lairdandjonelle

Well, our Great Adventure is over and we’re back home.  Daniel, for lunch today we had an unnamed dish that Marita made — spread good mustard over ham slices, wrap them around banana halves, make a cheese sauce to pour over and bake for about 1/2 hour, long enough to cook the banana.  It sounds odd to me, but I tell you, it’s really delicious!  And with good wine, even better.  I have to say, we have never had a bad bottle of wine in South Africa.  Everything we tried was just so delicious — even those wines that I think are weaker than I usually like, such as merlot and shiraz, were delicious.

Addo the elephant park was quite swell — more so because it was rainy and gray all day and we thought we wouldn’t see any game on the sunset drive.  But some of what we saw included eland, zebra, hartebeaste, kudu, secretary bird, ostriches, merkats, bushbok (well, Marita saw it), two jackals, an eagle owl, cape buffalo and lots of elephants.  Close up elephants.  Then after a lovely meal at the restaurant, we went to our chalets and sleep.  In the morning we decided not to do the drive, but just go on our own after a most marvelous breakfast with beautiful little yellow birds!  Maybe yellow-throated warblers?  There were swarms of them, so we gave them bread crumbs so they could eat along with us — there we were, on the porch overlooking lovely green landscape surrounded by yellow birds.  On the drive we saw lots of kudu and warthogs, but only one elephant close up — but any wildlife is thrilling, and warthogs are so funny, being so busy trotting along swishing their little skinny tails.  Addo had to satisfy us because we saw almost no game during the drive home — I saw a buck, that might have been juvenile eland, and we saw some blesbok and springbok.  The cows, sheep and goats we missed on the trip down, we saw coming home!  We feel like we can say we’ve really seen South Africa now, having been in Gautang, Limpopo, Free State, Northern Cape, Western Cape, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu Natal states (provinces).  Western Cape is the only province not under ANC control and it is the cleanest, best-run or so it appears.  We stopped in Blomfontein to see the supreme court (different from the constitutional court, which is in Pretoria) and got a great tour from one of the security people, a woman named Martha.  Don’t know if we would have normally gotten that, so we were thrilled.  Pictures to follow, sometime soon, I swear.  We also went to the national Afrikaans literature library, which also is the Sotho literature library, and that was exciting — going to have to search Amazon for Afrikaans writers.

Sandy, when we got home, Marita’s dalia tree was blooming — have you ever heard of that?  Beautiful pinky purplish flower, long petals with a yellow center, sort of reminiscent of cosmos except for the shape of the petal.  And you would so love all the aloes blooming everwhere and the proteas — the fynbos is FULL of proteas and they are in bloom now.  Fynbos is only in the cape region.  Read in the paper today that someone has just found another species of fynbos — a tiny blue-purple flower.  From my bed, through the banana leaves I see red hibiscus.  And green, green grass — what a sight.  Laird took photos for you of flowers and plants and Safari, the nursery where I want to live.  Plus, even though Marita hates them, I LOVE the palm trees — mostly date palms and others that aren’t Washingtonians, Queens or the like.

We have an appointment to go to a diamond mine in Cullinan on the 29th and another few adventures to go before we take the Big Bird back.  We miss you all and can’t wait to see you!  Africanly yours, jm & lg

Back from a great game drive, incredible fynbos landscape — proteas, ericas, heathers, all sorts of beautiful plants (Sandy, I kept thinking of you, how much you would LOVE the plants in SA, keep thinking you should just ignore the plane trip and come with me sometime) — plus animals, too.  Eland; gnu, including a golden gnu (very rare); impala, including black impala (also rare); waterbuck, lions (that had eaten yesterday so were almost comatose — we got very close and they just opened their eyes briefly, then shut them again), two females and a male; ostrich; mountain zebra; giraffes; and a tortoise.  Probably some I forgot to list.  Elsje decided against the game drive and went on an elephant ride instead.  Tomorrow we leave for Addo, an elephant national park, on the way back to Pretoria.  Every day has been terrific!  But lots of driving, so I’m sure Elsje will be glad to be home again, not having to be responsible for the hours upon hours of driving, watching us drink lovely wine at lunch.  We went to a cactus farm the other day, then went down the road to a restaurant that was FABULOUS.  It was OMG good!  Laird and I had kingklip (fish) baked with a shrimp crust; Marita had poached chicken wrapped with prosciutto and humus; Elsje had steak — L, M & I had the least expensive bottle on the menu and it was excellent.  Our next lunch we did the same, the cheapest bottle on the menu, again excellent.  What are the chances of that happening in the US?

