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 had what passes for great summer weather to us by now, with temps in the upper 70s and low to mid 80s the whole time, and mostly sunny. (We also had our grownups' getaway to the Bay Area, where it was a little chillier of course, cf. Mark Twain and all that "coldest winter" commentary; but that was more about other kinds of fulfillment than what the weather can give.)
There are certainly other things banging around in our heads that are making us nervous this time around on the return end -- our ever more closely impending permanent departure from Vlad is certainly one of them. (We will probably leave in July or so, but, without a firm plan, our approach to these last 3-4 months [ulp!] in Vlad and the logistical preparations for the move are just a bit more anxious.) But mainly we continue to try to re-establish routines and work enjoyable and satisfying things into our lives, as always.
Our Vehicle, Off Road
Unfortunately, just as it seemed we were close to obtaining that precarious balance again, we discovered a problem with our car. First the steering wheel was a tiny bit loose, and then we took it in to what apparently passes for a Nissan service center in Vlad, where Dan watched the "master" (Russian for mechanic) poke, pry and manhandle the steering wheel much more violently than he felt comfortable with, as he tried to get in there to disengage the airbag and see what was wrong. Their diagnosis was that we need a part that must be ordered from the US (since it's a US model car, not Japanese, which is the norm here), so we are in a bit of limbo.
In principle, the car can be driven, and Dan has talked to more than one American Nissan repair place (in which we have a bit more faith, although of course they haven't seen the car), where he's been told that it is unlikely to be unsafe to drive it rarely. But when your house is perched on an outcrop and you can either tumble down a steep and dusty path to one of the main bus arteries, or pick your way over a similarly dusty path up to the main road, without sidewalks, to catch a minivan taxi-bus into the center, and when you are used to driving around town both for work and for many errands, the prospect of having to use a combination of feet, public transportation, and taxis to accomplish your routine activities and keep the household running is daunting. (And unfortunately, since Nissan USA has trouble figuring time zones and area codes, a certain household in Riverside is also feeling some of our pain in the form of early morning phone calls....)
[I originally had a section here with some thoughts about food, but I wasn't happy with it -- I need to think some of this through better and then I'll put it back up in edited form.]
The Roundup:
What we're watching:
more "Arrested Development" on DVD
all the boring movies Lisa accidentally allowed to surface at the top of our Netflix queue (oops!), starting with "The Battle of Algiers" (yes, I know, we are philistines, but it all sounds well and good and edifying until you have just put your kid to bed and the last thing you want to watch is a subtitled movie from 1966 that will broaden your appreciation for what has happened in Iraq and perhaps much of the rest of the Middle East... You really want something to make you laugh.) (But, that said, we did like it.)
What we're listening to:
can't get enough of that crazy "Upper West Side Soweto" mix on Vampire Weekend's album (who let them describe their music that way??)
finally, the new Diggs album!
yet more Feist
the live In-Concert-at-MKhat stylings of Garik Sukachev
What we're saying, in the US and in Russia:
fingum = finger
hmumm = thumb
yabbi = rabbit
oyey = ears
sseepie = sleepy
izzi = Izzy, Judy and David's dog
Gnamma, Nimma = Grandma
Gha-pah = Grandpa
fann-ee = funny
ma-mom = gabonk, the splash-accompaniment sound made in the pool when you slap your cupped hand into the water
bop = (in addition to bread) "pop," the sound made when your Grandma undoes your buckle
bakk-l = aforementioned buckle (and when you want a big person to help you buckle it and unbuckle it ad infinitem, that's the word you want to repeat over and over and over again)
hman = fan, as in ceiling fans, of which there are many in the Old Pueblo, aka Tucson
tapp! = stopped!, as in, "The fan has been stopped!"
fokk = fork
hmun = spoon (excellent progress has been made on the utensil front)
ba-yell = bottle (not such great progress has been made on the bottle-weaning front)
yizza = lizard
fwow = flower, pronounced early and often in the lush spring landscape of the Southwest US
yakki = jacket
buud = bird
wokk = work
manum = building (these last 2 said often, together with noi [=noise] and man, to describe what's happening at the handful of construction sites visible from our outdoor play and strolling area)
syo = vsyo, Russian for "that's all" or "I'm done"
kudtka = kurtka, Russian for jacket
And I should add that many of these words are now employed in combinations that appear to be proto-sentences. Such as: "Tay-tay sseepie. Sseeps." (?? Why, "Sanchez is sleepy. He's sleeping," of course.) Or: "Man. Noi. Manum. Wokk." ("Those men are making noise and working on the building.") Very exciting developments!
