Burlaki on the Hudson

Over the last weekend, I triumphantly assembled the new wardrobe that Natasha had bought in IKEA… Well, ok, ok, it was a really pathetic performance, comprised of 36 steps according to instruction manual, that took over 2 hours to complete. But I did raise my arms in triumph when it was finished…

The important thing is that we now have a bit more space for our clothes. There are only a few boxes that remain unpacked and it looks like we can fit most of our stuff into existing wardrobes. We don’t know whether we are going to find anything afterwards, but that is a different matter…

As we celebrated a full month of living together in the UK, we continue to find ourselves deeper and deeper in the throes of routine. My routine, of course, routinely includes after-work trips to a pub with coworkers – I just got back from one, please excuse my diminished command of language – but the kids are getting settled in their respective schools, and Natasha gradually infiltrates the environs.

The bottom line is that instead of a well-structured narrative of recent events, I offer you a collection of random happenings.

First, kids. They each have made a few friends among their classmates, by now. We are even organizing playdates, which is a fantastic development, given that there is no possible way that they can play outside as they used to in our New Jersey cul-de-sac. Kimmy already went to a friend’s house and had that friend over to our house. The girl’s mother was in complete awe of the house that we live in, which provided a welcome salve to our wounded self-esteem. Becky has a friend over tomorrow – that one will probably be condescending in regard to our abode, given the cost of education…

Despite the fact that Thanksgiving is not a holiday in England, Christmas starts here in earnest pretty much on the weekend after Thanksgiving in America. Just like home. Houses get decorated, retailers announce holiday sales… There are requisite lightings of the trees everywhere. Natasha and Kimmy managed to visit our local one. The High Street in Eltham was closed to traffic since midday, and it was full of performances and street hawkers. At 6pm, otherwise dark street was lighted by numerous festoons. That was followed by a parade, with floats presented by local clubs and schools, with lanterns, music, etc. After that, a 15-minute fireworks display concluded the celebration.

As Becky noted, fireworks seem to be a year-round occurrence here. We daily hear and sometimes see productions of local enthusiasts.

Eltham High Road, by the way, is within walking distance from us, but still about a mile away. It is kind of amazing what Kimmy would agree to do – ride a scooter for such a long distance and back – on the promise of entertainment and fireworks…

We now own a couple of cards that allow us collect points for rewards by buying stuff in supermarkets and such. We must be truly assimilating.

Consider this: A new bakery/pastry shop opened the other day on the nearest corner. Natasha immediately checked it out, enjoying simply the idea of having one at hand. The shop does not have a sign yet. So she offered to paint it for them if they come up with a name. A new career may be born…

Natasha also stumbled upon a caramel dessert that has a whole history associated with it. She first encountered it a couple of years ago, when our old friend Nika (who lives in Geneva) sent a few samples to another old friend Vera (who lives in NJ), using us as messengers after we had visited her and her family in Geneva during one of our European sojourns. Still with me? Long story short, Vera was pregnant with twins and could not accept the sweets, so Natasha consumed it on her own… Yeah, yeah, she shared with kids; they had, maybe, a quarter of it… Since then, Natasha was dreaming of this dessert, and had poor Nika specifically bring some of it, when she was coming to the States on short trips. It turns out that this stuff is now freely available in many supermarkets in Europe. Heaven!

Random observation: There are no fluctuations in the gasoline price here. Almost every gas stations around our area list 84.9p per litre of regular unleaded gasoline. That price has not changed since I first noticed it – almost two months ago. For those inclined to mathematical calculations, this works out to about £3.23 per gallon, which is is certainly quite shocking, however stable.

On a related note, my Vauxhall gives me a bit over 23 miles per gallon. I expected considerably better…

Natasha, having mostly finished with unpacking of our stuff, started venturing into creative cooking again. The other day, she and the girls baked a cake that they all afterwards consumed with proclamations of utmost pleasure. I have to go by their word in this particular case, as it was not the one and only type of cake that I ever eat.

I was not left completely behind, though. Tonight, upon my return from office at 9:40pm (wink, wink ), I was met with an offer of a hot bowl of борщ, which was perfectly indescribable!!!

Chronicles

The weather is a bit overdue turning to the worse, but it’s catching up. On Saturday, several downpours alternated with bright sunlight, but the rain won. On Sunday, the rain continued to come and go. It is not really cold yet, but there were a couple of days during the week that I got thoroughly chilled while waiting a few minutes for a train in my leather jacket.
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Chronicles, London & Environs

No sooner I complained about not having a Russian store nearby that Natasha found one. It is in no way comparable to the ones we loved so much in the States, it does not have hot kitchen – and the owners actually do not speak Russian – but it is only a couple of miles away and it sells such essentials as шпроты and сайра.
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Chronicles, That's England

Taking a break from describing events of our life, I want to let a bit nostalgia in and recite some things that we so gotten used to in America that we never considered their importance. Without further ado, here are some things that we clearly took for granted in the great US of A.
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European living, That's England

The weather on Natasha’s birthday was beautiful – a bit crisp and windy, but bright sunny skies. We did not want to miss an opportunity for a day out, so we decided to take a train to the city, visit a museum and then stroll around…

… but the train station greeted us with a sign that no trains would be stopping due to some construction work. Taking a bus to another station (and repeating the exercise in reverse on the way back) would be too much of a hassle. Fortunately, we had a plan B in mind all along. So instead, we got into our car and drove away from the city, towards the coast, to visit Dover Castle.

