Goodbyes and Hellos

Sarah aranged to meet me at Hard Rock yesterday at 11 a.m. She had some time after checking out of her hotel and leaving that day for her flight back to the U.S. She was 40 minutes late. I had, of course, given up on her and was sitting at Hard Rock sipping hot tea to keep warm, killing time until I need to leave for the noon PTO luncheon down the street.

She walked in with daughter, Abby, bundled in a blanket. (The movers had accidently packed the baby sweater Sarah had carefully laid out.) Abby, a normally sunny almost one-year-old, was squirmy and fussy. And she wasn't the only one. Sarah explained that her wonderful husband had morphed into this snarling stranger. I tried not to laugh, but it is so typical.

During the imense stress of an international move, all our Dr. Jekyll husbands turn into Mr. Hydes. With everything you own in boxes, you are now wondering why you are disrupting your life to move half way across the world for this JERK! I assured her that once settled, her husband would turn back into that swell fellow she married--at least until the NEXT international move!

I reluctantly bid her good-bye and left for my lunch. This was organized by the PTO for the parents of high school students new to the school. About 25 women were there, including quite a few mothers from Rosinka--a two hour drive from the city. To my left was a Conoco-Phillips wife from Houston. Her son, a high school senior, chose to move even though she offered to stay with him in Houston so he could finish out his senior year. She said he wanted an adventure.

To my right was Lisa, who had moved here from Washington, DC. She had two high school daughters, and we talked about how they enjoyed clothes shopping for school. (Unlike AAS, their previous school had a uniform.) I found out she'd been in Moscow only two weeks.

"Have you found a place to live yet?" I asked.

"Well, yes... My husband is the American ambassador, and we live in Spasso House."

I had just asked the ambassador's wife if she'd found a place to live in Moscow. This is like asking the U.S. President-elect if he'd found a house in Washington, D.C.! I inwardly gulped and tried to carry on, "Spasso House--what a beautiful and historic home."

"Yes," she replied, "and so conveniently located." From there, we mercifully segued to grocery shopping in Moscow and the changes since she'd lived here in the 1990s.

I've heard that U.S. ambassadors to Russia must have extensive foreign service experience. In other words, just being a key financial contributor or old fraternity brother to the President won't land you this gig. Even the spouses' qualifications are examined.

I briefly considered asking her about this, but decided I had already exceeded my quota of questions that could be considered semi-dumb.

Back to School

Alec tells me it's 112 degrees in Phoenix. Yesterday, it was so cool in Moscow, I wore my corduroy jeans and leather jacket. I guess my feet now get 10 months to heal from my sandal-related blisters.

Taylor started school last week. Russians always start school the first week in September. Locals are surprised to find Tay's school started the week before, as if that was somehow against the rules.The Anglo-American school is completely at capacity with over 1,200 students. New expat families have no choice but to put their teenagers in boarding school.

Taylor's history teacher asked each of the 16 students in his class to tell who their dads worked for. Such is expat life that children always live with two parents (although one may be a step-parent) and the father is the breadwinner. One girl said her father worked for the U.S. Embassy. When pressed by the teacher, she admitted her dad was the new U.S. Ambassador to Russia.

Twenty-five percent of all the kids in the Anglo-American School, and 30% of the teachers, are new this year. There are 20 new juniors and 10 new seniors. This sounded to me as if there are a lot of angry teenagers being dragged by their families overseas. But the school's director assures me that isn't the case. One reason is that the returning high school students are excited about meeting new kids and are very inclusive.

I can understand that. Around 25% of my friends also moved away over the summer. I' m ready to meet some new people too. I met quite a few potential new friends yesterday at the PTO Newcomer's Coffee for City Mothers. (The PTO also does a Newcomer's Coffee for American embassy employees at the embassy, one for mothers who live near the school in the Pokrovsky expat development, and one for mothers who live in the way-out-of-town Rosinka expat development.)

Many of the women I met yesterday were still living in hotels-- in various stages of looking for housing, waiting while their company's legal departments to conclude negotiations on their apartment lease, or waiting for their household goods shipment. As we sipped tea out of delicate bone china cups in one woman's lovely pre-revolutionary apartment, various newcomers asked me about:

1. Communicating with your college-age kid in the U.S.
2. City versus suburban expat living in Moscow
3. Setting up a local checking account.

