Back home to Moscow and new home

Today is Defender of the Fatherland Day, which has recently been renamed Men’s Day, to correspond with Women’s day in March, but the original name related to the armed services which, of course, has always been considered a very manly activity!  Anyway, this is day to celebrate men in general now.  Because it falls on a Tuesday, everyone took Monday off as well and so we had a four-day weekend, which was particularly great as we moved into our new apartment on Thursday, and although we had a long meeting on Friday, we have had time to unpack and get organized.

Although we have been back for a month I had completely lost the habit of writing, but also realized how much I missed it, but I felt so overwhelmed by everything else that I could not find the space for it.

Coming home to Moscow was a bit of a shock after our time of celebration with loved ones in warm, tropical Costa Rica!  It felt so cold and we had to wear so many clothes, going out was such an effort, compared to pulling on a swimsuit, sarong and flip-flops.  We were also adjusting to being all on our own again after being surrounded by friends and family in very close proximity for three weeks.  I think too, some of it was coming ‘home’ to Moscow, making that commitment to be here again.  The first seven months we were new, beginning it all, and now we are really here, to get our teeth into the work, and really be here.  We thought we were before, but it feels like a new level of commitment now.

Our car had been parked on the street for about six weeks and when we came home Solihin couldn’t find it!  I came out with him to look and we found it further down the street and parked parallel to the road which no one ever does as it takes up more space, it was also a meter or so away from the sidewalk.  We concluded that it must have been lifted out/moved for snow clearing and then put back again!  It was almost buried in snow and a couple of days later my task was to get it out.  We had no shovel so I used a dustpan, and it took two hours to dig it out!  I finally managed and went to do a big food shop and bought a long handled scraper and brush for cleaning snow off the car, which is essential here and it has always snowed between parking the car and using it again.

During this last week we have had so much snow, beautiful big flakes and deep powder everywhere.  There are armies of men constantly shoveling snow off the sidewalks and piling it between the cars, so our little side-street now has walls of snow on either side.  We need to buy a shovel so we can dig the car out when necessary.  These men are also on the tops of buildings shoveling snow and ice off the roofs and gutters.  The snow is so light it falls in beautiful cascades of powder, and when its sunny, like glitter, but the ice from the gutters comes down in huge chunks, so they always have someone on the ground to stop cars and people from passing underneath while it falls.  I wonder why they didn’t build roofs with a steeper incline to deal with the snow, as it is so labor intensive to have to move it all manually all the time. We are always seeing truckloads of snow being removed from the roads and near us there is a parking lot that is piled high with snow instead of cars.  The other day we saw that they have two huge iron cauldrons into which they were emptying loads of snow and melting it, I guess its cheaper than having to truck it out of the city. Everyone is saying this is the best winter Moscow has had for ten years, as there has been so much snow, it reminds everyone of their childhoods.  Apparently over the last ten years the weather has been very erratic and only had snowy periods, unlike this year where we have had snow on the ground since the beginning of December.  I must say I love it, the feeling of a real winter, and the temperatures between -6 and -15 are great.  Everyone complains if it gets too close to zero!  Colder than -15 does feel cold, you have to keep moving, but otherwise, with a good coat, hat, scarf, gloves and boots you are fine.  My wool coat was not warm enough for the very cold weather but I have managed since then with -15 and up.  We did buy shapki fur hats, at the outdoor market.  Solihin has a lovely gray Persian lamb, which all the Russians say looks like a KGB Soviet style hat, and I have the classic brown fur with ear flaps that can be tied together on top or behind, so three different ways to wear it!  A warm hat is absolutely vital here.  I have finally in this last couple of weeks of deep snow been able to wear my Sorel ‘Joan of Arctic’ boots, which I have been told are very ‘unRussian’.  The traditional boots for dry snow are vareniki, made of gray felt.

We loved our old apartment and only moved because the landlady wanted to sell it. We chose the new one, which is only a few minutes walk away so in the same neighborhood, and the bank we work for bought it so while we live in Moscow we will not have to move again.  It wasn’t until we moved in that we realized how much better this apartment is for us.  It feels much more like our home, is cosier, has a kitchen we love being in and want to cook, we are sleeping better, and it generally feels a much, much better space for us to be in.

Unfortunately we do not have internet yet, and because of the long weekend it will not be until later this week if we are lucky, or next week until we get it.  Until then, we tramp the twenty minutes through the snow to this coffee shop where they have free wifi.  It is making me realize how dependent we are on the internet, and for so much of our communication with family and work in other countries.

