I Made A Beet...

Well...I cooked a beet, rather. I have started embracing the art of cooking. I am a self-proclaimed "terrible cook". It used to be, if I was making you dinner, we were having pasta or rice...something you can boil and call it good. Before a couple of weeks ago, I wouldn't even touch raw chicken! When we moved to Russia, Mark and I decided that I would try to do most of the cooking since he works all day. My goal is to shop and eat like the locals...for the most part. Another goal is to learn to cook and eat fresh and healthy. We have some options to buy imported items that we are used to but you definitely pay a premium for them. Surprisingly the produce here is very nice and if you buy local, it can be very cost efficient. Beets are one of the things that are very readily available and very cheap.

I had never eaten a beet before. I once tried the pickled variety, usually served on salads, and stayed clear of them after that experience. So, I wasn't even sure if I would like eating beets. Beets are known to be very good for your health. Check out  www.whfoods.com to see just how good they are. Since I had never even eaten a beet before, I had to do some research about how to cook a beet. Luckily, Google is my friend. I searched "How to make a beet" and I found this website that gave me step by step instructions. www.tipnut.com Here is how it turned out:

Step 1. Prepare the beets. Done.

I had planned on cooking the beet in its entirety...root and greens. But the greens froze in our fridge and they didn't look very good after that.

Step 2. Boil the beets. Done.

They took 45 minutes to boil but I went an extra 5 minutes for good measure.

Step 3. Plunge the beets. Done.

Step 4. Remove the skin and cut the beets. Done.

I used a rag that I was going to dedicate to beets since I planned on it being stained after this little experiment. To my surprise, no staining. Not the counter, not the cutting board and not even the rag.

Step 5. Serve the beets. Done and YUM!

We just ate them with a little butter, salt and pepper alongside chicken tikka and basmati rice.

I have to admit, they were pretty easy. They cook just like a potato but their texture is more like a carrot. Their taste is definitely unique. And to my surprise, they did not have any "dirt" taste whatsoever. Needless to say, this may just become a staple in our diet.

Language Barrier

We knew the language barrier would be difficult. We had no idea it would be as difficult as it has been. Using our experience in Doha, and information received from current colleagues before we arrived, we knew that getting around, and shopping and general life in the city would be a challenge. But, Mark expected life in the office to be a little easier, as the organizing committee is a bilingual environment.

However, Mark quickly learned that the office environment is primarily in Russian. Meetings, presentations and email communication are almost all in Russian. He uses Google Translate constantly. He has to copy and paste them into the program to translate them from Russian to English. If there is not a colleague nearby who can translate for him in meetings, he sits there and tries to figure out what is going on. He can request a translator from language services, but in the environment he’s in, meetings sometime happen quickly and he has yet to settle into a routine that would allow him to request the translator 24 hours in advance, as required.

So, why is it so much harder than we expected? Well, a number of things contribute to this. In Doha, nearly every server, cashier, attendant or any other service oriented individual was an expat. Usually, they were from the Philippines, India or Nepal. They went out of their way to do their best to learn and speak English to expats, because we stood out. We didn’t dress like local Qataris and we didn’t look like them. So, when we entered a store or restaurant, they immediately knew we didn’t speak Arabic, and the English conversation ensued. In the office in Doha, expats were the norm. Whether from the US, Australia, the UK, Italy or Greece, we all spoke English, not Arabic. As a guess, maybe only ten percent of the organizing committee in Doha was local. In Moscow, however, of the 600+ employees of the organizing committee, 18 of us are expats. Many of Mark’s Russian colleagues speak very good English. Yet, understandably, when the audience is predominantly Russian speaking, it is easier and natural to speak in Russian. All presentations are in Russian because the time and cost of having it officially translated is not efficient. Cyrillic does not translate to English directly. Even using Google, often times words are left out or added and the message is not clear. Thus, an official translation is necessary to be sure the correct message is sent; and as already mentioned, this is not possible for each and every PowerPoint or timeline produced. So, Mark is left to spend A LOT of time asking questions of his bilingual colleagues in Logistics and translating emails, documents and presentations. Mark has spent the majority of his first three weeks reading policies and operating plans; mostly through translating the documents. Some things are bilingual, but the majority is not. As far as getting around the city, we fit in very well…until we open our mouths. People approach us in stores and speak Russian to us because we look just like two of the 142 million+ Muscovites who call Moscow home!