I advised:
1. Set up a regular weekly phone call and learning how to I.M.
2. If your life is centered on outdoor and family activities like barbeques, volunteering for the school, kid's sports, and girl scouts; you should look at the suburban developments. If you enjoy eating out and cultural activities, you need to be in town.
3. Don't bother setting up a local checking account. It's a cash society and nobody accepts checks. I get cash from my U.S. bank account out of the plentiful ATMS. Plus, many educated Russians have so little trust in their banks, they think their money's safer under the mattress.

Back-to-school night is Thursday. As there is no pubic transportation to the school, I have to have one of Larry's company drivers take me. Not counting the time to coordinate getting the driver, this is a five hour process. It is two hours round-trip to the school plus three hours for the event. In other words, don't plan on me cooking dinner.

Dacha Land

Photo: A day in the countryside at the USA Dacha.

Yesterday, Sarah and Joel invited us and another family to join them at the USA Dacha. A dacha is a Russia country house.

While traffic in Moscow is always a mess, during dacha season (June 1 through Sept. 1), it is even worse. Every Friday afternoon, Moscovites clog the roads heading out of town. At the end of the weekend, they clog them coming back.

However, sitting in traffic for hours is a small price to pay to escape from the dirt and pollution of the city and spend some time in the lovely forests surrounding Moscow. I was humming Sondheim's "A Weekend in the Country" as Larry and I followed Joel and Sarah's van in our Volvo. While the USA Dacha was only 15 km. out of town, it took us two hours to get there. The trip back, Saturday evening, with less traffic was a mere 40 minutes.

The gated compound, owned by the U.S. Embassy, contains three dachas. One is a three bedroom, with a small kitchen, one bathroom and living room. The kitchen is so small, they had to put the microwave in the living room.

The dacha Sarah rented was four times the size. It had a huge eat-in kitchen with two full-size refrigerators and a dishwasher, a dining room that could seat 20, and a room for ping-pong. Upstairs, were three large bedrooms which slept 12. While I was surprised to see two stackable washers and dryers, there was only one shower! Maybe people keep their clothes cleaner than their bodies.

The last dacha on the grounds, a small two-story house, was completely shut up. While the other houses are available to rent by embassy employees and members of the US Embassy Club, this house is used exclusively for the ambassador, sort of a Camp David--or in Russian terms a Camp Dimitri. It's good to be the ambassador!

I enjoyed walking around the extensive wooded grounds at the compound. It felt completely isolated except you could still hear the traffic noise from the busy road outside the gate. Best of all, the dacha had an outdoor fire pit and a grill. Living in a high rise apartment with no place to grill, I sometimes long for good barbeque the way I long for Arizona sunsets.

We dined al fresco, feasting on grilled kebabs, watermellon, and my Frog Commissary carrot cake. At nightfall, Sarah broke out her substantial fireworks supply. In Moscow, there are no laws about where fireworks can be fired. People do it from their apartment balconies. And you can buy them at the grocery store.

We reluctantly drove back to town, vowing to put a membership application to the Embassy Club so we could get on the dacha list.

Photo: Sarah and her daughter, Abby, try the watermellon.

Towing the Lines

Sunday

We took the hotel's spacious car to the airport and found the ususal long check-in line (50-75 people) for our Aeroflot Flight back to Moscow. Our flight was, however, a code share with Czech Air which is one of Delta's partners.

Larry is a gold-level Delta frequent flyer. One of the perks is that you get to check in at Business Class. After verifying Czech Air would honor this, we quickly jumped to the business class check-in where there was no line. I was amused to see the Russian passengers directly behind us followed! Russians have years of experience in waiting in line and they don't hesitate if they think they can move ahead faster. Once they figured out it was business class check-in, they had to get BACK in the regular line.

We've learned a few tricks ourselves about lines. At Czech passport control, the officer in the booth serving our line walked out, abandoning the 30 people in his line. Larry immediately swtiched to another line while I waited in the old one with everyone else to see if the guard was coming back. Ten minutes later, Larry made it to the front of his line where Tay and I joined him. But there were still people in the dead-end line waiting, as if for Godot.

