Like nomads, but with more stuff

туркей хилл в Москве

2009-07-06T23:51:00.006+04:00

I was on my walk back to the hotel tonight, when I swung into a grocery store to pickup some water and snacks. To my surprise sitting in the freezer section of the grocery store was Turkey Hill. I couldn't believe it. They had little one pint containers of Turkey Hill butter pecan. So I of course had to buy some. Unfortunately it seems this really is imported from Lancaster County and not produced under license by a local manufacture. Since the ice cream was somewhat freezer burned. On the one photo you can see importer just threw a Russian translation sticker on the container. I will say that did not stop me from eating the whole pint. For the record the title of this post is Turkey Hill in Moscow. The first two words are simply the words Turkey Hill in Russian Cyrillic letters. That is how it appeared on my receipt.

Greetings from Москвa

2009-07-01T22:07:00.003+04:00

So exactly one month after arriving in St. Petersburg I was sent to Moscow on TDY. Tonight I got out and walked around the Kremlin. You can check out the pictures by clink on the photo above.

All I can say is Moscow is big. Really big. You can read about the fact it has a population of 13 million but until you are there you don't realize how big it is. For reference purposes NYC is around 8.3 million, Chicago 2.9 million, and Philly 1.5 million. To give an idea of the size of the city I am going to retell a story a local Russian told me. Moscow commonly will get winds that blow in from the north. These winds will blow across the city and while they do that with will pick up heat from the concrete jungle below. When this happens the southern portion of the city will be 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer then the North. This is because there is enough distance and heat produced in the city that by the time the winds hit the south they are not as cold. I am generally only in a small part of the city. Not that Moscow is bad, but I generally like smaller cities. I will take Philly over NYC, Edinburgh over London, and so far St. Petersburg over Moscow.

First Impressions

2009-06-25T21:52:00.001+04:00

I am really slow in getting anything up since we hit Russia but thing have been extremely busy. We got our stuff really quickly so that meant lots and lots of unpacking. So far here are some of my opinions and observations. First the light in the summer is really crazy. This is the farthest north I have ever lived and it is odd always going to sleep with the sun up. When you wake the sun is up. It has certainly affected Lynne much more then myself. With there being lots of sunlight at night she will regularly stay up much later then she really wants to.

So far most of the Russians have been very polite and willing to deal with us butchering their language. That might be because most of the Russians I am dealing when not working are in the shops trying to sell me something. All in all it helps that they are willing to put up with me.

There are a few things that Russians are very good at. One is мед (honey pronounced myod). Honey in Russia is like no where I have ever been. It is amazing. We bought some мед at the рынки (kind of like a farmer’s market pronounced Ree-nok). It was so good that it seemed like a crime to use it in tea. So we bought some cheap мед at the продукты (supermarket/grocery store pronounced Produkty). Even this stuff was really good. Sorry Malta your honey doesn't hold a candle to this stuff. Another is the варенье (pronounced Vareni). варенье is kind of like a thin Jam. It is made like jam but ranges from a thin syrup to a almost Jam consistency. The quality of them are excellent. We have been going through the варенье like crazy since we arrived. One strange thing is the Cherry варенье was made with whole cherry that still had the pits in them. So you have a jar or cherries in this thin cherry syrup. It was very tasty with our блины (thin pancakes pronounced Blini) but picking out the pits was a pain.

The city really is a 24/7 place. There are at least 6 продукты within walking distance that are open 24 hours. There are 24 hour restaurants and drug stores. It is such a change after Malta where you had to have everything for the weekend on Friday or you were in trouble. Here if you forgot something for Sunday dinner just run out and get. No problem.

So far I am really enjoying St. Petersburg. The weather is wonderful for summer. We see in January if my posts are so positive.

