Friday, July 25, 2014

So what does a parent do when a grandparent insists that your child do something?

Because I don't know how to respond. Maybe it's my personality. So this is one of those rides that' acts like an elevator. It goes up and down and kind of bounces in mid air. Sergey wanted Loki to go on this ride. Loki wasn't having it. After much cajoling and convincing/threatening he did go. 

But it scared him very much. These are from before the ride started. 

Guess who made grandpa watch Loki.
Oh the faces he made. He was frightened but not crying. Oh well, sometimes we do things we don't like. But then again, sometimes I don't want to cause problems with his grandparents. There really isn't much I can do. 

So I am trying to deal with the large amount of Photos from Surprise Island

I guess I am surprised that I was there was so many things to see. I take photos of people and of the attractions. 
This is a woman I found a very interesting dress style. I want to understand why you would wear such an outfit with your child at an amusement park. Then again, that little child is adorable. 

These are fiber glass animals. I guess that's a quality product right there. 





Here are two little girls. Adorable outfits! 


Here's loki in his fire truck with his young friend. He easily makes friends. His grandparents are amazed. What else is a child to do. Apparently his father had a grumpy disposition as a child. 

more from Surprise Island

So they had this fountain, but it wasn't like in America. You couldn't access the water. While there were coins in the fountain it wasn't the copious amount that we usually see in America. Also the coins that were in there, weren't even worth the metal they are made out of. 



Couple of interesing things. You know you aren't in America because everyone has giant cameras strapped around their necks. Also no one is using their cellphone cameras.  Also pay attention to the shoe fashion. 

This is a ride! It went up and down, but the children weren't secured. 

These became my new best friends in Russia. Also I didn't see people slathering their children in sun block as we do over here. As I do actually. 

No pets, no ice cream, no luggage, no spontaneous hair cuts. 





Loki easily finds friends. They went another time around, sitting inside the truck. No waiting in line. Russia is a selfish country. 


The Helsinki Train station

Of course all the photos from the airplane are on the cell phone. So I will show you the interior-ish of the Helsinki Railway station. We took the 10 AM train, but Russia is one of the few countries that doesn't observe daylight savings. (Maybe the only country.) 






So the final image of a suit and hat, I don't know what that indicates. No suit and hats on the train. No mob types. I don't know. 


Thursday, July 24, 2014

Surprise, You are at Surpise Island



 So we went to диво остров. Which I wasn't sure kind of what it would be like. But I know it was like a DisneyLand rip off. The whole time, Sergey and Larisa, are like it's just like DisneyLand right. I was like, oh close. But not exactly. So we haven't been here for hardly a day when and we roll up to surprise island.

 
This is the entry way that we went in. It has a large area but it's not a very big place. 

So Loki is ready to go on some rides. 

He was unsure about the bumper cars.

So he went on smaller rides. So when we go out in Russia, we lie and make him play with other children. I think they think he can speak Russian. I don't know what's that old trope, "children play in any language"




This is a train ride that he went on. No the ride operator didn't stay on it with him for the whole entire time. He was just showing Loki that you can push the button for choo choo sound. 


Sergey, Larisa, Loki 

Larisa, Loki Cara. Yep.
 So this is just a handful of the photos from the 2 hours that we spent there. This again, was barely 24 hours after we arrived. I will try to provide some photos from the first few hours, and what I have of us on the airplane.
Some other things, the night that we arived, they took Loki toy shopping, Hooray. All the whole entire time we are here in Russia, loki misses grandma, and his home.
We are here until the end of August. We have a lot of time to spend here still. Also I think we are still trying to figure things out in general .












































































Monday, July 21, 2014

The Night before, the night before.

So it's the night before, the night before we leave for Russia. I haven't packed, my clothes, I haven't packed my son's clothes. It is my hope that we can bring only one suitcase, though I did let Loki pack a suitcase full of his toys. I am going to try and hide some of his clothes in there, so that the case is under 50lbs. Fingers Crossed!
The flight will depart out of SeaTac on Tuesday morning, American Airlines/FinnAir. Woo! The only problem, is we have one lay over, two accounting for Helsinki, a long car ride to Seattle, and also a train ride to Russia.
We are taking a high speed bullet train. The train is called Allegro, that sounds pleasant enough. Here's the website, http://eng.rzd.ru/statice/public/en?STRUCTURE_ID=4144 
I still would prefer a ferry, and I think it would be a fun trip. But here we are on a bullet train. Well, actually we aren't there yet. But we are almost there. Nervous just slightly.