tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-282345912011-06-08T17:41:13.218+11:00bayleafnoreply@blogger.comBlogger461100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-77108922608579750522008-10-30T23:46:00.004+10:002008-10-30T23:53:14.904+10:00

OK, that's what I came up with, folks. Heading into our adventure in Dushanbe, and even pretty much now that we have arrived and have filled out those preconceived notions a bit, what strikes me about our pair of postings that might lend itself to a title is this: in order to get a bigger and more interesting dose of the East, we have in fact gone (south)west, from Russia's culturally very

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-12782699637479895132008-08-14T11:33:00.011+11:002008-08-15T16:15:49.911+11:00

They came and took our air baggage on Monday morning. Of course, since that is the little bit of stuff that is supposed to get to Dushanbe more quickly than the rest of our household effects (and since we now know that all our other "HHE" will go via slow boat first to a US government site in Belgium and then on some unknown route to Dushanbe, perhaps taking many months), we felt some pressure

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-1340799156930194142008-08-03T00:35:00.001+11:002008-08-03T13:50:58.093+11:00

Ugh -- I have been feeling terrible for the lengthy bout of "radio silence" here on the Vladiblog. And the longer it gets, the more I feel behind, the more stuff there is to report on, and it just snowballs and I feel like I'll never do it all justice. Clearly it would be better to just take the heat off of myself and dash off a few little updates, but that just doesn't appear to be my style,

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-10379780798491604592008-07-09T21:31:00.005+11:002008-08-03T13:45:24.778+11:00

Lisa is away for a week on a research trip to Khabarovsk, and Anya and I are flying solo for the second time ever (Lisa took another short trip to Khabarovsk previously). While of course we both miss Lisa/Mommy, we are also enjoying spending some time together. For me it is a nice opportunity to catch up on some of the developments in Anya’s personality that I might otherwise have missed because

Dan Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12332588098783814038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-10335792767196633282008-06-03T22:57:00.004+11:002008-06-03T23:04:27.373+11:00

No, there are no mortarboards here for us. No future in plastics, either, or awkward run-ins with Anne Bancroft. It's just that it seems we kind of graduated in a sense when the Pink Elephant Montessori center closed and we were forced to check out another place.Wow! The Pink Elephant was nice and fun and all, but if you want to try out the Montessori principles for real, the Summit (Vershina)

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-23753474194970489212008-05-12T22:58:00.016+11:002008-05-17T15:18:40.924+11:00

Often the irony of life in Vladivostok has meant that for one reason or another I haven't really been able to describe life here very well to those who'd like to hear about it. One reason comes at times when nothing much is going on, and the general mood has been a bit melancholy, and therefore there really isn't much inspiration to write either e-mails or blog entries about news here. The

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-66190286258807414012008-04-19T07:47:00.025+11:002008-05-13T23:35:17.841+11:00

We're back, once again, at home in Vlad, after our "Rest and Recreation" trip to the United States. It's strange, since we've made this transition back plenty of times now, with all of our travels, but it's still jarring in a new way each time we return from a trip. This time weather probably plays some part: we traveled at perhaps the best time of year to Southern California and Arizona, and

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-63849544276072545652008-03-20T23:48:00.020+10:002008-03-21T13:52:05.311+10:00

What we're saying:'tatch = attached (as in "My hair's attached to my head!")'syo = Vsyo, or "that's all" in RussianNo mo' = no morebikk = book -- lots of books and pointing to what we know these daysWah-nioh! = "oignon!" (repeated with Daddy many times in silly-exaggerated-French-voice as we were preparing French onion soup last week)Tay-tay = SanchezAgga = EdgarWhat words we're practicing in

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-54075952181767254722008-03-11T16:26:00.014+10:002008-03-11T21:21:03.753+10:00

These past few weeks, and especially after we returned from South Africa, we seem to have broken that winter inertia and have begun to get out a lot more with friends and colleagues. And I seem to have fallen into a routine of sorts that involves finally trying a lot more activities in town and more interaction with people than I'd previously engaged in. Well, it feels like a pattern was