When we viewed the flat there was a washing machine and a dryer, but when we moved in there was just an old Italian washing machine and no dryer.  There are no English instructions so now we are trying to interpret an Italian washing machine in Russia!  The TV channels are also mostly Italian with some Arabic and a couple of English ones.  The dishwasher has digital commands in Italian too.  We have deduced that the previous tenants or the owners were Italian!

Across the street from our new flat

Wearing our shapki

View of the Kremlin, St Basils and Red Square from the bridge over Moscow River

Frozen Moscow River

Trees at Pokrovsky Vorota

People playing on the frozen pond in front of our old apartment

New Zealand and Costa Rica

New Zealand and Costa Rica
(started writing in NZ but couldn’t post so it sat until now. Will resume Moscow news on next entry!)
We are now here in the South Island of New Zealand. We arrived at midnight after almost 60 hours of traveling – starting with a power cut at Moscow airport which created an odd ambiance as we all stood in the dim emergency lights waiting for the computers to come back on so we could check in for the flight to New York, then Los Angeles, and on to Sydney where we spent the day. We were able to visit old friends from Portland who now live there and have brunch with them, and then to my brother Peter’s house for a lovely barbecue, before flying on to Christchurch for a midnight arrival. Unfortunately Solihin’s bags did not arrive with us and we are still trying to find out where they are and when he is likely to get them back. We slept well until the hotel alarm went off at 7.30am (programmed by a previous guest) instead of our own 9.30 alarm, and I could not get back to sleep again. We were undecided about leaving town or not, due to the bag situation, but decided we must, as we only have a week and every day counts. We went to pick up our little camper van and had fun talking to the guy who ran the business and getting used to Kiwi humor! It took a while to find a place to get local sim cards for our cell phones and buy a few food supplies to get us going, partly because we were excited to see wonderful pesto and sundried tomato dips, Greek yoghurt and other exotic foods and fruit that we do not have available in Moscow, as well as classic English foods like Frank Oxfords Vintage Marmalade, Marmite, oatcakes, baked beans, Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut chocolate. It was cold and drizzly in Sydney and cold, grey and drizzly here in NZ, only 10 C, although they said that yesterday was 30C+. We have just invested in some merino and possum sweaters and a hat to keep ourselves warm, especially Solihin without his extra clothes.
Apparently possum hair is the second warmest, after polar bears, as it is hollow and adding it to the merino wool adds 40% more warmth, it is lighter than wool, and repels dirt and odors! Another benefit of buying it is that the kiwi bird is endangered due to the non-native possum being introduced from Australia (now 70 million of them here!) and despite the fact that they are naturally vegetarian, now preying on the flightless kiwi, as well as eating huge numbers of plants (they are quite a cute marsupial with a furry tail, not at all like our extremely unattractive, bare tailed rodents in the US) so these products raise money to protect the kiwi. Something else very pretty, that we have noticed today, is purple loosestrife everywhere, fields of it, swathes of it, roadside verges of it, and I know that in the US it is considered an invasive non-native plan that is choking out the native plants. We asked the woman in the wool shop about it and she said that when the idea of getting rid of the flowers was suggested, people went out and seeded it everywhere because they think it is so pretty and didn’t want it to go.
It is 9pm and still light, similar to Moscow at 3pm in the winter! It feels quite familiar here, although my first visit to New Zealand, and a little like a mixture of England and British Columbia. I am finding myself feeling quite disconcerted by all the roses, hibiscus and other English/Oregon garden flowers, hayfields and fruit stands, all happening in December, really does feel as though the world is upside down! I never feel that way in a different climate, like tropical, and was surprised to feel it about the familiar temperate climate plants. Tomorrow we will take a soak in the hot springs here in the ‘southern Alps’.