Back in Moscow, it took us at least an hour to clear passport control. (This time we were not so good, or lucky, with lines.) Whatever enthusiasm one can dredge up for being back in Russia is completely sucked out as you stand in line in with 500 other travelers in the dingy passport control area. Then came the long, ugly drive home from the airport. Today's Honeywell driver was as cautious as Serge had been reckless and it seemed to take forever.

I was surprised to see how good it felt to get back to my apartment. I guess it's home.

Photo: View from our apartment in Moscow.

The Camel Family Does Lunch

Saturday

Photo: The astronomical clock in Old Town Square

We grabbed breakfast in Old Town Square, suckered in by the $5 American Breakfast Special. After you got a coffee refill, water and orange juice, it became closer to the $10 American Breakfast.

We got our money's worth. The American breakfast included 3 eggs, a half rasher of bacon and hash browns. The hash browns were about two cups of fried potatoes with seasoning salt.

The little restaurant was on the second floor overlooking the clock tower square. We sat in front of the window, enjoying the breeze and the view.

Every hour on the hour, the astronomical clock would chime, a couple of little doors would open and some wooden saints would roll by. It was about an exciting as my clock radio alarm but it always had huge crowds who applauded after the little doors shut again.

Much more entertaining to me, were the modern sculptures we found everywhere. Apparently, they put new ones up every summer and take them down each fall.

After breakfast, we met for the Walking Tour of Prague Castle. The Castle is really a medival town with a series of mansions, administrative buildings, churches, streets, stables and gardens, set on a hill overlooking the rest of the city.

We arrived in time for the daily Changing of the Guard. We were too far back to see anything, but as the ceremony dragged on, tourists got wandered off to escape the heat and so we moved up by attrition. There wasn't much to see. Instead of traditional military attire, the guards wore boring light blue uniforms with white turtlenecks as if they were airline pilots or something. They carried guns with bayonettes but didn't DO anything with them. Everybody just stood around a long time while a couple of guys marched around slowly. Juggling might have livened things up.

The crowning jewel, both literally and figuratively, was the St. Vitas Cathedral. The second half of the Cathedral was built in the Twentieth Century. I was appalled to see advertisements, like "Visit Bank of Prague," built into the stained glass in the church. And they say America is commercialized.

After the tour ended we took the back way out as if was closer to the restaurant. It took us to the most lovely view overlooking Prague. (We discover more great places trying to find recommended restaurants.) I didn't get photos though. While I'd packed my camera in the backpack, I'd left my battery recharging back at the hotel.

To get down from the hill, we took a series of cobblestone steps with little stores built into the hill on the side. I wish I had been as charmed by the restaurant. Resembling a cave, the restaurant was housed in a building was built in 500 A.D. I also think that's about when they got the ingredients for our meal. We were so thirsty, we drank 3 liters of water. What's Czech for the Camel Family?

After lunch, we headed for the Globe Bookstore, an expat hangout. They offered six day old Sunday New York Times for $17. (Even WE weren't that desperate.) They mostly had used books. These were the kind of books I'd find in the Scottsdale Library Thrift Shop for $1, selling here for $5. We didn't know WHEN we'd see books in English again so we bought two bags full plus yesterday's International Herald Tribune.

We took our buys into the adjoining cafe where I had a very good cappacino and a mediocre brownie. Back at the hotel, we read our "new" paperbacks and ended up ordering room service for dinner rather than going back out.

Photo: Nancy and Larry on the Charles River Bridge, overlooking Prague Castle.

Czech-Mex

Friday

Photo: Just us and thousands of tourists walking through Old Town Prague.

We headed out early for Wenselaus (Yeah, the guy in the Christmas carol) Square where we picked up a two hour Walking Tour. The Walking Tours had been recommended by the Lonely Planet Guidebooks and were heavily patronized by backpackers and Earth-mother types. (In other words, lots of folks wearing big ugly walking sandals with socks.)

Our guide walked us through the huge crowds of New Town, Old Town and the Jewish Quarter of Prague, giving us an overview of Prague's history.

After the tour, we stopped at a sidewalk cafe near the Charles River Bridge for Mexican food. (They call it Czech-Mex.) Afterwards, we walked back to the Jewish Quarter where we'd spotted another Lacoste store. Unfortunately, this store had an even smaller selection of shirts.

