Stone Age Technology

Sergei and I were working on the house Wednesday afternoon when Pasha came by with something he wanted to show me. It was an old, removable hard disk. Very old, made in the 70s, maybe. Maybe it holds some cold-war secrets. It was made in Buglaria, has 12 sectors, and stores 700 kb I was told. The plastic flip handle was a nice feature. Pasha took the thing apart later, he says he's going to use the disk to make a TV antenna. I'm not sure how that's going to work, but Russians are nothing if not resourceful.

Update on English club

English club has been going well since I got back. Tonight is the fifth lesson of the autumn. So far, we have had lessons centered on summer, occupations, and home. We also had one game/activity day. Class size typically ranges from two to ten people. There are five people who are regular attenders, four of whom do not attend the church. It's been a lot of fun getting to know the people in class and learning more about Russia. Did you know that seasons in Russia start on the first days of December, March, June, and September? I didn't. I've also been incorporating Bible passages into the lessons (Matt 20, Psalm 19, Psalm 32, Matt 7) and we've had some great discussions. Last week, I was very impressed that three of the advanced students were able to put into correct order the first half of Psalm 19 (the verses had been scrambled).

Holding an informal English club has also been a little challenging for me since, due to it's informal nature, I have no idea who is going to show up any given Saturday. It's been difficult trying to create lessons that won't totally bore the advanced students or totally mystify the beginners. Unfortunately, we haven't had large enough groups to break them out by skill level. Tonights lesson is a grammar lesson (present continuous), don't tell the students :) Sounds like most of the regular attenders are sick or working today, so who knows be coming tonight.

Furball in the Grapes

A shot of Furball, for all her adoring fans.

Still Building a House

Well, the wall I built hasn't fallen down yet. Good thing. I've gone back to help Sergei a couple times, now, and I think we're making good progress. This shot is from the middle of my day three at the job site. Sergei and Pasha are in the background. The day before, Sergei and I had worked well past dark. I wasn't quite sure why, but he really wanted to get that wall done for the next day. Something about putting a "belt" on the wall. It was fun laying blocks and concrete in the dark. Sergei used his cell phone display to light my work. The next day I found out about the "belt" and why the wall had to be completed. We're building some concrete forms at the tops of the walls. We'll lay down a ring a steel rods and then pour concrete over it, making a "belt' to hold the walls together.

Grapes

The weather has been beautiful since I got back. Most days are sunny and in the upper 60s/low 70s. The evenings are getting pretty cool, though. Fall is definately here. The Anapa area is famous for it's vineyards. There are grapes growing everywhere, including my back yard. One sunny afternoon I went out back and took pictures for a while. I was having fun with the sunlight shining through the grape leaves. Some of the grapes had split open and a bunch of bees were chowing down. I took a bunch of pics of the bees, here's one of them.

Building a House

My friend Sergei is building a house on the south side of Anapa. He and his wife Alicia are currently sharing an apartment with another couple from church and are looking to have their own place. I have plenty of free time and, not really knowing jack-squat about building houses, asked him if he wanted any help. He actually said yes, so I met him at the construction site Monday morning. I hadn't seen his place before I arrived. He's building a second story on top of an existing concrete garage with large steel doors. This seems to be a common arrangement in Russia. Pasha from church has been helping out, also, and they started a week before I did. After a 3 minute tutorial on building a cinder block wall I was put to work building a wall. It took me a minute to figure out which end of the trowel to hold, but it went well after that. 5 rows of blocks later things looked alright, but what do I know? I'm just a programmer and tech writer. Sergei and Pasha said the wall looked good, so I was happy. Mixing concrete by hand and hauling it around in buckets is hard work.

Back in Anapa

I know, it's been a while since I last blogged. I was busy in Seattle, what with wedding preparations and all. I was spending a lot of time with Marcia, too. Thanks to everyone who took me out for lunch or let me stay at their place, it sure is appreciated. I made it back to Russia OK. Long trip, I had to stay at Sheremetyevo for 18 hours. I didn't feel like going into the city with my 120 lbs of luggage and am too cheap to use short term storage at the airport. The second and last flight of the day to Anapa left 50 minutes after my arrival in Moscow, so I had a long wait until the next flight in the morning. I mostly stayed in the cafe lounge on the 4th floor of Sheremetyevo 2. The food at the cafe is fairly cheap and it's quiet and out of the way. Not a bad place, except for the cockroaches in the back corner.

When I checked in for the flight to Anapa I got into an argument with the Aeroflot lady about my luggage. If you're coming from America they're not supposed to charge you for the second bag, but she kept insisting that I had to pay the excess baggage fee. I had bought my Anapa tickets separate from the rest of my tickets, which may have been the problem. After 30 hours of travel I was in a bad mood and really didn't want to pay the ~$120 fee, so I decided to fight it out. The check-in line got all backed up, of course, because there was only one lady serving Anapa. The couple behind me started getting all huffy and then started yelling at me and the Aeroflot lady. The Aeroflot lady ignored them, I made the mistake of trying to explain the situation to them (in Russian). My explanation obviously didn't suit her and she started making fun of me for being an American. Then she turned around and told everyone else in line about the American boy who brought too much stuff and didn't want to pay the fee. Fun. My language skills must be improving, I managed carry on this argument in Russian with the Aeroflot people for almost 20 minutes (with 3 different people). It eventually became clear that they weren't going to let me onto the plane without paying and they had already taken my luggage, so I paid up. Yay. Welcome back to Russia, I guess. Luda picked me up from the airport and even brought me lunch (thanks, Luda!). After almost 40 hours of travel/waiting I was very happy to roll into bed at my place.

BTW, the picture shows what the cafe on the 4th floor of Sheremetyevo 2 looks like at 1 am.