It is completely understandable that many locals do not speak English. The only problem is we were given the impression that many in Moscow would speak at least some English and few would speak English in Sochi, or anywhere else outside of Moscow. The reality is few speak English in Moscow, or they are unwilling to speak English and expect us to speak Russian. This has made getting around difficult. Shopping has been an adventure. We use apps on our phones constantly. We enter words into the app so we can see the Russian translation to make sure what we’re looking to buy is milk; not yogurt, cream or some other dairy product. Also, we make sure the meat we’re buying at the shop is beef; not horse! Yeah, we figure we’ll try horse eventually. But, we want it prepared right and the horse that is in the canned meat section is certainly not going to be the first horse meat we try! Many in the shops do not speak English and getting assistance has been difficult. We do our best with our phrase books and translators, but it is not enough to bridge the gap.

Ultimately, we need to learn Russian. We are getting by, but every day is a struggle. The office environment is taxing due to the communication barrier. Life in the city is trying for the same reason. We started our first Russian language course TODAY, 13 June. Hopefully, things will get much easier as we begin to assimilate into the community. But, up to now, every day has been challenging. As always though, there have been many, many individuals that have gone out of their way to help us. We have found that many locals speak very good English, but they are self-conscious of their ability and feel uncomfortable speaking it. We have had people, young and old come to our aid when there was a problem or disagreement with things. Danielle had a woman help her order at a restaurant when Danielle's broken Russian from the phrase book just wasn’t cutting it. Another time, an older gentleman who we see almost every night (we'll call him our friend), helped us when another man was unhappy about us being in the park with the girls. In fact, when we saw "our friend" a couple of nights later, we tried to thank him for his help. All he could say was "I don't speak English. I am a communist." This one statement helped us realize that people are not giving us grief because we're Americans and they are Russian. They are giving us grief because they are assholes! It has nothing to do with Nationality, communism or capitalism. Some people are nice and helpful. Others, are not.


The point is that there are countless people who have gone out of their way to help us. The majority of individuals we have dealt with are great. Mark’s coworkers are also great. It is just difficult to communicate with them at times. We have only been here for three weeks and things are already getting better. However, more work is required on our part to make sure we are putting forth the effort to communicate in Russian. Our classes will help with that. So, if you’re looking to come and visit for an extended period of time, do yourself a favor and learn a few basic words or phrases. Это не так сложно. просто нужно время! 

Leavin' on a Jet Plane...

We planned on leaving for the airport with plenty of time built in for the usual last minute packing, running late and traffic. Mark’s mom met us at Danielle’s parents’ house and we all, with Danielle’s parents and brother, were heading to LAX to meet Mark’s dad and sister. We made it to the airport with plenty of time and we checked in with minimal problems. Aeroflot Airlines (Russian partner with Delta Airlines) has some interesting requirements when it comes to carry-on baggage. Typically, a passenger is allowed a carry-on bag and a personal item. We each had small, carry-on suitcases and a backpack. Apparently, our backpacks were too big for what they considered a personal item and some last minute repacking had to be done. Even with the repacking, we were required to check Mark’s carry-on. This just added to the already critical budget problems. Then came the time to get the girls set-up. They had both been doing a great job walking around the airport and taking it all in. They were a little nervous, but all things considered, they were taking it like champs! The attendant at the check in counter had little knowledge about processing the girls. She had to get her supervisor to help with the process and we actually had to help walk them through the process. Finally, some of our planning paid off! We had to remind them of a number of things that would be required by security, separate from the check in process. Everything was finally done and a concierge, of sorts, was assigned to escort us and the girls to be screened by security. The concierge, however, spoke little English, but he didn’t speak Russian either…probably Hindi, if we had to guess! The girls’ crates were screened and we gave the girls one last hug before securing them in their crates. We were assured by our concierge that he would be with the girls until they were loaded on the plane and, we think, he promised that they would be indoors, in a temperature controlled area, and would be the last to be loaded on the plane. We were quite nervous, as we were still more than two hours before scheduled take off and a lot could happen in the meantime. We sucked it up, took a deep breath and tried to regulate our energies, in an attempt not to upset the girls. We feel we were surprisingly strong, but once the girls left us, we thought we might lose it! Luckily, not even a whimper from the girls and they were off to take their first plane ride, just the two of them in the cargo area :)

