Burlaki on the Hudson

This weekend, I watched more NFL than on any weekend on the US. Sky Sports channels broadcast CBS/NBC/ESPN games live, with a recording repeat next day. Because the weekend was 4 days long and we have not had much to do due to everything being closed, I watched 4 games in total…

The broadcasts are a bit weird. Announcers are American – whoever is announcing on the actual US channel. But there is a UK-based studio crew, with one obviously British bloke posing as the ultimate expert, and these talking heads break into the broadcast at any opportunity, sometimes almost preempting the action on the field. Their biggest shtick is reading emails from viewers and commenting of them. Say, the game is Eagles vs Cowboys. The email would go something like “From Nigel in Ipswich, Aren’t the Ravens playing great?” and the comment would be something like “Yes, they are definitely contenders this year”. Fantastic insight! At the expense of the game at hand!! By a Brit who has no idea what he is talking about!!! I want to throw up…

For those who are disgusted with my America-centric sports viewing habits, I also managed to get Chealsea-Reading and Blackburn-Arsenal soccer games in. The commentary was quite enlightening, light years ahead of what American clowns come up with…

I am guessing somebody will now make a couch potato accusation…

The weekend ended with another summit of Popivkers and Burlaks, which прошёл в тёплой и дружественной обстановке. Even Artur no longer got scared upon hearing my voice – which was the case every time I previously visited – and got along with all of us very quickly. Little David is a cute miniature version of Sashka. Two small kids definitely keep Anya grounded, even with a help of a new young nanny. I am afraid we will only see each other if we put aside our shame of putting a dent in Popivkers’ budget and come visit them ourselves…

In the meantime, we finally started on the road of making new friends. As I have mentioned in the past, Kimmy has a classmate whose parents hail from a corner of a former Soviet Union. The girl had a birthday, and we visited their house for a celebratory dinner. While the kids were playing upstairs under Becky’s supervision, the adults imbibed wine and liquors around the table and got to know each other. Nice family, pretty cool, several common interests with us (not mentioning obvious common background) – we definitely want to explore the possibility of cultivating friendship.

I have definitely alluded already to the fact that the lack of companionship is the biggest obstacle for us to enjoy our new mode of life. We can cope with domestic inconveniences, we can learn to deal with cultural idiosyncrasies, but not having our habitual everyday contacts with close friends and relatives is the biggest – if not the only – serious deficiency of our situation. We are not looking to replace you guys in the States – shame on anyone who had that thought! But we certainly are in need of making new friends here in our current environs. Tonight was the first step in the right direction…

A vendor sent me a case of wine at the office. Christmas gift. Well, to be honest, the wine was aimed at quite a few people, but I guess I was selected as the actual recipient for being the seniormost person of the bunch. I had a seriously hard time parceling the wine out, since people whom I allowed to choose all wanted red and the case was half-red, half-white. I did manage – although only one bottle of white ended up being left for me – and possibly even scored some points with certain people who did not expect the giveaway. Oh, the joys of being a senior manager!

Becky, under tender direction by Natasha, has prepared a baked fish dish by herself. I had to inquire which large animal has expired in a nearby forest to precipitate such an occasion, but the truth of the matter is that she enjoyed doing that quite a bit. It was positively a welcome distraction from her customary vacation regimen of TV, PC and very little bedtime reading. The recipe was Natasha’s anyway, so the meal came out pretty good, too…

Kimmy, meanwhile, is quickly becoming our most well-corresponding family member. She receives letters from her friends rather frequently, and very much savors making drawings and writing replies for all of her pen-pals. As some of the letters she has to write are in Russian, and some of them are in English, it is also an agreeable practice for her penmanship (albeit, dictated by Natasha, in most instances).

We are pretty much set for our trip to Geneva for the next several days. Chances are that I will not be able to post a new entry until we return on January 2nd.

Have a very happy New Year, everyone!

Chronicles, Family & Friends, Sports

If anybody has a chance to go see Mary Poppins on Broadway – we highly recommend it. Going by our Travelog ratings system, ♥♥♥. Magnificent production, great songs, fun all around. In a word, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!!

