One last view of Lake Baikal

 
because we left on the train during the night, this was the last time we saw the lake... a great view to remember. I love how you can see the mountains.... next pics will be from our time on the train. 

What does this say????

 
Our hotel had one of these though we didn't use it....not even David went....anyone know what this building is? 

More Houses

 
 
 
 
It was really strange to walk down the street and see the different buildings that were there. The first picture shows how close the wealth and poverty are- though not the extreme end of either. David liked the little wooden one in the middle of the green house and the pink castle. You can imagine how much Emma liked the pink house- what a perfect place for a princess to live. We asked what the building was as we though it might be a hotel or something like that. the guy we asked didn't know- maybe it is just someones retreat from Moscow...nice. though not exactly our style I do like it. The guy we were talking to thought we were from the Baltics as our russian accent was a little different:) At least he believed that we could be russian- pretty encouraging! Other than the houses on the main road which runs beside the lake there was a group of houses back from the lake a bit too. It's too bad it wasn't icicle weather cause those roofs get really good ones.... 

village houses

 
 
 
 
Here are some of the cute little houses they had in the little town. These are traditional russian style. I love how they look, the colours are always super bright and almost always are green and blue- not sure why yet (need to do somemore culture study). They are very small and don't have running water. Even in the bigger cities like Ulan-Ude or Irkutsk they have to walk down the street to get their water, and the toilets are outside!
We would like to live in one of these though there are some definite disadvantages besides the lack of plumbing. But I would love for Emma to be able to go play out by the house while I am working in the kitchen or for the boys to be out playing while emma does her schooling... I like being in the apartment but it is hard especially as the kids get older to be couped up in a few little rooms- the kids would love being able to explore outside, use louder voices and ride bikes, eat outside, shovel, suntan, kick a ball, find bugs...all these things are tricky to do in an apartment (except for the finding bugs part:). In these apartment buildings I think the kids would have to be at least 8 even if we thought it was safe enough to go outside by themselves as there are so many keys and codes just to get through all the doors. We'll see. I would love to have a garden too (so would Emma!) We could get running water inside but then we would need to be at the house or have someone else there every day to make sure the pipes don't freeze etc. Not good for when we want to get home. And we could get a big mean dog for security.
Anyway, the first green house (2 pics) was for sale, I think it is kinda nice...greenhouses, big yard, well maintained (i think) and it even has a big merry go round thing (white metal thing) that just needs some wood seats to work. But it is too far from Kyzyl so we didn't buy it:) 

Surface Area vs. Volume

Since Darren wanted more clarification on what I mean by "the largest freshwater lake in the world" I'll open it up for discussion. Lake Baikal is the largest as far as volume (lake superior is number 3). Lake Superior is largest as far as surface area by far. Which do you think should be listed as the largest freshwater lake in the world? I don't know really. Well I do. I think that it should be the volume because it is the freshwater that is important isn't it not just what the lake looks like right? though I guess from a kids:) point of view Lake Superior is soooooo much larger- I mean you can hardly see Lake Baikal on the map. Lake Baikal is also the oldest lake in the world they say- who can argue that???) and it is the deepest lake in the world. Glad you mentioned it shroom. I should have mentioned the volume thing but I do think it is strange. What does Largest really mean anyway?

The Baikal Museum

 
 
 
 
We took the kids to see the tiny but great Baikal Museum. It was filled with those ucky real dead jarred things like fish and baby seals. kinda yucky especially cause you could just stick your hand in if you wanted to- who would want to though, maybe huddy but don't worry we kept a good eye on him. I remember in public school we had a closet upstairs that had jarred pigs and things like that, never liked 'em. The museum also had lots of stuffed animals, furs and real live fish. Even some Baikal Seals- one of the few seals that can live in fresh water. I did take a video of them but it took up too much room on my card so I deleted it, forgot to take a picture- oops. Anyway, the kids loved it and the ladies that work there loved having them there, I don't think they get many visitors- especially little ones. 

Village Name

I found the name of the village- i love wikipedia. Here is a link to more info on the lovely little village of Listvyanka. funny I took a picture of the green house they show it really is the only house painted that bright there:)

more photos of Lake Baikal

 
 
 
 
I can't remember the name of the little town we stayed at while on the Lake. hmm. It was one hour east of Irkutsk if you are looking at a map. Anyway, the first picture is a local guy heading out to catch his fish for the day. I just liked the car/bike. And another view of the town for you, it really is a poor place but they have some really nice touristy buildings like the hotel and a few other buildings so it looks really sweet. But I'll show the houses later, russians love colour on their houses, i like it too i think. We should have played a game of chess at the hotel but we didn't. The pawns were all made out of styrofoam. Nice and easy to pick up. 

