The Great Pyramids

This trip was expected to be a very big and full day…..here’s the plan: plane to Cairo, private tour of the pyramids, sphinx, lunch on the Nile, Museum of antiquities and finally the famous bazaar of Cairo…oh don’t forget fly back and drive to the hotel; see I told you it was full. Cairo is a city like none that we’ve ever seen. There are 20 million people in this city…..wow! Do you realize that's over two New York Cities combined! The outskirts of the city looked extremely poor, yet there were some very NICE cars rolling along next to our little tour bus. It was hard to imagine what life was like for the average person…..
Our first glimpses of the great pyramids of Giza were amazing; it was weird to see these structures as a “normal” part of the skyline and because of the size of Cairo, the city is built right up to these structures. By the time we reached the pyramids they didn’t seem real and then when you’re standing in front of them you can’t believe what you are seeing; you really can’t appreciate the enormity, the engineering and the complexity of the pyramids until you see them in person. Our tour guide hooked us up with a camel tour down and around the pyramids and gave us our first experience with the Egyptian culture of “haggling”, in this case it was certainly just for show and I think we got taken advantage of (at least a little, but it wasn’t more than we were willing to spend).

A very very bumpy ride!

The unfortunate part of this excursion is we had a lot of area to cover in a very short amount of time so there wasn’t time to just sit and take in the sights and the feeling of what we just looked at and it couldn’t sink in. The same was true for each stop, but we managed to take in as much as we could.  Even Chaplain and Bun (Ellie's bear and Ry's bunnie) missed their photo shoot in front of the pyramids and had to settle for a picture from the window of the tour bus as we zoomed by the pyrmaids.

The museum was by far the next favorite stop; we only had two hours and trust me that is only enough time to scratch the surface of this place. It’s filled with artifacts from King Tutankhamen tomb, statues….we’re talking BIG stone statues of Ramses, Anubis to just name a few of them. Actual sarcophaguses of the many mummies (we could touch these), toys, the first ever portable camping bed (it actually had hinges and could fold up). Some weird/eerie things we saw was the embalming table; it was made of stone, sloped and shaped just right to “catch” all the fluids; when you’re standing in front of it (being able to touch it) and thinking what actually took place on these (these aren’t replicas) it just felt a little creepy. Oh, and the alabaster jars that held the organs of the dead with the blood still present on the lips and running down the side of the jars and then of course there are the mummies. I don’t know, there is something just not right about how these things look, although very, very, very fascinating it was just “weird”. Looking at the artifacts, you really wouldn’t have believed the ingenuity, artistry and skill of the people of this time. These people were truly an advanced civilization that surpasses a lot of places in the world today. The experience left us with many more questions than we were able to find answers.

The shopping was, well, interesting…..there is no easy way to explain this processes, if you know the opening scene of Disney's Aladin it really was just like that at times (we were just waiting for them to try and sell us sand).  In the end the girls each bought a gold Egyptian kartoosh with their names written in hieroglyphics. We bought a papyrus painting of something (I can’t remember what….but it’s cool), authentic Egyptian scarves and a blouse as well as few alabaster vases, bowls and candle lights.
The trip was overwhelming with sights, sounds and adventure and it ended way before we were ready. We hope to return someday and if we do, we will spend a minimum of two days, but hopefully closer to four in order to capture all the amazing things we saw.

Look Dad, it's Nemo!

 

With all the water time we got, it’s a wonder that we didn’t grow gills. We spent most of our days in the labyrinth of pools or out playing in the Red Sea. One of the trips’ highlights was teaching the girls how to snorkel; they really took to it like fish to water (sorry, I couldn’t resist). For some of our dive buddies the water was about 30ft deep off the pier and the reef was about 5’ deep at most, so there was an awesome reef wall perfect for snorkeling & diving, the visibility was around 60-feet and temperature around 75F. Like in Nemo, at the edge of the reef (where we were) was the “big blue” so we were able to see a few larger species of fish (unfortunately no sharks). Rylie’s first open water adventure on the reef and the “Deep” waters of the Red Sea were something to be seen. She was no bigger than some of the fish we saw and somehow she figured out how to talk in her snorkel so we could all hear her. We heard odes to the fish and all of a sudden we hear a shrill of happiness and an ever so exuberant “look dad it’s Nemo”. Sure enough, there were three clown fish and one of them was a tiny little one (couldn't see the lucky fin). We saw many familiar fish from our Caribbean dives and many new fish that we haven’t seen before. Ellie, was hard to keep up with, she wanted to see what was next along the cliff, for a seven year old with no fins she was fast in the water (she’s part mermaid I think). The Red Sea must be a little more salty than other oceans we’ve been in, as we were able to float effortlessly for hours in the water swimming quite far from the pier. We were able to go on a snorkeling excursion where the girls were much more prepared for the deeper and more challenging waters of the open Sea. We had so much fun blowing bubbles as a family!  The boat we were on was beautiful and quite relaxing.  I suppose the advantage to being around a bunch of tourists who don't speak much English is that you don't have to sit and have small chat with them.  We had a very relaxing day sailing on the boat, snorkeling in the sea, and swimming off a sandy beach.  We might have had a few close calls with boats nearly colliding and what not, but no harm done.

