Good Eats!

Necessity is the mother of invention.  Well, at our house desire is the mother of homemade.  There are a few things we have to live without while in Ukraine, but after a year and a half, it’s just too long.  We are learning (especially Tony), that if you are willing to research, ask around, and work hard we can still have some of those foods we cherish in America.  Tony has made bagels for us a few times as well as some yummy French bread.  Recently he tackled Italian Sausage and Old Fashioned donuts.  Wow, not only did the house smell yummy everything tasted so fantastic!  It was a very successful food weekend.  I think the fact that we have been able to watch episodes of Good Eats (one of our favorite chefs, he combines great food, cooking, science and silliness altogether, so he’s a big hit in our house) has spurred the chef/baker inside of all of us.  Thanks Alton Brown and the internet, we certainly had GOOD EATS this weekend!!

School has started, round 2 for home school.  This year looks a lot different than last year.  I was leery about it too, mainly because I get comfortable with my schedule and routine and I don’t want it to change.  Rylie is in Russian school for half a day and she absolutely loves it.  There are only 6 girls in the class and they all get along really well, especially Ry and 3 other girls!  Hooray, she really wanted to hang out with kids her age.  The first day is such a big deal in Ukraine, boys were dressed up in suits and girls wore the biggest hair bows they could find.  Ry fit in quite well, and she walked proudly to school with her small pink and white bouquet of flowers for her teacher (a must on the first day).  Ellie and I have a lot of one on one time this year, but it will help with any challenges she may have.  It was pretty exciting to have Grandma and Papa Grall come and on Ry’s first day!

….it’s now October and we have been in school for 8 weeks.  We are quite busy with school, 2 Russian lessons, Russian school, lessons with Mrs. Smith, 3 ballet lessons, 2-3 gymnastics for both girls, 2 piano lessons each and 1 duet piano lesson as well as all the practice time needed.  Wow!!!  The girls are still interested in soccer, but I don’t know where to squeeze that in. 

 It was sad to say goodbye to our teacher aids (my parents), but the girls and I have gotten into a groove and we are having a stellar school year!  I am so proud of them!  If I did half the learning and exercising that Ellie and Rylie do I would already be speaking Russian fluently and I’m sure I would be at least 2 sizes smaller!  Of course, there’s no time for me, but that’s O.K.  Their lives are so rich right now with these unique experiences and opportunities they will be forever changed in a great way, as will I!

During my fishing trip, I had learned that the meadow we were in was once a WWII battlefield and that the Soviet soldiers had made a stand there against the German troops.  I wasn’t able to gather the total number of men that fought or what the casualties were, but I learned that Gena’s grandfather was a decorated soldier of WWII from a battle in the Netherlands and they offered to take me into the forest the next day for a tour.  During our morning tour, we hiked up some hills and saw the remnants of the “foxholes” the trenches, command posts of the Soviet soldiers that took the stand, by observation, they certainly had the tactical advantage as they had the higher ground, and the enemy soldiers would have to make it through a pretty nasty bog to get to their position.  The whole area and the sights were extremely fascinating and it was so amazing to walk through this history lesson and see what I’ve only read about in books.  I tried to impress upon Ellie to remember what she saw and did, for in the future when she learns about WWII – she can actually say she walked on a battlefield and climbed into the “foxholes” of one of the countless unknown battles of WWII.

Fishing Trip

During our stay at our friends (Gena and Marina’s) Dacha (country house) for their son’s 2^nd birthday, Gena, Sasha and Slava (Gena and Marina’s brothers) took me fishing.  Last time we visited we went fishing from a boat on the Denpro River and more or less fished “traditionally”.   This time, they planned on taking me fishing by “hand”….I was outfitted in a nice set of waders and a nice warm under suit, they took extra care to make sure I was outfitted comfortably from head to toe.   We loaded in the car and headed to where the river used to be….the river has since receded and had left these “pools” of water.   I got all dressed up (with some help) feeling like a fish out of water myself; we then have a couple of toasts for good fishing and head to one of these pools.  I have to say I wasn’t sure if this was real or if I was going on the Russian equivalent of an American “snipe hunt” – Sasha is first in the water and I watch as he starts reaching into the water and feeling around and wouldn’t you know it, within about five minutes, he brought up a fish?!  He tosses it to the shore and starts his searching process over, by the time Gena and Sasha grab about five fish and I’m stuck to my knees in mud and not “feeling” anything, I ask Slava (Marina’s Brother) how to do this.  He gives me a quick tutorial and I follow the process and BAM! I feel and grab a fish….I pulled up this little tiny thing, but the process worked!  I shrugged my shoulders at my small fish put it back in the water but felt pretty darn successful and excited!  I keep going at it and occasionally feel a fish on my finger tips but can never quite grab them….I eventually catch a real keeper and toss it to shore!  Oh what a happy day!  By this time Gena and Sasha have caught in the neighborhood of 20 fish and my addition made it 21, but who’s counting right!   We do this for about an hour (before a real break) and my legs are feeling nearly exhausted from pulling myself out of the mud with every step…..but Gena is unstoppable!  He keeps going and finds new places to fish and I’m dragging my out of shape hinny behind him, having a blast but feeling like I’m about to pass out from the exercise, heat (from the suit) and a severe lack of sleep.  All said and done, I think Gena and Sasha picked up nearly 30 fish…. I caught four fish (only the one keeper) but I had a really, really good time!

