Internet’s Back!

Well, it’s the weekend again. It seems difficult to keep track of what day it is here. Our Saturdays are much like our weekdays, as we get to visit the baby home. Sundays are the only days we don’t get to visit. Our CHI people need a day off after all. We should mention that our little one is at a “baby home”. We’ve incorrectly referred to it as an orphanage before, but technically the orphanages are for kids over four years old. Sorry about that.

Today we met Monica at the hotel restaurant for breakfast. There is no menu, they just serve what they have that day. Usually we get two eggs sunny side up, a juice box, yogurt, some meat, either sliced salami or a hot dog (yes I said that right), sliced cheese, bread and butter, and a dessert thing that I can’t really explain (not so good). Oh well, its included with the room and we probably wouldn’t eat breakfast otherwise, so it isn’t all that bad.

Then we went for a walk while Monica had her visit to her baby home. We tried a different direction today, going right out of the hotel instead of left where the Kremlin and downtown are. We walked about 45 minutes until we got to a bridge over one of the rivers here. This one had quite a few boats on it, something we haven’t seen much of so far. Then we walked back, for about a 1 ½ hour trip. Not all that interesting since so many of the buildings here are the same. The government must have built hundreds of apartment buildings all about the same time because they all seem to match. They’re usually five stories high and eight apartments long on each side, so it looks like about 80 units per building, and they’re everywhere.

Then we ate lunch back in our room. When Monica returned from her visit, Galina took us all to a store to get groceries and supplies. The store is kind of like a Sam’s Club or Costco. You need a membership card and its kind of warehouse-like inside. No free samples though. I found a jacket, since it’s been getting fairly chilly here in the evenings and should be worse when we get back to Moscow. We tried to find some tights for our little one, but they didn’t have much. And we bought more food to restock the room.

Our visit to the baby home was another good one. Since it was Saturday, there didn’t seem to be as many people working there, at least not management-type people, so our visit was like an hour and a half or so. Much longer than the usual 45 minutes. She was really good. There was a cute little boy in the room too, about 3 or so. She didn’t know what to make of him at first. His little choo-choo train that he pulled around made lots of noise and she didn’t seem to like that very much. We brought some of the clothes that we bought for her to check sizes. Even the 9 month stuff was a little big. We also brought some little plastic balls for her to play with. She still seems to be most interested with things she can put in her mouth, like Kyley’s necklaces and her buttons. We’re trying to redirect her to the teething toys that we have for her.

Then we went back to the hotel to meet Monica to go to dinner and found that the computer guy was finally here! Yes, we’re posting from our hotel again. Incidently, we forgot to mention yesterday that we posted from the Krem Café, since they have wi-fi. I’m not exactly sure what he did, but now it works, and we don’t have to log in anymore. Go figure.

When that was done, we walked to a restaurant with Monica that we hadn’t tried before. This one was called La Vanilla (we think) and it is right around the corner from the Chocolate Café. From the Korvet, you go straight instead of turning left to go to the Chocolate Café and its down about a block or two on the left. They didn’t have an English menu so we tried to translate some things using our Russian-English dictionaries, but didn’t get anywhere. We asked if we could take a menu with us so we could translate it and return later. They seemed to agree, so we took the menu and went to the Chocolate Café for dinner. We’ll try La Vanilla some other time if we can make any progress with the menu. I had pork with raspberry sauce and baskets with bacon (a potato side dish). Both were very good. Kyley ordered the same thing she got last time, the chicken hips, and the same potatoes I had. Monica tried the Mutton, which she said was good too!

Since it was a little chilly, we decided to try the hot chocolate for dessert. What we got was a small expresso cup filled with what I can only describe as a melted chocolate bar. It was REALLY thick, not like hot chocolate we’re used to. It was good, but after a filling dinner, was a little much. It was dark by the time we were finished, so we took a taxi back to the hotel.

And now we’re back in the room, finally with Internet access again. It means so much to have this connection with all of you and the rest of the world. What did we do before email and such?