Giving up on polo shirts, we decided to cool off with a one hour river cruise. We caught a boat under the Charles River Bridge which took us into some of the hidden canals near the castle area. The boat also floated us under the remains of the first bridge, the ancient Judith Bridge. We quite enjoyed the ride. We had great views of the city, AND free beer, sodas and ice cream.

We took the metro back to the hotel. People riding Prague's metro look completely different from Moscow metro rider. For one thing, people in Prague have young children on board. I don't know WHAT they do with them, but I never see anybody younger than about 10 on Moscow's metros. But the biggest difference is how beat-up Moscowvites look--as if they've been digging up potatoes with a spoon every day for the past 10 years. Praguers don't have that air of tired defeatism you see even among teenagers in post-Soviet Russia.

For dinner we went to an Indian restaurant that was highly recommended by the Czech expat website. I was encouraged when we walked in as there was live Indian music and plenty of English-speaking expats eating there. I was, however, being set up for a fall. The food was just terrible. Indian food has a wonderful myriad of spices but sugar ISN'T one of them! It was as if they ran out of cumin and coriander and just decided to empty the sugar bowl on everything. Even the vegetables were overly sweet.

While Prague offfered many delights, the restaurants were not turning out to be one of them.

Photo: View of Old Town and the Charles Bridge from our boat.

Czech Points

Thursday

Photo: Old Town (Stare Mestro) Prague

Tay and I slept in this morning before making another stab at finding the mall. This time, after exiting the Metro, we asked for directions. The entrance to the mall turned out to be about 100 yards from the KFC where we gave up and stopped for lunch yesterday! Who knew?

The mall had a Levis store and I bought Tay some seriously overpriced, but desperately needed, Levis jeans. After that, we passed on the other overpriced stores and headed straight for Carrefour, the French equivalent of Target. We had our biggest shopping find there, a knock-off Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal. We bought two boxes which, if you don't count the jeans, ended up being our only Prague souveniers.

I also picked up a couple of 75 cent liters of bottled water to take back to the hotel. Our hotel had thoughtfully provided a liter of bottled water in our rooms, for which they would charged $13. I thought that was the height of a business hotel rip-off until I discovered that's also how much they charge guests to use their fitness room! I made a mental note to peruse the hotel bill to ensure we weren't being charged extra to use the air conditioning or towels!

That night, Larry was finally free of meetings so the three of us headed out to dinner. I chose the acclaimed Mucha Restaurant in Old Town. The art nuveau building which housed the traditional Czech restaurant had some connection with Sarah Bernhardt but I never found out exactly what it was. Okay, so I didn't really try.

Larry ordered wild boar with blackberry and pear sauce, while Tay opted for garlic lamb chops. I had a very forgettable, but expensive, monkfish with doughy slices of bread. I later figured out that these round bread things were Czech-style dumplings.

In the dessert competition, Tay's choice was the clear winner: french pancakes with ice cream. I came in second with my Czech pancakes with cinnamon and whipped cream. Tay pointed out they tasted just like churros. (They did!) Larry's heavy Czech dumpling with fruit was third.

After that, we were ready to head back and hit the sack at the hotel where we hopefully were not being charged extra for the sheets.

Dem Bones

Wednesday

Photo above: Na Prikope Street

I bought a map at the hotel giftshop and we set off on our mission to find Tay a Lacoste shirt for his first day of school. After a couple of false starts, we found the Metro and bought three-day tickets at the Tabak shop.

The Metro is sort of on the honor system. You are suppose to buy a ticket and then validate it once when you enter. But there's nothing to stop you from just walking in and riding wherever you want. Nothing, that is, except for the hefty fine you pay if you are caught without a valid ticket by the Metro police. (In our four days of riding, we were stopped twice.)

The Metro was clean and modern, and full of people with maps. I found out later that tourism accounts for 90% of Prague's industry. We found the Lacoste store on Na Prikope, a busy tourist street that use to be a moat. Unfortunately, it was a Lacoste store strangely out of Lacoste shirts. They had one short sleeved pique polo shirt in Tay's size. It was dark purple, which he rejected.