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-28591430392034551112008-02-23T12:44:00.004+10:002008-02-23T12:54:38.181+10:00

(click on the photo to see a video of Anya meeting Great-Grandpa in March 2007)Earlier photos of a long, full lifeWe miss you, Grandpa

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-822761694059681072008-02-12T21:34:00.000+10:002008-02-12T23:51:26.341+10:00

We've been back in Vlad for just over a week, and it feels like there is already so much to report that I don't know where to begin.We spent more time than we would have liked on our vacation, and the first week back, poring over the decision of what to do next: stay in Vlad a third year; return to DC; or do another overseas tour. We were forced to mull this over while in South Africa because

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-79894550784638324662008-01-31T00:23:00.001+10:002008-02-12T22:12:44.478+10:00

We are a little over half packed (and a little under half baked) and getting ready to get back on a plane tomorrow midday and do that journey all over again (10 hours to Singapore, 5 more to Seoul, this time an overnight in Korea, and then the 2 hour flight back home to Vlad).Since it's still fresh in my mind and my eyes while we are here, I figured it was wise to make an update now, rather than

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-77891931231665656792008-01-15T01:21:00.000+10:002008-01-15T01:41:16.474+10:00

What we're listening to:Can't get away from those Tiny Cities (I forgot to mention last time: this album holds a special place at least in my heart, since we played it constantly during the first couple of weeks after bringing Anya home from the hospital, when we were just figuring out that she was a pretty colicky baby. This was the music to which we did that legendary baby-soothing shuffle that

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-89678331988230403622008-01-05T13:10:00.000+10:002008-01-07T12:36:36.598+10:00

The New Year's season in Vladivostok has brought some renewed social activity and, especially during the long break from work that is now a pretty well ingrained tradition in Putin's Russia, some new wintry activities.The interesting thing to me about a lot of these New Year's events is that, despite having spent a bunch of time in Russia before, I guess since that was without a kid and sometimes

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-22447952905977827622007-12-13T08:15:00.000+10:002007-12-13T22:38:58.418+10:00

You know you've been in Russia too long:When you find yourself, on autopilot preparing the next batch of baby food, having put both oatmeal and cabbage soup on the kid's menu(As the Russians say: "shchi i kasha - pishcha nasha," or "cabbage soup and porridge are our bread and butter.")When you cross a rustic urban courtyard and notice only on your exit, not on your arrival into the space, that

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-53332129238183667912007-12-04T19:59:00.000+10:002007-12-07T15:20:37.423+10:00

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have us a new word:Shoe! (She's actually been saying this already for a few weeks, I admit, but she says it with a funny kind of intonation that had us laughingly repeating what sounded like half of "thank you" in Chinese: "xie-xie!") Earlier this week, though, despite the intonation, I noticed that it really was being used in situations that involved footwear -- presto,

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-54590615266506882352007-11-18T14:13:00.000+10:002007-11-18T14:23:18.011+10:00

OK, I should probably give more context to this video that I posted not long ago...We often need to, uh, sift through the sand in that area of our playground in order to rid it of cat poop (although when we successfully keep the cover on the sandbox as we have lately, we don't need to do that in the box, just in one corner of the actual fenced in playground).Anyway, my best interpretation of what

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-88158026912598746302007-11-12T22:12:00.000+10:002007-11-13T17:41:53.074+10:00

What we're watching:(and listening to...) Springsteen's 2001 MSG concert DVD(and squirming, and hiding, and finally unable to finish...) Borat30 Rock(and feeling some guilt...) Beauty and the Geek (hey, it follows 30 Rock on our satellite TV)What we're listening to:Dylan's greatest hits, vol. 2, disc 2REM's Murmur and Out of TimeModest Mouse's We Were Dead Before the Ship Even SankWhat we're

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-17751378891255860082007-11-03T09:59:00.000+10:002007-11-29T19:22:57.744+10:00