Culinary adventures

2009-06-22T13:06:00.005+04:00

I am always amazed at which staple (in my mind) products are found at various overseas locations and which are not. In Malta, sour cream and applesauce did not exist. Here, baking powder, molasses (a.k.a. treacle) and Cheerios have never been seen, to my knowledge. I also have yet to find rice milk or more than one, undrinkable, variety of soy milk. I've just heard of a store where brown sugar can be found. How did people live before internet shopping??

Before I was able to get baking powder into my hands (first through my lovely new friend who handed me an almost-full container she happened to have with her one day, then through our netgrocer.com order) I was desperate for a pancake recipe that did not require baking powder, as pancakes are a staple breakfast food for me. Turns out that a true pancake can not be made without the ingredient, but Norwegian pancakes do not need it. I can still remember the delicious pancakes we had when while in Oslo so I decided this was worth attempting. Also, being Russian denziens for two years, we had to attempt blinis.

The recipe I found for Norwegian pancakes is remarkably similar to the recipes Terry found for blinis. In each case a large quantity of milk is mixed with some flour, eggs and a few other things then spread thin on a griddle. Also in each case a jam (vareini) is spread thin in the middle and then the whole thing is wrapped into either burrito or square shape. We definitely need more practice and some recipe tweaking before we have anything we could serve a guest without embarrassment, but for first attempts we had some very tasty breakfasts.

We've also been experimenting with sweets. We've been very pleased with the quality of Russian chocolate, although if we needed something more familiar they do carry Lindt 70% cocoa at many stores. There's also a very yummy gingerbread type cookie that has made Alex into a mini-tyrant. Really hard not to laugh at her when she stubbornly starts chanting "cookie! cookie! cookie!"

In another interesting twist, Alex only likes American applesauce. When we first arrived we put together a quick netgrocer order that included the handy travel packs of applesauce, because we know those weren't available here. It seemed as though her obsession with the food was easing, as she ate the first 2 jars we fed her but kept refusing the next one. When the netgrocer order came, however, she saw the packs, recognized them, and then became a mini-tyrant whenever she caught a glimpse .... it's good to know she really loves such healthy food, but it is a bit overkill - I have yet to feed her an amount that sated her, generally because I can't bring myself to give her more than 2 cups at one meal.

Summer Gardens

2009-06-08T22:02:00.002+04:00

On our second weekend in country we decided to take a break from unpacking and do a little sightseeing. We forgot that most things don't open until 10am, and with Alex still being our early morning ray of sunshine we were up and ready to go by 8:30am. It was chilly but sunny, and the walk to the Summer Gardens was nice. The locked gates were less nice. The Church of our Savior on Spilled Blood is only a few blocks away, and although it was also closed, the thing that most interested us about the church was the outside - as you can see. We wandered a bit, took photos, and tried to keep me on the sunny side of the street.

Part of the excitement of getting to the Summer Gardens is that they will, reportedly, be closed imminently and for 3 years for restoration. The trees are large and leafy enough that there is little direct sunlight in the gardens, which led me on this chilly day to say "I bet these gardens are lovely in the summer, there is so much shade and benches everywhere."

As a famous garden, though, I have to admit I was a bit disappointed. There are reportedly some 90 sculptures and statues in the gardens, most of which I did not notice although we walked a decent amount of the gardens. Also, there are trees and a few shrubs, and that's about it for greenery. The paths are nice and wide, and there are many benches for sitting and people watching, but I just couldn't see what was so incredibly special about the place. I suppose it is for the best that I won't be going back!

Prague

2008-12-12T21:24:00.009+03:00

We took the opportunity of a Maltese holiday on Monday to go away for a week. After a weekend visiting friends in Frankfurt, we headed to Prague - a destination I've been dying to see since I was 18 years old. Yes, that's a long time. Terry reveled in the cold - it hovered just above, or below (at night) freezing.

First, Czech Airlines rocks. They had toys for Alex. When was the last time an airline gave toys to a little kid? Or, did we not get any on previous trips because she was too young to play? hm....she did also get a little stuffed animal on Lufthansa ...

