A visit to the opera, a fashion show, a boxing match and the circus - just a normal week in Russia

So far, life in Russia has been an unexpected whirlwind of foreign receptions and travel. While there are only a handful of foreign missions represented in Yekaterinburg, all of them decided to have their national day (or equivalent) celebrations in the past two months, which made for a very fun if hectic life. At the same time, I fly to Moscow almost every weekend both for work and to see the Diplomat, Son and Fat Cat (collectively,  the “Bachelor Pad”), which certainly adds to the dynamic routine. But once the receptions were over, I finally had the chance to soak in a little of the rich cultural life Russia has to offer. In the span of one week, I managed to watch Swan Lake in the Yekaterinburg Opera, attend a boxing match, a runway show during Yekaterinburg’s Fashion Week (front row seat!!) and go to the Moscow Circus, all four of which were fabulous!

I love the opera and so to my delight, the Yekat opera house is very close to my house, and the tickets are not very expensive. So, for my first visit there, I decided to treat myself to the type of seat I always thought fancy since it was too expensive anywhere else I have been. And so, I bought a ticket in a side box on the ground floor for a grand total of $17, feeling quite smug about myself. Once I arrived there, I discovered that I am not able to see ⅓ of the stage and the seating was old wooden chairs. Next time - plush orchestra seats it is. The ballet was great except for Prince Siegfried who was a bit on the heavy side and every time he landed after a jump, the crystal chandeliers shook gently. 

The next night, I went to watch boxing - after a string of local boxers, came the star fight of the night between a Russian and an American boxer. After a pretty intense 10 rounds, the American ended up winning. My loud cheers were met with icy stares from folks around me.

A couple of days later, I got invited to the annual Yekaterinburg Fashion Show, where I was treated to a front row seat. I have to say that some of the designers were quite amazing, and I am currently working with one of them to get some of her clothes.

The cultural week ended appropriately with an astonishing show at the Great Moscow State Circus, where for three straight hours we were all mesmerized by incredible acrobats and animal acts. The show was called “The Center of the Universe” and was centered along the theme of the recent World Cup. There is a reason the Russian circus is a legend - they even had a black bear walking on a tightrope on its hands. The week ended with a splendid dinner in an Italian restaurant behind the Red Square.

First impressions after two months in Russia:

1.      Russians are obsessed with coat check (called “garderob”). They check their coats obsessively in restaurants, museums, stores, shopping malls, even supermarkets. If you don’t check your coat, they will chase you and force you to check it. They will get scandalized if you refuse and go sulk in the garderob section.

2.      Russians smoke more than Bulgarians. I did not think it was possible but apparently it is. They particularly enjoy smoking in their cars with the windows closed, so that they can really soak in the smoke.

3. Taxi drivers are suicidal (i.e., they think they are really good drivers). I especially love riding in a taxi in which the driver has just smoked, so I can enjoy both the saturated cigarette smell at a neck-breaking speed.

4.      I am yet to see a Russian woman with naturally curly hair. Thus, hairdressers have no idea how to style a person with such hair (e.g., me). The first time I went to a salon and asked for a blowout with large curls, the hairdresser spent 10 minutes oohing and aahing about my hair texture, and was clearly puzzled as to what to do with it. After emphasizing several times that I do not my hair ironed straight and looking limp, she did precisely that, leaving me to look like a sad spaniel with dangling ears. My second time, this time in Moscow, fared no better. I am afraid to try again.

5.      Doing manicure is a 2.5-hr (minimum!) affair, during which the “master” will tell you sternly what is classy and what is not (what I wanted was apparently NOT), and will proceed to do just that. Take it or leave it.

6.      Massages are fabulous and cheap.

7.      Hats are a religion - even if it is well above 0, everyone will wear a hat.

8.      This is a smoked salmon paradise - my local supermarket smokes its own and there are about 15 different varieties. I am addicted!  

9.      Public transportation in Moscow is a dream.

10.  Service in restaurants while incredibly polite, takes hours. Do not go to a restaurant hungry. Also, make sure you do NOT order all the food at the same time, or you will end up eating the main course first, then perhaps an appetizer and then possibly a soup.