The only wildlife we saw:)

 
Anyway, Char was mentioning how cold it is in Calgary right now. It is so strange to me that it is 6C right now here in Moscow. We haven't really had it cold yet. There isn't any snow here right now. And even in Siberia there wasn't much. When we were in Irkutsk it rained and our first few days in Ulan Ude were warm too though at the end we had some -22C days which were freezing to be out catching a trolleybus etc. One thing that we love about Siberia is the cheap taxi's. It costed us about $2.50-$3.50 for to catch a taxi, even if it was a long distance. Definetely nicer than maintaining your own vehicle etc. We took a lot of taxi rides, lots of marshrutka rides and trolleybus rides too. The most memorable taxi ride was the driver who took us away from the main road in Ulan-Ude to a smaller road to a smaller road to an unpaved road to a road behind a factory which wasn't even shovelled.... I tapped David on the shoulder hinting that this guy was going to kill us:) He could have heard our english and assumed we had lots of money or something. David too wondering asked him "Where are you taking us?!" Turned out it was a shortcut- a good one in fact. When we got back on the main road David told the guy "I thought you were a bandit- who was going to kill us but I see it was infact a shortcut:)" then we all giggled with relief, though the taxi driver didn't really giggle. Funny.

One day we were standing out on the road freezing trying to flag down a car after our meetings were done and there just weren't any cars or marshrutkas coming. I saw a guy come out of his apartment building and get into his car and came and asked if he could drive us. Funny. I like that anyone is a taxi here, but there are also real taxi companies too. He wanted to be our personal driver for the week but he charged the same as the real taxis and he dropped us off far from the hotel cause he didn't know how to get there. Maybe we should have used him though (Sergei) he was very talkative and friendly.

Anyway, you will notice that I turned on Comment Moderation- nothing changes except that your comments won't show up until I approve them. So don't worry that it didn't work, it will be there later. 

First Leg of the Journey

 
 
 
 
Ok, time to put on some pictures... The first picture is to show what a good traveller Emma is. We had a really rough start to our trip but she was a great sport. We left to go to the airport (to fly to Irkutsk) at 5:30 pm. When we got to the airport we found out that the flight would be delayed but there would be information at 1am. Yikes! So we waited around in the airport trying to get the kids to sleep- they wouldn't and tried to keep ourselves encouraged. Then at 1am the only information they gave us is that they would make another announcement at 5am. Yikes! Super Yikes! I knew the trip was going to be a lot of work even if there were no kinks but now I knew it really was going to be a rough trip! But now that it is all over I know it was worth it. Anyway, thanks to our friend Kathy who we couldn't have travelled without we finally got to stay at the residence for the airline staff though we didn't get there till 2-2:30ish in the morning. We slept very well until they woke us up and brought us back to the airport at 9am? Anyway- we basically left Moscow 12 hours later than planned. Too bad they didn't tell us about it, we could have had a normal evening and night's sleep! Anyway, we were jet lagged before we even left Moscow!
The plane ride went fine though and we landed safely on the Irkutsk runway- did you read about the crash this past summer? (you can read about it here, we did the same flight successfully) We took a taxi to a really neat little hotel (ski lodgish looking place) that is right on Lake Baikal. It was so nice, clean, handsome, wooden and the staff were really helpful- they even brought us tea right away. The only hard part was that our room was the size of most of your bathrooms and it only had 2 really skinny single beds. The lady brought us a lawn chair thing that emma slept on and david and I both had a cuddly but wiggly boy with us. We loved our 2 days at the Lake. It really was what I was longing to see. Mountains, Blue Water, Wooden Houses, my favorite kind of things. So I'll put on some pics of the lake. The Largest Fresh Water Lake in the World! Living on the second largest lake in the world (lake superior) wasn't good enough for me:)!!! I really enjoyed being somewhere new and beautiful.  

Lake Baikal

 
 
 
 
Can you see the big mountains across the lake??? Beautiful!!! Did you notice that I cut off half of Emma's hair:) She finally let me do it, it takes soooo much less time to brush. Thanks again for the hats mom- they are perfect. 

More of the Lake

 
 
 
 
The window shot is our great view from our room! The last picture shows the beautiful little tiny town on the lake, I'll put some of the houses etc. on tomorrow. 

We're Back!