Second, we got to stay in an embassy owned (leased?) apartment, which is a huge benefit with a little baby who needs darkness to sleep and parents who would rather not hit the sack at 8pm. Some of the embassies that have apartments for the folks who come to work temporarily will rent them out to embassy folks who just want to vacation, and it turns out December isn't exactly high season. It's also a huge benefit because it was right by the embassy, which is in a very sweet location. We could have walked everywhere we went, and did walk everywhere except one place.

Third, wow they give Americans a run for our money in terms of turnover at restaurants. With Alex we are not lingerers anymore and really want to get our food FAST and be acknowledged when it is time to ask for the check. We were in and out of most meals within an hour.

I love the mix of traditional European but a nod to practicality - like most places in Europe, there was plenty of outdoor seating at the restaurants and cafes even though, as mentioned above, the temperature hovered around 0 Celsius. One place we saw actually had a blanket at every seat in deference to the cold. I still opted for the indoor cafes for warming up.

Speaking of warming up, I should mention gluvein, spelled the same way in Czech and Germany. It is very similar to sangria, but served hot. It was instrumental to getting me through several long spells outside. How did Alex stay warm, you may ask? Well, not gluvein! She once again showed up she's daddy's girl and was pretty content with her hat and mittens, sweater and raincoat. Yes, raincoat. In my defense, it is lined, and for comparison sake, Terry wore a T shirt and leather jacket.

Link to the Photos.

Thanksgiving

2008-11-30T13:41:00.003+03:00

Some very lovely embassy folks hosted Thanksgiving this year, so we were only responsible for bringing a dish - my apple pie, of course, as Terry only gets pie when I make it for others (sorry, but it's pretty busy around here!). For my job, though, I did conduct a relatively thorough search for fresh turkeys on the island, as I had located several vendors of frozen turkeys.

Maltese traditionally eat turkey for Christmas. So .... lots of places had small, live turkeys that were not ready for slaughter yet because it is still another month until their turkey season. Plan for next CLO - make nice with a butcher or 2, tell them about Thanksgiving, and convince them to get some turkeys fattened up in time for the American hordes.

Our next adventure is to find Terry a ham for Christmas. I wish him all the luck in the world.

We haven't been adventuring much lately between the craziness of managing Thanksgiving and Christmas as CLO (will never do this again, and I hear it is a common refrain) and the turning weather. Stay tuned though, as we head off the island on Friday for a week on the mainland.

Beating a world record

2008-11-14T22:59:00.002+03:00

Tonight Terry came home and said he wasn't in the mood for the dinner we'd planned for tonight, instead he was in the mood for fried chicken after driving past a place on the way home. Once he said it, I immediately craved greasy fried yumminess so I agreed. We gathered food for Alex's dinner and left.

The place is in Birkirkara, so we had to drive. We left the house at 6pm. We got there, drove around the block to find parking, ordered, ate and returned home ... at 6:45pm.

Has such speed ever been met in Malta?? (OK I bet I could get a pastizzi in that time too). Even Burger King takes longer.

Amazing Alex

2008-11-03T22:26:00.004+03:00

We try really hard to keep the blog about life in Malta (or, soon, life in St. Petersburg) but sometimes the antics of the diaper set just have to be described. Alex is just over a year old, and took her first real, identifiable steps the day before her 1st birthday. She is also very strong, has been pretty much always.

Last night, she took the empty laundry basket, walked it all the way down our hallway (yes she fell a couple of times but always picked herself up by herself), put it down near-ish to the washing machine, then went over and opened and closed the washing machine door a few times (it's a front loader, she isn't THAT tall). I started giving her small pieces of dirty laundry, a shirt of hers, a sock of Terry's and one by one she stuffed them all into the machine. A few times when i slowed down she would try to shut the door, then she'd open it again when i handed her another piece.

