Cassie & Scott’s neck of the woods…March 5, 2010

Cassie and Scott Muir are friends of ours from back home. (www.agoodscottishname.blogspot.com) Scott worked at Abbott with Darron and then at Hospira with me! It’s such a small world…Scott’s dear Grandma Muir is friends with my aunt-and also volunteered for my mom at Purdue Cal. He and his wife Cassie moved to England back in 2008. Cassie and I have fun helping each other plan trips (okay, mostly Cassie helps me) and joking about expat wife life via facebook and skype. We were so happy that Cassie was able to show us around the English countryside. First we stopped in Stratford to tour William Shakespeare’s birthplace and home, and then had a bite to eat. What a great little town! Next we went on to Warwick Castle. It was a beautiful day and were were very thankful to have such a wonderful tour guide!  After our touring, Cassie took us back to their beautiful home and fed us the BEST blondies EVER. And I do mean EVER. It was great that Scott was able to leave work at a reasonable hour to come and visit with us!

 

 

Erin and I played checkers on my IPOD all the way to Leamington Spa. Good thing we didn’t sit in the “quiet car”-we’d have been kicked out!

 

 

 

 

                    

                  We’re here! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s Cassie—she was a perfect hostess! I had to take this picture because the drivers seat is on the opposite side! Cassie is a great driver, but it was a bit scary being a passenger on the other side of the car!

 

 

Loxley Church. Just a quick drive by. Lovely little church. Supposedly, Robin Hood is buried here…

 

 

 

 

Front of William Shakespeare’s home

 

 

 

 

Back and gardens of William Shakespeare’s home

 

 

 

Erin and I in front of Warwick Castle. I called it Dionne Warwick Castle. Actually, those crazy Brits don’t say the second “w” so it’s Warick…

 

 

 

 

 

Gate/Entrance area within the castle.

 

 

 

 

Our tour guide within the castle. He was VERY comical. He called one of the older lady’s in our group a “saucy bird”.

 

 

 

 

 

Inside the castle walls.

 

 

 

 

 

One of the towers we decided to climb to get great views!

 

 

 

 

Looking at another tower of the castle from up high!

 

 

 

This view is of Warwick's town centre and also of St. Mary's Church, as seen from a tower look out point at the castle. This church was founded in 1123 by an Earl of Warwick.

 

 

 

Another view from the tower.

 

 

 

 

What goes up must come down…the stairs we had to climb down from the tower.

 

 

 

 

Cassie and Scott’s foyer. After a fantastic end to the day with Cassie’s homemade goodies!

UK trip March 3-14th, 2010

I simply LOVE London. Love it. Love it. Love it. Aside from a day trip to Leamington Spa and a Scotland get-a-way, I didn’t do many touristy things (both will be in separate posts). Just spent time with dear friends whom I met in Paris and have moved to London. I tried to be a “local”. We laughed until our belly’s ached. I stayed with Erin whom I met at our grocery store in Paris one random day. She moved to London about 6 months after we met and we were so sad we hadn’t met earlier. We lived very close to each other and could have had lots of fun! I also got to see my wonderful friends Christina (met in Paris and now lives in London) and Elise (still lives in Paris but came to visit)! I got to see Darron’s cousin Jessica who has also recently moved to London. We frequented Starbucks (my friend Erin is slightly addicted to coffee), shopped for books (LOVED all the bookstores), and groceries (I had a mile long list of things I wanted to bring back to Moscow), and walked around different areas. I REALLY lucked out with the weather. Sunny skies all but one day of my trip! That’s a rarity in London!

I loved learning all the fun “Londonisms” or “Britishisms” and using them!

A HUGE Thank You to Erin and Kevin for putting up with me for 12 days! I hope to come back next year-get the Carcassone out! :-)

I love this! They call Bandaids Plasters! Made me chuckle.

Starbucks. The pricing was very similar to the US Starbucks. In Moscow…items are more than double the price! From left to right: Erin, Christina, and yours truly!

I love these old fashioned phone booths!

Kensington Palace

This has made me laugh every time I’ve been in London. I will admit, it IS difficult remembering which way to look when crossing! This was a bike path, but even regular streets had “look left” and “look right”!

My friend Erin’s “hood”. She doesn’t live in these particular buildings, but around the corner. Notice the sunny skies?