I don’t know what we’ve been doing all these days, but at the end of every one, we have toasted with gins and tonic, or wine when there was no ice, and said how wonderful they had been!  How fortunate we are to have such friends!  And I can’t wait to share whatever memories I can remember with all you friends — you’ll finally be saying, “please, enough, no more, stop it!”  And I cannot wait for all y’all in Santa Fe to meet Marita when she comes to visit in the fall — what a great treat you have in store!  Dona and Bill, there will be large drinks at our house — we’ll go get Joan, too.  And she’s already agreed to make a SA feast for everyone — all the rest of us can be her sou chefs; Daniel, you’ll love it.  Maybe we can talk her into staying for thanksgiving and everyone can come, the CATS, Louise, Emily, Daniel, Dona and Bill, whoever else I forgot and Sandy, you can come from Fla.  Sharingly yours, jm 

It’s been so long since I’ve written, I don’t even know where to begin or what to tell.  We’re back in Danabaai (Dana Bay) after a few days in Capetown — actually sort of out from Stellenbosch.  We went up Table mountain one day, down to the warf area one and to an amazing auto museum in Franchoek one day.  But now we’re off again so I’ll have to come back to this — hurriedly yours, jm

The toilets in South Africa are marvelous.  Clean, with toilet paper — toilet paper you can flush!  I feel like I’m in paradise!

I thought the whole world was supposed to be connected through the internet, so what’s with all this trouble we have with getting on????  We FINALLY got connected last night, but with only two little bars — and let me tell you, it was a huge chore to get those!  But first, let’s start with our travelogue from Yekaterinburg.  We got up at 4:00 A.M. to get ready, straighten up the apartment, etc. — our friend Artom took us to the airport.  Get to Istanbul, through immigration, and YEA, WE DID NOT HAVE TO TAKE OUR BAGS, Turkish airlines had them sent through to Joburg, even though we had a 10 hour layover — plus, they were willing to give us a FREE hotel room.  If we had not been meeting our friend Pinar, we would certainly have taken them up on it.  We waited for awhile in the international arrivals hall, then decided to walk toward the domestic hall to see if we could find Pinar.  Lo and behold, as we were walking along, there she was!  What a thrill it was to see her!  Beautiful as ever, lovely of heart and soul as ever, we were thrilled to see her.  We waited around awhile thinking we’d take our hand luggage to the free hotel room, but then decided to just leave it at the baggage storage room and off we went for Istanbul adventure.  Oh, but it was May Day, there were demonstrations going on and public transportation was limited.  Pinar went to ask a guy about it and he gave her all the information about where the demos were, what was what, etc and he said it would be safest to take the ferry like Pinar wanted to go see the Princess Islands.  So off we went, bus to ferry, ferry to another ferry and then we were on the big island.  The guy, who had accompanied us at least half way on our journey, had told us of a restaurant to go to, so we walked to the Lido and had a fantastic seafood lunch, so delicious.  Salad, hummus and some other appetizer, seafood soup, grilled prawns, two whole sea bass later we were stuffed and ready for our horse carriage ride around the island.  What a beautiful place!  I saw many places I think the Graeser-Ladds/Sezer should rent for a couple of weeks some shoulder season — how fun, island living with a short ferry ride to Istanbul.   We reluctantly left Pinar on the Anatolian side, for her plane back to Ankara, and us back to the European side for our plane to Joburg.  As usual, it took less time than I thought (I’m the fretter about being late) to get back, so we had to wait to find our gate.  Then the brutally long trip to SA, no sleep on the plane, remember that 4:00 arising in Ekat?  Now it has been many, many hours.  It’s the next day at 10:00 or so when we land.  But I have high compliments for Turkish airlines and particularly for the man in Ekat who gave us the two side seats on an exit row — thank god we weren’t stuffed into the middle or any row behind.  Also, their cabin stewards are very nice — not always true with other airlines.