11.  Russian women go to the gym in the most surprising outfits (albeit not all of them surprise in a good way).

12.  Russian people are truly very, very nice people.

How (not) to Move to Russia in a Week

Once we came back from Europe, the move-planning machine went into overdrive. We spent about a week waiting for the final approvals of our travel, and you’d think we would prepare ourselves better for it in the meantime. We didn’t. So, when the approvals finally came through, we were left with about 10 days or so to call the movers, sort out our possessions, buy plane tickets, figure out how to transport Son from Bulgaria (where he was still hanging out with Grandma) to Russia, rent our house, change our residency to Florida, and well, move to Russia. Suffice it to say, it did not all go super smoothly.

For starters, the move itself was a nightmare logistically. The Diplomat and Son were actually moving to Moscow so that Son can go to school there, and I was going to Yekaterinburg (about 2 hr plane ride further towards Siberia) because my assignment was there. That meant that we were going to be packed separately by two different companies on two separate days. In addition, all of our furniture had to go to deep storage (generally, the State Department provides us with furniture overseas and there is no place for our own stuff) and that was to be done by a third company. And then there was the car and the cat. So, on a Friday morning, I called the State Department Travel & Transportation coordinator and boldly scheduled the three consecutive packouts on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday the following week. And then we would fly out to Russia on the following Monday. We spent the weekend splitting up the household (“you get the circular colander, I get the rectangular; you get the fancy plates, I get the grater” and so on), sorting out clothing into air shipment (to arrive within 2 weeks) and ship shipment (to arrive… no one knows when), and showing the messy house to potential renters.

And just when you thought this was not complicated and exhausting enough, I got this idea that we needed to change our Virginia residence since we were not going to be VA residents anymore. Since we own a house in Florida, I decided that we can try and switch our residence there. As we had two days before the packout hell would begin, I figured that we might try our luck and go get driving licenses and establish domicile in the state of Mickey Mouse. We flew in very late on Sunday night, got up around 9 am, drove to the DMV at 9:30 am, and walked out of there at 10 am as proud owners of shiny new driving licenses and registered FL voters. From there we drove to the Courthouse, where we filed an official affidavit of domicile. That took 7 minutes. Everywhere we went, the customer service was courteous, jovial and efficient. Also, my license photo was amazing, which is always a plus. I know we chose the right state – in Virginia, this process would have taken 11 months and 3 days. Left with all this time on our hands (I had planned a whole two days to achieve this), we decided that it was wiser to try and fly earlier home on standby to continue to sort out through our life possessions. We were home by 10 am on Tuesday. All in all, I would say that were the 35 of the most efficient hours in my life.

And so, on Wednesday, the final madness began with a snappy crew of 5 Romanian movers who were fast, efficient and dead serious. In the meantime, the Diplomat took Fat Cat (who is still very much alive, thank you very much) to the vet. You see, in order to export a cat overseas, one needs to 1) take the cat to the vet to make sure it is healthy, 2) get said cat vaccinated for rabies (and probably some other useless stuff depending on the country), 3) get the vet to sign a health certificate, and then 4) either drive 2 hours to Richmond or spend a boatload of money Fedex-ing that certificate to the U.S. Department of Agriculture where it would get signed by some other certified someone and sent back to you with a pre-paid overnight Fedex for even more money ($75 per package to be precise). The whole process is utterly incomprehensible to me – how exactly is the USDA adding value here is beyond me but airlines refuse to board the cat as cargo without that piece of paper. The trick is that the cat has to leave the country within 5 days of its exam (hence the crazy expensive overnight mail). Despite the silly logistics, this could have been a fairly simple matter of just throwing money at everyone and getting it done, except that once the vet pocketed the $350 for the exam and the vaccine, she also produced an alternative Russia-specific form, which said that Russia requires the rabies vaccine to be one more than 20 days in advance of travel (SOMEONE, and I am not saying who but it wasn’t me, did not pay attention to the instructions we were sent way in advance). As you can figure out, we were about 5 days before travel. Uselessly, the next day I drove down to Richmond with my super friend M to try and convince the USDA to sign the form anyway. Which they did not despite my earnest pleading – the lady behind the counter literally looked at the form, then at me and curtly said, “No” and then disappeared not to be seen again. Crestfallen, we drove back. Fat Cat would not fly with us. Thankfully, Super M agreed to host Fat Cat for the following 2 weeks and coordinate with a cat shipper to send the portly animal to us in the end.