Saturday market near Erin’s. We bought tea, dinner pies, and had a shot of gin! And yes Erin, just because it was a tiny shot—it’s still a shot! :-)

Erin, Kevin (her hubby) and I taking a bus to Notting Hill. God Love Kevin AGAIN for putting up with two 30 something giggly women!

The bookstore that was in the movie “Notting Hill”.

Just one of the many types of DELISH cupcakes from the Hummingbird Bakery. P.S. I bought their cookbook! :-) Great, my backfat already runneth over…

Christina and I bought matching hats!

Darron’s cousin Jess. I was so happy we were able to connect with her!

Oh how I miss you Lauderee (and Janae)! Laudree was my friend Janae and my’s favorite place for macaroons and tea in Paris.

Fancy Lauderee teapot!

My dear friend Elise

This sign made me giggle. Brits use the word fancy for “do you want"”? Fancy a chat? Fancy a tea? Or even…Fancy a nibble…?

President Medvedev angry over low Russian medal count at the Vancouver Games

Just an interesting article…

http://www.nbcolympics.com/news-features/news/newsid=454023.html#russia+demands+resignations+over+flop

“In a One Horse Open Troika…”

WOW! I think Wednesday was my all-time favorite day in Moscow. Another “GO MOSCOW” adventure! Sixteen of us piled in a van and were driven about 1.5 hours outside of Moscow to a town called Sergiev Posad. It is famous for the Monastery, but I’ll have to go back as we just didnt’ have time this trip!

We started off at Sveta’s B&B. There she had Russian pancakes (Blini’s) and tea waiting for us! Then we were on our way into the deep forest for hotdog roasting and Troika riding. They even served champanski and vodka! Apparently champanksi and vodka go very well with hotdogs!

We really lucked out with the weather. It had snowed quite a bit over the weekend, and I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was!

We took turns riding the Troika’s and sat around the campfire chatting. And laughing. Oh, there was lots of laughing! 

After the rides, we headed back to Sveta’s for a traditional Russian meal. Although I don’t like borsh, everyone else raved about it! She also served some pretty yummy stew!

While she was preparing dessert, she ushered us all into the livingroom area for some karaoke! Did you really think I’d pass up karaoke? And so continues the laughing…

What a fantastic day!

St. Petersburg, Russia February 20-23, 2010

We had a great time in St. Petersburg despite the frEEEEEEEEEzing temperatures. We are now looking forward to going back in the summer to experience St. Pete’s without snotcicles, and to walk through the beautiful gardens. Unfortunately, our small digital camera’s battery is on the fritz, so we weren't able to get many pictures on this trip.

We were up at dawn’s crack because our train left at 6:45am. We took the fast train to St. Pete’s, which just started running at the end of 2009. It was super clean, and very comfortable. It’s called the “Sapsan because a Sapsan is very fast bird! It only took 3h 45m to get there!

The weather was less than desirable. Due to the amount of humidity in the air, it felt even colder than the 1 degree (f) temps. And it was pretty much a blowing, snowing blizzard. We just bundled up and walked to most of our destinations. Notice Darron’s lashcicles.

Once we arrived at the Kunstkamera museum-one Darron “just had to see”, he asked me very nicely to go into the bathroom and maybe look in the mirror. Yes, this is what I looked like. My hair was frozen and the blowing snow caused my make-up to go all kinds of crazy. I am thinking of sending this in to compete for Mrs. St. Pete’s 2010…what do you think?

The State Hermitage Museum. Now, I am not really a museum-liking chick. I’m more interested in the architecture inside the building. It’s beautiful. Its ginormous! One of the largest museums in the world. “The collection of the State Hermitage includes more than three million works of art and artifacts of the world culture. Among them are paintings, graphic works, sculptures and works of applied art, archaeological finds and numismatic material”. museum website

Darron and I went to the ballet at the Mariinsky Theatre. It was AWESOME! I’d never been to a real ballet before and I enjoyed it tremendously! We saw Shurale and it was super fun and vibrant. Due to our camera malfunctions, I am going to use some pics I found on the internet to show you what a beautiful theatre it is. If only our weather mirrored what’s in this picture!  Now I am scoping out tickets to attend a ballet here in Moscow.

I did take these next two pics. Not great and they don’t do the theatre justice, but it’s the best I’ve got.