We're back to regular old fall, after the snowmelt.Last weekend we had a really great visit with our old friend Laura, from Berkeley grad school days, which included a little bit of exploring on the nearby peninsula "de Fries." This spit of land is a relatively prominent feature of the local map, but for whatever reason we hadn't driven there before. We were inspired in part by a meeting with a

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-67793060902274606442007-10-22T09:05:00.000+11:002007-10-22T10:49:52.181+11:00

One excuse for not posting anything here in such a long time is that we are so busy now these days, with me having gone back to work, etc. Another that held some validity through early October was that we had so many guests -- especially when so many of those guests were the very people reading this blog! But if the third excuse tends to be that "there just isn't any news," well, I guess that one

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-26024593379509246482007-09-11T16:35:00.000+11:002007-09-11T17:38:00.221+11:00

Saw one of the first big departures from among our small American diplomatic community, as the veteran family with small kids left for California and then Yerevan. A bit of unexpected melancholy (at least for me) upon their departure, and the hole left in their absence. The much-anticipated visit of the Grandparents Kronenfeld. Great fun had by small people (walking with grandpa, placing little

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-20526119179103418072007-07-24T11:34:00.000+11:002007-07-24T21:48:36.087+11:00

"Hey," you say, "where did those Vladibloggers go?" What have we been up to the whole month of July?Well, of course, that first week included the "highlight of the Vladivostok social season" -- the American Fourth of July party that evidently every year in recent times has been held on board a visiting naval ship. In general this July, until this past Saturday, has been especially foggy and rainy

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-802367171133728612007-07-01T14:47:00.000+11:002007-07-01T16:43:37.159+11:00

I'm really happy to report that, finally, this month, I've been having some very promising social contact with people.I'm not sure how much this has come across in our posts here or in individual correspondence, but this is truly one area where our life here has been slow to develop -- and where we've felt the strain. As we often remark jokingly, wistfully, frustratedly to one another, "we ain't

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-222215478488018912007-06-11T16:24:00.000+11:002007-06-15T16:52:47.453+11:00

This past week has been a whirlwind of professional activity and inspiration for me.In the couple of days before last weekend, an international history conference held in Vlad brought me into a lot more contact with fellow historians than I've had the chance to enjoy in recent months. Thanks to that contact, I also got a leap start in work at the Far Eastern state historical archive. And, perhaps

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-74013559187483154792007-06-07T06:20:00.001+11:002007-06-07T10:38:30.300+11:00

OK, since it looks like I'm averaging a sad two and three-quarters posts per month, I should update you on the second half of May before delving into the first few days of June. If you have looked at our photos or our videos recently, you know that we enjoyed a wet ride somewhere southwest of Vlad a short while ago. The irony was, Dan went back to a location about 150 meters north of where we

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-91803519200008266572007-05-15T17:04:00.000+11:002007-05-16T10:23:18.132+11:00

What a great day for a drive yesterday!Went out to work at my usual research haunt right now: the Central Library of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Sounds quite impressive, but in fact it occupies just a small part of the Geology Institute building, and the reading room is a cute little space where rarely more than one or two other people are working when I am there.

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-19459656279372758582007-05-11T16:02:00.000+11:002007-06-07T15:31:26.600+11:00

"Last post on April 7" -- ack! That smarts!I have left this blog thing for way too long without any additions. I guess my only explanation is that, with the spring weather, we've just had much more opportunity to get out, and there hasn't seemed to be any time to write an update. But I'll try to get back to basics and add short posts more frequently after this one.For now, here is a digest of the

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-27170731310477827182007-04-07T09:49:00.000+11:002007-06-07T15:31:06.666+11:00

These days it really seems like spring has genuinely sprung in Vlad. I was superstitiously knocking on wood every time I made reference to this for the last few weeks. But now -- despite the weird snow flurries that blustered in briefly without sticking, on an otherwise sunny Wednesday this past week, and distracting my students to no end -- I think it is safe to really call it a new

