Amsterdam highlights

First of all, I feel bad about not updating my blog for a looong time. The translation I'm doing at home now is the reason for that. It's due at the end of April. It's a book about 100 pages. I have to spend about 6.5 hrs a day to meet the deadline. Hopefully, I'll finish it in time and with good quality.

Now about our trip. Finally, I have some time to write about it and post some pictures. I'm not going to describe every detail of our trip but just talk about the highlights. Let me start from Amsterdam. A year ago I started a diary where I write about what we do when we go on trips. It will be helping me in refreshing my memory.


As I have already mentioned Amsterdam amazed us by incredible number of bikes everywhere! Another thing we noticed about Dutch people is that they do not care about curtains. We actually read about it in a magazine. The article said that they are proud of their tidy homes that they don't mind open curtains in the evening. Of course, I couldn't help peeping in people's windows :) In some I saw a family having dinner, a guy sitting on a couch watching TV, kids drawing in the kitchen etc. Very interesting!

We went to Van Gogh Museum. Unfortunately, neither I nor Chris understand his works. The museum was full of tourists who were anxious to bring home some souvenirs. I have a rule about it: if I don't like a place then I'm not interested in bringing any stuff home that will remind me of that place.








One of the best places we visited in Amsterdam was the Zoo. It's an old zoo which was founded at the beginning of the 19th century. It was amazing how close you could get to animals and even see some details of their fur and hear sounds they make. Most of all I was impressed by the lions. I have never seen lions so close without any fence in the way. It took us about 3 hrs to walk all around it. I even made friends with a cute penguin. He wanted to go with us and Chris was surprised that he did not came to Moscow in my purse :)
After the Zoo we went to a Planetarium and watched an animated movie about astronauts. It was really cool! We were semi-lying in our seats as the movie was shown on a huge dome ceiling.
Of course, you cannot go to Amsterdam and not experience their coffee-shop culture. So Chris did it and really enjoyed his time in Amsterdam. The coffee-shop he chose was very neat and the guy/bartender was cool. Fun times!
Another museum we visited was National museum famous for Rembrandt's works. In particular, The Night Watch. We spent about 3 hrs there admiring paintings of Dutch artists. I think that 3 hours is pretty much enough for that because everything after that seems pretty much the same and it's hard to really enjoy it.
One of the funny things of the trip was that Dutch people thought that Chris was Dutch and they always started their conversation with him in Dutch. :)
One of the days we went to a Botanical Garden which was a disappointment to us. It was very small and it was too early in the season to bloom.



There are so many Indonesians restaurants in Amsterdam! Of course, one night we had dinner in one of them. We read that the best thing to order was a "rice table" when they bring you a little of everything totally about 20 small dishes. It was a very interesting experience and great food! Especially the curry lobster they started with! Another favorite was lamb skewers, beef and lamb saute.
On the same night Chris got us tickets for a night Lovers' Candlelight Tour :) At first we could not find the boat and were about to give up. Thank God we did not! The tour was Great!!!! When we got on board we saw tables served for two, each had a bottle of red and white wine, cheese, fruit and nuts. It was very romantic. Once all the lovers were on board we started cruising and they played romantic music. We've never done a night cruise, always day, and I have to say that it was WAY better! Again, we could peep into people's huge and small windows. We passed many boat-houses where people were having dinners, playing with their kids, computers, watching TV. Again, without curtains! We had a guide who told us a little about different districts we passed and bridges.

The funniest part of the tour was stopping at the Red Light district, walking around and going to a pub to have shots of their local alcohol :) It was so funny! We were total tourists walking in a group around the Red Light district. What we learned about it was that all those girls are individual entrepreneurs and they pay taxes. They rent these apartments. I found out that people actually live in this district and it is one of the safest places because of many policemen working there. Some of the girls were very pretty. They stand in windows wearing only underwear. There were a few that looked like men. It turns out that there are gays there but they are dressed like women and they have a blue light next to the red. It was interesting to ask our guide questions and get some information instead of just walking around. Overall, I would highly recommend a night tour in Amsterdam!
I think that this is it about the first part of our trip!