We got to Joburg, got through immigration, got our bags, out to the arrivals hall and there were Marita and her friend Elsje with candy and flowers, beautiful Birds of Paradise, which I’m looking at right now in a big vase on the kitchen island.  The new airport is quite nice.  Driving, after awhile, things started to look familiar, the closer to Marita’s house, the more excited I was.  I love her house!  And, also, there was the promise of bed after so very long without.  But first, tea, a bottle of wine, great lunch and LOTS of laughing.  Then a blissful shower and the most comfortable bed in memory.  So very hard to get up for light supper, then back in the sack.

Saturday, we went to Safari, the best, most wonderful nursery anywhere.  I thought about you, Sandy — you would really like this place!  You sure I can’t talk you into a trip here?  I want to live at Safari.  I want it to be my home.  There are waterfalls and plants and buildings and more plants and more waterfalls and pots and places to hang out all over.  There was an orchid show to see (not that orchids are my favorite flower, but still, many beautiful plants), a milkshake to be had — and drooling over just being there.  I think that’s all we did because I think we came home, had dinner, took a long nap, got up for supper, oh, but another bottle of wine, then bed.

Sunday was the day from hell, trying to get internet connection.  Saturday, somewhere along the way Laird had gotten his phone sorted out, but not internet.  It took HOURS and we didn’t even get connected.  Bummer.  I think that took up the whole day.  Maybe we were going to go somewhere, but it was closed, I can’t remember now.

Monday was extraordinary.  I said I wanted to go back to the cultural museum, so Marita thought this would be a good day.  We went early, hoping that this day, unlike every other time we’ve been there, might have a lot of customers.  But, alas, we were the only ones there.  Laird noticed a sign that said store room tours by appointment.  Marita said, “We want an appointment, please.  Now.”  After a few sputters, the guy at the desk said he would see if any curators were available.  So we went to look at a few exhibits and decided to have tea.  While in the restaurant, Corrine, the ceramics curator, came to say she could take us to furniture, anthropology, archaeology and ceramics.  We took gulps of our tea and jumped up.  The furniture curator, Anna Marie, had a doctor’s appointment, so couldn’t  spend much time with us, but she showed us through three storerooms and explained the history of furniture in South Africa — we saw beautiful, beautiful pieces, gorgeous armoires — she was very passionate about her topic, particularly furniture made by South Africans, fine furniture and farm furniture.  Then it was off to see John in anthropology.  Drawers and drawers and drawers of treasures, beadwork, tools, weapons, on and on.  The museum is light on exhibits upstairs because money is tight, but it takes very good care of its collections — temperature controlled, nice big (huge, actually) rooms.  We had some discussion of the ethics of museums and collecting of stuff that was made to be destroyed — interesting.  Archaeology was next, but to tell the truth, it was the least interesting.  Just separate little pieces of rocks and whatnots.  Frank told us he had 4 million pieces that had to be all catalogued by the end of this year!  All museums and cultural venues have been given three years to have every object fully catalogued.  He’s done 35,000.  He’s in trouble.  After a lovely lunch in the restaurant, Corrine came back to get us to show us her domain, ceramics.  She has some beautiful stuff, but she laments the holes in the collection.  We told her we would send her the green wedgewood tea service Laird and Emily got as a wedding present from Laird’s best friend Dick and his wife, Rhoda.  Emily, Dick, Rhoda, Chris or Kate, y’all don’t mind if it ends up in the African cultural museum do you?  What a glorious day we had — it was fantastic that we got to see behind the scenes of a major museum.  After that, I got to come home and poor Marita and Laird had to go back to Menlyn (shopping center) to find a way for us to be connected. 

