On Russian Acculturation 31 августа 2012

I’m starting to feel more Russian every day:

First: Almost every day lately, as I walk down the street someone stops me and asks for directions. I reply “Извините, что я не говорю на русском” which means “Sorry but I don’t speak Russian”. At least not a lot.

Second: I went to visit a friend today at a local hospital. I drove and naturally had to park near the hospital. Seeing someone pull out I bumped up all 4 wheels of my car and parked on the sidewalk – it’s the way things are done here. See a previous post.

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Back in the USSR – Oops Russia 23 августа 2012

For anyone who has been reading my blog entries – I hope there are at least a few – you might have noticed things have been quiet since last June.


After Nancy’s school was done for the year we headed back to the US via Tallinn, Estonia and Helsinki Finland. We flew into Tallinn from Mockba, spent several days there and then took a 2 hour ferry ride to Helsinki for another few days. After that we headed back to the US for a few weeks.

In early August we headed back to Mockba via Portugal. We rented an apartment in Cascais, 30 minutes west of Lisbon. Cascais is a beautiful beach resort area. Our daughter and my sister-in-law joined us for a week. When they headed back to the US we stayed in Lisbon for 4 days before heading back to Mockba.

Arriving in Mockba was orders of magnitude easier this compared with last year. Just grocery shopping and we were done. No painting, organizing or settling into a new place.

I’m currently working on photos from all of our stops and I’ll be sending them out shortly to anyone who’s interested.

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