 

Resort Life - Egypt

Ahh! Such is the life of an all inclusive resort, all the food and drink you could ever want, when you want it…..not always a good thing, but when you’re swimming, snorkeling, dancing, walking and playing all day you can build up quite the appetite. So where to begin, how about six swimming pools, two with places to get drinks and snacks and a myriad of waterfalls to swim under or behind, & sun chairs to pick up some of the most golden tans possible (if you’re into that sort of thing). But back to the food, the food was very good, I wouldn’t say excellent as the dessert bar had very little “real” chocolate and the puddings were more like a weird Jell-O texture, and as you know, it’s all about the dessert! The main courses were themed for every night and the Egyptian night (every Friday) was by far the favorite of this family. The cooking staff (from the table boys to the head Chef) took a fancy with our girls and we got literally presidential treatment. The head Chef was always going out of his way to make his American girls happy (if that included having the Sue Chef drop what he was doing and running to get chocolate ice cream for his princesses then so be it!). We were never short of anything we needed or desired (because of two very cute little girls.) Of course we didn’t take full advantage of the situation, but we always had fresh bananas and escorted service to our table. The nightly entertainment was a treat as well; the girls got on stage and performed the “Waka-Waka” and a multitude of other kids themed resort songs for about a half hour every night. The girls were so excited to be up on stage….we were glad it was only a half hour….whoa, I don’t know how you could do that every day. We saw magic shows, acrobats and singers to top off the evening.

Of course the “his and hers” messages were a nice touch. By the way don’t get the “sports” message….let’s just say while I was being bent in half (the wrong way), kneed in the back and then beat like a Congo drum, Nichole was over there in heavenly bliss with the “therapeutic” message. It was quite disappointing for me to look over to Nichole as I was being pulled up by my arms behind my back and being thrashed about in a circular motion while the doves were cooing, and she appeared to be in a state of complete relaxation…..it was then, I fully understood the mistake of asking for a “sports” message (it was sold as a deep tissue message…I didn’t know that meant I was going to be beaten). I guess it was sport for the guy giving it. The next message we got….I totally asked for the “therapeutic” message….much, much better!



The girls with Nancy  (Kids Club leader)-their handprints are on the wall in Egypt, probably won't last 3000 years.



A Simple Dr. Visit

After our Egypt trip I, Tony, had a plugged ear….from what? Oh, a small cold in conjunction with flying, diving and swimming.   I thought it was a case of swimmers ear, but after some home treatments and time it wasn’t going away, so we thought a wax plug (all other cold symptoms had all but disappeared).  I start off seeing the doctor who immediately determines there is no wax plug and that I have a serious condition if it’s not treated aggressively I'll have really big problems.  Of course I wasn’t phased by their panic, but listened to my interpreter inform me of all the tests that needed to be done.  Here is where it gets interesting.  First the doctor has an instrument that more or less looks like a blood pressure cuff missing the “cuff”.  She stuffs the open end up my nose and tells me to say a rhyme in Russian and at the right moment during the rhyme she pumps air up my nose and forces air into my sinuses to see if my ears “pop”.  Of course they did (she was filling my head like a balloon), I endured this two more times until I opted out of doing it again saying it was working.  Somehow this confirmed the suspicion of a serious problem and I was asked if I would consent to an x-ray of my face and asked if I ever had a previous sinus infection.  I opted out of the x-ray and confirmed a previous infection in years past.  They pondered if they needed to drill a hole into my sinuses to “flush” out any of the infection.  Like that was going to happen.  I was prescribed three medications, the latest Russian antibiotic called “Tiger”, with the sales brochure still on the table, some ear drops and a nasal spray that took three separate stamps to get approved to issue (probably super addictive).   I wasn’t too keen on being an experiment on the latest drug (they couldn’t even tell me what was in it) and I asked for something familiar.  This is where I was informed that I was apparently being difficult and why it was so difficult to treat Americans….we don’t follow the doctor’s advice.  I didn’t know refusing to get a hole in my head, exposing my brain to more radiation than I already work with and being part of the next phase of human trials of an unknown medication was considered being difficult….huh, go figure.

