Two More Days to Gotcha Day!

Photo 1: ‘R’ is trying on his Teddy Bear Knapsack. Photo 2: Jump over the Boot.

Sorry we haven’t been updating the blog, it’s just been much of the same every day; eat, walk around the city, visit with Roman (not every day unfortunately), grocery shop, and sleep. Today was our official last ‘visit’ with Roman at the baby Home before GOTCHA DAY in 2 days! Tomorrow we’re doing a lot of running around with Svetlana signing and delivering documents, getting our Aeroflot tickets to Moscow for Wednesday, and then more signing and delivering of documents. Hopefully it will make the last day go by quickly.

Dawn and I did a little extra grocery shopping for the ½ day we have Roman at the apartment and also for some travel snacks for him. They tell us his meals are typical of the following:
Breakfast: Porridge or Oatmeal, Juice or Compote Tea, and Bread with butter and cheese
Lunch: Soup (Chicken, Cabbage, or Vegetable), Fish, Chicken, or some other meat, side dish (mashed potatoes, macaroni, chopped vegetables, etc..), Juice or Compote Tea.
Afternoon Snack: Crackers (something like animal crackers) and Compote Tea.
Dinner: Fish, Chicken, or another Meat and a side dish. No soup during dinner.

Yesterday we went to the “Festival” by the Church on the Blood that celebrated the “hopeful” end of winter. There were some craft vendors, food vendors, music, dancing, singing, juggling, and mock fighting. Yes, you read right. They celebrate the history with Russian fighting (ie: hand to hand, w/ swords, w/ daggers, and also long sticks). For the most part, it’s teenage boys that engage in this mock fighting with wood props. It was kind of strange, but interesting to watch. We learned a few moves in case it’s needed in Moscow, LOL! There was also the interesting game of jump the boot for the smaller kids, as a rope with a rubber boot at the end is swung by a teenage boy. Strange. Eventually the Winter Goddess (a straw figure) is burned to mark the end of winter. We didn’t stay to watch as it got very crowded and winter really doesn’t appear to be leaving any time soon whether we stayed to watch the burning or not.

Thankfully the apartment has a washing machine as it’s virtually impossible not to get mud all over your clothes as you walk the sidewalks. The strange thing is I don’t see them spreading sand or salt on the streets, I think the mud is from the local industry smoke stacks. It’s wonderful to know that we’re breathing in this stuff.

We found a nice little photo book of Ekaterinburg today at a local shop that has Russian and English. It has some very nice photographs, however it’s funny because all the photos were obviously taken at the most beautiful and opportune moments, not truly representing the city as the muddy and dusty city that it really is.