We just got in, soooo good to be home but it was a great adventure and I'll start posting pics and stories soon. Just gotta unpack and figure out what time zone we are in again. Thanks for thinking about us while we were gone, we missed you all.

we're here...

I just wanted to put a quick note on so that you guys know that we got here (in Ulan-Ude) safe and sound, we've had lots of adventures and are having a great time. We are just visiting with our friends David and Christy. I can't wait to share our pictures with you and our adventures but I gotta go get some more stories right now:) Thanks for thinking about us...

On to Irkutsk....

In about 7 hours we will be flying to Irkutsk (to learn about Irkutsk click here), hopefully the kids will sleep well as we will fly through the night. We will take a taxi to our hotel which I am really looking forward to as it is a wooden hotel! This will be especially exciting after living in concrete city:) We will be pretty close to Lake Baikal so I'll be out taking lots of pictures for sure. Please continue to think of us, maybe I'll be able to post for again in a few days. We are really looking forward to being with our friends that live in other parts of Russia and to seeing some new sights. I know it will be difficult at times especially with the 3 little ones (trying to find them places to sleep and things to eat and places to go potty etc.) but I am going to view it as a vacation anyway:)
We are all packed now and are just going to have some lunch and put the kids down for naps and then we will be up and off to the airport. Please remember us in the next few days as we fly and ride on the train and are in tight spaces for long periods of time. We will be in Irkutsk for 2 nights and then will take the train to Ulan-Ude where we will be for 10? days and then back the same way we came. (To learn more about Ulan-Ude click here.)

Buddy Boy

  

Flooded In!

 
Well, that heavy snowfall melted and it rained pretty much all day today. I took this picture just before 10am and the water was already this high. Our entrance is at the bottom of the picture. i was having lots of fun watching people walk around out there through the window. People would come down the sidewalk from the left and then get to the end of it and have no idea what to do, quite hilarious to watch. They would look at the deep puddle infront of them, and then see the puddles on either side. Some chose to head back which was a long way, some just plowed on through being somewhat suprised by the deepness and others skipped and jumped to places that looked shallower. One fed-up with the water babushka went out later in the afternoon with her rubber boots and straw broom and wisked the water over to the next entrance:) (it had a better drain)
Anyway. We are looking forward to going to Siberia tomorrow! I'm almost done the packing and I just cut emma's hair a bit. She said she wanted it shorter than mine but I left it pretty long. I better go get the kids into bed. I'll post tomorrow before we go and then I don't know when I'll be able to post, I'll find somewhere I hope:) 

It comes and goes...

 
 
Earlier today almost all the snow was gone but now we are having a heavy snow fall. It looks really pretty even though I can hardly see it cause it is getting late.
Tomorrow we will do some more packing and organizing things getting ready to leave for Siberia on Saturday. I am trying to pack only complete outfits, usually I just throw in tops and bottoms and hope that things will work out together. I usually don't end up using all the clothes I bring cause I don't know what to put them with. So this time I'm gonna try it a different way, for the kids too. We don't want to bring lots of stuff so I need to pack well. David is a good packer, very neat and tidy (though he isn't quite as neat as my aunt judy. Judy- do you still roll up all your clothes so that your whole suitcase is full of rolls? It was you who did that isn't it? though it could be mom too, you ladies are all a little on the organized side:) Anyway, I'm not a good packer but I'm getting better every year. Too bad we don't have those bags that you suck out the air out of to make the items more compact cause 3 snowsuits take up a lot of room... 

I can't believe it's not real coffee:)

 
Well, one of the things we first noticed when we arrived is that everybody drinks instant coffee here. You can buy normal ground coffee but it is harder to find- about 4/5ths of the coffee section in the supermarket is instant varieties. They have such a huge selection of them, took us a while to figure out which brand we like best. We have really gotten used to the instant stuff and quite suprisingly we love it. This brand is especially good I think (and it sort of matches my mugs so that when I put them out it kinda looks nice:). This morning I actually tossed back and forth in my head whether I would make real coffee (starbucks- Sumatra, can't get much better than that)or if I would just have the instant. Sumatra has always been my favorite coffee, I always thought if we ended up in Indonesia I could boat over to Sumatra and pick some up. When I worked at the italian coffee shop in TBay I often put Sumatra on as the coffee of the day cause it was my favorite. But here we are living in a country that uses instant coffee and I'd say we've adjusted quite well. It is great to have fresh coffee around though, our group loves it, something new for them to try:)I seem to remember that both when we were in Germany and in England we had instant coffee when we went to people's houses. Maybe it is just a European thing?