Then we hit the next snag, again due to a rookie oversight. Our recently purchased car could not be shipped without a copy of the title, which in the great state of VA is electronic. You’d think that means simply that you can go to the DMV and they would print you a copy. Such silly (logical) thoughts. No. What that means is that you make a request to get a copy, and then it takes an undisclosed time for the DMV to send it to you. And if this wasn’t enough, God help you if you bought the car through a lender. In that case, it is the LENDER who has to request the title. It took our lender a week, a WEEK to do that. So, the car would also not be traveling to Russia right away – our gracious neighbor S agreed to wait for the title to arrive and turn the car over to the movers once that happened. One more reason to be relieved not to be a VA resident anymore.

So, in the end, we left the United States with stuffed 3 suitcases but without Son, Fat Cat, and the car, relying on Grandma, Super M and Neighbor S to bring/send those to us. At least we found a lovely couple to rent the house and even managed to have a few goodbye gatherings.

In the following weeks, we slowly gathered the scattered family in Russia. Grandma brought Son a week later just in time for the school sleepover; Fat Cat flew on time and has been steadily spreading his hair all over our governmentally-provided furniture for the past month; and the ship carrying the car just docked in Antwerp (when it actually gets to us is anybody’s guess, of course). Now we wait for the rest of our belongings to join us – hopefully some time before next year.

DC-Sofia-Mumbai-Sicily-Sofia-Berlin-Reykjavik-NYC-DC

It has been an eventful summer, to put it mildly. In late June, I bid goodbye to my job in the Bureau of Consular Affairs in DC, and embarked on a month-long vacation with the Diplomat and Son. If you would kindly remember, our next assignment was supposed to be Ukraine, starting in the summer of 2019. This next year we were going to study Russian and soak up more of that special Arlington culture while Son finished elementary school here. The Diplomat had the whole year planned out – the man loves to go to class. He was going to study diligently during the day, and play as much golf and tennis as was decent in the evenings and the weekends. That idyllic plan all came crashing down when I was offered a one-year assignment in Yekaterinburg, Russia to fill a staffing gap, before we go to Ukraine. I am a typical Foreign Service officer – dangle a shiny, exotic post with tons of hardship and I will end up saying yes. Which I did with the Diplomat’s blessing – I convinced him to come and study Russian in Russia instead.

That little change of plans put a major spoke in our vacation wheels. We were supposed to cash in all of our accumulated vacation time and spend close to two months in Europe and India, seeing family, friends and some good, old European churches. We had spent over 3 days in total on the phone with American Airlines, cashing in on a ton of frequent flyer miles to do that and were feeling particularly proud of ourselves achieving an almost cash-free flight experience. With this new situation, we cut our decadent vacation plans in half, canceled all those hard-won tickets (which cost us a pretty penny), attempted to re-book (with zero success) and ended up buying a whole set of new tickets, some of which made for a very interesting journey back.

We landed in Sofia on a bright July morning, ate Grandma’s delicious home food, and a day later, the Diplomat and Son left for a 5-day India visit. And while they battled crippling jet-lag there, I devoted myself to endless restaurant nights with my family, my friends, and my middle and high-school classmates, which helped tremendously with that problem. When they came back, after one more satiating dinner with the family, we headed to sunny Palermo in the pastoral Italian island of Sicily. We spent two days roaming the streets of the old city, and nature must have really liked us because instead of the typical 40+ degrees scorching summer weather, we had very pleasant, mild sunshine both days. After arriving late in the evening, we went in search of a place to have dinner, fully mindful that it was 11 pm. You know, living in Arlington slowly and cruelly conditions you to accept the reality that everything shuts down at 10:30 pm every week night, something that my inner New Yorker could never come to terms with. But this was Europe and my hopes were high. Sure enough, after roaming the quiet neighborhood for 7 minutes or so, we found the most romantic little restaurant, which served us perfect pasta, immaculate Apperol spritzes, homemade lemonade for Son, and delightful conversation with the server in perfect English. Ah, Europe….

