It got into positive temperatures.

If you believe that 0 is positive. This is the hardest part about most days or mornings. I lived on the east coast and I could justify leaving the house in 12 or 14 degree weather. But here it's so much more difficult to wander out in -4 degree temperatures. Loki hates wearing his snow suit, I get tired of sweating through my clothes, and by the time you start walking 5 feet Loki wants someone to carry him.

Sometimes I wonder why I thought coming out here in the middle of winter, in the worst part of winter was the best idea. I don't think you can ever escape coming to winter in Russia once in your life if you have family here. I thought I would manage it better, and I do. On the other my son hasn't had the best times with travelling in the cold. But then again it's not like we are super suffering. 

This picture is from Velikiye Luki, a suspension bridge, something I fear. But I went across it, I also ran across the frozen river. So I stepped out of my comfort zone, stepped pretty far out of my comfort zone. 

But what am I going to do when I am done with Russia. Looking into work and jobs, thinking about the future. Yet I don't really like thinking about the future. 

I am trying to cover it! 

Russian Museum

There was a tentative plan to go to The Hermitage. This is a huge compound with multiple areas for art/sculpture whatever. 

But because Sergey had something else going on or something, Larisa, Loki and I went to the Russian Museum of Ethnography. This was a palace, as everything here is a palace of sorts if it is a museum. I thought it would have items from Russian creation of the past. Largely it was art work, large art work. Lots of paintings, paintings older than the state of Oregon. Everything is old, is what I am saying. Everything is beautiful, from the furniture you can sit on to admire the art, to the palace that holds the art. The ceilings are high, considering everyone is short, and they are highly detailed and ornate. The lighting is gorgeous, old, wired for electricity. Everything is marble, or parquet flooring. Highly detailed and ornate, I saw something that looked like wall paper, turns out it was actually just painted onto the walls. Like a fresco but better. 

I would love to have looked more closely but, as it turns out I couldn't because it was sons nap time and he screamed and grunted through the whole entire time in the palace. 

I know kids don't normally do well in museums, but he was tired and grumpy and probably hungry. Some days getting him to eat are better than others. But this was the case also in America. 

For the return date I have been waffling on leaving on the 18th or leaving closer to the 27th of February. Our VISA expires on the 28th of February, so we have to be out of here before our VISA's expire or that causes a problem. Nobody wants to get deported out of Russia. 

So while it's only still maybe 10 degrees outside, we carry on. 

Summer Dacha (Дача)

We drove outside of 

Velikiye Luki for about 20 minutes towards the Dacha. These are small houses for summer food growing. Alexander does potatoes, and he picks wild mushrooms. Mushrooms are a big thing out here. 

Larisa, Peter, Alexander Loki. 

Velikiye Luki is rural and the dacha's are set up not as summer retreats, though they are summer retreats, but as places to grow your vegetables and fruits. 

This is Larisa's parents Dacha. They are hoping to sell it for 100 dollars to the neighbors. Many are either abandoned or are being used has homes or Dachas. Ownership usually passes through families.  

Loki and Snow. 

Alexander's Dacha. He still uses his, but because of his age isn't able to produce a larger harvest. He does go out into the wild area and pick mushrooms and various wild fruits or nuts. 

This was one of the sunniest days in Russia we had experienced. But it was incredibly cold, and windy.  

The indoor outdoor market.

Not the outdoor market. But there where plenty of people on the lead up to the market itself selling, food, fruit, vegetables, fish, cigarettes.

Central downtown Vielekie Luki. 

Divide the cost of the coat by 30 and you  have the price in USD.

Pigs head/Boars head. 

Pigeons in the market every where. 

I bought two packets of seeds. I think the older man selling the seeds must have known Alexander. He hugged me, and he slipped me an extra packet. They are flowers. 

You guys have some candy! 

Yep that's a heart. 

Better buy a bag, because they sell them. 

Panties and bras! 

The classiest lady in all of Vielieki Luki. 

This is just the out door/indoor market. There are grocery stores, called Magazines. I don't know why they are called that, but I guess it makes sense to them. It was interesting to be in a small town, but it was nothing like small town rural Woodburn. More like something you would find in southern/eastern Oregon. I still haven't asked why he hugged me, Peter said it was because they are getting older.

