Moscow River Cruise

Levin's Area Director is visiting so last night the kids and I got to tag along while Levin took him on a Moscow River cruise. We started off at Hotel Ukraine. That's what everyone calls it, even though it says Radisson right on it. It is one of the 7 sisters, but uh, I didn't take a picture. In the picture below you can see the white house in the background (middle). It's for parliament so you know where Putin works. The other building is just apartments I think.

We shared some food because it was expensive. The picture below shows another of the Seven Sisters not sure which one right now.
Leah was a real trouper even though we were on the boat for 3 hours and well past her bed time. She walked a long ways to get there and walked most of the way home before pooping out and I had to carry her.
Our picture turned out really blurry for some reason even though the picture of Mike taken just seconds before was perfectly clear. I'd post it for your comparison, but he might think it weird that I'm posting pictures of him on my blog.
Pictured above is a church that has been rebuilt in the last 10 years so rumor has it. I didn't fact check this so I hope I'm not lying. Stalin had envisioned an 8th sister even bigger than the others and tore down this church in order to build it. Then he died and it was never built and for a while was the world's largest swimming pool. Private donations rebuilt this church. Just one more reason that Stalin is in hell - tearing down big beautiful churches. It may not compare with killing millions of people, but still naughty.
The Kremlin above and more of The Kremlin below.
Below - St. Basils - it was getting too dark and Oliver was screaming in my arms so I couldn't figure out how to do the night setting on my camera. I swear it has one. I will be looking into that.
Below - another of the Seven Sisters. The cruise ended just after this building - or turned around that is. This one is a "inhabited building" according to the map the cruise gave us. I think that means residential. I wonder how much money you have to make to live here. We also passed Moscow University on the way there, but you saw pictures of that on my blog just last week or so.
The cruise made me think what a great city Moscow is! I'm so happy we get this chance to live here. The only problem is that it is not so friendly to mom's and strollers. Lifting strollers up and down stairs is no joy and we almost got ran over crossing a street on the walk home. Levin said something like durak which I'm pretty sure means stupid in Russian and Mike said a few other words I'm not allowed to type, but they were in English.

His Joy and His Pain

Oliver has discovered light switches. They bring him great joy and great misery. For some reason some days he can reach them and some times he can't. When he can, he giggles, and when he can't he cries with a broken heart.

Sometimes, if he's lucky, Leah will play along and turn the lights back on so he can push the switch to turn them off - he definitely can't reach to push them back up.

Old Arbat Street

Saturday afternoon we went to Old Arbat street, aka, Staryi Arbat. It is a pedestrian street with performers, sketch artists, painters, musicians, some break dancers and a few other gigs. We have been a couple of times including opening night at Wendy's. But this was the first time we actually took pictures.

This was like the most boring picture of the street you could possibly take. We are not good at the whole taking pictures thing.
In front of a souvenier shop. The large Matroshkas in the windows had 30 pieces and were around $1500.
We found this sweet babushka performing. We gave Leah a little money to give her.
She then proceeded to dress up Leah. We gave her about $2 more, for a total of $4 and she gave Leah the stuffed animal and a piece of chocolate which probably cost $4.
Here is Wendy's. The thing I like about it is that they have part of their menu like Arby's. The curly fries went well with my chef salad. We always forget to take our own ketchup and have to pay over $1 every time in ketchup. It's not free like in America and no free refills on the drinks either.

He Makes Me Feel Like He's the Only Boy in the World

Here are some cute pictures of my Oliver.

We are working on walking. I think this toy is actually helping if I can get him to actually do it. Sometimes he just kneels down and pushes it which is . . . less effective.

Drinking their milk. Oliver has been on an eating strike where he only wants formula - and straight up that is. He was refusing to drink this bottle that had some cow's milk mixed in until he saw Leah drinking milk and then he crawled on over and they both drank up their milk.

Got Milk?

If you listened to me complain long enough about the Nigeria you probably heard me complain about the milk, or lack thereof. We had only the UHT milk - that stands for ultra-high-temperature. It is uh . . gross, especially there because it is imported as powder, mixed up and then ultra-pasteurized. I finally found one brand that I was able to drink, but only in skim. Good old, Oldenberger. When I say drink, I mean barely moisten my cereal and nothing else.
Here in Moscow we have basically 3 milks to choose from. Babushka brand UHT milk, which I buy for Leah because it is about $1.25 for one liter and you can stock up and leave it in your pantry so much less likely to run out. She thinks it tastes great. I also try to cook with this kind. We tried another UHT brand, but it wasn't as good and Babushka. Babushka is not the real name, but if you call it that everyone knows what you're talking about.
Then we have Valio milk. It comes from Finland. It is pasteurized, but not UHT so I call it "fresh" milk. It tastes almost as good as American milk. This one liter box costs about $2 - $2.50. It isn't sold at all grocery stores so you have to sometimes go to a more expensive grocery store just to get your milk. Then go to a cheaper one to do the rest of your shopping. Luckily for us, we now live at the Embassy and the Commissary sells it so no hunting for it. The Valio milk is my milk. Levin claims not to care about the taste difference so he was drinking the UHT stuff, but then he had Valio once when we ran out . . . and I can't help but notice he hasn't had the babushka milk ever since.
FYI: They do sell other brands of fresh milk. I once accidentally bought some with a cat on it - DISGUSTING. As Napoleon would say, it tasted like the cow got into an onion patch . . . or like it was cat's milk. Then I found fresh babushka milk which was cheaper than the UHT . . . but tasted grosser than the UHT. Valio or nothing for me.
Oliver still gets formula. Yes, I buy it here, though have ordered some from America too. Yes, he is over a year old, but depending on the day I can get formula probably almost as cheaply as the cow's milk and he hates the cold milk. I mean hates it. He loves his formula and screams until I give it to him. I already prepare it with the coldest the tap water and today started adding some babushka milk. I figure there is no reason to turn him onto the more expensive Valio milk. Slowly but surely we can trick him into liking cold babushka milk and hopefully into liking more real food so that he doesn't drink so much milk anyway. I vowed that the last 4 cans I just ordered were the last 4 I'd ever buy for him.