Showing posts with label spring. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spring. Show all posts
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Impressions From a Spring Drive
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. I've settled into a nice rhythm, going there 1-2 times a week, and the ladies who work there (and one man, in the reference section) know me now and are very friendly.
Drove the one route out of town (for some reason Vlad is laid out in an awkward way in a lot of places, with only one route between points A and B, or a route that makes drivers do some strange maneuver, which easily causes bottlenecks on the road*), "Vladivostok's Hundred-Year Anniversary Boulevard." Used the informal, semi-legal "diplo-" and "VIP-lane" when the traffic got messy -- this is how the left shoulder gets used when there are back-ups. (Yes, I probably shouldn't participate in this assertion of grey-area privilege, but I only do it every once in a while.)
Out beyond "Spark" shopping center, I passed those grass dividers that have gotten covered in fuzzy yellow dandelion heads in the last week or so. Was disappointed to see the hard-working road and landscaping crews cutting the grass and clearing away the carpet of yellow. At least the recently planted tulips are still there, still adding a surprising and somewhat incongruous decorative touch to a few of the main thoroughfares in town.
Found myself very easily anticipating specific potholes that I've come to know with some precision. Some of them by now are repaired (poorly, for the most part), which tends to puncture that feeling of satisfaction you get when you maneuver just right to avoid the phantom rough patch.
Lowered the windows and turned up the Shins and sang along.
Raised the windows and switched the air to "recycle" as I passed a truck spewing terrible exhaust my way.
Made the scary lefthand turn into the Academy of Sciences campus off of "Anniversary" Boulevard once it turns into more of a highway (but without the comfy exit structure), where you have to just hope that the people approaching you from the rear are looking ahead of themselves and can merge in toward the right in order to pass you as you hang out waiting for a break in oncoming traffic. Almost thought I'd made a wrong turn when I didn't recognize the road right away, with the explosion of new growth on the trees, a combination of leaves and blossoms. The fuller boughs hung over the little descending road toward the library and made that short drive feel very different.
Did my hour and a half of reading, especially enjoying a new document I had ordered on the 1930s investigations into tick-borne encephalitis, which at that time was a mystifying new disease (I know, fascinating!).
Left and made my my return trip along "Anniversary" -- even though you make a right turn this time to enter, you still kind of have to find your inner tough-guy to peel out into the quick-moving traffic and then avoid the slow-moving bus on your right, etc. Cruised into the outer limits of the older part of town, after crossing the gully where the First River flows, and sped toward the mini cloverleaf where Gogol Street begins, Red Banner Prospect rises above on stilts, and a crazy patchwork of pedestrian stairs and overpasses crisscrosses all the streets. Felt the exhilaration of making a smooth left turn and corkscrew entry upward onto Red Banner, and successfully navigating of one of those merges into ongoing traffic where the drivers doesn't appear to notice you or slow down at all to help.
Made a brief stop at the grocery store on the way home, and pulled up to the "shlagbaum" (lifting gate) that controls access to the diplo-townhouses with a few minutes to spare for putting away the food and grabbing myself some lunch before Marina's nanny shift ended. Whew! What a good morning -- I guess not all of that description means much if you haven't seen the city, but hopefully soon some of you will be able to imagine what I am talking about here...
------------
* Not to mention the lack of traffic signals in this town! That really is a topic deserving of a whole 'nother post, as they say.
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. I've settled into a nice rhythm, going there 1-2 times a week, and the ladies who work there (and one man, in the reference section) know me now and are very friendly.
Drove the one route out of town (for some reason Vlad is laid out in an awkward way in a lot of places, with only one route between points A and B, or a route that makes drivers do some strange maneuver, which easily causes bottlenecks on the road*), "Vladivostok's Hundred-Year Anniversary Boulevard." Used the informal, semi-legal "diplo-" and "VIP-lane" when the traffic got messy -- this is how the left shoulder gets used when there are back-ups. (Yes, I probably shouldn't participate in this assertion of grey-area privilege, but I only do it every once in a while.)