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-1953009271922610972007-03-25T17:28:00.000+11:002007-03-25T17:45:52.385+11:00

It’s been a while -- first the major snowstorm ground things here to a halt, and then a strange bug laid me low (along with a bunch of the other Americans who live in our complex). We never figured out the source of the illness, but for me it was not fun. Seems like maybe it hit the mothers of young kids (and the one breastfeeding mother -- me) among us harder than others.Now, with temperatures

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-55228942497812124092007-03-05T13:42:00.000+10:002007-06-07T15:32:19.719+11:00

We're baaaack! We have been home in Vlad for about a week now, after a really enjoyable trip to the US, with stops in California and Arizona. It was great to see family and friends, although it was tough to fit so much activity and travel into a short two-plus-weeks. Anya did absolutely great on the trip, on the many domestic and international flights, through all of the disruption of her routine

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-48407167431638620452007-02-07T22:45:00.001+10:002007-02-08T18:15:23.003+10:00

Closeup On the BearOriginally uploaded by lkwalker71. I guess the most recent photos I uploaded to Flickr probably deserve at least a little explanation, since everyone who has commented on them to me has said "it looks so cold!" (You can see these photos as a group if you look here. And if you want to see where this afternoon walk took place, click on "map.")So, for orientation's sake: if you

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-72451867833916320902007-01-28T15:59:00.000+10:002007-01-30T15:56:40.801+10:00

I've been thinking of writing something about the food we're eating over here, and this weekend provided one interesting thing to say about that. We tried a recently opened restaurant called "Syndicate," a 1920s-, Al Capone-, Prohibition-themed steakhouse. I know, sounds cheesy. The logo here also would indicate that this is a place to be avoided. But, remember, we are in Vladivostok. We have

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-32374053711319617442007-01-22T21:08:00.001+10:002007-01-30T10:59:09.895+10:00

Ice, Ice, Baby Originally uploaded by lkwalker71. There hasn't been a lot of news lately, which I suppose is the inevitable result after the holidays (even though our holidays weren't even that exciting!). I did want to report on a Sunday outing last week, though. We went out to brunch at the famous Vlad Motor Inn, and it was such a crisp sunny day that we decided to take a walk

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-85544400415462562962007-01-13T15:49:00.001+10:002007-01-13T15:54:53.362+10:00

Tasty KeysOriginally uploaded by lkwalker71. Not a lot to report now that the holidays are over -- just getting back into the "normal" swing of things, to the extent that we had a routine before the holidays.For her part, Anya seems to be the one with the most news to report: we think she is beginning the process of teething. At least the best evidence of that is her new habit of biting me while

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-15062236802232663822007-01-09T11:25:00.000+10:002007-06-07T15:29:17.494+11:00

Well, I sat at the window this morning and watched the cars tiptoe their way down the "Church Road" -- the sort of steep road, but not as steep as another more major road, that leads from our location up on the ridge down to the lower elevation where the Consulate and downtown Vlad are located, and which is visible directly out our front windows. I find it kind of fascinating to watch the

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-33139562889737093762007-01-07T12:53:00.000+10:002007-06-07T15:32:44.175+11:00

It's taken us a few days to comment on our Vladivostok New Year's. And even in the several hours of delay between uploading a little video of the merriment and writing this, I've already got questions about it on YouTube! We spent a generally rather quiet evening at a colleague of Dan's, an American who actually doesn't live in one of the 5 townhouses where we are. He is just over the hill, so at

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-13497299838450791562006-12-30T15:04:00.001+10:002007-01-28T14:48:05.229+10:00

Sunset North of Lazurnyi BeregOriginally uploaded by lkwalker71. Christmas Eve day here in Vlad was a lovely, sunny day with temperatures only around -3C and barely any wind. We decided to take a drive around the south and east edges of the Murav'ev-Amurskii Peninsula, in the direction we hadn't yet traveled. (You can explore the photos and the geography on the Flickr map if you follow the linked

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-1167308763142456092006-12-28T22:02:00.000+10:002007-01-28T14:48:38.925+10:00