Our extended stay in London

I did not update my blog for more than a week mainly because I forgot to bring my camera cord to put new pictures in my blog. Oh, well. I'll put pictures when I'm back home. Speaking of which, we were supposed to fly back tomorrow (Thursday) but it turned out that a visa agency never received Chris' passport that he sent from Amsterdam to the states. Chris gets vacation combined with his visa renewal trip once every three month. It's pretty awesome. His Russian visa is valid only for 90 days after which he has to leave the country (Russia) to get a new visa. We always try to go to the states to see the family etc. This time we felt that such a long trip (12 hour flight) is too much and we decided to go closer to Europe.
Anyway, he cannot go back without a new visa which means that we are "stuck" in London at least for another week.

We are staying in a very nice area called Holland Park.

We like to pretend as if we live here :) So we go to our neighborhood cafes, stores and restaurants. A few nights ago we had an excellent dinner at a local Indian restaurant. We both ordered Chicken Tikka Masala which was outstanding. The local Thai place is also pretty good. So the neighborhood has lots of options if we don't feel like taking a tube and going somewhere else.

The weather is being very nice here with occasional rains that do not bother us much. London being a big city is a great city to be in. It has lots of parks which are easy to get to.
As I said before it's our second trip to London and we have done almost all of touristy things during our first visit. So we are just walking around, going to parks, pubs, movies etc. I'm very excited about tomorrow as Chris bought me/us tickets for the Dirty Dancing musical!!!!! It's my old favorite movie and I cannot believe that tomorrow I will see it alive :)) Yeah!!!
So far we have been to Hyde park, Kensington park, National History Museum, Victoria and Albert museum and National Gallery. Unfortunately, Kensington Palace was closed for installation of some new exhibition and was supposed to open the next day after we leave. Now when we are staying longer it would be great to go and see it. Another thing we want to do is to go to a zoo.
I also did some shopping and bought a very nice purse which was a gift from Chris to me for Women's day. I really love it.

As far as my pregnancy I think it's going well. Most of the time I'm not excited about food. Tomatoes and cucumbers are still my favorite :) Latest passion is oranges and apple juice. Hopefully, everything goes well and we'll have good news when I go to a doctor back in Russia. By the way, a crazy thing happened a few days ago. My brother and my MIL told me that they had a dream about us having a boy! Imagine on the same day! It's pretty crazy. They do not even know yet that I'm pregnant. The only people who know is us and my parents as they are doctors. My Dad is in fact a gynecologist that's why I told him before our trip.
Anyway, we are still in London and love it here!

We are in Amsterdam and have some news

First of all, the big news is that today I'm 6 weeks pregnant!!! We found it out on February 28. I had my blood tested twice before leaving on this trip. Both times, HCG levels were good and kept growing. Hopefully, everything goes well on this trip and I'll go for my first u/s when we come back. Fingers crossed!

Now about Amsterdam. It took us 3.5 hrs to get here from Moscow by a plane. The flight was very early so we slept only for about 4 hours. The flight was very comfortable. It was the first time we flew KLM Dutch airline. We got to Amsterdam very early and the first thing we noticed was LOTS of bikes everywhere!! You won't believe how many people ride bikes here!
We are staying in the center of the city. Our room has a very nice view of a canal. The hotel is called Banks Mansion. It used to be a bank and in 2004 it was reconstructed and became a hotel. The rooms are not big but very comfortable. They provide complimentary drinks in the room and in the lobby unlike other hotels around.
We were able to check in around 11 a.m. Before that we went for a walk and stopped at a local bakery for a cup of tea and freshly baked meat pies. Then we went back to the hotel and took a loooong nap to recover from our sleepless night.