So this is what Vielikie Luki Looks like

We made a road trip, on a 2 lane highway to, Pskov, Vieliki Luki, and the Latvian Border. It was exhausting! Loki, Larisa, Myself and Peter crammed in a small "sedan" Hyundai Solaris. The first 4 hours were miserable because we had no music. The next 4 and a half hours were worse because we were listening to Dub-Step.
We arrived in Velikie Luki to a delicious dinner of: mushrooms, onions (mixed in canola oil), herring (in oil), potatoes with canola oil to add to them. Most meals involved, canola oil and salt, in heavy pours. Great Grandpa Alexander doused loki in a heavy spray of Sultan Akbar. Great Grandpa's sexy man cologne. Great Grandpa tends to eat a lot of garlic and salt. He also prefers his banya, most older russians prefer the banya, or sauna as we call it at this time after all the Ellis Island mash-ups. I am not sure the frequency of the sauna usage, or showering/bathing frequency in general for most Russian citizens.
We then went shopping in what used to be an open air market, yes even in the winter, and has now switched to some in buildings/large gymnasium type buildings. Which was now holding meat stands, and various other stands. The meat stands were pretty freaky, lots and lots of meat stands. I had a memory of open air markets in Mexico. Which makes sense, except of course the meat stands, which an open air meat stand is always creepy. You could buy shoes, under wear, and plastic bags at the open air markets. Oh yeah want to bag your groceries that's about 3 rubles=.10, eating at mcdonalds or Hesburger and want ketchup with your fries that's 15 rubles=.50. This is why you go through so much paper currency in a day. I used my first 1000 ruble bill today at the grocery store. It's very surreal to see people walking around with 10k ruble in their pocket(books). But I digress.
So we ate a fabulous dinner of salt and canola oil, with "mystery" meat (possibly beef/cow but what part? Who knows?!), and rice and 20 cloves of garlic. What did it need, spices! Only "spice" that was used was salt and garlic. Copius amounts of garlic, and copius amounts of garlic, not a clove but a large bulb (?)
On the way around Vielikie Luki, we met Yuri Something-hof, who was able to shoot down/blow up three amerikanskiy vietnam related air missle base things. I missed that part, but it was something pretty impressive. Yeah that was exciting, I heard amerikanskiy several times during our weekend with Alexander. 
More to come later... 

Can't wait to ride around in that Mondeo!

The subway system in Saint Petersburg, is frightening. I keep reminding Peter that I have never seen a subway before. I have seen a MAX and a BART, but I Think those are pokey little puppies compared to the Subway system.
First you have to stand in line to get a token, Peter or his mother usually do this for me because I am American and can't say ahdeen (1) well enough to get by on my own. 2) NO PICTURES, means no pictures. See that cop there, and those 500 cameras there, that means no pictures. Also would you or your bag like a periodical pat down prior to passing through the token turn style. Good, hold still. 3) Escalators of doom. They go pretty deep, and they are scary. Peter and his mother have said that they will occasionally stop while people are riding them, and people are always riding them, and they will go flying. Sometimes you take two sets of escalators to get down to the tunnel. Open tunnel or closed tunnel, depends on whether or not there has been a large amount of suicides. Many times the tunnel looks similar to the MAX, only more people. Other times it resembles an elevator, large doors that only open when the train stops.
Train design, they look like they are from the 60's honestly. Maybe you in one from the 60's maybe one from the 90s. The design works so there is no need to improve. Handicapped and trying to ride a subway tough luck.
You know how awesome/fast or whatever you say about BART or MAX, nope not really. The SPB subway jerks very quickly stops very quickly and doesn't stop as frequently as MAX. (This is my number 1 complaint about MAX it pokes around, and it stops every 30 seconds. Sometimes you just need to get to Interstate Kaiser, or the airport. Or from Hillsboro to PSU, but not with the MAX that will take hours! It's Oregon!)
The subway stops running for about 4 hours in the early morning for passengers and switches to a cargo type system. What are they carrying and why, not sure yet.
Also today, we made it to the classy cemetery. Which as you know, I hate cemeteries. We then went around  to the metro the long way. It was huge, and people were praying in the small church. Peter was uncertain as to why they were lined up. The cemetery was located next to where he had stayed for a while when he lived in Saint Petersburg, apparently the neighborhood is very nice in the spring/summer. As for now though everything feels muck and barren from the snow.

This is the entrance to one of the subways, sorry no pictures inside. 

I have been watching Russian TV

The interesting thing is that sometimes, you get shows that have great translations. Where their are male voices for males, and female voices for females. Then I  watch "The Big Bang Theory", this one is kind of sad. Instead of male and female "voice overs" speaking Russian, you get one male voice speaking Russian. That is unsettling, because I wonder how the plan on dealing Bernadette's voice. I mean she has a special voice, and it's unsettling enough listening to a man do Kaley Cuoco's voice, in Russian, as a man but you know you get used to it.
The more I turn down the TV the more I can read their lips, which is in English, so that makes my life easier.
Couple of other things I like about Russian tv, they put ages on the commericals, and they put ages on the programs. But instead of that wacky, TVMA DSLV or whatever alphabet soup we get in America, they just slap 16+ or 12+ on there. Very nice.