We went to the city rather late last night, so as to not tire the children much prior to 7:30 showing. The plan was to take a walk along some central streets gazing at Christmas decorations and partaking in holiday atmosphere. Oxford Street and especially Regent Street did not disappoint. Festive illumination, big stores decked in lights, occasional street music, throngs of people – it definitely felt like Christmas. Not a whiff of snow, but, hey, who’s keeping score…

We also took a stroll through Soho theater district. I’ve been to Covent Garden several times, but never walked through Soho pedestrianized area. It has a reputation of being seedy and sleazy, and even purported sexual thrills reportedly often take shape of con and extortion. However, keeping to more or less crowded streets, we formed a largely positive impression of the area as a trendy place. All of the theaters are mostly here, and there are hundreds of nice cafes and restaurants, as well as some smart boutiques. Sex shops are positioned smack in between of more wholesome institutions, but they are not many (although Becky did comment on how inappropriate it was for me to steal a glance in certain direction…) I suspect that the least reputable establishments can be found on back streets, but I figure you can be in the area with kids and never come across them if you choose your route carefully.

After the play, we walked down to Trafalgar Square to take a look at the tree there. It is a real tree, brought to London every year from Oslo (a tradition, dating back to 1947), not hundreds of branches artificially put together as in Rockefeller Plaza. On the expanse of the square, with Nelson Column in front and two large fountains on each side, the tree looks somewhat smallish, but it is entirely impressive once you stand right by it.

The illuminated square is awfully pretty at night, and not at all crowded.

By the way, we bought our very good orchestra (in England, it is called Stalls) tickets on eBay. At face value, at that. The show is sold out through September of next year. eBay rulez!!!

Christmas is when all in England stops. Everything was closing at 3pm today and will remain closed through Monday. Stores, shops, museums, even most of the transportation. We will have to think hard about what, if anything, we can be doing tomorrow. I expect that even public parks may be closed, given that there will not be any service workers on duty. I should make it a point to go and check…

After the late bedtime yesterday, the kids – and their father – slept in late this morning, so we did not do much today either. Natasha went on solitary shopping expedition to nearby High Street, and bought a few gifts, while the girls and I rotated among two computers and the TV.

Natasha and I later reflected on how holidays are certainly the hardest time to be away from family and friends. Even though it is clearly a trick of memory, we just cannot recollect spending major holidays in the last few years without either entertaining or going to visit somebody. Even Christmas, which we never celebrate, but always use as an occasion for friendly get-togethers. How about the famous one in ’93, with Grisha and his electric piano performing Крылатые Качели…

On this jolly reminiscence, I bid you a good night and hope that your holidays bring you lots of joy and merriment!

Chronicles, London & Environs

School is out! Vacation! I have not been so happy about it since I was a pupil myself. Because it means that I do not have to wake up at 6:45 and drive Becky to school!
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Chronicles

On Saturday at 6:45 in the morning, we were woken up by the loud knocks on the front door. I ran down the stairs in my sleepwear ensemble – that’s as far as I am willing to go into intimate details at the moment – and accepted the package with our new camera, specially delivered from Hong Kong.
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Gadgets

You know what we used to employ the flat-iron for? Kids arts and crafts projects. The shirts were dropped at the cleaners and returned back to us pressed and starched. Now, the flat-iron is being used at its most original designation…
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Chronicles

Natasha made a fantastic stir-fry today. Somehow, she disregarded my preference for having meat at dinner… After foolishly expressing my dissatisfaction, I had to work overtime to praise leftover spaghetti with ground beef to avoid going altogether hungry…
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Chronicles, London & Environs, That's England

Four days without a post is hardly a way to keep the audience engaged. An article in Economist recently was talking about people who make blogging their main occupation and actually build huge followings by writing about their everyday life. How exactly do they do that? I struggle to find – or sometimes literally forget – interesting topics to write about. Is it a question of not having literary talent or is it that my life is simply boring?

Or both?

I definitely cannot write of the cuff – it takes quite an amount of labor for me to produce an entry that pass my internal quality control (see my very first post for a brief discourse on the subject). Witty remarks and all, it is more about per- than in- when it comes to my -spiration.

I also cannot figure out how to make daily routine sexy. Let’s see. Kill alarm, stumble out of bed, bathroom, wake up Becky, dress, drive to school, traffic, traffic, drive back, walk to train, commute. Ooh, thrilling! 10 hours in office ensue, – which I will not be addressing except in rarest of circumstances – then another commute. Dinner, conversation, a bit of horseplay, read a book to Kimmy, put kids to bed, check and write emails (or a blog entry), time for bed. Once a week, maybe, an hour to flip through TV channels and to practice my rudimentary guitar skills.

Kids’ routine is also fairly… well, routine. To/from school, homework, maybe a trip to supermarket with mom. Otherwise, board games, TV, PC. Playdates occasionally do happen and school sometimes provides highlights, but other than that, there are not many topics related to them that I can explore.

