Fourth Sunday In Siberia

(Our apartment building - the open door on the rh side of pix is where we enter the building)

I jokingly told Brian to take a picture of our apartment building so we can show where we lived during our exile to Siberia… some days it feels like that tho! We had a VERY lazy morning but eventually we had to do something! I made French Toast for brunch as we had to use up some bread – it wasn't too bad! I put a little sugar in the milk and egg mixture and it almost tasted like it does at home. They don't seem to use syrup here so we're going to get some jam for the next time I make either French Toast or Pancakes.

We finally headed outside – I again put my long underwear on as it was warmer again today but not quite as sunny as yesterday so I didn't want to get cold. Good thing as it was easier to unzip the outer coat for the brief moments I got warm…but my nose sure got cold! We decided to explore the "Central Park" area a little more. There is a children's playground with ice slides (you pay to go in) there that seems busy especially on Sundays (families go out more on Sunday). We walked directly through the park – just a lot of snow and trees – and then we came upon the "zoo" such as it is. Pictures appear in the "pictures from today" section. I don't think we'll waste our money on this zoo but wait for ones back home! Then, lo and behold, we were at the Orange Mall! Knowing where we were going and cutting through the park had us getting there in about 30-minutes! Remember, it took us like over an hour for us to find it the other day! LOL Things are much closer when you find the direct way!

We walked away from the mall for awhile tho as we hadn't had much exercise yet and it was pleasant temperature. We walked quite a few blocks and came to the diagnosis center (the turquoise/white hospital where we had some of our medicals done). At that point we decided to turn around and take a different street back to the mall. At the mall we only made two purchases – we bought the "CARS" DVD in Russian and a "Tom & Jerry" DVD – the Russians love Tom & Jerry and JJ does too! I think it says it has 17-hours of shows??? 140 episodes anyways! Both DVDs for 280rubles (under $10.00). We also bought a pastry – 8 rubles – and a Coke Light. Just enough to recharge us for further walking.

We walked back through the park and decided to start our Travel Guide to Irkutsk. It was pleasant walking and not too crowded. As we were walking on Lenin St we saw a café we hadn't seen before but this sign in the door caught our attention "If you are American Citizens – No Entry!" and said something about "Serbs". I said to not take a picture of that tho and we continued on our way! (It's just up the block from the Dominos Restaurant we have yet to try!) We walked across town to the Angara Hotel area because, since that's closer to the river, when it gets colder and windy outside it gets quite cold walking there! We got some pictures to put into our guide. One place we stopped to take a pix and I said about two words and two younger boys turned around and asked us some questions in English. It wasn't much but I'm sure they were happy to use their english! Since we were in that part of town we thought we'd stop in at a café we walked by many times – there is a sign on the building that says, in English, "you are welcome every day". Well, we walked in but they spoke NO english and had NO english menu and wanted to take our coat right away. I think it was more a restaurant. So we said sorry and left. But that did lead us to the "find of the day". Just up the street from this other café (we had called it the Welcome Café for lack of knowledge) we found a place that said "Wiener Café" in the window. It is like a Viennese Coffee House – and while the wait staff didn't speak English their menu had lots of English on it and there were MANY pictures of the food! You could easily order there. It had a big selection of dessert items, coffees, and regular food items also. Also a little bakery display for take-out that looked very good! We had tea and an apple strudel w/ice cream and a crepe w/ice cream. Both were good. The tea came with hot steamed milk so I told Brian it was our "Tea Latte". It was a little under $10 for the stop. It might be a place to stop back for another meal this week!

So now we're just back at the apartment waiting to hear what time we're leaving in the morning – I am guessing it will be around 7am tho. I'm making a spaghetti meal again tonight so we'll be eating that later, after our late afternoon snack settles! I did create a list of menu ideas so finally I have a bit of a meal plan going – and before we bring Nathan here we'll do a major shopping trip to be stocked up on items.

This should be our last week of just the two of us – Friday we should be able to bring Nathan here and then the fun really starts!