Yep, she's ready for her own set of chores!!

Photos of Sicily

2008-10-26T11:48:00.003+03:00

Here are the photos taken from our trip to Sicily. Click on the image above to take a look.

Olives

2008-10-25T22:10:00.004+04:00

I wrote about Sammy and Matty Cremona last year after the lovely evening at their olive plantation. This year, we planned a day full of olives ... Terry, Alex and me, plus a handful of other intrepid do-it-yourselfers arrived at the Ambassador's residence around lunchtime and got olives off the trees. Sammy had said he thought it would take a few hours and we scoffed - yeah, it took a long time. Their trees are very very tall so we used these jerry-rigged poles with little rakes taped to the top to shake and scrape olives off their branches. With about 6 of us rotating time on 2 rakes, everyone else gathering the dropped olives off the ground, we acquired 3/4 of the olives our DCM managed to pick by hand by himself (with some help from the rest of the family) in an hour.

We called it quits around 2:30 because we had to head over to the Cremona's. We were met there by about half the embassy who had decided that although the picking was too strenuous, learning about indigenous maltese olives and the pressing process was just their speed.

Once again there was a delicious spread of brick oven foccaccia , fresh olive oil, sun dried tomatoes, gbejniet, and bigilla (olive paste). In addition they quenched out thirst with Maltese wine. We have been advised to expect about 3 liters of oil for our efforts, I'll find out on Monday when I go back to pick it up - our olives hadn't gotten pressed yet by the time we departed around 5pm.

Maltese cuisine

2008-10-19T23:54:00.002+04:00

Friday night we went to a restaurant that specializes in Maltese cuisine, and that has performances of traditional folk dances on Friday and Wednesday nights. Terry and I had been there once before, this time it was a group of 19 of us from the embassy. He of course jumped at the chance to have rabbit again; I tried their steak Diane - the place had been a chop house decades ago and still prided itself on its meats.

Wine flowed, hearty portions were eaten eagerly, and wandering musicians serenaded several different members of the party. The dances were accompanied by explanations of both the type of dance and the context in which they were traditionally performed, and also the dancers' costumes. At the very end of the night, Terry's boss performed the quintessential Sinatra karaoke.

Sicily

2008-10-19T13:18:00.003+04:00

For Alex's first birthday we got her ... a trip to Sicily and a 5th country visited in one year. Our little world traveler did marvelously, actually sleeping in her pack n play for naps and at night. The downside was we had to have the room completely dark for her to sleep, so mom and dad also went to bed around 8pm - but we needed the rest!

Photos and more commentary to come. Highlights include her first "real" steps (2 at a time!), Alex NOT sleeping through major tourist attractions, and a trip to the naval base commissary where we reveled in USA prices and goods we can't get in Malta. An ode to kielbasa may be created the next time Terry gets into the Glencoe.

Trackless train

2008-10-02T23:29:00.004+04:00

The new touristy schtick in the Mdina area is the Trackless Train (read: tram-like vehicle that is designed and painted to look like a train.) You can see in the photo.

We went on a sunset tour ... it has good and bad points. The trip is nice, pretty scenery and it takes you through parts of Malta you wouldn't ever have reason to visit otherwise. BUT the automated tour spiel was difficult to hear from some parts of the train and there would be a several minute history of a building but no explanation of which of the 50 buildings you drive past during the spiel it's talking about. All in all it was a fun time, and doing the tour plus taking some time to see Mdina is probably a good way for a tourist to spend some time.

Farsons Brewery

2008-10-02T23:22:00.003+04:00

There is one brewery on the island. At a few different times a second upstart came by but each time it was decided that there could be only one and in each case the two merged. On Labor Day we took a tour of the brewery - Simonds Farsons Cisk. In addition to seeing the beer brewing, fermenting and the fun Rube Goldberg example of bottling we also got to see the boardroom - that contains a priceless antique tapestry - and examples of old adverts touting beer as something healthy and nutritious.