We spent the next day sightseeing old town (went in at least 3 churches!). Palermo is beautiful, and among the classic tourist places like Ballarò Market, the Plazzo dei Normani, and the Quattro Canti (a gorgeous Baroque intersection of two main streets, which used to separate the 4 districts of Renaissance Palermo), I strongly recommend you go to the little visited San Nicolo di Bari all’Albergheria Tower, from where you will see spectacular views of the city. I also strongly recommend this site, which offered great free walking tours of the city: https://wearepalermo.com/free-self-guided-walking-tours/.

That night we decided to try and have dinner in a decidedly non-tourist place (which is not easy in a city full of tourists and restaurants catering to them). On the recommendation of a very hip-looking young lady from a bar we had some more Apperol spritzes (hip = very ripped jeans and vividly purple hair), we headed over to a most amazing restaurant called Ferro di Cavallo. With the risk of ruining a good thing for the locals, I will tell you that that was the best restaurant we ate in our entire 10 day trip in Sicily. We arrived there around 9 pm, starving and impatient to sit down. We found a very lively establishment located on a side street, with both outside and indoor seating. In front of it was a loud crowd of about 50 people, all apparently waiting for a table while laughing, screaming at each other (but in mellifluous Italian, so it was ok) and gesticulating wildly. Somewhat disheartened, I asked the astonishingly energetic and profusely sweating portly host what the wait time for a table for 3 was, and was told 1.5 hrs! 

The free goods

About to take my disgruntled and hangry troops somewhere else, we were stopped by a muscular server who came out with a giant tray of enormous fried shrimp and to the loud ovations of the waiting crowd, placed it on a table right outside the restaurant entrance. Another friendly server came out with a platter of fried calamari and two bottles of Prosecco, glistening with water sweat in the intense evening heat. Apparently, these were free provisions for those brave enough to wait for a table, and to my utter amazement and delight, they kept being replenished every 10 minutes or so. We decided to wait. Finally, we sat down to a most incredible dinner with authentic Palermian food, which, including the bottle of wine, cost us a grand total of 35 Euros. Yup, 35 Euros…

Gorgeous Ragusa

The following day we made our way back to the airport and rented a tiny car – I had booked an Italian Fiat something (when in Rome, right?), but to our utter disappointment, we were handed a Ford Fiesta. Oh well – American car it is. After driving four hours through the somewhat barren-looking, sun-scorched Sicilian countryside, we ended up in the small town of Modica, where we had rented a gorgeous villa (or, “a mansion” according to Son) with a few friends. We spent a week alternating days of sunbathing at the decadent pool, drinking wine and Prosecco all day long, exploring Modica and its restaurants and churches at night, with trips to neighboring Siracusa (boring cathedral, fabulous ancient back streets), Noto (famous for its almond-milk granita – go to Caffé Sicilia for the best), the beach at Santa Maria del Focallo and Ragusa 

Baroque Modica

(incredible Baroque architecture). On our last day, sated with impressions, food, wine and good company, we headed towards Taormina to see the famous ancient Greek amphitheater. While the said amphitheater and the city itself are breathtaking (Taormina is located rather precariously on a steep cliff), we were taken aback by the hordes of tourists and the restaurants, coffee, icecream, and souvenir shops catering to them stuffing the ancient tiny, cobble-stoned streets and totally ruining the overall atmosphere. I guess we had gotten used to the much calmer and less-visited towns of Southern Sicily and this tourist hell was just not cutting it for us.

The Etna funicular

Our next stop was Mt. Etna (of course), and upon realizing that the funicular taking you to the top of the volcano closes at 4:30 pm, the Diplomat stepped on the gas of the Fiesta and made it through the hairpin roads from Taormina in record time. After paying a whooping $150 for the pleasure, we managed to catch the last cable car up the volcano. This is probably a good time to mention that I have a pretty severe fear of heights, which makes trips like that particularly enjoyable. $75 a person will only buy you a trip to the middle of the volcano, and there we were, a few minutes later, walking through the blackish dust of the mountain, staring at the various dead craters from prior eruptions. The change in temperature from the coast (38°C or 100F) to the top (22°C or 71F) was quite striking and very welcome after the swelter of Taormina’s amphitheater. Since we caught the last car up, we had only 10 minutes to enjoy the view and had to get back. 

