photo shoot

We stopped in a photo studio on our street last week to get some pictures of Catherine and hopefully some family pictures we could use in Christmas cards.  

Catherine at 16 months

Don't be confused.  We didn't travel to Italy.  We're still at the photo studio on our street :)

trash

When we first moved into our building there were very very few residents who had moved in yet.  Most were still fixing up their places.  Occasionally there would be construction trash left in the elevator.  Annoying, but not really a big problem. Mostly just an occasional box or packaging material or something like that.  Now that more neighbors have moved in, in the past few weeks a terrible habit developed.  People were just throwing their bags of leaking, nasty trash in the elevator.  Seriously.  for about a week everyday the back half of the elevator had either bags of trash or leftover gross-ness after the cleaning ladies had to clean it up.
In my head, I was drafting a sign that I could print out and hang up.  I was wondering what words I could use that would express my disdain for the situation and not be too blatantly rude.  I hadn't yet completed my masterpiece when I noticed someone beat me to it....and did a much better job than I could have:

"Take out the trash.  Maintain civility."  

That's my rough translation.  Anyway, it seems to have worked.  Since the sign was posted the elevator has been trash free :)

Thanksgiving 2012

I'm a bit slow at getting these pictures up, but we had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  It is more "trouble" to make those special dishes from home here, but it also makes them seem more delicious and appreciated.  

I really wanted green bean casserole.  We have an imports store that had cream of mushroom soup, but I had to make the french fried onions.  It wasn't as difficult as I thought it might be, and we had batter left to have more deep-fried goodness a few days later.  

 Pumpkins (although a different variety than we have in the US) are more commonly eaten here and easy to find.  Where there is pumpkin, there can be pumpkin pie :)

 Ovens are NOT standard in homes here.  What we have is more like a toaster oven, but it gets the job done.

Our Thursday feast:   pumpkin pie, pound cake, Russian bread (authentically Russian.  one of James' classmates from Russia has begun baking loaves and selling them to her classmates for about $1.50/loaf), green bean casserole, salad, chicken (the turkey cost $74 at the import store.  no thanks), and sweet potatoes.

Our friends.  James' best friend here who teaches at a college and one of James' American classmates.  She's here doing research for her dissertation.

Our family

We went to another feast on Saturday but didn't think to get out the camera.  There were somewhere between 20-30 of us there.  It was nice to meet some of the foreigners in the city we hasn't met and to again fill up on such delicious treats.  When we got back that evening, we decorated our Christmas tree.

Someone really liked the lights.

 Our little helper

weddings

We've been to a couple weddings recently.  Weddings here are one thing that I can't seem to culturally adapt to very well.  There's not much formality to them and generally they don't include any kind of public commitment or vows or anything.  The marriage is "legal" whenever the couple registers for their marriage certificate at the government office, and the wedding is just a meal to celebrate with friends and family.  

The thing I find even more interesting is that most of my friends also don't like their wedding customs but don't feel like they any other choice than to do what's "normal" since it's what their parents expect.  

A welcomed change since I was here last is the presence of a beverage other than alcohol.  The bride and groom and whichever set of parents are hosting the event normally toast each table of guests.  The custom is to use very strong alcohol, but at both the weddings we attended recently, peach juice has been offered as a substitute.

Bride and groom is traditional clothing.

groom carrying bride on his back.  Probably in response to some request from a guest or family member.

part of the wedding feast

another bride and groom

The host or announcer.  He introduces the family and the bride and groom as well as any performers.

At the second wedding the feast included lots and lots of mutton (sheep).  Nothing was wasted.  Not even the parts I personally wish could have been :)

the alcohol used for toasting

Fire

We were sitting at home watching a little TV on Sunday night after we put Catherine to sleep.  I smelled something burning or maybe something like plastic melting.  We hopped up to look around our house and see what it was.  We couldn't find anything.  Then we opened the apartment door into the hallway and it was filled with smoke.  

James jumped in to emergency.  "You get Catherine up. I'll get our things. We'll go down floor by floor and use this hammer to break out the windows when we need to get air."  

We tried this plan, but realized almost immediately that the smoke was too thick.  We called 119 and told them we had a fire.  They were already on scene and already working to bring people out of the building.  They told us to open the windows, to breathe through wet cloths, and hold fast until the firemen got to our floor.

We knew by now that the situation was serious enough that we wouldn't be returning that evening and we had a few more moments to gather a few more things and prepare to be out of our home for awhile  I sat with Catherine by an open window while James gathered our things.  By now the electricity was out and we could hear the sounds from the firemen breaking windows and people yelling at each other from various floors to those already outside.
  
After a while 3 firemen burst in our door.  I wondered what Catherine was thinking at this point.  It was dark with no lights and then 3 men with reflective coats, air tanks, masks over their faces, and huge flashlights just came in.  I'm sure it was a scary sight for her little eyes, but a welcomed relief for us to see them.  They helped us get down 18 flights of smoke-filled stairs.  We would go down 3 or 4 flights and then stick our heads out one of the windows to get some fresh-ish air.  The farther down we went the thicker the smoke and the harder to see and breath.  Finally on the 3rd floor there was a balcony we could climb out on through the window.  From here they gave us their masks we could wear for the last little bit and they went without. I went down first and James followed a few moments later with Catherine.  I'm sure it was just a few moments, but being outside on the ground floor and just waiting for Catherine and James to come out of the building too seemed like hours.  They had taken a bit longer because they were (to no avail) trying to find a mask Catherine could wear.  Another big relief when they cam out of the front doors.  

We went across the courtyard to the complex office and waited for bit while we decided the best course of action was to get to a hotel, get cleaned up, and let C get back to sleep.  

That day we thought the fire started in the basement, but when James returned the next day he found out it was actually one of the first floor apartments.  I don't know if anyone was living there, but it was being used as a mahjong parlor.  We also found out that one older man had passed away.  Here are some pictures (although not very good ones) of the first floor where it started.

When James returned, the elevators still weren't working.  They had at least unlocked the doors to the roof which meant we could go to the second entrance to our building, take the elevator up to the 27th floor, walk up one flight of stairs to the roof, cross the roof to our entrance, and walk down 9 flights to the 18th floor.  Complicated, but better than having to walk up 18 flights.

We stayed at the hotel 2 nights and at at friend's house one night.  Catherine and I mostly stayed away and James and another friend took care of all of the cleaning.  Almost every piece of clothing and bedding had to be washed, all surfaces had to be wiped down and because our kitchen cabinets are open, ALL our dishes had to be washed (by hand).  It was a big task.  We don't have a dryer so we could only do as much laundry as we could find a place to dry so it took a week or so to get caught up.

Now almost everything is back to normal.  The first floor still looks terrible, but all the windows that were broken have been replaced and bars across the windows in the stairway have been repaired.  At least one of our elevators works each day.

We are so thankful we got out safely, that our possessions were unharmed, that we had friends to watch Catherine, friends to help clean, friends to stay with, and the finances to stay at a hotel for a few nights without any worry.  We're thankful for all the friends and family who wrote and called to check on us.  We're mostly thankful the whole ordeal is over :)