OK, here is my pre-New Year’s resolution: I want to start adding something shorter more frequently to the blog. I can’t promise that I’ll keep my resolution immediately or even stick to it routinely, but I hope to start inching my way towards the goal.So, for today: cold wind. Dan, the chief surveyor of the Goat Path in our family, can surely comment on this more thoroughly than I can. But I'll

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-1166420688911050452006-12-18T15:42:00.000+10:002007-01-28T14:49:50.170+10:00

Forgive the alliteration, but after a long day at work I will seize upon any available stylistic crutch on order to force myself to get words to screen.First, the cats. We have two of them. We inherited them from a former consulate employee who had the misfortune of being posted to Bermuda – where, evidently, British Commonwealth regulations require that all incoming animals be quarantined for

Dan Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12332588098783814038noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-1164599261733147742006-11-27T13:36:00.000+10:002007-06-07T15:29:47.136+11:00

For a couple of weeks I have been wanting to write and describe better our surroundings and the day-to-day activities that have been keeping us (or me and Anya, at least) busy. I’ve described the trip straight down the goat path, but I wanted to describe a bit more the world surrounding us as we know it – Anya and I most days know it by traversing it on foot (well, one of us on foot, the other in

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-1163932786272743942006-11-19T20:21:00.000+10:002007-01-07T17:37:24.786+10:00

My apologies for having let the blog go untended. (Although I guess that conjures up images of an overgrown, weedy mess, which is not exactly what has happened here. I guess I left it unwatered or something.)OK, first order of business, since we have been complaining a lot about our echoing, empty 4-story home and the delayed delivery of our air freight: I need to update my dear readers on that

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-1162905475414131752006-11-07T23:11:00.000+10:002007-01-13T15:52:35.016+10:00

Although our house still has that empty feeling and we are still awaiting the first batch of our stuff, which should arrive this week, I’ve been feeling a lot more plugged in to information this week.Why is that? you ask. One thing we’ve had for several days, of course, is the DSL hookup. (You didn’t think we were uploading this stuff on dial-up, did you?) I’ve started exploring podcasts a little

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-1162181319239232282006-10-30T14:06:00.000+10:002007-01-13T15:53:20.431+10:00

Things will undoubtedly get frigid here very soon. Sure, for all of our glibness before coming out here, Vladivostok is NOT actually in Siberia (it’s in Primorye, or the Maritime Province). And sure, it’s actually almost (not quite) the most southerly Russian city, with a latitude comparable to that of Boston, MA (OK, not the warmest city in the U.S., but not Moose Freezer, Canada, either – and

Dan Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12332588098783814038noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-1161921146931533742006-10-27T14:45:00.000+11:002007-01-07T17:36:10.761+10:00

View of the Golden HornOriginally uploaded by lkwalker71. The row of townhouses where most of the foreign service officers in Vlad live is situated on a high hill, overlooking the city and the bay --the “Golden Horn” -- on which Vladivostok is situated. This shot is taken from our windows and shows the downtown in the lower right of the frame. The district to the southwest of downtown, on a

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-1161919631423563822006-10-27T14:20:00.000+11:002007-01-13T15:53:43.251+10:00

Punk slobberOriginally uploaded by lkwalker71. As I was saying, Anya’s difficulties with the move have been the most important element influencing our own adult-sized perceptions of the transition so far, and in turn they've been the issue that’s most preoccupied us over the past week.Since we arrived here on Saturday afternoon, local time, she continued in the vein she began in that darkened

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28234591.post-1161735015443413852006-10-25T10:44:00.000+11:002007-01-13T15:52:57.057+10:00

Well, we have arrived in Vladivostok. Let the Vladiblogstokking begin! There is a lot to tell, having just arrived -- where do I start? I guess I’ll tell a little about how we got here…Our travel here, from its start in DC and continuing through Seoul and onward to our new home, was surprisingly easy with little Anya, at least in the air. She did great on both of our flights: the

bayleafnoreply@blogger.com0