Our last stop for the day was the ancient port city of Catania, where thanks to an insightful expose on the city in the Wizz Air inflight magazine (yes, I read those!), we finally had fried street seafood at the unassuming hole in the wall called Scirocco Sicilian Fish Lab. I highly recommend grabbing a paper funnel stuffed with fried goodness, a small bottle of Prosecco, and sitting to eat them at the Fontana dell’Elefante at the Piazza del Duomo next door. That evening, exhausted and happy, we boarded a very late Wizz Air from Catania to Sofia. Feeling that we had not rested enough, we decided to spend a couple of days in the Bulgarian spa town of Velingrad. For two days there, the Diplomat, Son and Grandma and I soaked ourselves in the various mineral pools of the hotel, dashed in and out of the steam saunas and continued to eat great food, after which we returned back to Sofia for a final few of days of meeting friends and family, which even included a club-hopping night until 2 am, much to the Diplomat’s fatigued horror.

Leaving Son behind with Grandma, the Diplomat and I embarked on a complicated (but cheaper) route back to DC. From Sofia, we took Ryan Air to Berlin, where we spent a night at a cozy airport hotel (booked with random credit card points). Despite all warnings in the media and by Grandma, Ran Air was great and on time, and did not lose our luggage – what more can one want for a $49 flight. The next morning, we flew on Iceland’s Wow Air to Reykjavik where we had a solid 7 hour layover. Another new-ish cheap airline, Wow Air is comfy, pleasant and well, yes, cheap.

Always excited to see new lands, we decided to explore the remote city, starting with a distressingly expensive dip in the famous Blue Lagoon. Turns out, however, if you are ready to part with your hard-earned 55 Euros a head, you need to book your exotic swim months in advance as it gets booked long before you land there. And so, faced with the disappointing reality, we decided to take the bus downtown and see the city instead. What we did not count on was just how long it would take despite our 7 hrs there. We had to store our hand luggage, but the only place to do so was a 10 minute windy walk outside of the airport. Then we waited for the bus, and once on it, waited for the bus to fill up and leave. 40 mins later we were in the city, which effectively left us with exactly 45 mins to see it and hop back on the bus to the airport. It was enough – Reykjavik is not exactly a sprawling megapolis. I’d like to come back one day, rent a car and drive thorough the country which looked really beautiful. From Reykjavik, we flew to New York, landed at midnight and rented a car, which the Diplomat valiantly drove until 2 am when we passed out in a lovely Days Inn somewhere in the wilderness of New Jersey. The next morning, one free “continental breakfast” later (I’d like to know which weirdo continent serves that food), we were back on the road and made it back home in Arlington by 11 am that morning. What followed were two frantic weeks of preparing to leave for Russia and packing out all of our possessions – for more on that disaster, tune in next week!

The Spring Break Roadtrip, Ordinary DC Life and a NY Twist

For spring break this year, we had the brilliant idea to take a roadtrip from DC, slowly go down south and eventually visit good friends in Jacksonville, Florida. I had it all mapped out. First night – Charlottesville. That charming little college town in the gorgeous Shenandoah valley, surrounded by a many local wineries with actually good Virginia wine. We were supposed to arrive on Friday night, check in the cozy Airbnb house, tucked away in the woods, then go to a local pub and have grass-fed burgers and local brew, while Son reveled in the company of his parents. Then on Saturday, we would prance through 2 of the best wineries, and drive down to Charlotte – the modern, hip North Carolina city with fun downtown. I even sprang on a pricier hotel downtown, to be close to the action on Saturday night. Then on Sunday, we would walk its quirky streets before we went further south to Charleston to meet with our friends and continue the trip South.