Out beyond "Spark" shopping center, I passed those grass dividers that have gotten covered in fuzzy yellow dandelion heads in the last week or so. Was disappointed to see the hard-working road and landscaping crews cutting the grass and clearing away the carpet of yellow. At least the recently planted tulips are still there, still adding a surprising and somewhat incongruous decorative touch to a few of the main thoroughfares in town.
Found myself very easily anticipating specific potholes that I've come to know with some precision. Some of them by now are repaired (poorly, for the most part), which tends to puncture that feeling of satisfaction you get when you maneuver just right to avoid the phantom rough patch.
Lowered the windows and turned up the Shins and sang along.
Raised the windows and switched the air to "recycle" as I passed a truck spewing terrible exhaust my way.
Made the scary lefthand turn into the Academy of Sciences campus off of "Anniversary" Boulevard once it turns into more of a highway (but without the comfy exit structure), where you have to just hope that the people approaching you from the rear are looking ahead of themselves and can merge in toward the right in order to pass you as you hang out waiting for a break in oncoming traffic. Almost thought I'd made a wrong turn when I didn't recognize the road right away, with the explosion of new growth on the trees, a combination of leaves and blossoms. The fuller boughs hung over the little descending road toward the library and made that short drive feel very different.
Did my hour and a half of reading, especially enjoying a new document I had ordered on the 1930s investigations into tick-borne encephalitis, which at that time was a mystifying new disease (I know, fascinating!).
Left and made my my return trip along "Anniversary" -- even though you make a right turn this time to enter, you still kind of have to find your inner tough-guy to peel out into the quick-moving traffic and then avoid the slow-moving bus on your right, etc. Cruised into the outer limits of the older part of town, after crossing the gully where the First River flows, and sped toward the mini cloverleaf where Gogol Street begins, Red Banner Prospect rises above on stilts, and a crazy patchwork of pedestrian stairs and overpasses crisscrosses all the streets. Felt the exhilaration of making a smooth left turn and corkscrew entry upward onto Red Banner, and successfully navigating of one of those merges into ongoing traffic where the drivers doesn't appear to notice you or slow down at all to help.
Made a brief stop at the grocery store on the way home, and pulled up to the "shlagbaum" (lifting gate) that controls access to the diplo-townhouses with a few minutes to spare for putting away the food and grabbing myself some lunch before Marina's nanny shift ended. Whew! What a good morning -- I guess not all of that description means much if you haven't seen the city, but hopefully soon some of you will be able to imagine what I am talking about here...
------------
* Not to mention the lack of traffic signals in this town! That really is a topic deserving of a whole 'nother post, as they say.
Saturday, April 07, 2007
Sproing
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 season.
Perhaps the funniest (funny-peculiar; not exactly “ha-ha funny”) part about the thaw and spring in Vlad is the way the roads have possibly gotten worse rather than better. As Dan remarked the other day, we thought that the time was nearly passed when we would be thankful for our 4-wheel-drive vehicle every time we drove. Not so. Yes, the snow that was heaped up very high along the roads, and in random large piles in most parking areas (to our chagrin, but that's another story), for the most part has melted. (That doesn’t mean that the drifts that accumulated in the passageway behind our townhouses have disappeared. It must be the lack of direct sunlight, but unfortunately a dusty, dirty wedge of icy snow remains in about a third of the space back there, covering what I recall to have been grass when it was last visible.) But with the snow on the roads gone, and with a few weeks of temps that hovered around freezing, and with the apparently lower quality paving materials that must be used here, and with those honking-big buses that lurch and bounce up and down the thoroughfares, Vlad’s streets are actually an unholy disaster now, minefields full of potholes big and small. Traffic may not be restricted to a thin flow on snowbound roads, but instead everyone slows to a crawl to avoid ruining their cars’ suspension on the craters that have appeared all over the place. A Russian colleague of Dan’s agreed that lower quality materials are used: in fact, she claims they are used on purpose, in order to ensure fuller employment come spring!
We are enjoying our first visitor this weekend: our friend Melissa, with whom Dan worked in Washington, was touring the region and was able to make a stop in Vladivostok before heading home. We welcomed her with a homemade deep-dish pizza yesterday for dinner, and today we hope that the predicted rain won’t appear and the morning fog will clear so that we can take a drive and show her around the city and the surrounding countryside along the peninsula. Tonight we may buy some seafood to cook at home, and tomorrow night we are aiming for dinner with some local friends at a Georgian restaurant that we like. (Hint, hint: all this and more can be yours if you think you can handle a Vlad vacation…!)