Last night we had a great time at Elsje’s house — a braii her son cooked, meat and chicken, with salad and great bread she made, served with Marula jelly — yummy, and Daniel, she gave me a jar to bring home.  Gin and tonic, wine and more laughing — it’s perfect!

Tomorrow, after Marita and Elsje go to vote, we’re off to Dana Bay, which will take a couple of days traveling by car.  I’ll tell you all about it because I know it’s going to be swell!  In Pretoria, the weather has been lovely, though cloudy.  But not too hot, thank goodness.  When we get to Dana Bay, it might be pretty cool — I remember that Capetown was cool — so Marita told us not to send all our winter clothes home from Russia.

South Africally yours, jm

It took from 9:30 to about 2:45 to mail two boxes of stuff home!  First, we went to the neighborhood post office and LITERALLY waited in line for over one and one-half hours — just to be told that we had to go to the main post office downtown!  So, Laird was really cranky, I was trying to jolly him along by saying, “oh, it’ll be an adventure. . .”  Just to be sure we’d have enough money, we changed some more, walked to the tram to go downtown.  Once there, we actually got off right near the PO.  Luckily, Galina had mentioned that international mail was in the back, and also luckily, Laird asked someone where it was when we got around to the side.  We were pretty much near where we had to be, went in, Laird got forms from a helpful woman (in Russian) and then had to figure out what was wanted.  His frustration level kept rising, but he did a great job, really, getting it figured out.  BUT, there’s always a BUT, when we went back to the woman, it was almost time for her break.  She DID let us leave the boxes with her, thank god, and we went off to find a restaurant.  By this time, both of us were hurting pretty badly — backs and feet do NOT like it when we stand around on them doing nothing but waiting, waiting, waiting and then having to travel somewhere else to wait, wait, wait.  The only thing we saw was a burger king.  Yikes.  Yep, we ate at burger king and while I was sitting waiting for our order, I noticed, across the street, the Fork and Spoon (in Russian), a restaurant that we’ve eaten at several times in our neighborhood.  Oh well.  BUT BURGER KING HAS CLEAN RESTROOMS THAT ACTUALLY HAVE TOILET PAPER!  SOAP!  A WAY TO DRY YOUR HANDS!  I was gobsmacked!  I was thrilled!  I was not having paranoid fantasies about diseases and bacteria and viruses, or having to wipe footprints off the toilet.  Claudia, you cannot travel to Russia — you’d never make it — particularly the footprints.  Remember, many people in the Urals and Siberia are used to Eastern-style squat toilets, so. . . .  After that wonderful end to lunchtime we went back to the PO and our lovely lady had taped up our boxes and had everything ready to go, just had to pay her — 4,740 rubles, less than shipping the other direction.  Back to tram, back to apartment, exhausted.  Dealing with any post office, anywhere will do that to you.  Laird went on a packing frenzy, got his stuff all done.  Off to our very last class, where we were presented with several “testimonials” of how much the students enjoyed having us here — these today are the fourth years — and how they hope we will come back.  We hope so too.  Now we’re sitting here at 7:00 p.m., all packed and ready to go (well, last minute stuff in a.m.).  Amazing, underweight, room for Istanbul souvenirs — or so I hope.  I NEED more Evil Eyes.

Readily yours, jm — or maybe more appropriate, postally yours, jm & lg

We have our last class at 4:00 and we’re done.  We’ve given our thank you presents to folks at the university and got some in return.  A beautiful, beautiful “landscape” of Jasper from our dearest friend Galina — one of many from her all along the way — and a Urals Federal University mug from the head of the department.  As y’all know, I love advertising mugs.  What a swell time we’ve had, though we’ve done nothing much in terms of sightseeing or going out at night — our friend Igor drove us around the city center the other night after that wonderful dinner at Leonid’s and Natasha’s, lots of colored lights on the buildings, quite beautiful at night.  The snow made it lovely and sparkly, but I could have done without that.  Maybe next time, we’ll come back in fall, when it will be pleasant weather to wander around — before daylight savings time goes away, of course.  Speaking of snow, when the big snow storm hit, many drivers had already taken off their winter tires and put on summer ones.  One of our students said there had been over 500 accidents!