Instead, this is what happened. On Friday afternoon, after coughing violently for about a week with no other symptoms, Son complained that he did not feel well. He tends to say that a lot, which can have various meanings, depending on his mood but most typically means he is tired, hungry and about to become really whiney. We gave him snacks and drove off excitedly to the Shenandoah. After driving through a million tiny roads into the woods and stopping at a creepy train crossing for over 15 minutes to wait out a seemingly endless train, we made it to a most fabulous Airbnb rental house. We left our luggage and rushed to the local pub, where we had fabulous freshly prepared pub food, the Diplomat and I sipped local brews and wines, while Son played Minecraft. We went back, and Son happily bounced about in the huge king-sized bed he had to himself, playing with an enormous stuffed pink pig left there. The next morning, he woke up, took a shower and said he felt really sick, and proceeded to fall asleep again. Mommy’s thermometer and instinct told me he wasn’t joking, and off we went to the local emergency clinic. A neat male doctor there told us that Son either has strep or pneumonia, which freaked me out. A quick test confirmed it was NOT strep, and off we were, reams of prescriptions in our hands, into the pharmacy.

Well stocked on antibiotics, fever medicine, thermometer, cough drops, and what have you, we decided to go for lunch so that Son can have a little soup before getting medicated. We ended up in a cute local favorite, which happened to have soup. Excited, I ordered one for him, and loaded the antibiotics. He gamely ate quite a few spoonfuls, took the first dose of the medicine, looked me sadly in the eyes, then turned to the still half-full soup plate and promptly barfed everything right back in it. I should tell you that I am a sympathy barfer, and it took everything out of me to keep cool. After the Diplomat gamely took the plate back, I fed the child medicine again, stopped trying to force him to eat food and went on the road to Charlotte – a 4.5 hour drive, during which we had to stop every 30 mins for him to barf some more water, until I gave up trying to make him stay hydrated. We finally made it to Charlotte, and he refused any food option we tossed at him, until I mentioned ramen noodles. It was a winner and a turning point. The next morning, the child was bouncing off the walls again, and later that day, spent 2 hours in the pool in the Charleston hotel with his buddy, while we sipped moonshine with our friends. The rest of the trip went swimmingly well but I still need to go back to Charlottesville and sample them wineries!

Life has been hectic around here with constant hosting, going out, traveling, filing taxes, drinking in the backyard with the neighbors (frequently), schlepping Son to art classes and golf and tennis lessons, and all the other joys of every day life. We just survived our very first school play with a rather incomprehensible plot, the complexity of which was exacerbated by the poor acoustics in the school gym and the fact that we did not hear much of what was going on. It had something to do with computer games, and Son and 20 girls from the elementary school sang their hearts out for 2 hours with some sort of a moral story in the end. It was fantastic, plus there were cupcakes for the cast in the end!

Last week, very close and very fabulous friends from Brazil were visiting New York and we went up to see them for the weekend. After a grueling 6 hour drive up there, we started with a wedding party at my friend’s (she owns an apartment in NY), which she was throwing for someone else. 17 glasses of champagne and a dozen macarons later, the Diplomat and I were ready to go to the hotel and pass out. We, however, have this thing about eating ramen late at night every time we go back to NY, and around 1 am decided to see if we can find a ramen place nearby. See, this is why NY will forever be my favorite city in the whole world – it was 1 am, and we were in the middle of Midtown East, and it was not a question of whether there was a ramen restaurant open anywhere in the city at that point but rather, whether there was a good one within 3 blocks of where we were. And naturally, there was – Hinomaru Lucky Cat – with the most delicious Japanese noodle bowls one can imagine on a cool spring night in Manhattan. 

The next evening, we decided to take our friends to a cute French bistro in West Village we had found randomly on Open Table – Le Baratin. Small, cute and cozy, Le Baratin serves classic French food and features classic cute male French waiters. What was a little unusual was the nice dance music that was going on in the background. The music was indeed so good, that after a bottle of wine and a good steak, one of our friends felt like dancing, managed to entice a few more people from the restaurant to join her in the tiny space, and soon the entire restaurant was dancing like crazy, and since the space was so small, some were dancing on top of the bar as well. Soon the owner joined us and sent us a bunch of glasses of champagne, which of course only further fueled the dancing frenzy. We left at 1 am again. Yes, I love NYC!

This past weekend, we spent a long and sunny afternoon in the Paradise Springs winery near DC. Now, I will be the first one to tell you that Northern Virginia wine is rather crappy, BUT this was an award-winning one and for a good reason – the wine was actually quite decent, plus the grounds were beautiful. Except that today, I pulled a tick out of my foot. Um, what??