Half Way to Home!

Well, I have 13 days down and 13 to go until I return home. Half way there! Today Heather, Justin Sandy, Amy, Mom and I went to the children’s store and then the market. We shopped knowing that Victoria will be joining us in just a couple of days. Besides grocery items, I bought a couple of coloring books at the children’s store and mom bought a doll that speaks Russian and a stroller for the doll. We have a suitcase filled with just toys that we are calling her toy box! We learned this suitcase/toy box conversion from looking at the other parents’ suites. We all toured each other’s rooms a few days ago, no two are alike.

Me, Heather, Justin, Ryan, Sandy, Bodi, Mom

Sandy and Ryan True are here from Colorado. They have recently adopted Bodi. They are both involved in the Air Force, so are veterans at traveling and exploring new places, though they say they are not veterans of Russia. Anyway, they invited us to join in a game tonight that they play when they are in a new place. They call it “Menu Roulette”. This is how it works…..we go to a restaurant and randomly pick something on the menu. Sounds fun, and we had nothing else going on! We went with Sandy, Ryan, Bodi, Heather and Justin. Choosing randomly was easy, the entire menu was in Russian of course and no one in the place spoke a bit of English, but us. We each basically ordered something and passed it around the table to share. The meal (?) turned out to be pretty good! We ended up ordering a salmon dish, beef dish, some sort of sausage dish (now what I am calling dish, I guess I should clarify as a meat with onions). We had three different types of salad (?), stuffed tomatoes, and some dried type of beef with some very thin bread, like tortilla. For dessert we tried to order three different items, but ended up with three bowls of basically ice-cream. It really was fun and a different experience, for me anyway!

I was unsure of this dried meat...I did taste it, but that was about it!

The bill was 2,750 rubles, just under $90.

Tomorrow we are being picked up at noon to visit Victoria and Blake. Blake will be able to come back to the hotel with his parents tomorrow after our visit. Victoria will be able to come back on Tuesday. I am still a bit anxious about tomorrow and how Victoria will process everything. This was very evident last night with my lack of sleep, just lots going on in my head. There is a clock on the wall in our room that I guess I thought just ticks loudly. I got up in the middle of the night and just needed to get rid of the ticking. I took the clock off the wall and put it in the oven! I decided that was not good enough and I could still hear ticking. I picked up the portable alarm clock and put it in the oven too! Mom asked what in the heck was I doing. I told her that the ticking was just really loud. She said with exasperation, “Jennifer Marie!” Wow, she even threw in my middle name!! Yes, the oven worked on blocking out the stupid ticking!!! Of course I was finding things to worry about…and then came crazy dreams during the short times I was asleep. I shared one with dad earlier today through email…..and he reminded me, “Dreams can be very interesting regarding your concerns”. Yes, I suppose that is very true……