Thanks for all the well wishes and we have recovered!
We were invited to the country today by my sponsor and joined she and her family to their dacha or country home in a nearby village. The weather for the past few days has remained gray, cold and bleak but even the dusting of snow didn't keep folks inside and you could see people along the roads fishing in small lakes and picking carrots in the fields. We had a lovely traditional meal made from many of the vegetables taken from their garden.
It was nice for us to get out after spending so much time indoors.
Now it's crunch time though...I have a paper due this week for a Russian medical publication, tomorrow I lecture at the hospital, Tuesday I've been asked to deliver a brief welcome speech to the incoming freshman class at the university, and we fly early Wednesday morning to Kazan.
We will be leaving the Urals region of Bashkortostan and then be in the Volga region of Tatarstan. It is about a one-hour flight north and west of Ufa. Kazan with over 1 million people is known as "the Istanbul of the Volga".
Later tonight we slipped across the street to a restaurant where we have been once before. There was a young man working before that was able to assist us with the menu when we ordered "snacks" which were sausages for John and some chicken pieces for me. Tonight, we were thinking of something alittle more filling but the young guy wasn't working. As we sat down, they immediately sent another young man over that spoke some English who offered to help. He couldn't however, translate the menu. He took our drink order and returned to say "They say your usual order is chicken and sausage, will that be OK tonight?" Gotta love it, and yes...we had chicken and sausage :)
We were invited to the country today by my sponsor and joined she and her family to their dacha or country home in a nearby village. The weather for the past few days has remained gray, cold and bleak but even the dusting of snow didn't keep folks inside and you could see people along the roads fishing in small lakes and picking carrots in the fields. We had a lovely traditional meal made from many of the vegetables taken from their garden.
It was nice for us to get out after spending so much time indoors.
Now it's crunch time though...I have a paper due this week for a Russian medical publication, tomorrow I lecture at the hospital, Tuesday I've been asked to deliver a brief welcome speech to the incoming freshman class at the university, and we fly early Wednesday morning to Kazan.
We will be leaving the Urals region of Bashkortostan and then be in the Volga region of Tatarstan. It is about a one-hour flight north and west of Ufa. Kazan with over 1 million people is known as "the Istanbul of the Volga".
Later tonight we slipped across the street to a restaurant where we have been once before. There was a young man working before that was able to assist us with the menu when we ordered "snacks" which were sausages for John and some chicken pieces for me. Tonight, we were thinking of something alittle more filling but the young guy wasn't working. As we sat down, they immediately sent another young man over that spoke some English who offered to help. He couldn't however, translate the menu. He took our drink order and returned to say "They say your usual order is chicken and sausage, will that be OK tonight?" Gotta love it, and yes...we had chicken and sausage :)
I am loving hearing about your experiences! Takes me back! I hope you're enjoying yourselves. :)
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