The Church of the Spilt Blood. I loved this church. It was amazing. Favorite mosiac church I’ve seen thus far. Unfortunately, camera battery was dead so thanks Mr. Internet for allowing me to borrow some pics…

The church contains over 7500 square meters of mosaics– according to its restorers, more than any other church in the world. The walls and ceilings inside the Church are completely covered in intricately detailed mosaics – the main pictures being biblical scenes or figures – but with very fine patterned borders setting off each picture.”  wikipedia

We also went into St. Issac’s Cathedral which was beautiful. “St. Isaac's Cathedral was originally the city's main church and the largest cathedral in Russia. It was built between 1818 and 1858, by the French-born architect Auguste Montferrand, to be one of the most impressive landmarks of the Russian Imperial capital. One hundred and eighty years later the gilded dome of St. Isaac's still dominates the skyline of St. Petersburg”. wikipedia

We plan on visiting St. Pete’s again this summer-with a new camera..and less sweaters!

Bolshoi Theatre

I am involved in a group called “GO MOSCOW”! This group meets once a month and usually gets to do something a bit out of the ordinary. The Bolshoi tour was so popular a few months ago, they decided to add on another visit! Since I didn’t get to go the first time, I was pumped!

Does anyone know what Bolshoi means? Come on, guess for CRY-EYE! Okay, I’ll make it multiple guess for you…

A. Ballet B. Big C. Swan Lake D. Famous

Here are the Russian letters for Bolshoi-

большой. Yes, I have to look at these crazy letters every day!

Now you can cheat and google what the word means!

It's means BIG. The Bolshoi Theatre was the largest building in Moscow when it was built. The Bolshoi Theatre has a rich history; despite being built on a swamp, several fires, and the current ridiculously not even close to being done-very late-renovations.

We started off the day at Le Pain Quotidien for breakfast. YUM! It’s a French bakery type place with with tons of healthy items to choose from. And some not so healthy. I ordered a crossiant (ALMOST as good as Paris) and hot chocolate. This was no ordinary hot chocolate! It came with a cereal size bowl of frothy milk and a teacup size of melted chocolate to add in. BRILLIANT!

The Bolshoi. The neatest (I like the word neat-don’t judge) thing was we got to see a rehearsal. To make it even more special, it was the first performance for the main female character. Her voice? WOWZA. It was the very famous opera Eugene Onegin (poem by Pushkin, music by Tchaikovsky - 2 most famous and beloved Russians!). We in fact saw the famous "letter scene".

Once the renovations are complete, the old (original) theater will show the classics "Swan Lake" and the current will show more modern productions. Apparently, Russians prefer classics and have not been too receptive of newer ballets and operas. The two will be connected with underground passages so sets, costumes, rehearsal space, etc can be shared. Right now, as there is Opera on the stage, the ballet group "has free time" and are able to travel around Russia to perform and around the globe.

Maslenitsa

My students told me it was "Pancake" week (Maslenitsa) here in Moscow. I had no idea! One of the perks of tutoring English is I am learning more and more about Russian culture! You won’t find me wearing fishnets and fur hats though…

Maslenitsa wasn’t celebrated for 85 years in Russia. However, since 2002, it is back in full force and it is again becoming a mainstay of Moscow's holiday calendar.

Maslenitsa signals the end of winter and heralds the coming of spring. It is also the pre-Lenten celebration before the upcoming Lenten fast. Maslenitsa is the week before lent and you can find Russian pancakes being served all over the city!

Blini are Russian pancakes, and they are a very important part of the Maslenitsa celebration. It is said that these pancakes symbolize the sun-warm, round, and golden. They send a message to winter that it’s time to say good-bye! Blini are given to friends and family all through the week and are topped with caviar, mushrooms, jam, sour cream, and of course, lots of butter.

All in all, Maslenitsa is a good excuse to go out and have a good time, spend time with family & friends, eat until you burst, and do something you wouldn't do any other time of the year.

Night Skating on Red Square

We had so much fun ice- skating on Red Square-we decided to do it again—this time at night! Four of us braved the cold to skate on a beautiful, snowy, Moscow evening! We had a blast!

Strangely Familiar…

One of the biggest challenges expats face in each new country is getting used to grocery shopping. The women in the AWO group were extremely helpful in explaining what to buy and which stores and brands were the best. You’d be surprised at the amount of time that is spent talking about grocery shopping during our meetings! The most common question for newbies is “Can I get _______ here”? I thought it would be fun to take a few pics of some common Russian food items I buy here. Click on View Full Album and then click on each picture to read about it! 

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