It was long for being un-air conditioned but Alex did remarkably well for being out and about at naptime, even managed to fall asleep in her Snugli.

Photos will be posted when I can get to them.

In the home stretch

2008-09-14T22:31:00.002+04:00

When we came to Malta, we brought from the States the result of a massive Costco run before our packout almost 2 years ago. This weekend we realized, after fruitless searches for several things we "knew" we still had Costco-sized containers of, that we will soon have to buy cling film (no Saran Wrap here), and sponges. I was delighted last month to see real vanilla showing up on the shelves of the bakery aisle and am no longer panicking about the next-batch-of-cookies end to the vanilla we brought.

The depletion of goods is a tangible reminder that our journey here is ending. Terry will say that 5 months is forever and why am I even thinking about it now. I have been told by those who prefer 3 years to a post that it takes a good year to feel settled and for me, at a year here I had a 4 month old child who didn't sleep. It has only been a month or two since I feel relatively at home here, and it is almost time to uproot. How will Alex take the transition? What will we end up doing with Kirby? What will I regret that we never got around to doing while we were here (I always have a list every time I leave a place - usually the stuff I "saved for later" like the ferris wheel in Chicago, that i could walk to from my apartment)

On a happier note - Alex has for the last 2 days stood up by herself a few times. One more milestone toward her impending walking. As she gets heavier (the girl likes her food!) I am looking forward to no longer lugging her everywhere.

Paintball request.

2008-09-12T15:30:00.005+04:00

A Michael had commented earlier about paintballing in Malta. If you are interested I will put you in touch with the person who organizes our events. Shot me an email. My email is listed under my blogger profile.

South Philly is coming to Italy

2008-09-12T14:20:00.003+04:00

Apparently Italy's football league president is considering installing a jail in the football stadiums to deter violence. As I heard about this on BBC this morning I instantly thought of the old Vet stadium with its jail. The Italian may want to look at the experience in South Philly. I don't think the jail did a lot to deter people from getting rowdy, although I have no numbers to support my assumption. I do have to say European football hooligans are much worse then anything in American football stadiums. So maybe it will have an effect in Italy.

The International Herald Tribune has and article here.

This is what we don't love about Malta

2008-08-23T23:26:00.003+04:00

The maltaweather.com web site used to have a very helpful jellyfish report. It simply stated which beaches would have jellyfish washing up and therefore you should avoid them. I noted that it existed but never had need of it because we are not beach people.

As I mentioned previously, Alex loved the beach. So we decided instead of doing chores all weekend this weekend we decided to take her to the beach and hopefully we'll all have a good time and she will nap well from the sun and fun. But where to go? I pulled up the trusty web site only to find that the jellyfish report had vanished. Now, I can pay 1 Euro any day I want to get the report SMS'd to my phone at 8:30am. Grrrr.

The handy thing about being married to Terry is the weather report did give the wind direction and he figured which beaches were likely safe and he was right. We really, really love our daughter because we both relived why we don't like beaches but she was so happy we will probably go again, especially as the next 2 weekends are both long holiday weekends. But, next time, she better give us that nap she promised!!!

This is what we love about Malta

2008-08-23T23:08:00.003+04:00

On Wednesday - my only totally free day each week since I started working - I ran errands. On Friday afternoon I tried to buy chlorine and discovered my credit card was not in my wallet. I got Terry on the phone and had him check our account - no funky charges. Then he said the last charge was from a pharmacy. I had completely forgotten about that errand! It turns out the pharmacy was on the way home from the pool place so I was passing it anyway. I went in and before I even said anything the pharmacist - who was the same guy who had helped me when I went in Wednesday - said I had left my card there. He went to get it and said he tried to run after me when I left but didn't find me, and that he tried calling the credit card company in the USA to have them contact me to tell me the card was there but he couldn't get through.