Natasha probably leads both the most fun and the most uneventful life. Before you exclaim that it is impossible, consider this. While girls are in school and I am at the office, she stays home alone with nothing to do. Ouch!!! What’s up with hitting me with a frying pan, darling? OK, OK, dishes, cleaning, laundry, cooking, shopping, I get it!!!

After having done all that, Natasha still has many a couple of hours that she needs to fill with things to do. This is where uneventful comes. So she spends time planning our trips and vacations on the internet. This is where fun comes.

Still, there is hardly anything in that activity that gives me something to write about. The end result will be most probably exciting, but searching for convenient cheap flights does not exactly make for gripping narrative.

So, you see, I am pretty much left with weekend events and occasional midweek happenings. And that makes it very hard to keep the flow up. What I should be doing is dissertating on world politics, current events, sports, even going into philosophical essays… Oh, wait! This whole post was somewhat philosophical. Already over 500 words and nothing that actually happened!

I can only take solace in knowing that I already did make this big world a little smaller. A distant relative of Alex Popivker came across the family name mentioned in one of my old posts, and wrote a comment, which I forwarded to Alex. A hearty family reunion followed.

Among the things that did happen is Natasha had found a badminton club. There are actually a few in our vicinity. Bunch of people getting together after work – or otherwise demanding day – and playing for fun. Twice a week, anyone can come for nominal entry fee (or you can officially join for £100 a year, which allows you to participate in tournaments also). Most of the players there are stronger than her; ages from 20 to 80. She had fun and plans to make it a regular diversion.

Her and the kids also bought and decorated a holiday tree, under accompaniment of Чародеи on DVD. I am not a big fan of having a tree, but I must admit that the house has a much more festive feel with it.

As I mentioned before, Kimmy played a glamorous role of innkeeper in the Nativity play at her school. The role consisted solely of her letting the main characters into the inn, but she was among a few kids who were dressed up in nicely done outfits, sat in the middle of the stage, and participated in all songs. If there were Starring opening rolls, her name would be near the end… which is more what most of the other kids would get.

As a parting note, try googling burlaki. My front page comes up as a second main entry, after the famous Volga song. I have to experiment with taglines that will bring me up the list for blog-topic searches. If you try burlaki thames, you will get a link to one of my older posts on the front page, plus a bunch of links that have nothing to do with me, but have some mention of my blog entries. Must be the effect of pinging several blogging communities with every new post, which somehow generates possibly random references between blogs…

Blogging, Chronicles

I almost appeared in a British tabloid!
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Chronicles, London & Environs

Every morning this week was rainy and drab, but Saturday suddenly turned out sunny and not especially cold. We took our time until noon to get out of the house, but still jumped on a train and went to the City.
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Chronicles, London & Environs

Technology Christmas party left me with quite a headache, and the next morning my first local hire was starting. I am afraid I was hardly a presentable boss. The only mitigating factor was my own boss, visiting from New York, whom the party left in a much worse shape…
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Chronicles

The cover story in this week’s Economist talks about British transportation problems. While the angle is more towards fixing the roads, the article also mentions in gory detail the issues with rail networks. Incidentally, I am starting to believe myself that my earlier high marks to public transport were misbegotten.
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Chronicles, London & Environs

Starting with an announcement today (especially for those who may be coming directly to the blog, bypassing my front page): The Guestbook feature of the website has been decommissioned – as writing comments to my posts is a better place for guestbook entries anyway. I also created a separate Guestbook blog, although it probably will end up as unused as the old guestbook.

Instead, there is now a Calendar feature that will keep track of our travels and visitor engagements. For those of you who plan to eventually come and visit us – we have probably a hundred verbal promises – this is as close to reservation system as I figure to get. Just check if the dates you are interested in are available, write us an email, and we will block the time for you. As our own travel plans shape up, we promise to keep the calendar up to date.

Today, we continued our museum excursions. Becky wanted to go to Madame Tussaud’s wax museum, which I have been to once before and came away unimpressed. Knowing that, Natasha decided that she would not go. Kimmy probably would not be much interested either, not yet being familiar with who is an important person and who is not (although lifelike wax figures might have had some effect on her). Becky wanted to go rather badly, so we decided to indulge her. But we split forces. Natasha and Kimmy went to the Natural History Museum, while Becky and I schlepped to Mme Tussaud’s.

After spending over an hour in a queue for tickets, we paid – even with a 2-for-1 discount – outrageous ticket price and entered the premises. Tom Cruise, George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Johnny Depp as Capt Jack Sparrow were big hits with my daughter. So was, curiously, Robin Williams. George Bush looked nothing like himself and Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator was a little too unattractive. David and Victoria Beckham appeared more than once and provided a view into Brits’ fascination with them.