Flowers

Leah loves flowers. Every time we walk past these flowers Leah says, Mom let's stop and look at the flowers. So, here we are yesterday on the way home from playing at a friend's house.

I'm the First Day of School!

Levin just reminded me of something really cute Leah did a few weeks ago. The Embassy has a toddler play room so I took the kids there. We found a super bouncy ball which I guess my kids have never played with before. Because nothing is breakable in there I let her go crazy with it. She would go to the door, take off running and shouting, "I'm the first day of school!" and then she would throw the ball really hard, giggle like crazy, find the ball and do it all again. I have absolutely no idea what she meant by "I'm the first day of school!" but it was so cute and funny. Later I was asking her about it and she smiled and looked a little sheepish and hasn't repeated it.

Here is Leah pictured with her magic school bus. When we were in Maryland we got an old school cartoon from the library about a magic school bus. Shortly after, I bought Leah this school bus. She loved it and called it her magic school bus. They had two, but I had to choose between this and a pair of snow boots for Oliver. I still regret not having three more dollars in my purse to get the other one since both kids loved it. When we got to Moscow we took buses a lot and even though they were rarely yellow Leah called them all magic school buses. Then, one night Levin start telling Leah stories about Jimmy Jo the Magic School Bus. Now almost every night I have to tell her a Jimmy Jo story. So now, when we see buses out and about Moscow, like yesterday, Leah points them out and says, look there's Jimmy Joe!

As you can see school buses are a bit of an obsession with Leah and she's excited to go to school. We thought about sending her to the pre-school here at the Embassy when she gets older. Guess how much it costs? $5000 per year. What?! That is college tuition and this is only part-time. So . . . we are thinking we will be doing pre-school at home. I seem to be the only person who seems to bat an eye at this which I find strange. So I'm worried she'll be the only kid her age not in pre-school and won't have any friends, but I'm going to stop worrying about it. She's not even 3 yet anyway and I would only do pre-school the year before school if we did do it.

Around Moscow

I thought Russians would dress a lot "different" than Americans. I have been very surprised at the variety of fasions here. The only thing I can say that I have found unique are the flowery pants this girl is wearing. I have seen them a lot. They are like MC Hammer pants, except maybe bigger and then they have this huge baggy back part . . . These girls were practicing some dance routine.

This is Kartoshka. They sell baked potatoes and I love them. Usually Levin goes in and orders it for me while I stay out with the kids and then we go get him something ot eat so I don't see all the butter they put on. Last time I went in and I said easy on the butter and well . . not so good. Turns out a lot of fat usually makes food taste better. Anyway, I love it and think I'll love a tummy full of hot potato even more when it is freezing outside.

Moscow State University

Last Saturday we went to Moscow State University. It is on a beautiful overlook. We hiked up and I mean hiked up. We found a different way home so I never got a picture, but Levin hefted the double stroller up a ton of stairs after we'd pushed it up a steep ramp.

This is the overlook. On the right is the Olympic stadium.

At the top there was this random stand selling gummy candies. We had to buy some to get a picture and today when I took the stroller out I found them as a yummy little surprise.

Did I ever mention that Leah is the most unphotogenic person in the world only second to her mother? Well, we were intending this cute picture of Oliver and poor Leah got caught . . looking a little strange. Oliver LOVES to ride in the stroller this way. He rides like that in the other stroller too. We get so many looks and comments about him. He screams and struggles until he gets his feet up there and then just rides completely relaxed . . that is until his legs fall asleep. The picture below shows more clearly the awkward angle he is in.

This building is one of the "Seven Sisters" built by Stalin - seven buildings that look very similar. Another one is right near the Embassy and you can see it in all its beauty from Levin's office window and if you look up while playing on the playground.

One interesting thing is that every time we go to a pretty place, here, Victory Park, Kremlin, etc. you see wedding parties - I mean a lot of them - taking pictures all over. I also saw a woman having her picture taken over on the side . . she was posing like they were glamour shots. I have a feeling they were for a mail order bride service or something.

Patriarch Ponds

A couple of weeks ago we went to Patriarch Ponds for a Sunday afternoon walk. Unfortunately, we had done a lot of walking the day before and we had to walk on a really busy road most of the way there and it was loud, and well, we were tired, grumpy, napless and hot when we got there and none of the pictures looked very nice because we were in all of them. So, I found this one online. It was a little dirtier than this picture shows and it had been rainy. We need to go again so I have some positive memories.