When In Rome

Long Version: We wondered what we would do with our weekend…no visitation…we have walked the main streets around the hotel until we have them memorized…so, we hit the flea market on Saturday and managed to kill a fair bit of time there…I picked up two little dresses that look very Russian for Els for only 250 R which is about $12 USD. Not too bad…otherwise, I found the prices to be very inflated at this “flea market.” We now affectionately refer to the inflated prices as the “adoption rate.” It seems that although Moscow is very westernized, and quite used to American visitors, this area of Siberia sees very few…in addition, our facilitators (and anyone they ask for confirmation on our behalf) insist that Adam looks very much like the new president of Russia. A few have even gone so far as to ask for their photo with him…funny!

We are drawing quite a few looks as we wander and we are told it is because we smile so much…they say in Russia, there is nothing to be happy about. Also, they equate people who smile and laugh a lot as being not too bright…eek. Today, as we were out and about with our facilitator there was one young girl who just stopped and looked at me for a good while…finally I asked the interpreter if she would like to talk to me…she asked the girl and she replied no, she cannot talk to me but that she likes me very much…it must be the freckles:0)

So yes, today we got the tour of Kras and it’s surrounding area…we drove outside of town and saw the ski slopes where Putin spends so much time…we saw the hydroelectric power plant that was up until recently the largest in Russia. We saw many outlying villages, a very old cemetery that was eerily fascinating, and several monuments to various important people in this region.

We had some very good Chinese food outside of town and our facilitators wanted to toast with us…VODKA! He was quite insistent that we try this with him. Well, a Russian “toast” is actually 3 different toasts but he filled the women’s (shot size) glasses only once and we sipped from it…the toasts include: To health, to women (at the table) and to Love…luckily the tour continued after lunch for I am fairly certain that I would have fallen asleep and not awoken until tomorrow. When in Rome…

We had to spring ahead again last night…not too bad since our bodies have no real clue what time it is anyway…we had nothing to get up for since our tour did not start until noon. Tomorrow we go back to the orphanage and we will have a small birthday party for the little princess…I am sure she will enjoy the attention:0) We are bringing balloons for the kids and cake for the workers…I am hopeful that with the other children around, this visit will not have as many tears…we’ll see…

Short version: We stayed busy this weekend seeing the sights, Adam is famous here, Vodka is nasty, Vika turns two tomorrow.