THAT'S customer service and I am now a huge fan and lifetime patron of the Balzan Pharmacy, in case anyone in Malta reads this :-)

Embassy living is like a small town

2008-08-22T12:05:00.003+04:00

As I think about plans for a baby shower I'm co-hosting, and the play group Alex usually half sleeps through, and the welcome get together for new families, it occurs to me this is in my fantasy land what small town living used to be like (having never experienced small town living I can't attest to the veracity of this fantasy). OK, neighbors aren't showing up at doorsteps with baskets of muffins and a casserole, but something pretty close does happen - families do check in with new folks and take them around, help them find the grocery store and the best route to work, etc. There is a real - small - community, with the attendant goods and bads ... someone is always around if you need them, and everyone knows everyone else's business. Making sure people are included is just something you do.

Working girl

2008-08-17T12:29:00.002+04:00

After more than a year of unemployment, I am now working part time at the embassy. It is lots of fun - when an employee's spouse pops into my office to chat about schools and finding a piano teacher for her kid, that doesn't take me away from my work, that IS my work. Woo-hoo! It's 3 not-full days at the office, which is for me a perfect amount of time to be away from Alex. When I need to take her in, though, nobody has any problem with it and we have our pack 'n play set up in my office for that purpose.

Alex has a nanny who comes when I am working and the two of them are already pretty attached. She naps better for Jennifer than she does for me and I'm OK with that. Jennifer and Kirby are fast friends too.

With the heat we haven't been doing much fun stuff for a while. We're looking forward to next month when things cool off and we pull out our list of things we want to see and do before we leave the island. Now that we are on our home stretch we really need to get moving!

Village life

2008-07-20T16:26:00.005+04:00

After about 1.5 years here, I realized we never posted any photos of our little village. My walking route for most things takes me past the church in Balzan (technically not our village, we live in Attard, but it is close enough) For once, I remembered to bring the camera with me to snap some photos that illuminate our world.

These are traditional Maltese balconies. I have not heard a satisfactory explanation as to why they are designed this way.

You'll find ornate ironwork on many houses, whether it is grillwork, the door knocker, or a gate or fence. You will also often find cats in the most unlikely locations. Here are more photos (and yes that is a fish cart. There are fish stores but most mongering is done on trucks/carts).

The strike is over.

2008-07-19T12:26:00.003+04:00

The transportation strike that crippled the island has now ended. Actually, it ended yesterday. In a strange twist the hearse drivers pulled out of strike because they did not like the way the strike was going and how is was handled by the union. The hearse liberalization was the original reason the whole strike started. So the union has now accept that liberalization is the way of the future and the buses are starting to run again. It was very interesting to watch it play out but I am glad that traffic is returning to normal on the island.

Strike on the Island

2008-07-15T11:21:00.005+04:00

A transportation strike is on in Malta. The government is liberalizing the license for the hearse companies. Basically they are allowing more companies to get licenses to drive hearse on the island. In a strange twist of fate the bus, taxis, and mini buses drivers are part of the same union as the hearse drivers. The drivers have been blocking road on the island to protest the liberalization of the hearses. This is cause major headaches in with traffic. Also with no public transportation on the island some Maltese are having a tough time getting around. One of the major roads on the island St. Anne Street that runs through Floriana to Valletta was completely blocked yesterday with mini buses and taxis. So far the protests have been mostly peaceful, but very annoying and disruptive. The Transportation Union claims they will not stop striking until the government reverses its position. The government claims it won’t reverse the decision and has removed the subsidies it gives the bus drivers (EU pressure might have something to do with that). Not sure who will break first. In the mean time, it is taking for ever to get to work and leave work since they are blocking the road in front of the embassy. Ah the joys of living overseas. Below are some links to local papers about the fun.

Times of Malta - Update 11

Times of Malta - Transport disruptions expected today

Maltastar - Public Transport National Strike

Photo is from the Times of Malta.