As long as we were in the neighborhood, I stopped into the Moser shop and priced stemware. It was so expensive, I was sure I must have misplaced the decimal in trying to convert prices. (I hadn't.) After getting sticker shock at the crystal in a few more places, we stopped at a sidewalk cafe for a snack and watched the tourists stroll by.

Then, it was back to the Metro to the mall. While we exited at the right station, the mall was nowhere to be seen. We gave up and stopped at a KFC for lunch. There seem to be a KFC or McDonalds every hundred meters. As we finished, an elderly lady approached us. I thought she wanted our table, but she really wanted our leftovers which she dumped, chicken bones and all, into a large purse lined with heavy plastic!

We headed back for the hotel to be picked up for our tour of Kunta Hora. We were met in the lobby and loaded onto a mini-bus with two remaining empty seats. As we headed into the lovely green countryside, the guide picked up the microphone and said a few words. I had just gotten the hang of her heavily-accented English, when she lost me again. I realized it was because she was now speaking French.

What little information she gave us would be delivered in both English and French. There was even a Portugese speaker on board but the poor guy just got handed a laminated sheet at the various stops!

Kunta Hora was an old mining town about an hour away. It reminded me very much of Chenonceaux in that charmingly run-down way of little French villages.

The first stop was the Ossuary. This is a small church decorated in human bones. There were bone chandeliers, bone shields, bone bunting, bone candelabras, and just stacks of bones! It was as if the Catholics hired a canibal interior designer. I gladly paid the extra $2 to take photographs of this place.

Naturally, we thought how Alec would enjoy this macabre place and attempted, in his honor, to come up with a few bone puns. Alec, it was a awfully grave church.

Our next stop was the charming Saint Barabara Church with lovely stained glass windows and old murals of silver miners being looked over by angels.

We then walked through the narrow cobblestone streets to a little mining museum. After being given the meeting time, Tay and I escaped from the tour to wander the village on our own. We found a square and bought some icecream cones and ate them in the shade. At the appropriate time, we loaded back into the mini-bus for our trip back.

While the tour brochure advertised free hotel pickup, I didn't notice that they made no promise on dropping you off. We were dumped somewhere in central Prague!

I got directions to the closest metro and thanks to our morning excussion, knew how to get back to our hotel.

We rested and showered before heading out for dinner. The Italian Restaurant Taylor chose from my online recommendations turned out to be on Na Pripoke, although it was so far from the street and so hidden, we could not have located it without the exact address and some wandering around. This time, our food was good.

Photo: Kunta Hora

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride to Prague

Tuesday

I realized we were leaving for the Czech Republic this afternoon, and I hadn't even THOUGHT about packing. About then, I got an email from a travel agent. He'd found some $500 roundtrip tickets for our trip to Vienna and Budapest, but we had to pay for them, in person, within the next three days or risk having only $1,500 tickets left.

We decided to stop by on our way to the airport. I handed Serge, a Honeywell driver assigned to take us to the airport, the travel agency's map and address. He just sat worriedly for five minutes contemplating his route. While we are probably within three miles of the agency, it is a series of left turns and you CAN'T TURN LEFT in Moscow. Instead, our tortuous route took a good 30 minutes. I ran in to pay, and the agency had a problem with their phone lines (par for the course in Russia) so it took awhile to run my credit card through.

I jumped back in the car, where we promptly got stuck. Some VIP from the nearby White House decided to go for a ride, so all traffic was halted. It was now 90 minutes until Aeroflot closed the flight and we were still in the middle of town, not moving.

But Serge was not going to let his boss miss the flight. As soon as we were mobile again, he adroitly maneuvered in and out of the slow-moving traffic, accelerating up to 80 m.p.h. before getting bogged down in stop-and-go traffic again. Finally, he veered off onto the dirt shoulder, weaving in and out of light poles and roadside stands at breakneck speeds. I tried to pretend we were on some kind of scary but ultimately safe Disneyland ride--Mr. Toad's Wild Ride came to mind. And when that didn't work, I just closed my eyes.

We made it to the gate five minutes before the flight closed, checked our luggage, cleared passport control and boarded our Aeroflot flight. It was like walking into a sauna. Aeroflot likes to save money by not using the air conditioning.

