As we prepare to leave the city we've occupied the last 9 days, I thought I'd give you a little insight into a typical day for us...
8:00 AM--Wake up. The sun doesn't rise until 8:45 AM here and sleeping until 8:00 is hit or miss. Usually one of us is able to do it and the other is up by 6:00 or so. Don't know why but we seem to flip flop on who gets up first and has to stay quiet so the other can rest.
8:30 AM--Hang out in the room and check email (it's evening in the US). A couple of the mornings we did some core exercises for 30 minutes or so (sit-ups, push-ups, planks, etc.)
9:30 AM--Breakfast. The hotel has a buffet of traditional Russian breakfast (meats, cheeses, eggs, bliny, sausages, tea, coffee, etc.)
10:00 AM--Back to the room to Skype with the girls and our parents. Shower and get dressed.
11:30 AM--Meet Dasha and leave for the orphanage (it takes an hour to drive to Sosonovoborsk and that's only if traffic is light).
12:30 AM--Arrive at the orphanage, put on our little blue booties (these are everywhere in Russia, if you don't wear them while inside the floors get nasty), go upstairs to the music room and wait on Roman.
12:25 AM--The caretaker bring him up and he cries for minute as they hand him too us, but he warms up quickly. We get to play with him about an hour and half. His naptime is 2:00 PM so he usually starts rubbing his eyes towards the end of the visit.
2:00 PM--Leave the orphanage and back to the hotel.
3:00 PM--Late lunch. Our favorite places have been a restaurant called "New York" which ic right beside the hotel and "California Pizza Kitchen" (not the same brand as US) about 3 blocks away. New York has English menus and we just have to point and gesture at the pizza place but it works.
4:00 PM--Back to room or a walk around downtown Krasnoyarsk. We tended to do more walking early in the trip because we were scouting out restaurants and looking for places to buy diapers, etc., for the 3rd trip. Towards the end of this trip we just went back to the room to read, check email, etc.
6:00 PM--Three mile run outside! We checked out a nearby gym but couldn't communicate with the staff so we just decided to do our running outside. I (Russ) didn't bring any clothes to do this so I'm wearing a pair of Jenny's running pants (I'll never see these people again anyway!) There's a park nearby that runs alongside the Yenisey River. We've seen a a grand total of 4 other runners and today someone took our picture (either because I was wearing women's pants or to prove to their friends that someone was crazily running in Siberia).
7:30 PM--Dinner. Our favorite places have been a German restaurant across the street (no idea of the name cause it's in Russian) and Bangkok (Pan Asian). Both have English menus but no English speaking waitresses. Still, it's amazing what you can get accomplished by pointing and gesturing. The most useful phrase by far (aside from "Hello" and "Thank you") is "Ya ne gavru pa rooski" which means "I don't speak Russian." From there they grab English menus and you're off to a table. We've tried to be a little adventurous on eating. We've eaten a few places with no English menus and we're tried Turkish, Russian, Italian and another German. There's a KFC about 4 blocks away but we refuse to go to it. We didn't fly halfway around the country to eat at a KFC!
8:30 PM--Either back to the hotel or walk around the city. Just depends on how we feel. Sometimes we'll come back to the hotel bar and get dessert (ice cream or dark chocolate).
9:00 PM--Skype with the girls (it's 7:00 AM in the US so we try to catch them before they go to school.)
9:30 PM--Wash some clothes. We had to pack light because you can only bring one bag per person and it has to weigh less than 45 pounds for the Russian airlines. I (Russ) only brought 4 pairs of jeans, 3 shirts, 4 pairs of socks, etc. So I've been washing a lot of clothes in the sink!
10:00 PM--Rest. I (Russ) usually watch a TV show on Netflix. Hooked on Season One of the Office and Season One of Breaking Bad. Jenny usually reads her book.
11:00 PM--Bed time. The room is hot (two radiators that keep it at 84 degree with the windows closed). We usually prop open two windows at night which gets it down to a comfortable temperature. Nothing like the 67 degrees are thermostat is usually set on at home! We decided the traffic noise was worth it just to have a cool room.
That's about it. The exceptions have been Saturday and Sunday when we weren't able to go the orphanage and, of course, the day we went to court (but I've already explained that). We do have one English language channel in our room and it's Russian news. Very interesting to watch and hear their perspectives on the West. They've talked a lot about politics since the presidential elections have been this week and they actually keep up with the Republican primary in the US.
Tomorrow we fly back to Moscow, spend the night there and then fly back to the US. Going to try to visit the Kremlin if we have time. Looking forward to the nice workroom room and jacuzzi at the Marriott. Also ready to be home.
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