Day 21

Back to Slow

Typical morning. Pancakes and yogurt for breakfast.

I decided to do laundry. I washed some T-shirts in the shower. It took all day for them to dry. Are they clean?

Tanya came to the hotel. She told us that today is Igor's mother's name day. Tanya wanted money to buy a gift for her. Eileen gave her a "little plant flower thing" and a little makeup to give to mother-in-law instead. These were gifts brought from the US to be given away. Tanya wanted money to go out dancing with friends, to celebrate a teacher. Five dollars goes a long way here.

I was able to work for 4 hours. Finally a block of uninterrupted time. I got to play some Tom Waits while Eileen napped. Great stuff. Some of it applies. "No one speaks English, and everything's broken." Tom, I hear you there.

We got the girls at 2:30. The room was being cleaned when we got back from the internot, so we waited in the restaurant. The daughter (10 years old?) of one of the hotel owners came in, and started coloring at one of the tables. Sasha, very outgoing, invited herself and started coloring too. Soon we all moved upstairs to a better lighted table. I got a coloring book and some markers from our room, so we could share. After a while, we retired to our room, and Sasha played outside with her new friend for a while.

When Sasha came in, we fed Sasha and Nastiya apples, bananas, soup, cheese, bread, juice. Then they played with Paint on my computer, taking turns. I got out Uno, and we played that for a while. We got out balloons. Long skinny balloons. That was a big hit. We made some butterfly wings, and "hats", and things to wear on the wrist. It was fun to watch them model their balloon apparel in front of the mirror.

We ate at the hotel restaurant, a very light meal. Chicken for the girls, "greek" salad for Eileen. Then we had cake and ice cream for dessert. Sasha is always running to take charge. She calls the waitress over, makes some orders. She calls the waitress over, asks for the bill. She goes to the front desk, and calls a taxi. She jumps in the taxi, gives directions. It is common for kids in a chaotic household to try to impose control. It's helpful right now, but in Colorado it's going to be tough since the customs are different.

We had a couple of eggs that had cracks, so making hard boiled eggs was questionable. We took them to the clerk, and tried to indicate that we wanted them cooked for breakfast tomorrow. The last time we tried to indicate eggs and tea, we got bilinnis and coffee. I wonder what we will get tomorrow.