What did we do with the fish you ask?  Well, when we got home they poured the live fish into a tub of water and the girls came out to investigate (play with is a better description) our catch (hey! I have one in there)….a little later Slava and Gena preceded to clean the fish (I could have helped, but I didn’t feel all that comfortable trying to use a knife at this point of my day, among other reasons, I was very, very sleep deprived).  They prepared the fish two ways, Marina fried a few and the others were “stuffed” and then baked…..both ways the fish were fantastic!!!  We ate them throughout the night as we alternated in and out of the sauna visiting and having a great time.  Although, I could no longer think or engage in any conversation and I was often drifting into endless blank stares, I enjoyed every minute being with our hosts and their family!

A Visit From Family

If you hadn’t noticed, we had visitors for our trip to Italia – yes, Mom and Dad G. came to visit us in Slavutich for a month.  We had a wonderful time and it made a huge impact on the girls (and us) having family come; they were able to “show off” their town and life and it really brought "home" to us.  One of the more interesting statements was when mom felt like she was in a foreign land (she was) but we felt like we were home in the States (albeit in another State), it was certainly two completely different perceptions and feelings.

We were able to share in many laughs (and jokes) and really enjoyed the time we had together.  They walked the girls to school, ballet and music lessons; they even braved going to the grocery store to purchase things for dinner on their own.  Mom and Dad fell into the routine so quickly it was as if they had been here as long as us.  They weren’t used to the walking when they first got here and it took a long time to get from one end of town to the other, but after awhile, they were keeping a pretty decent pace!  We’re so proud of them!  

They had the chance to tour Slavutich, Chernigov and visit Pripyat as well as the Chernobyl construction site.  They also enjoyed a delicious Ukrainian home cooked meal with our wonderful neighbors.  Mom even got a Russian lesson from Alex!

The time continues to move at an incredible pace and unfortunately they had to go home; I think it will leave a hole bigger than expected and they will be greatly missed.  Thanks Mom and Dad for making the effort to visit!  Our time together meant so much more than we expected – you were able to bring something from home that could never have been brought otherwise….our time of bonding will forever remain precious to us.

Venice

I think this was everyone’s most fascinating city…there are no cars, you either walk or take boats to get around.  We asked our gondolier how someone might get transported to a hospital….without a pause his reply was of course by boat, same with the fire department and police.  Interesting!  We had a such a short time in Venice, so we only saw a small amount of sights: Marco Polo square, St. Mark’s basilica, bridge of sighs and Regent bridge/canal.

The girls’ highlight was Venice they couldn’t stop talking about their Venetian masks and loved taking the gondola around the city.  

Nichole and I were able to steal away one evening for a semi romantic walk around the city and we managed to catch a beautiful firework show off the Adriatic Sea standing on a bridge over a canal…had we not been so tired I’m sure the moment would have sunk in a little bit further.  We also listened to a lovely live instrumental of Somewhere Over the Rainbow using a piano, violin, cello and accordion, while listening to the midnight chime of the St. Mark’s bell tower….ahh Venice!

So if you’ve been following this whole Italian trip, you’ve got to be asking what else happened?!  Well, let’s just say we were stranded on the docks of Venice with no place to stay, we tried for hours trying to reach our point of contact finally reaching the person who helped book the trip.  Three hours later we managed to get into our apartment, we skipped dinner (we thought we would be picked up then we would go out)….we did manage to watch a beautiful sunset though!

Of course our trip ended with one last problem – Nichole and I had purchased a beautiful oil painting and we managed to leave it in the Venice airport and we couldn’t make a claim on it until we reached Kiev!  What an irreplaceable loss!

Antonio Andretti!

I kid you not, when we were taxied from the Rome airport to our apartment, I was very happy to know that I was not driving….and thought to myself “there is no way am I doing this….I want to live!”  So to say the very least, I was NOT too happy about having to drive in Italy.  I think the driving rules are more or less guidelines (same with the street lines) rather than actual rules…the only rule is don’t hit anyone or anything, but even that might be a guideline….but I wasn’t willing to find out.  So with my family firmly fastened into the “green turtle” (aptly nicknamed by Ry) we headed out of the parking garage.

I don’t exactly know what happened next but the next thing I knew I was flying through Florence my heart racing a million beats a minute, driving like a local, I think I broke every American traffic rule within the first 5 minutes of driving  – my beautiful and skilled navigator holding her breath for unknown minutes (straight), my children not sure whether to squeal with excitement or cry from fear.  Mom and Dad G. were dead silent, I think in constant prayer that we would survive the next moment or maybe frozen with fear, probably in reality both.  I would zip in and out of cars, changing lanes, squeeze through the tightest openings, dogging motorcycles, busses and people as I weaved our way out of town, finally what felt like an eternity we hit the “open” road.  That’s also somewhat relative; the streets are super narrow, buildings, stores, and people feet from the edge of the road.  It’s just the amount of traffic is manageable, but now, I’ve got to dodge, bicyclists, more motorcycles and parked cars….oh how I wished for that Ferrari, these roads certainly reminded me of a video game!

