Saturday, 29 May 2010 05:39
Thoughts and conversations in the Gardner family are pretty westward-focused these days, and several times a day, the topic of food comes up. The boys especially love to talk about all the things they can't wait to eat once they hit America. Sarah and I are more inclined to think of all the things we get to eat in Russia that we don't have back home. I can't speak for the whole family, but I thought it would be fun to make a list of the things I'll miss when we leave this great country, and also of the things I'm looking forward to rediscovering back in the USA for these next few months. (Friends and family not included:)
The Things I'll Miss
- Fresh, inexpensive Russian bread: 50 cents for a loaf still warm from the oven. How can you beat that?
- An ice-cold glass of kvass in the summertime
- Fresh, cheap vegetables right off the farm and fruit that falls off the trees at your feet on every sidewalk
- Russian salads. (OK, I'll stop talking about food now.)
- The climate. For sun-lovers, southern Russia has it all over the northeastern United States!
- Sitting around the kitchen table for hours with friends, without the pressure to leave because the visit has already lasted long enough, or we have somewhere else to be
- Haggling for bargains in the markets. It's like having garage-sale fever all year round.
- Worshipping in Russian
- The way the mall up the road puts on a firework display every Friday and Saturday night, just because it's Friday and Saturday night
- The agony and the ecstasy of speaking two languages every day
- Tossing all my trash into one bin. Krasnodar doesn't have any recycling program, which enables my laziness.
The Things I'm Looking Forward to
- Target and Old Navy. Don't laugh when my kids step off the plane in highwaters and shirts with holes in them: there's a reason for that!
- Fresh seafood and affordable restaurants (again with the food, Carre?)
- Drive-through coffee: BIG coffee!
- The freedom to understand and be understood everywhere I go
- The confidence that policemen are our friends
- The beauty of costal Maine and the Adirondacks of New York
- The library. I plan to live here for my first month home.
- The ocean: I'll be living here when the library's closed.
- Worshipping in English
- Recycling bins. It's harder, but I'm saving the planet, so...worth it!
- A place to walk or run without fear of being molested by wild dogs and migrant workers, or of breaking my ankle in a pothole
- Smiling faces in public places