12/29/09
Well, we never did manage that soak, and realized we should have gone the night before, in the rain, when hardly anyone was there, as by morning when we got there we found a line out of the door, and decided to leave it. One of the drawbacks of being here between Christmas and New Year is that this is the peak holiday week of the year for NZ, so everywhere is much busier than usual. We did find a nice campground. They are very well equipped here, with communal kitchens where you can cook and wash up, in hot water! Some have laundry facilities, playgrounds, tv room and internet, plus nice hot showers. We are cooking on the little stove in the back of our van and then washing up inside. We have a cable to plug in which gives us a light, and lets us charge our computers, phones and cameras.
I spent much of the night awake and heard the amazing dawn chorus, so many different kinds of birds, made me want to record it, but couldn’t get to my phone without climbing over Solihin, so just lay there listening before eventually falling asleep again.
Solihin began the day with the requisite call to the airport about his luggage and they said they had found one of his two cases and to call back later. When he did, they had both bags and were giving him instructions on where to pick it up. I heard him say “International Chicken?” and we both imagined some kind of fast food place. Turns out it was International Check In which gave us a laugh! We are still getting used to the accent. We could have had the bags delivered to us, but wanted to leave the big one in Christchurch as there isn’t much space in the van, so decided to drive back in and do it ourselves. Finally, in the afternoon we were ready to head off again and decided to go south this time, towards Mt Cook, or Aoroki, which is the Maori name. Most of the drive south was pretty dull and flat, we did not take our cameras out once, but once we turned inland towards the mountains it improved. We spent last night in a very crowded campground. We were sitting reading and talking with a glass of wine next to the main route to the bathroom/kitchen block and everyone who passed said hello, they are very friendly here. I have been awake since about 3.30am, so around 6 decided to get up.
1/1/10
Have not written for days, so will have to see what I can remember. We drove up to Mt Cook, and it was an absolutely beautiful drive – past turquoise lakes, snowcapped mountains, blue glaciers, and everywhere carpeted with lupins, and I mean everywhere. These again, are another of the non-native plants imported from England that they are now trying to get under control by spraying them, but I have to say they do look gorgeous as a foreground to the stunning views of mountains, lakes, rivers and forests. It was a beautiful clear sunny day and we put sunscreen on for the first time, and took off our fleeces! We did a four-hour hike (or tramp as they say here) up to Hooker Lake, crossing three suspension (swinging) bridges over milky white churning rocky rivers, due to glacial flour. On the trail we met up with an old friend from Australia, who is also going to the Subud world congress next week, and a friend of hers. It seemed perfectly natural to meet them, have a hug and a chat and then carry on in our separate directions. The lake is at the base of a glacier and has little icebergs in the water, quite a sight.
After sitting for days in a plane and then in the camper we were happy to be finally moving again, but both a little stiff by the end of it! We made our way down to one of the lakes below the mountain and a lovely campsite with views of mountains all around.
The next day we took off for Glenorchy, which had been recommended by our daughter. It was a lot of driving but when we arrived after driving along another absolutely gorgeous lake with great views, we came to a tiny town on the lake and found a free campsite right next to the water on the edge of the woods, surrounded by lupins; seemingly perfect. We went for a walk around a wetland with black swans and returned as the wind was getting up. We had collected a lot of driftwood for a fire, as there was a lovely stone ring ready for it, and been one of the things we love about camping is sitting round the fire at night. Our huge pile of wood was burned through in just over an hour as the wind was blowing so hard, so we went to bed cold and never warmed up or slept much and ended up getting up early and driving to Queenstown for a hot breakfast in a café!
After this I stopped writing as we traveled to Milford Sound, celebrated New Year with a lovely Portugese couple who live in Sydney, explored the west coast and Franz Joseph glacier and drove 12 hours in torrential rain over the mountains back to Christchurch. It was a wonderful week, to have the time to ourselves and to get to experience some of the stunning beauty of New Zealand.
This trip was followed by two weeks at the World Subud Congress in Christchurch, a four yearly international gathering of our spiritual community, which was, as always, a very special experience.

Purple loosestrife in New Zealand

Lake Tekapo

Mt Cook / Aoroki

From there we flew to Costa Rica for our eldest daughter Sofiah’s wedding. She has lived there with Brendan for three years, he has been there twenty years, so it is their home and around 150 people flew in for the wedding. Our three other children and their partners, my mother, my sister and niece, my brother and his wife, all of Solihin’s siblings and many other friends made it an exceptionally special time. There were so many different parts to the week, beginning with a women’s circle and blessing for Sofiah at sunset in her yoga studio with about 35 women of all ages. The wedding was absolutely beautiful and completely Sofiah and Brendan, and we are so happy that they are together, they really bring out the best in each other and so nice to see how happy all their friends are for them too. We had an incredibly intense and full week, staying in beautiful casitas on the beach where we had the whole place to ourselves, ours and Brendan’s family. Feel very grateful for our family and such a joyful extension to it and the chance to all be together in such celebration. Solihin and I also celebrated our 34th anniversary a couple of days later so it was indeed a special time.

Brendan and Sofiah (photo Lilliana Gibbs)

Me, Solihin, Rebecca, Miriam and Lachlan post ceremony (Lilliana Gibbs)