Oh don’t think this little adventure is over, I’m now scheduled for physical therapy (for my ear?!?!).  I don’t really know exactly what is going on, the doctors talk to my translator who ends up filling me in here and there or if it requires a direct input from me.  So downstairs we go….here I get to sit down in a chair with a strange looking grey box about the size of small dog cage with two knobs on it connected to a cylinder looking thing.  I was scolded for not bringing in my own tissue to cover the cylinder looking thing and was told to hold it to my ear….now trying to be the complying patient I agreed; so I’m holding this thing to my ear a couple of turns of a knob and the thing begins to get warm, “ok” I thought, not too bad, the nurse and my translator walk off while I endure five minutes of this.  After it’s all done I asked so “what was that thing?”  My translator and nurse says a few words and she then informs me it emits ultra high frequencies, oh great, I either just microwaved my ear drum or at the very least gave it a good ultra sound….nice!  At least now I can say “what” to Nichole and have a claim why I didn’t hear her.  At this point I thought I was done and was very excited to leave.  I figured I came out relatively unscathed and even had a good excuse for not listening, but I was wrong, I had one more event to partake in….I was not amused at this point.  I was given a glass looking hooked tube with nothing in it and I was told to hold it to the bridge of my nose.  Ok, this looks benign enough, it’s made of glass (non conductive) not pointed at any major organ and they said it gave off light….too bad for me, I was thinking white light…well, whatever it was, it got hot, almost too hot for me to keep to the bridge of my nose, so I thought I would give myself a break and remove it from my nose…ZAP!  What in the world happened - did I just get cattle prodded?!!  The stupid thing shocked me….this is where I panicked a little, I didn’t know what to do, the nurses would be coming back (I heard noises), I was just electrified and I became afraid they would pin me down and make me do it again I decided to put the thing back onto my nose…..oh my word, it zapped me again now with a tear in my eye (I don’t know about you but hurting my nose makes my eyes water….at least that’s going to be my story) I endured the rest of the test.  I wasn’t leaving until I got a picture of this one, no one would believe me.  That was the last bit of therapy, it’s a good thing I was ready to run away waving my arms and screaming the bees the bees!   I did make it out somewhat dignified, but they asked if I was coming back tomorrow (apparently I was prescribed 10 days of this therapy), God forgive me; I lied, I really lied, I told the lady I had a meeting the next day (I didn’t) and I would come in on my next available day….I was NOT ever coming back, and at this point I think I’ll be forever cured of sickness.  What struck me in the end is all I went in for was to see if I had wax in my ear!



Do you see the tear?



Egypt, Get ready, Set, Go?

As expected this proved to be somewhat challenging. Actually, the challenges with booking our trip went way beyond our expectations. We used a travel agent in Kiev that came highly recommended. She knew some English so we managed to communicate with each other well enough to figure out the trip details (which resort, when we wanted to leave, how long….). We used email too and it helped fill in the details; although we were making our choices only 3 weeks before we were supposed to leave. This felt a little tight for me, but it sounded quite normal for the locals. The first big challenge came when we had to pay. We have been planning this trip since late July and the whole time we planned on paying with our credit card….nope, we needed cash! What…? We have the cash, yes, but getting to it is not an easy or quick option. Back and forth, asking and finagling, debating and nearly canceling we finally found enough cash for the trip. Thanks too many friends who helped us out! We thought that was going to be the hard part, riiiiight. Apparently getting our cash from Slavutich to our agent in Kiev was a whole other matter. Even with drivers going to Kiev daily it was not as easy as one, two, three! It starts with leaving a large sum of cash sitting on a window sill in the receptionists’ office where everyone checks in for the day (apparently this is normal)….not a comfortable feeling for us. We had many other misunderstandings, missed delivery points and flat out refusals to drop off the money; we started to think this trip would never happen.
…Long story short, we are currently sitting on our balcony looking out at the Red Sea and feeling the warm breezy Egypt air! So far, it appears that the hard part of the trip is over……

Ellie hanging out on our balcaony looking at the Red Sea

Tony, quite relaxed!

The mountains are just incredible!

The girls & I got tattoos, it's Henna (it will be gone in a couple of weeks)!