There is also a nice amusement-park-like ride through several centuries of London history and an animated movie in which funny aliens discourse on the subject of earthling celebrities. Overall, Becky was very happy, which was definitely a win.

Kimmy meanwhile, was equipped with an “explorer” backpack and helmet, and spent time in treasure-hunting for various animals as well as drawing pictures of others in the Natural History Museum. She did not like dinosaurs much, but immensely enjoyed birds, mammals and fishes, stopping many times to draw and explore. She was also rather happy and never complained once about being tired, which is a small miracle. Of course, it lasted only until we left the museum…

We rejoined forces at the Natural History museum, by which point nature explorers were mighty hungry (Becky and I downed a hot dog each upon exiting Mme Tussaud’s). We walked along Brompton Road and had quite nice dinner in an Italian restaurant not far from Harrods.

The day could have been a disaster, but ended up with an overall successful mark. It started disastrously alright. In the morning, upon exiting the commuter train at London Bridge, we realized that we left our camera on the train seat. We jumped onto the next train, and caught up with the first one at the last station, Charing Cross, where I sprinted through several cars in hopes of finding the camera. No luck. We called Lost & Found service and opened an inquiry, but chances are that the weird family that sat next to us has gotten itself an early Christmas present, albeit the one that will only function until the battery is discharged…

Well, no biggie, we were thinking about upgrading for quite a while anyway. But the occurrence itself was obviously a downer. It’s a good thing that both museums turned out to be fun for our demanding offspring, to make the day memorable for good reasons.

Who’s got suggestion on which new camera we should go for? Give it up.

On the routine front, Becky and I have gotten into a rhythm in the mornings. I wake her up at 6:45, go lie down while she is in the bathroom, then go and do my morning things while she dresses up and has breakfast. We leave house between 7:15 and 7:20 and, while hitting some slow spots along the way, manage to get to school between 7:35 and 7:45. Becky then has to find things to do – mainly, reading – until the classes start at 8:30, but she is apparently fine with that. I get back home between 7:50 and 8:00, depending on which I catch a 8:02 or 8:22 train, the latter allowing me to walk into office at 9 on the hour. Not too bad. My morning commute, of course, is now exactly the length of my erstwhile American trip to work, but I still enjoy a much shorter commute at night.

Becky is joining all kinds of clubs at school. She has been recruited to play grass hockey (???), goes to the theater club, participates in some dancing activity. She is also ahead of her classmates in Spanish, given that she started studying it a couple of years ago, and it is their first year. She already received a number of house points (refer to Harry Potter if you are unfamiliar with the concept), all in Spanish. As we have already noted, with some surprise, she does not appear to be much behind in any subjects where situation is reversed. All in all, she is doing quite well.

Kimmy has achieved a bit of a breakthrough in her mastery of English. She is starting to read some simple books completely on her own. She also now begins all conversations with us in English, and only switches to Russian at our insistence…

There are only two boxes left to unpack! And a couple that needs shipping back to the States – yes, we did bring the stuff that we meant to leave for safekeeping with our parents…

I am getting to be on very friendly terms with several of my business partners and coworkers. One thing that they do here that we do very little in the States is going for drinks after work. Several times a week, as a matter of fact. I was in a week-long offsite meeting, and we went for a lot of drinks on Tuesday, for a management meet-and-greet (with drinks), followed by a Thames boat party (with open bar) on Wednesday, and for “just one drink” on Thursday. As far as I gather, in a normal week, Tuesday and Thursday are almost always going-to-the-pub days. That does lead to more camaraderie and friendship. I find myself genuinely drawn to a large bunch of people. As my accent becomes heavier after a number of Screwdrivers, I probably morph into more of a curiosity for them, but that’s alright.

One of my closest partners, Richard, has goaded me into a chess bet, which started with him saying that his first move would be pawn to rook 4 (i.e., 1.a4 or 1.h4) and he would beat me. I could not refrain from responding that if he made that move, I’d beat him in less than 25 moves. Which I probably should be able to accomplish despite the fact of not really having played in several years, given that our continued conversation led me to believe that he is an occasional player. But, for all I know, he could have been pretending to be a dilettante, and I will fall on my face… There is some friendly money being placed on the bet by eyewitnesses…

By the way, those who ever watched Fawlty Towers might remember an episode where an American guest asks for a Screwdriver (as in cocktail) and John Cleese gets all bent out of shape. When I first ordered a Screwdriver in a pub, several people as one started quoting the dialogue from that episode. I switched to vodka and orange afterwards…

Children, Chronicles, London & Environs, Website Bulletins