Beautiful blue skies and sunny right now, a contrast to the gray, windy, and rainy days preceding it. Golden leaves are falling quickly off the trees, and soon the branches will be bare. Loving it here, a lot!! After work, we go out every night for a walk, usually to the metro stop, hop a train, and go to a mall at the next stop. Great to get exercise. Takes 12-15 mins from home to metro, then just a couple to the mall. We stop a lot at Citibank's ATMs because we are stockpiling rubles since the dollar is so good right now. We have a safe in the apt where we're stockpiling them and keeping them safe. The apt costs 70,000 rubles ($2,300) a month so it takes a few visits to get as much as needed for rent, food, etc. I haven't figured out the coins yet, maybe I can take time to do that today. Finally over jetlag. It's been a real struggle and something as simple as learning to recognize coins was more than I could handle.
At this point, we spend our office time writing proposals to initiate programs the church hasn't had here before such as addiction recovery meetings, marriage seminars, pre-marriage seminars for singles, etc., and counseling for individuals/couples. The proposals go to the area presidency of the church for approval, especially approval for the legalities of it all. The church has a legal charter that allows us to be operate here, and we can't do anything to jeopardize it, so it's a place to carefully tread. We plan to have everything up and running by the beginning of January, maybe sooner. We were supposed to meet with the presidency this morning, but it's been moved nearly two weeks away. The wheels turn slowly here, I tell ya. Twiddling my thumbs a lot, and hoping to become much, much busier. It has been a month since we entered the MTC, and afraid the next 22 will fly by too quickly. There is much to do, but approvals come first.
This Friday we go back to Ashan (the big grocery store) and Ikea. (see mall in video below). We need a lot more groceries and will freeze certain things that are much, much cheaper at Ashan's than at the smaller local stores nearby. I am happy to get to go to Ashan when I'm awake :) Being a foodie, I am so curious about the food here. At a local store I was able to find a tomato, red pepper, onion mixture in a glass bottle. We add cayenne and tabasco to for a reasonably good salsa - something we like and use a lot. Hey, just occurred to me to add cumin to it as well. That should make it taste even more like home. I was more than worried that we wouldn't find cilantro here, a food staple as far as I'm concerned, but we found a local fruit/veggie stand that sells it by weight; it's beautiful, so we're good to go. Did buy a bottle made by Heinz that says salsa, but tastes like sweet, sweet ketchup with peppers and onion. Yuck! Glad to have stumbled on something better. Will look for it at Ashan tomorrow as it will be cheaper there. Some things are really cheap, for example, have you had Magnum bars? (Ice cream bars with chocolate/nuts/caramel). They are yummy, yummy ice cream on a stick that have just started to be sold in the US (Walmart carries them among other stores) and we have loved them on other trips to Europe. They are only 55 cents here. What a deal! (Chris and Babs, if you are reading this, I'm talking about the ice cream bars we brought at a convenience store in Victor, remember?)
And in case anyone cares about chocolate, really good stuff is available here, like Lindt and Milka, for less than a dollar. Red peppers must be a national obsession because they are everywhere--humongous, beautiful and cheap. Other fruits and vegetables can be found for good prices but almost everything is sky high. We will end up spending a fortune on food, I'm afraid, unless we stick with pasta and rice. I feel the pounds adding on already. And did I mention the chooclate? Boy howdy!! Outside the metro stops, babushkas (older women) sell fruits and veggies too, such as huge mushrooms that look as though they were just plucked from a forest floor, little baskets of red currants, and other such goodies. I bought some prune plums from one of them a few evenings a go and ate four before going to bed. Well, let me tell you, that was a mistake. Don't think I'll be buying off the street like that again as the after effect was disastrous.
Speaking of eating sugar, Russ is on the phone right now calling around to find a dentist to do a root canal. He had trouble with this tooth at home and the dentist was hesitant to do a root canal if it wasn't absolutely necessary--it was just giving him a few twinges now and then. Dentist did put a crown on with "temporary" cement, but then he couldn't get it off at the last office visit, so it was left in place with no root canal.Hmmmm. A BIG MISTAKE! Stupid dentist!! Stupid us!! Coulda, shoulda, woulda had it done before we left. Now it is acting up in a big way and it's got to be taken care of ASAP. There is a good dentist here, as a matter of fact, our friend Bethany who is a missionary here with her husband used to work for him years ago in Texas. Small world, isn't it. That's who Russ is trying to get an appt with, but he's out of town, so don't know what to do next. Rats!! Hate it that the brand new crown will have to be drilled through, which will weaken it and make it last a shorter period of time, although at our age maybe that doesn't matter. Gee, I hate saying that.
We're getting to know some of the Russian people who work in our office, Fun people. If only we could learn Russian simply by rubbing shoulders with them. It still sounds like gibberish, and I rarely pick out a word I know. One of the couples here has a private tutor once a week for $70 an hour. Pricey. Guess we'll pass on that one.
We LOVE it here, even with the expensive food and streets flooded with water because there isn't a sewer system, crowded metro, shivery and cold. Moscow is wonderful!