Last but not least of the current happenings, I suppose, is our plan to take ourselves and Anya on a short bus trip to northern China late next week. The trip is organized by the Russian government, and Dan was invited as a consulate employee, and family members are also allowed to go. They may regret their decision to allow a Person of Diminutive Stature and as-yet Fewer Than Eight Months of Life on the bus, but we’ll do everything in our power not to inspire such disappointment. Hopefully it will be fun -- the primary destination is Yanji, which is the capital of China’s autonomous Korean province (which I had no idea existed until we got to Vlad -- shows how much I know about anything!). One of the frustrating things about the travel we expected to try to do on our own here in the Far East is the fact that our Russian visas do not allow us to leave the country at exit points other than the airport, even though geographically we are tantalizingly close to the Chinese border. (Russians actually cross it all the time for cheap shopping in border towns -- think Tijuana or Nogales with less tequila and more egg rolls.) All of which means that this bus trip, taken under the protective arm of Russian officialdom itself, ironically appears to be one of the only ways for us to make that relatively short overland journey to China and rest assured we aren't violating our visa rules. Hey, we’ll look at it as a test-drive: if it’s fun and the munchkin cooperates, maybe we’ll fly to Shanghai or something for a little more tourism sometime soon!
Perhaps the funniest (funny-peculiar; not exactly “ha-ha funny”) part about the thaw and spring in Vlad is the way the roads have possibly gotten worse rather than better. As Dan remarked the other day, we thought that the time was nearly passed when we would be thankful for our 4-wheel-drive vehicle every time we drove. Not so. Yes, the snow that was heaped up very high along the roads, and in random large piles in most parking areas (to our chagrin, but that's another story), for the most part has melted. (That doesn’t mean that the drifts that accumulated in the passageway behind our townhouses have disappeared. It must be the lack of direct sunlight, but unfortunately a dusty, dirty wedge of icy snow remains in about a third of the space back there, covering what I recall to have been grass when it was last visible.) But with the snow on the roads gone, and with a few weeks of temps that hovered around freezing, and with the apparently lower quality paving materials that must be used here, and with those honking-big buses that lurch and bounce up and down the thoroughfares, Vlad’s streets are actually an unholy disaster now, minefields full of potholes big and small. Traffic may not be restricted to a thin flow on snowbound roads, but instead everyone slows to a crawl to avoid ruining their cars’ suspension on the craters that have appeared all over the place. A Russian colleague of Dan’s agreed that lower quality materials are used: in fact, she claims they are used on purpose, in order to ensure fuller employment come spring!
We are enjoying our first visitor this weekend: our friend Melissa, with whom Dan worked in Washington, was touring the region and was able to make a stop in Vladivostok before heading home. We welcomed her with a homemade deep-dish pizza yesterday for dinner, and today we hope that the predicted rain won’t appear and the morning fog will clear so that we can take a drive and show her around the city and the surrounding countryside along the peninsula. Tonight we may buy some seafood to cook at home, and tomorrow night we are aiming for dinner with some local friends at a Georgian restaurant that we like. (Hint, hint: all this and more can be yours if you think you can handle a Vlad vacation…!)
Last but not least of the current happenings, I suppose, is our plan to take ourselves and Anya on a short bus trip to northern China late next week. The trip is organized by the Russian government, and Dan was invited as a consulate employee, and family members are also allowed to go. They may regret their decision to allow a Person of Diminutive Stature and as-yet Fewer Than Eight Months of Life on the bus, but we’ll do everything in our power not to inspire such disappointment. Hopefully it will be fun -- the primary destination is Yanji, which is the capital of China’s autonomous Korean province (which I had no idea existed until we got to Vlad -- shows how much I know about anything!). One of the frustrating things about the travel we expected to try to do on our own here in the Far East is the fact that our Russian visas do not allow us to leave the country at exit points other than the airport, even though geographically we are tantalizingly close to the Chinese border. (Russians actually cross it all the time for cheap shopping in border towns -- think Tijuana or Nogales with less tequila and more egg rolls.) All of which means that this bus trip, taken under the protective arm of Russian officialdom itself, ironically appears to be one of the only ways for us to make that relatively short overland journey to China and rest assured we aren't violating our visa rules. Hey, we’ll look at it as a test-drive: if it’s fun and the munchkin cooperates, maybe we’ll fly to Shanghai or something for a little more tourism sometime soon!
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