The Moscow Ballet

I had two very excited girls; to be honest; Tony had three very excited girls looking forward to the ballet. We did not know what to really expect, but we knew it would be beautiful. I got the girls hair ready the night before, did school on Monday morning and ballet class, then we finished getting ready. I also did Noel’s hair and managed to get the girls and Tony fed. We grabbed a taxi with our tickets securely packed in my purse from the day before and nice warm clothes for the bus ride to Chernigov and back. We got to the bus on time and nothing was forgotten (except I didn’t get to eat, but that’s just part of what Tony and I refer to as the Ukrainian diet). Ahhh, sigh of relief, the day was going quite smoothly and…according to plan. We got to the theater and handed our tickets as we entered just as the other American family did before us. She seemed to look at our tickets a little longer, but…she tore the end handed them back to me and we entered the theater. The girls were twirling and taking everything in! I felt as giddy as a school girl and wanted to twirl with them. We took a quick potty break and of course they had squat toilets, which we still have not quite mastered and was even more difficult with the full length “semiformal” dress that Ellie had on. It was a chore, but we came out clean and we beat the big crowd!

As the girls and I entered the theater I looked at my tickets to find our seats but was having trouble finding any seat numbers, I also noticed the tickets were blue and had a blue water droplet on it, I thought “that’s a strange ticket”, but I was still too excited to think much of it. Since Tony was already in the theater and it was a pretty small theater I figured we would just look for him. Within a minute we found him. This is when all the pieces come together. As we sat the Smith family and Tony were just grinning and staring at me, I found that a little peculiar. Then Tony asked if I looked at my ticket, I said “ya”. He asked if I really looked at them, I replied “not really” and I agreed that I could not find a seat number. Then we discussed the water droplet on the ticket and if I remembered that from something else…finally it connected, the tickets I grabbed (to be sure NOT to forget) were from our trip to Kiev two weeks earlier to the water museum! So, we either got in on our good looks, or they just didn’t want to deal with the dumb Americans! Honestly though, the Ukrainian people argue about everything, always, so it’s nothing short of a miracle that we got in without an incident! Good thing Tony had at least remembered the row we were sitting in from when he brought the tickets home. Turns out we were 3 seats too far over, but it happened to be one of his coworkers and his family’s seats, and they didn’t mind sitting on our left instead of on our right; like I said, “nothing short of a miracle”.
The ballet was amazing, the four prima ballerinas and partners performed a medley of pieces from very famous ballets (Swan Lake and so on). The Ukrainian crowd, claps to the beat during some performances, gives flowers to the dancers immediately after a dance and their applause turns into a rhythmic clap; strange yet fun to us and normal yet expected for them.
We were dropped off at our neighborhoods at the end of the night; turns out they missed our stop by a whole neighborhood. We carried our sleepy princesses three dark and uneven blocks home. Turns out I had never seen the tickets that Tony brought home; they were still sitting on the desk in the envelope where he had placed them several days earlier.

Just Another Adventure

Obviously having fun!

Like I've said before, plans keep changing over and over again or things not going as planned, it's just all a normal day/week here in Slavutich. We went on a field trip to Kiev this last weekend with some American families, Ukrainian and French students. We were up by 5:30 am for our 3 or so hour trip. Our first stop in Kiev ended up being our first "short cut", as we got to see some back country on a one lane dirt road with old fashioned wells with buckets for collecting water….yep we were lost, although we had cell service, I would challenge anyone to describe where we were such that we could be found. It's a good thing we had Alex and Helen along (locals), to ask directions and get us to our destinations. We went to an outdoor folk museum and learned about Ukrainian lifestyle and history in the different regions of the country and time periods, it was very neat. Some of the houses are still houses found today in the local villages. After picnic lunches the bus took us to our next destination, I believe without getting lost. Thanks to Marci (my sister-in-law) and some teenagers on the bus we had enough camp songs to endure another hour on the bus. We waited for nearly another hour waiting in line at the water museum but it was well worth it. We had an interesting and fun tour, played with bubbles and actually pet fish! Back in the bus... and 5 circles around the city center we made it to the zoo. Of course, the rain started. We split off into groups and our team, team Madagascar (the four of us with a couple of teenagers) headed off on our self guided tour. We saw flamingos, yaks, storks, ostriches, bison, porcupines, red deer, a few African planes animals, tigers, lions and a rhino that we were so close too we could almost touch it. It was quite comical, every time we went to take a picture, the animals were either trying to mate or going potty; even a human couple looked like they were deep in courting season! We had to make a twalette (toilet) stop and let's just say that it was so awful that I can't even write how bad it was. They took care of the animals’ quarters much, much better than the human ones. Once we finished our tour, with the kids mostly wet and cold; we got back on the bus, we had yummy sandwiches and juice for dinner (thanks to Helen) and headed home. Of course, as a normal part of our life, at our first potty break, the bathrooms at the gas station were out of order. The driver stopped a little further down the road and the restroom there worked; although, the lights did go out briefly (for about 3 minutes….they went off automatically at closing time) while some of us were still…..well, using the restroom, and when the lights go out, it’s completely dark! We managed to get home safe and sound around 11:00pm and had a fun day of sightseeing!