In the evening we decided to head out and get something simple to eat. Surprisingly enough we went to a burger place :) Not healthy, we know. Well, lately my food choices are very limited. I cannot think or hear about food. But if I want something to eat it will be very specific like today. I wanted french fries, Chris wanted a burger. Anyway, we came across a very cool burger place - Burger Bar. The burgers were outstanding and french fries were the best. By the way, last year we've been to Bruges, Belgium, and learned that they eat their fries with mayo! And they also claim that they invented fries and that they should be called Belgium not French :)
At Burger Bar they also served fries with mayo. So after our unhealthy dinner we went for a 30 min. walk. Again, people on bikes are everywhere! At the same time, it's kind of quiet for a big city. It was nice to walk along canals and bridges. There are Coffee Shops everywhere! "Coffee Shop" stands for a place where you can smoke weed. We could actually smell it walking around and passing by such places.
We stopped at a mini market to get some fruit, cheese and crackers for our room. We are quite experienced travelers and we like to be independent i.e. have some food for breakfast in our room even if/when they serve breakfast in a hotel.
We came back from our walk and sat by a fire-place in the lobby. As I said they serve complimentary drinks: champagne, wine, beer, strong drinks and they also serve quite a good selection of cheeses and sausages. This hotel is really good!
Anyway, it's our 1st day here. So far we like Amsterdam. We plan on visiting a couple museums and just relax. We'll be here 6 days and then head out to London.

Ready for the trip with my two visas!

As we thought it was not a problem to get the visas for me. It's always just a matter of timing. It takes about one week to get the Schengen visa and about 10 days for the UK visa from the moment you submit your documents. So we did it right! These are my visas! Yeah, only 14 days left :)

Defender's Day = Success!!

So My Dearest Defender was very happy with his day! On Monday night I took C. out to dinner to his favorite steak house. We had such a fun time! Chris had foie gras and I had pork ribs in orange sauce as appetizers. For the main course we both had steaks with fried potatoes and mushrooms and cream spinach. Of course, could not resist the dessert: chocolate cake with vanilla ice-cream for C. and strawberry cheesecake for me. Awesome dinner!!!!
On the actual day (Tuesday) we stayed in which was a great idea! We watched movies, played Scrabble and poker. Scrabble was pretty funny as I was leading the whole time and in the end C. came up with some weird words :) such as "wino" and "din" and scored a lot. I said weird as I never heard them or saw them. Great times! Of course, we tease and put down each other sometimes and cheer up depending on the situation.! He was happy to win on his day and take revenge as I won the last time. When we play Scrabble, we play a handicapped version: I can use a dictionary, Chris cannot use a dictionary as it's his native language. It makes us equal at our chances to win. Then I practiced at playing poker with C. He is trying to teach me popular card games. He made a cheat sheet for me with all kinds of combinations and their ranking system. So far I like Poker but I need lots of practice, control over my emotions (the hardest) and I have a loooong way to go :)


I cooked some awesome food for us to snack on during the day. These are the pictures! The first round was: tomatoes with mozarella and basil in balsamic/olive oil sauce, then rolls with smoked salmon, cream cheese and spring onions and the hot appetizer was one of our favorite: baked mushrooms stuffed with fried onions and mushroom mixture topped with a drop of mayo and some cheese! Yummy!!!!

The second round was: onion tarts, pear salad and chicken fingers. Agent, if you are reading this, thanks a lot for your recipes for onion tarts and pear salad! We really loved these new things I made for the first time. Pear salad was very unusual for me and great. I say unusual as most Russian salads are mayo based and consist of boiled eggs, ham, cheese, boiled carrot, potatoes, beet etc. Most of them are heavy.

Now I'm introducing myself to American salads which seem lighter to me. Again, it depends what salad I'm talking about. I never understood how a salad with bunch of grass (lettuce) and occasional nuts or pieces of meat can be good? I thought that it would be very boring and tasteless. When we decided to eat more vegetables I looked more into healthy American recipes and I keep finding new fresh ideas for great salads with bunch of lettuce and vegetables. They are not boring at all and very tasty.
So C. loved all the food and was impressed by how much I cooked. I like to make him happy!

Let it snow!

