusalem, she checks the weather there almost every morning and usually yells something like " UUUUGGGGGHHHH, it is 68 degrees in Jerusalem!!!" meaning " UUUUGGGGHHH, I want to be there in the sun and not in a Russian snowstorm." All in all she is a trooper.