Yea!  We’re meeting our friend Pinar in Istanbul!  We’re quite excited to see her, it’s been a long time.  I’ve used her in class to show how successful one can be as an interpreter/translator.  I wish she’d come visit us in NM — everyone would love her, I know.  Did I mention how beautiful and poised she is?

Marita and Noekie, we’re making that transition in our minds from Yekat to Pretoria and YOU — we’re like puppies at the door, our tails are wagging in such anticipation of seeing you!

Galina and all our friends here, we’re also so sad to be leaving you — thank you, thank you for such a successful trip!  Please, please, invite us back!

Now we have to go to the post office, see if we are successful in sending boxes back home.  Dona, be on the lookout for three boxes, please — possible we will be home by the time they come, but the box I sent to Galina I think took two-three weeks, a reasonable time it seems to me.

Sadly-happily yours, jm

We just had a great lunch in an “Old Russia” restaurant — like dining in the summer house at the dacha — more like manor house or small palace.  We had been in the building through one door the other day and it was a cafeteria, OK food, nothing special.  But I saw this other door today and went in it — wow what a difference!  Interior started out similar, walls that looked like a log cabin, but after giving our coats to the cloak room and going down these very dark, kinda steep stairs, through the bar, we stepped into a lovely room that looked quite elegant, maybe like a smoking room in said manor house or palace.  The hostess asked if we wanted nonsmoking, we  said yes, so she gestured into another room and a hall that looked like the way to the WC, but, yea, we went the other direction, through another little anteroom, into these private rooms that look liked porches or gazeboes  — you get the idea.  Wallpaper murals on the walls of our cubicle were of birch trees, another giant, many-limbed tree that we didn’t recognize — maybe an oak? — and the manor/palace just behind.  Laird sat on the satin settee and I sat in a chair, silver candelabra on the table.  And so it began.  Daniel, you would have loved it:  5 pages of appetizers and hors d’ oeurves (not sure why those aren’t synonyms, but you foodies probably know), cold and hot; then  a page of soups; a page of fish dishes; four pages of game and other meats; two pages of dessert.  Laird had salad Madam (with orange and grapefruit), cream of mushroom soup and beef stroganoff.  Our breads were the best I’ve had here.  I had Russian salad (which turns out to be American salad — green salad with veggies), cream of spinach soup and cutlet of roe deer and wild boar with wild cranberry sauce.  YUUUMMMMM!  Served on fine china.  I also had a glass of wine along with tea.  To start, when the waitress, dressed in a long, old-fashioned dress, brought the bread she also brought us each a small glass of some kind of berry wine, just a little sweet and nice.  Alas, Laird did not have his camera so no pictures.  As you can imagine, we were too stuffed to even think of dessert.  It was  lovely, leisurely lunch — so fun.  And the best part was that my credit card worked.  When we went shopping the other day, I think the woman didn’t know how to use non-smart-chip-American-not-European-credit-cards — the message that came back was “account closed”.  Same thing happened with Laird’s card.  Needless to say we were a little freaked thinking that our cards didn’t work, since we have a month to go on vacation.  Laird had to go get money, but for some reason his card wouldn’t work in the bank either.  So then he had to come back to the store, get cash from me, back to bank, oops, they didn’t like one of the $100 bills, so back to me to exchange, back to bank, back finally for final time with cash in hand to liberate our souvenirs.  Luckily the bank was in the same building and on the same floor as the souvenir shop.