We went back to the check-in counter to get our boarding passes, baggage receipts and to pay for luggage. With a little creative documentation, the supervisor who had been helping us, made it so even with the extra bag we had to check, we paid less for baggage than we would have originally. You’d be surprised where your support system will come from. But, as we said, you will need help with an adventure like this. We took care of the last of the “check-in” process and went to adjust our repacking job and take a seat before saying good-bye to family and getting into the security line. We still had a couple of hours, but the security line was backing up. So, after a brief rest and chit-chat, we said our final good-byes to family and, of course, the tears were flowing. That’s what moms do, right? While standing in line, we realized we hadn’t eaten all day and started to feel it. We made it through security and Mark stopped at an exchange window to get Rubles for once we arrived in Moscow and Danielle went to the gate to see if she could see the girls get loaded. We waited and looked and never saw the girls. We were in the long line to board when Danielle finally went up to the counter to, for the first of many times, remind the crew that we were traveling with our dogs and to make sure the whole world knew the girls should be on the plane with us. Danielle was assured everything was fine. We boarded the plane, reminded a couple more flight attendants to tell the pilot and ground crew about the girls, and we were off.

The flight path was interesting. We flew northeast, after a U-turn over the pacific and passed within about 30,000 feet of Boise, maybe a little west of it, at least. We continued that direction and, basically, flew right over the top of the world. The graphic that shows the flight path on the TV monitor had an arcing, shadowed area over the map to indicate the change from daytime to nighttime. Our path took us so far north that it never got dark. We actually flew OVER night! Mark tried to sleep a lot but was uncomfortable the whole time. Danielle watched a couple of movies and tried to keep busy. The twelve hour flight was made harder by the constant worrying about the girls. Every little bump of turbulence we hit, we could not help but think about how the girls were doing.

Upon arriving in Moscow, we were met at the airport by a driver that had been reserved for us by the Organizing Committee. Before we made it to the driver, however, it took a little over an hour to get everything together to get through customs. We made through passport control and headed to the baggage claim area. Our first priority was to find the girls even though our flight’s luggage was already on the carousel by the time we made it down the escalator. We grabbed two carts and started to look for the girls. We looked around to no avail, and finally asked someone. They finally understood we were looking for “собака”. They indicated we should go the excess/oversize baggage area at the end of the terminal. We went that direction, and just like it was scripted, a man came through the door with one of the crates, followed by the other. We were still half way across the terminal and we wanted to run to the girls. We got to them and they seemed to be in good spirits. We let them out briefly to say hi and to give hugs. But, they hadn’t been out to “potty” in more than 14 hours, so we were in a bit of a hurry to get them back in, get our bags and get through customs. All of our stuff was there and we made it through customs with no issues! There was no vet check, no one to check the girls’ paperwork and no one hardly even gave us a second look going through customs. We found our driver and finally made it to grass where we could let the girls out. This was no easy task, however, because our driver spoke no English and he was less than helpful with navigating all of our luggage through the terminal and across the street to the parking structure. We made it work, let the girls out and got the vehicle packed…barely.

We got on the road and we still had no idea where we were going. The driver could not tell us, all he could do was hand Mark his phone. On the other end was Mark’s colleague, Maxim, who had been helping us in finding housing. Up to this point, we still did not have a flat secured! Max told Mark the he would meet us at our flat. We didn’t know that the terms to the lease had been agreed to, so this was a surprise to us. It turned out, they hadn’t.

Max, along with two other colleagues, met us at the flat to help with our bags and help get us settled. We went upstairs to our flat and were met by a welcoming party. The real estate agent, flat owner and the flat owner’s “muscle” were all there; in addition to us and Mark’s three colleagues. Now, keep in mind, we had just spent about 19 hours in airports, in the air or in Moscow traffic and we were wiped out at this point. As we have mentioned, our budget was shot and the final question that hadn’t been answered was whether or not the landlady was willing to defer the deposit until Mark received his advance. None of this had been discussed and we’re not exactly sure what the agent had been doing for her commission all this time. But, that may be another topic (are we seeing a pattern here?) Again, with a lot of help from that support system we talked about, we got it done. Mark’s colleagues were ready with a loan for the very expensive taxi ride and had made arrangements for one of Mark’s allowances to be advanced. They also helped translate and negotiate our lease after they dismissed the agent to just get rid of her. After some tea and snacks, a lot of talking in Russian and smiling and nodding, we were left to get settled. We looked at each other and had no idea what to do. The only thing to do, really, was for Mark to get ready for work the next day. We spent the night on the floor. The bed had not been assembled yet and in its place was a very thin mattress on the floor. So, there we slept. Mark woke up the next morning, very sore, to no hot water for a shower. More accurately, he found cold water and colder mud. The “water” that was coming from the faucet more resembled Willy Wonka’s chocolate water fall than actual water.  That began the next chapter in our first couple of weeks involving housing. Stay tuned…