We were about three quarters of the way down the aisle. Aeroflot assigns seats in the order you check in. Every seat in front of us was full and every seat behind us was empty. I sat down and buckled up, becoming alarmed to find my seatbelt refused to unbuckle. It took Larry a while to jury rig the mechanism so I could get out. In the meantime, I had visions of dying of smoke inhallation while floundering helplessly in my seat. After I was sprung, I declined to sit in the death-trap seat and we spread out into the empty portion of the plane.

The flight was only 2.5 hours. We breezed through Czech passport control, along with the Japanese in front of us. The Russians, on the other hand, had their passports perused two or three times as long. Take that for invading us with tanks!

Our first look at the country reminded me of rural Oklahoma. It certainly didn't look like a former Soviet country. They had good highways with no potholes. "Look," I said to Larry during our taxi ride from the airport. "They have guardrails and reflectors." (It's amazing what will impress you after living in Russia.)

We drove directly to the suburban business hotel where Larry's meetings were being held. The Libian-owned Corinthian had all the charm of a Ramada Inn, but they did have free high speed Internet wireless. They only offered two TV channels in English which were blared into the bathroom anytime the set was turned on.

We ate oversalted and bland Italian food at the hotel restaurant. Larry would be tied up with meetings the next two days, so I booked an out-of-town excursion through the concierge for Tay and me the next day.

"Can I just charge that to the room?" I asked as I didn't have my purse with me.

"No," she told me abruptly. "You must pay in cash, and I close in five minutes!" I guess Soviet-style service wasn't completely eradicated here.

Photo: Prague, Czech Republic

Some Enchanted Evening...

Larry and I saw each other for the first time in the ballroom of some Oklahoma City hotel. I was wearing a low–cut red satin evening gown; and although rum and Coke was the preferred drink, I was sipping champagne. And, oh, yes, and I had accessorized my sophisticated look with a fake arrow though the top my head.

The event was my sorority’s Christmas formal. We both had dates in tow and chatted only briefly. But the next day, I dragged my roommate downstairs to show her the party picks of this “cute guy” I’d met. Strangely, he didn’t look THAT cute in the pictures. (One of the first things I discovered about my future husband was that he was NOT photogenic.)

We met for the second time, three months later, at an engineering party I attended with my sorority sister, Shari. We sat at a table with her boyfriend, Bill; Terry and his girlfriend, Carrie; and Larry. Larry and I danced and shot pool. That night he asked me out.

I dressed carefully for our date, wearing an oversized polyester shirt cinched with a chain belt around my waist, narrow-legged pants and spiked high heels. My dark brown hair was arranged in the popular “Farah Fawcett” do.

After an evening of listening to jazz, Larry drove me back to my sorority house. He turned off his car, turned to me, and began rambling about first kisses and how awkward they sometimes are. Finally, I leaned over and kissed him. He said, “Thank you.”

The following day, I abruptly broke up with my boyfriend of the past 2.5 years. My excuse was that I didn’t have time for him anymore. I had no idea, however, that I’d be tied up so long with Larry.

In the ensuing years, we’ve graduated from college, bought and sold houses, changed jobs, buried loved ones, traveled the globe, raised two wonderful sons, and slogged through all the usual day-to-day issues of family life.

Tomorrow is our 25th wedding anniversary. But to me, Larry’s still that really cute guy from the Alpha Phi Formal that I was lucky enough to land.

"Some enchanted evening,
When you find your true love
When you feel her call you
Across a crowded room
Then fly to her side
And make her your own
Or all through your life
You may dream all alone"

Abandoning Ship

When I lived in the U.S., I loved travel planning. I'd pour through travel books and check every website. I read all the online travel forums to gleam little gems on unknown restaurants or sidetrips off the beaten path. I once calculated that for every hour we spent on our family vacation in France, I spent one hour in advance planning. Of course, this was back when I had, at most, one special vacation about every two years!

So far this year, I planned detailed trips to Connecticut and Manhattan for April; Istanbul and Kusadasi, Turkey for June; St. Petersburg in July; and Prague for next week where Tay and I are tagging along on a business trip of Larry's. Okay, so I still have to work out the Prague restaurant specifics but I have a preliminary list.

Still ahead is our 25th wedding anniversary trip next month. Apparently, Europeans did not get the word that they are suppose to vacation in August and stay home in Sept. I had wanted a romantic cruise but everything is booked. There are no small French barge cruises; there are no luxury Mediterrranean cruises; there are no large Danube cruises. I am abandoning ship, so to speak, and now starting from scratch on a Vienna-Budapest trip.