Not too far from Dicomano (where we were staying), I got pulled over….I got “flagged” I figured it’s about time someone noticed the American idiot driving (I think secretly hoping he would take me to jail and relieve me of this insanity).  I rolled the window down and the officer said something in Italian, I responded in English, the next thing we heard was something between “oh man” and “why me” come out as a grunt from the officer.  Dejected he preceded to ask me more stuff in Italian and again I responded in English….I offered him my passport, the paperwork for the car and finally, I just handed him everything in the glove box until he found what he wanted.  After a bit of waiting, he just waved me on without another word.

We arrived at the farm house with a glorious sigh of relief – I think I saw (and heard) our legion of guardian angels fall over from exhaustion.

Tuscany/Florence:

Florence (Frienze) is a beautiful city, so much character and many fascinating things to see.  Michelangelo’s “David”, Da Vinci’s museum, numerous churches, statues and artwork.  Of course I need to mention we are not having the smoothest trip and in fact something has been going wrong everyday so far….first the bank machine, then pick pocketed and the night we arrived we were stranded at the train station in Dicomano and our hosts didn’t want to come get us (small communication error….what else is new right?!).  SO we were unable to make our city tour in Florence the first day because we had to get a rental car.  But we managed to do some touring of the city and of course started our many courses of Gelato!  Oh Gelato, oh so delicious!  It was my mission to have a small cup twice a day; if Ry had her way it would have been at least three times a day!  I believe the highlight for everyone was when we had dinner on the Piazza Della Repubblica (oldest square in Florence) at a restaurant that had opened in 1894 – we ate “homemade” Italian food, listened to live music and the girls would steal away between the dinner courses to ride a carousel in the square.  It was really surreal!

The Tuscan farmhouse was so beautiful, the houses on the property (including the one we stayed in) were over 400 years old and the landscape was breathtaking.  I was able to take a few hikes around the farm, took the girls fishing (Ry caught a 3lb fish) at a small lake, the girls were able to swim in the outdoor pool and we had a general great time; we also saw a porcupine and three deer.

To keep pace with the rest of our trip, in our particular house the hot water heater (on demand type) didn’t work right so everyone (well except Nichole she won the hot water lottery) had cold showers or no showers at all (like me and Dad).  I washed my hair but are you kidding me…there was no way I was getting wet with cold water.

We loved our host, he was a character, full of stories and looked and acted just as you would imagine of a remote family owned wine maker.  He treated us as family (hence why we had cold showers, and had to buy our own toilet paper and dish soap).  It was a very fascinating experience and I wouldn’t have traded it for anything different.

The Vatican and Sistine Chapel:

Sistine Chapel

WOW!  The first thing we didn’t expect was that to get into this place we would be queuing several hundred meters away from the entrance.  Once we braved the metro again and found the entrance to the Vatican – we started to work our way to the “end” of the line.  Let’s just say, once we went a quarter of a mile and had probably another quarter or half mile to go, I stopped and said we would either be paying a “skip the line” fee or bagging this part of the trip…..boy am I glad we opted to for the “skip the line” fee.  The Vatican is amazing and we only saw a small portion.  The Sistine Chapel really lived up to its reputation and it was incredible to see it with my own eyes.  The girls were glued to their audio devices (so cute!) and kept telling us all about what they were learning.  The whole self guided tour lasted every bit of five hours and the only reason we stopped was tiredness and we had to still catch the train to Tuscany.  Awesome!

On our way to Florence

Roma:

With such a small amount of time in Rome, it’s hard to get a good feeling of the city, but we had a full day of exploring and sightseeing.  We met our guide outside our apartment and took a brief taxi ride to the beginning of our tour.  We saw the Arch of Constantine, Coliseum, Roman Forum and the Pantheon before our guide left us to explore on our own.  We then toured the Spanish Steps, countless fountains and city sights well into the early evening; a pretty typical James’ rigor to see everything we could.

Well this is where we get some excitement!  I didn’t tell you the night we arrived, we all stopped and pulled money out of the nearest bank machine – well my card only worked once and then deactivated until I contact the bank to allow access again; so, in the mean time Mom and Dad G. were our lifeline to have some cash available.  We were far from our apartment from our day of exploring so we decided to save a hundred Euro in taxi fees and take the Metro.  Unfortunately Mom and Dad became targets and victims of pick pocketers and they took all the money and credit cards Mom and Dad had.  Fortunately they left the passports or our vacation would really have been ruined (we were leaving the next day to Florence and then to Venice and didn’t have time to get new ones)….don’t worry, we were able to contact home to get everything deactivated and Mom had left her debit card at the apartment.  That event certainly left us in an interesting predicament though.