The weather is being crazy lately in Moscow. It snowed for 4 days straight! They said that we had a month worth of snow in those 4 days. I cannot imagine traffic on Wednesday when people will go back to work after a long holiday weekend. Here is a view from our window.
Speaking of long holiday weekends. Russia is very big on moving work days and holidays around to make "a bridge" and have long holidays. For example, this year the Defender's Day is on Tuesday (today). What they did was move Feb. 22/Monday (work day) on this coming Saturday (Feb. 27) and have Feb. 20 through 23rd off! 4 days off! I know that it's pretty crazy for Americans as, you guys, don't get that many days off for holidays. Another "bridge" I believe will be on March 8th, Women's Day. Well, actually we'll have 3 days off: Sat, Sun and Mon. Not bad :) Then we'll have May holidays :)) Did I mention that Russia has about 10 straight days off in January? Yep, 10 days! From Jan 1st through 7th. Plus weekends. Pretty awesome, I guess. At the same time, there are lots of arguments about so many days off as people, obviously, don't work on these days.


Check out my new hat! It's a wool beret! I love it a lot! It was kind of expensive (about $120) but I decided that it's a gift to myself from myself for Women's Day. The lamest reason you can imagine! :)

Defender's Day and general update

I did not realize that I haven't post for almost two weeks. That's very bad of me. Well, what happened was that I got more freelance translations to do. So I barely had time for cooking/groceries/gym and other stuff. Now I'm free and back to appreciating my free time.
I have to say that working at home is definitely not for me. I like going to work and be there from this time till this time and communicate with other people. I know that it's crazy. But I like it. C. hates it and it would be better for him to work from home and me going to work :) But it's impossible. Working at home is tough because you have work/translation to do and yet the kitchen is here, laundry also needs to be done and groceries too. It seems that it does not take that much time to turn on the washer, take out laundry, put it in the dryer and then fold everything. It takes about 30 min to get groceries as the store is really close but if you add time it takes to put on clothes, come back, unpack and undress... Again, it adds up. I'm not complaining, I'm just saying that it's hard. At the same time, you don't have to walk in the cold, you are your own boss, you can plan your time. But given a choice I would choose work in an office somewhere close.

I've been working out four/three times a week and now I'm going to belly dance classes twice a week and work out twice a week. We continue eating healthy. C. works out four times a week. He is doing great with his running. Every time he improves his results. It takes him less time to run the same distance. He lost a few kilos. UNLIKE me :) I feel that my waist got thinner. At least skirts and jeans are not that tight any more, but when I weigh myself I'm just 500 grams lighter than a month ago. Weird and annoying :)) Well, I hope that one day I'll weigh myself and I'll be 2 kg. less. Hope!

So I decided to start watching American famous chick flicks. Some of them I already watched 100 times and they are my favorite. Some I haven't seen for quite a while. So I watched Bridget Jones's Diary (both movies). It was the first time I watched it in English. I have to say that watching movies in their original language is so much better. Sometimes the jokes are funnier and it's nice to hear real voices/acting of actors instead of dubbed versions. I liked it. Though I cannot say that I'm a big fan of Renée Zellweger. Today I watched Never been kissed. It was alright. Probably I won't watch it again. It was too much of high- school stuff.

What else? The Defender's Day is coming up. It's a Russian (obviously) holiday that initially was celebrated in honor of soldiers, former soldiers and future soldiers who defended or will defend our country in case of war etc. Nowadays, it's basically a men's day. Women get gifts and do something nice for men/husbands, boyfriends, fathers, brothers etc. It's an equivalent of Father's Day in the states except you don't have to be a father. There is also a Women's Day which is celebrated on the 8th of March. Again, equivalent of Mother's Day. Usually, we don't give each other big gifts, we just do something nice for each other to make this day special. In previous years Chris got me girls' magazines, bought massage oil and gave me a massage, bought my favorite chick flicks, got me flowers, ordered food for us or took me out. I did the same. One time back in 2006 I even wrote a small poem about him and made a Powerpoint presentation with his/our pictures. It was pretty cool. The whole idea was that I have found my Defender and I love him :)
I'm not sure about what to do this time. It will be next week. Probably, I'll get a few small things (gifts) and make sure he enjoys his day. I'll think of some delicious food to make. I'm also thinking about taking him out to lunch or dinner whatever he wants. We'll see.