Taylor's October school break had been planned: the much-fretted-over trip to Egypt. After I spent hours trying to decide whether or not we should still go after the bombings, our trip got topedoed anyway. This week Larry informed me he has a business meeting then in Prague. He requested we wait to go to Egypt until we could travel together. He suggested Tay and I take a Mediterranean cruise.

While Larry and I couldn't book a luxury Mediterranean cruise for September, I find a great deal on a Windstar Cruise online for October break week. I research the line, the boat and the itinerary before asking the cruise broker to hold the space. Larry and I finally decide it would have been a perfect 25th anniversary trip, but it is too expensive for school break trip for Tay and me.

Back to the drawing board. I did some preliminary research on Croatia and New Dehli, India. Both locations are expensive to get to, but affordable once you do. But we aren't that sophisticated. What I REALLY wish is I could take Tay to Florida where it's cheap, people (mostly) speak English, and there is fast food and beaches.

And speaking of the U.S., I also need to plan our home leave in December to Oklahoma and Arizona. I'll need to book flights, schedule doctor and dentist appointments, put together a shopping list to cover the next year in Moscow and locate a reasonably priced condo in Scottsdale during high season.

I've been spending hours every day with my computer and my atlas. But today, I am taking the day off from my research. I need a vacation from my vacation planning.

What NOT to Build

Yesterday, Alec and I went out to the All-Russian Exhibition Center. According to Alec, Krushev built this to show off the Soviet's economic achievements but then realized they didn't have any.

This is a huge area with wide lanes and ugly fountains, ringed by atroucious examples of various forms of architecture. This would have been an excellent place for Brenda and David to get photos of "What NOT to build" for their classes.

There were about 30 pavillions, many of which have been turned into mazes of dark little shops. Outside, were thousands of people strolling the grounds. You could rent rollerblades or bicycles, or take horse or camel rides. None of the water dispensers worked but there were icecream vendors about every 10 feet.

Flying is such a novelty here for most people, the grounds also featured an out-of-service Aeroflot plane you could pay to go through.

Little carnivals seem to surround most sides of the exhibition area. One thrill ride slowly took you up a whole 20 feet and then let you freefall before the breaks slowed you down. A young Russian woman was so excited she screamed all the way up on her slow ascent. Remembering similiar rides at American theme parks that were hundreds of feet tall, I remarked that Russians needed scarier rides.

Alec replied that he thought the rides here were plenty scary. He mentioned a rollercoaster at Gorky Park he refused to take after inspecting the structural integrity of the track and supports!

We took a very tall ferris wheel with gondolas to get an overview of the grounds. This ride offered a variety of physical challenges. First, we had to get through the turnstyle, which was designed for the anorexic. I thought the heavy Russian women in line in front of us would be trapped but they literally wiggled their way through one at a time.

After making it through the turnstyle, you had to get in the gondola. The gondolas hold six, but there was really only time to load two people as the ride continuously moved. By running and jumping, some groups managed to get four people into the same cabin.

Getting off, however, was the biggest challenge. I had to jump off the moving gondola onto steep stairs. Okay, maybe Alec is right about Russia having scarier rides.

Bee-Z Day

Photo left: The large wooden gates to Kolo-menskoye.

Alec and I went to visit Kolomenskoye yesterday. It is the childhood home of Peter the Great on the Moscow River. It was about two clicks from the closest metro so I arranged to have Yuri drop us off.

Yuri let us out at a checkpoint that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. Although this place is in the city, the grounds are extensive. Moscow is really good about maintaining huge green spaces and parks.

We hopped out and took off through an old apple orchard, which had a few locals checking the ground for the tiny green apples. The more enterprising had long sticks at which to poke the higher branches.

Alec chose a direction through the grounds I was fairly sure was the wrong way. I reminded myself that he spent 60 days navigating his way through Europe this summer without MY help. I swallowed my doubts and followed him. He led us straight to the cabin where Peter the Great, as an adult, like to stay. In Russia, people who lived in these huge palaces often had very small modest retreats where they went to relax. Makes me wonder where Americans living in McMansions go.