No traffic all day – what a blessing! The distance was over 60 miles, mostly on a highway, where speed limit is known to be 70 mph, but where are neither signs to remind you of that, nor police to scare you into driving slower. There are occasional work zones, with a 50 mph limit and “speed cameras” warnings (I tried but did not happen to see an actual camera – and I know what they look like) – the traffic does slow down to 50 on those intervals, but it does not cause congestion. The rest of the way we were flying…

Dover is a major connection to the continent. There are several ferries and a car-transporting tunnel train in and around the area. Yet, probably because of the time of the year, in the middle of the day on Saturday, the town and the roads looked rather sleepy. We did not linger much, as our goal was the castle, but we then drove around the town later in search of a place to eat, and everywhere was fairly deserted.

The castle’s major structures were built in 12th century, and it was an important coastal residence of the kings for several generations. There is a number of attractions spread on 70 acres of hills. We visited a couple, of which the main keep is the most interesting one, providing a good insight on travel accommodations of medieval kings (as it often happens, the toilets were especially revelatory). There are also tremendous views onto the English Channel from a number of vantage points. The outside views of the castle structures are more impressive than what you see inside, overall.

Kimmy played a part-time guide in our walks. Apparently, in school, they have been having classes on English history or something, talking about castles and palaces. So she knew some of the specifics (“Castles were built on the top of the large hills, so that nobody could come by”, for instance).

As we have joined so called English Heritage membership a couple of weeks ago, the entry to the castle was free. The membership costs £65 a year for a family of four, and provides free entry to over 400 sights around a country. Last week, Eltham Palace would have cost us about £23 straight up (we could bring it down to £15 with a coupon). Dover Castle would have cost us £29. With our next visit to one of the Heritage sights, we cover the membership expense and start getting ahead. Surprisingly good deal!

Even membership could not get us onto a tour of Secret War Tunnels, which is another primary attraction in the castle. There is one tour every hour with a limit of 30 people, and you better book in advance. Even on a slow day like today – I estimate maybe a hundred cars in the entire parking lot – we were told that all tours were fully booked. Oh, well, there is always next time.

While the two oldest members of our family can spend hours on purposeful, yet relaxed, sightseeing, our younger members have a limit of a couple of hours, give or take. After that, a change of scenery – preferably a restaurant – is the only remedy. We drove to the center of the town, and spent some time trying to locate a place to eat – everywhere we went was either closed until 6 pm, closed for a private function, or closed altogether. In a word, closed. We eventually found a rather nice restaurant, masquerading as a pub, but with a feel of a chain a la Appleby’s. The food was very nice and then the girls got chocolate fondue for dessert, followed by a major sugar rush…

On the way back, we were following the primary road for cars arriving from the continent and heading for London. Every half-mile or so, a sign greeted us in 4 languages reminding that we should be driving on the left side of the road…

In other news, Becky is getting fully into the swing of British student life. She already joined the school theater production for performance next week (her role is, obviously, quite small, but it’s a start). The drama club at her school holds a lot of activities throughout the year, and she is very interested in being part of that.

The school plans a trip to Shanghai next spring for her grade. Only the best students are supposed to go – and whose parents can afford paying for the trip in addition to the exorbitant tuition… Since she is not far behind in studying Mandarin – it starts in 7th grade, so the rest of the girls are only a couple of months ahead of her, – there is a reasonable chance that we’ll have to pay up…

We started leaving the house at 7:15 in the morning, and on both Thursday and Friday, I managed to come back to the house by 7:55 – which is exactly the length of the round-trip that I had been always counting on. In other words, the worst of the traffic starts around 7:30. I guess this is what we will stick to. Poor Becky has to now be in school good 50 minutes before the start of classes. She’ll likely join the breakfast club, which will allow her to sleep a few minutes extra in the morning, skip breakfast at home and enjoy company of the girls while she waits for the first class to start.

In the spirit of trying to fit in the new organization, I am participating in various outings with coworkers. Yesterday, we spent several hours after work in arcades. I stunk in pool and in various car and motorcycle races, but handily beat everybody in laser shooting. There was also bowling, killing zombies (I must have really beem missing something in my life before, as I have unexpectedly done exceedingly well in a couple of different shooting activities…), air hockey (we had an undisputed champion, whom I came closest to unseating – but still lost), and tons of other games. The best of all were bumper cars – which are called dodge’ems here – the non-comptetitive nature of the activity truly allowed for unbridled excitement. Several pints of lager helped too…

Children, Chronicles, London & Environs

Traffic is an unbelievable problem here. After having driven a car in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, I thought I was prepared for narrow roads, weird signs, roundabouts, and all other quirks of the Old World driving. True, very little of my vacation driving was within boundaries of major cities. Still, I had no idea that traffic could be that bad day in and day out.
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Chronicles

Never having to move out of a house, we never had to deal with so much stuff coming into a house…
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Chronicles, London & Environs

It’s only Thursday, but this week turns out to be way too exciting. I guess starting on a great note on Sunday (see Brighton) gave the week a push of sorts… Ok, ok, in England the week starts on Monday, but you know what I mean…
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Chronicles

What comes to mind when you hear the word Brighton? Restaurant Татьяна, matrones in fur coats walking to a grocery store, pensioners and kids mingling all over boardwalk, Russian мат… We beg to differ.
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Chronicles, London & Environs

Going strong! For the second weekend in a row, we, true to our purpose, explore the new environs. Can we keep it up? The kids must be having second thoughts, for sure… Watch this space!
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Chronicles, London & Environs

I remember that when I first came to America, I used to literally write at least one letter a day to many of my friends in Russia. After a while, that exercise became less and less important, I started to skip days, then weeks, and then – in probably 7 or 8 months – stopped writing altogether. There were many reasons for that, not least of which was the fact that once my life had become more or less routine, it was harder and harder to find topics for writing.
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Chronicles