Renee, speaking of that vertical mall or whatever it is, if I knew your shoe size and had money I would have bought you a pair of shoes.  One whole floor of this place is filled with shoes — we couldn’t tell if it was one shoe store or many, but I saw so many shoes you would have liked!  I want to know how even young women can walk on ice in high heel shoes — and when I say high heels, I mean stilettos.  It’s freezing cold and ice or slush is everywhere and here come these women in stilettos, very short skirts and sometimes fur jackets or some other fashionable outerwear.  Women here are extremely fashion conscious.  You have never seen such fashionable women! One woman in one of our classes has a sweater with one whole shoulder of fur — it looks real, but what do I know?  Of course, I only saw it once because you cannot be seen wearing the same thing more than once — well, maybe in a couple of weeks and to different classes, or on a date going somewhere you will not meet anyone who might have seen you in the same outfit.  Oh, and the fingernails, manicured and painted with designs.  The women are beautiful, well groomed and slender — oh I remember youth (though not with so much fashion, ever)! 

We were going back downtown for a couple of things — we had a successful run to the post office this morning and now have boxes to pack stuff in to ship — but poor Laird’s foot is hurting way too much, so we came home so he could take aspirin and ice it.  Maybe later.  I felt so sorry for him, though, limping to university, then limping much worse  home.  To top it off, carrying his computer bag hurt his hip and he was afraid to let me carry it walking on ice — he decided hurting was better than having to pick me up off the sidewalk, I guess.  I cudda done it; I know I cudda!  Anyway, I sure hope the aspirin and ice do the trick — I know from vast experience  that hurting and traveling don’t go well together.  Luckily, I’ve had pretty good luck, my back is not terrible — though sitting on hard student seating for three hours straight for three days was pretty tough on the old periformis or whatever the hell it is that hurts on me.  I’ve gotten very good at walking up five flights of stairs, then down partway, then up again, then down two floors, up one, find the bathroom floor up or down, down for lunch, up for tea, many times a day.  You get the idea.  But I’m pretty sure that all that walking hasn’t done anything to mitigate the mayonnaise!

Fashion backwardly yours, jm

Yesterday was chilly, but sunny, melting snow on Lenina st made for very deep and wide mud puddles, but IT’S SNOWING AGAIN!  Hell with professionalism, I’m wearing jeans to work today — not to mention that I don’t want to have to put on one of the same damn outfits I’ve already worn upteen times.  We have already had more snow than Yeketerinburg has had in April in 124 years — it’s time to stop!  Once the record has been broken, what’s the point of more?  Crankily yours, jm

We finished exams, each group had a party afterwards in the classroom, with food and drink and great high spirits, and champagne for the first two groups — they still have to take their second language exams, French or German.  Have I said how much we have enjoyed our students?  They were all great, even the few who wouldn’t talk at the beginning — and I think at the end, even they talked to us.  Friday was another bitterly cold, windy, snowy day, as was Saturday.  Did I already discuss how it is that when the weather is like this, no matter what direction you are walking in, the snow and wind are ALWAYS in your face — how does that happen????  We got up and took the tram downtown for souvenir shopping.  We found a lovely gift for Galina, hope she agrees, and the perfect souvenir shop.  Home for a brief rest before going to dinner at Leonid and Natasha’s house.  Another spectacular feast!  Daniel you would have so loved everything — you too, Judyth, everything was soooo gooood.  Natasha is a really great cook and hostess. Vodka for toasts and, of course, just because.  We were there for almost six hours, most of the time eating.

Today, I was so very happy to sleep late.  Leisurely day until our friends Sergei and Lilia came to say goodbye, they are off to Abu Dhabi for 10 days.  At 2:00 we went to a class — actually more like a conversation club — for our friend Elena, the doctor and medical translator/interpreter.  Yet another fun group of Russians, most of them doctors or medical students — three pediatric neurologists among them — and so young they looked!  We had a great good time with them and afterwards off to Elena’s house for dinner.  Her husband had made excellent plof.  I do so love Russian food and as I think I have explained every single woman in Russia can cut food into little tiny pieces — and we had my favorite salad: corn, cucumber, fake crab, sometimes tomato or some other veggie, with a bit of mayo.  Their two girls, Leesa (6) and Sonia (4), came home and were a bit shy with us at first, but by the end they were showing off their in-line skates, bikes and scooter — the apartment has a very large hall and an open living room/kitchen so lots of room for two small girls to skate and ride around.  Now we’re home and damn if it isn’t already almost 9:00.  We got the last of the clothes out of the washing machine — read bathtub — and so we’ll be starting the week with clean clothes, always a good thing.