Our way inside was blocked by a babushka. I said, "Moje-na?" the useful Russian phrase that means "Is it possible?" Taylor uses it when he wants me to bake him something. You can also use it as a polite way of saying, "Let me through."

She replied, "Kassa," which means cashier. We'd need to find the ticket office to get in. We decided to move on.

Besides the cabin, Russians had dragged old examples of wooden architecture from all over the country here. We saw a colonel's houses and wooden entry gates. Unfortunately, two of the churches and the belltower were under scaffolding and closed. We also saw a beekeeper's house and garden. While their were butterflies, all the bees seem to be on vacation. "Maybe they're bee-zy," wisecracked my son.

After Kolom3nskoye, we went to Metro Cash and Carry, Moscow's version of a warehouse store. I have to use Yuri's membership as I cannot get a card of my own. It is only issued to companies, not individuals and there are huge tax issues. Perhaps this is why at checkout, they print out your detailed receipt in triplicet. (You and the cashier each sign all three copies and then she stamps them.)

Today I bought things like an electric grinder to use on spices, a case of apple juice, a half carton of Coke Light, a 6 kilo pack of local sugar, Red October chocolates, cheese, yogurt, pork chops and pork loin, bread, eggs and a two-pack of bacon Pringles. They also offered mozerella cheese and tomato flavored Pringles, along with the usual spring onion, but no plain or barbeque Pringles. Metro doesn't have fresh milk or Western-style flour either. The produce, sold only in mass quanities, is tasteless here.

To fill my cupboards, I also have to shop at Ashans at Mega Mall, Stockmans for expat stuff, the rynock for produce and nuts, and my neighborhood grocery for whatever I failed to get at those other places. I could use an Albertsons.

P.S. Happy birthday, Sharon.

De-Feet

For months, I longed for sandal weather. Now it's sunny in Moscow, and I've been putting my sandals through their paces, so to speak. But after nine months of being cozily cocooned in heavy socks and sheepskin-lined boots, my feet have proven unequal to this unfamiliar task.

I've been carefully rotating my extensive sandal collection. This has only resulted in a maze or sores and blisters all over my feet as each pair of sandals rubs a new sore. It doesn't help that every time I leave the house, it's usually for a couple of miles of walking. While my sandals should, by now, be all be worn in, my feet are not.

Today, for example, I wore a celery-colored silk teeshirt over my white gauzy skirt to the AWO meeting. This was accessorized by a long double strand of pearls dotted with onyx and malachite, dangling pearl earrings, cute high heeled sandals and bandage-covered feet. My feet look as if they've been viciously attacked by badgers.

At this point, I am longing for my sheepskin boots.

How They Spent Their Summer Vacations

Photo: Taylor in Kusadasi, Turkey

Like little birds flying home every year, Taylor's buddies are slowly but surely returning to Moscow for the start of the Anglo-American School, Aug. 23.

These teenage globetrotters gave their passports a workout. Olga was in Italy, Whitney was in the Northwest U.S., Pavel went to Spain and France, Jessica was in Italy and Canada, Stephi was in Finland and Australia, Alex was in Norway and Dave was in London.

No doubt, they will not be hard up for topics for their How I Spent My Summer Vacation essay. When I was that age, going to Six Flags Over Texas was a big deal.

As reported, Taylor spent most of his summer in Moscow, with family vacations to Turkey and St. Petersberg to be followed by an end-of-summer trip to Prague.

While recuperating from his own travel-intensive summer, Alec has been exploring Moscow with me. Today, we went to the new upscale grocery. I was hoping for somewhere that had exotic imported foods like Gold Medal Flour and Heinz 57.

Alas, this beautiful gourmet grocery offered an extensive array of Turkish sweets, Chinese teas, African sauces and Indian chutneys--all at prices that had to be a record even for Moscow. This is probably why Alec was trailed constantly through the store by some manager who didn't think my eldest looked remotely like the rich Russians this store is suppose to attract.

I'm not sure Moscow really needs a grocery with exotic imported fruits and a wide selection of caviar in the three figure range. Personally, if I'm going to buy overpriced groceries, I'll head for Stockman's which at least has fresh milk and creamcheese.

Photo left: Alec, who does not remotely resemble an oligarch.