Petting the fish



Yes, she can almost touch the rhino!



This is our 3rd week of school and it’s still going well. Our schedule for extracurricular activities has already changed, so we will be adjusting to that schedule. I expect it will change a few more times before November. Oh well, we are just going with the flow; there’s nothing else we can do. Meals and grocery shopping will probably always be one thing or another. This week I actually planned a meal for every day (keeping in mind what is usually easy to get at the store). Ry and I made a quick stop at one store during Ellie's ballet and after we were home for a while I noticed a “rotten egg smell” when I went to the fridge. Later when I pulled our newly purchased meat out and opened the package, it was quite clear where the bad smell came from, I nearly gagged. I even debated whether or not the meat was actually good (but I was hungry, it was after 6pm and I had to go to exercise that night, I was looking forward to a MEAL)! Instead I had a bowl of cereal (something that pretends to be Cheerios, and milk that tastes like dry milk and canned milk combined); not very satisfying or enjoyable to say the least. Don’t worry, Tony made the rest of the family eggs and toast while I went to exercise (in a bit of a huff). Sadly the next store trip was not any better, two of the meals I planned called for red peppers, which was wilting, rotten, and somewhat bug infested. So much for choosing something that I thought I could rely on, uuugh. Sigh, I think the meal stuff is the one thing that will actually frustrate me while I’m here, most anything else is no big deal!



Striking a pose for me :)



Hey, on the brighter side we will be going to Egypt in a couple of weeks! We are all looking forward to a break from our very busy weeks and the girls are looking forward to seeing in person what we have been studying the last couple of weeks.

Walking to one of our many activities!

Getting Used to the Unusual

It is beginning to feel normal here; that is, normal for Ukraine! Of course it is not like Tri-Cities, it's just that we know what to expect around here. What is that you ask? Pretty much we expect all plans not to go according to plan, the funny thing is, it continues to work out and we always seem to have a good time. We learn to let all the nuances and inconveniences slide on past. For example, you scheduled a delivery with all the help you can get in English or in Russian, and of course it gets delivered in an hour instead of in 3 days like it had been planned. The bus and train rides are always an adventure, but it would feel odd now if it wasn't. The last bus trip we took was so crammed with people that they were standing in the isle the length of the bus for the hour long trip. To start this fabulous bus trip a live spider landed in front of me right on Ellie's hair (can't decide if I prefer the live or the dead bugs landing on me)! Ellie had to sit on my lap so many parts of my lower appendages were numb. Rylie was on Tony's lap and we were both shoulder to shoulder, they don't make the seats for fat Americans. Getting off the bus is never easy, it's always in a rush, and of course it's the Ukrainian way. At least the temperature was reasonable and the smaller bus on the way home from Chernigov offers the ever fabulous whole body bouncing therapy! Not only does it put you to sleep, it bounces you awake and is sure to put bruises into various muscle groups. A day in the life of.....right?!



Taking a break on our tour of Chernigov, beautiful September day!


The girls are doing great in school.  They still sing about going to school in the morning even though lining up for class is in our hallway outside of the dining room/classroom;  they are so cute.  At one point Ellie raised her hand and called me "Miss Mom".  We join other American kids and some French children for an occasional science class and P.E.  The girls are in gymnastics and piano, and Ellie is currently taking private lessons in ballet!  Last week we made Roman pillars out of cookie dough, and then we ate them, yummy.  This weekend we are going on a field trip with Ukrainian, American and Russian kids to Kiev to see some of their folk museums, a water museum and a zoo!

The girls are picking the walnuts from the tree in the front yard.  This requires tree climibing, always fun to do.  Their hands are stained a horrible brown color from removing the husk and I cannot get it to come off!  Even having them wash dishes isn't doing the trick; I could always try bleach (tee hee)!