May you all have a great week — ours is only through Wednesday as Thurs morning we fly off to Istanbul and then to you, MARITA and NOEKIE!  We sure hope we see our friend Pinar in Istanbul.

Best wishingly yours, jm 

Man, this sucks — it’s been snowing all day long and it is freezing cold.  I am so over all the clothes I brought and was looking forward to wearing my new linen blend pants and now this.  Shit! 

Second day of 5th year exams, then first year students at 2:15, finally the referent-translators (I still don’t know what that means).  Done at 7:00 and waiting for a taxi in the snow, a cold, wet snow, we decided not to go to see the girls jazz choir rehearsal, so a cold, wet (did I mention the snow???) walk home.  Too yukky to go to the grocery store, so we have decided to blow off dinner.  Just as well, we got yet another box of chocolates today — this time for Laird’s remarks at the intellectual property conference.  We now have three boxes of chocolates and two giant candy bars — we have to be VERY CAREFUL not to eat it all.

Tomorrow the last day of exams, then maybe stop off at our neighbor Igor’s class, then we must do some shopping and some clothes washing.  I hate the thought.  Yea, Igor is going to check and see about shipping winter clothes home before heading for South Africa.  I don’t want to carry all the weight and I want to buy souvenirs — I need that space my dress up clothes were taking up in my suitcase.

Well, it’s already bedtime if I expect to get up early to be at school by 9:00.  Snoozingly yours, jm  

I don’t even remember yesterday.  We had a wonderful lupper — or linner — with Leonid, Natasha, Igor and Katerina on Sunday at a really nice restaurant.  Leonid and I had gins and tonic and Long Island Iced Tea (he’s pretty sure there was no liquor, just coke with lemon), which made me happy.  I just adore Leonid!  He laughs so big and happily and everything seems to delight him.

Yesterday we only had one class, but after a few days of lovely weather it turned bitterly cold walking to and from the university — snow blowing in our faces coming home.  We stopped at a neighborhood restaurant for lunch — I haven’t a CLUE what I had for lunch.  Maybe it was ham, but it was fairly unidentifiable — but it had tomato, mayonnaise and maybe some cheese melted on top.  Then trudged home.  We had expected to go shopping for souvenirs after our one class, but it was so cold we gave that idea up pretty quickly.  We came home, read and then all of a sudden it was 10:00 p.m.  I REALLY have to go to bed early tonight, we have to get up EARLY tomorrow for exams.

The conference we went to today was quite swell — professional papers in English, French and German (we judged the English ones) and winners got one of our grammar t-shirts we had sent ahead of us.  Since they weren’t linguists, they may not have gotten the jokes, but oh well.  After class, luckily, we remembered we had been invited to Armenian Day, so before we got too far out the door, we went back and listened to the concert — everything was either in Russian or Armenian, but it was fun to watch the folk dancing and the singing WOULD HAVE been good if they had not cranked the dial on the stereo AND the microphone to 12 plus.  OMG, it was so loud.  I had one ear closed and it was painful, I don’t have any idea how Laird stood it with his hearing aids in — I would have yanked them out of my ears so fast if they were mine!  Afterwards, we met Ike, our Armenian student who was the main “puter oner” of the event — he made sure we got to cut in line at the food table.  Delicious!  The pictures of Armenia have us lusting after a visit there — I wonder if they want English teachers?!?  We’ll have to remember to ask Ike.

Our students are just so wonderful — all of you would like them so much!  I helped one, Maria, work on her paper for presentation today, and she brought me a Easter bread/cake that her mother made — there is no English word and I can’t remember the Russian word.  I think it is made only around Easter.  Dona, don’t the Greeks make a special bread at Easter?  Daniel, you’re our international food expert — do you know?

I have my voice back finally, but I CANNOT get my nose to stop running — very annoying.  So now I will go blow it on tissues that feel like the toilet paper, not so soft.  Poor nose.  Drippingly yours, jm