Australia Day Party

One of the nice things about living in an Expat community is that we get to meet many people from other countries and learn about and experience their different cultures.

This past Saturday evening there was a really fantastic Australia Day Party at the Hub, which is the local community center .  Australia Day is similar to the Fourth of July in the US.  It is an official national day of Australia, celebrated on January 26 and commemorates the arrival of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove in 1788 and the proclamation at that time of British sovereignty over the eastern seaboard of New Holland.  (From Wikipedia)

The party was really well organized and one of the biggest events we've had since I've been here.  The guy who planned everything had banners made and had many Australian decorations that he or other Australians brought back with them when they were home during the holidays.

Folks were encouraged to dress in some type of Australian costume.  Max and I didn't have anything Australian or really even anything red, white and blue (their national colors), so we went as American tourists.  In this photo, we are standing in front of one of the many banners that were made for this party.

There was a lot of good food, dancing, a random drawing door prize, and a prize for the best costume.  We didn't win that one.  There was a questionnaire about Australia  and a prize for who got the most answers.  (Who knew ACDC was an Australian band?). We didn't win that one either.

I really didn't take that many pictures, but here are a few.  Not sure about the significance of the tree hat:

A good friend of Max's is a Malaysian guy who was dressed up like a Japanese tourist.  He really looked great:

It was a very fun party.  I think this party will become an annual event.  I'll have to think of something different to wear next year.

Love to you all,
Karen

Skiing and a Birthday Party

We went skiing for the first time this past weekend.  There is a really nice ski slope just 15 minutes from our house. The lift tickets are really cheap, too.  On Saturday, our friend Robin, who used to be a ski instructor, gave us basic lessons to get us started.  We bought lift tickets for 10 times up the mountain.  The gondola stops halfway up, which is where we got off, and then goes on up to the top. Ten times was crazy thinking as it took us a couple of hours just to go down one time.  We spent most of the time on our behinds and trying to get up, which is quite difficult.  We went down only once and then called it a day.  We were a little discouraged with our skiing as we thought we would do a little better than we did.  We went home to rest as we had a birthday party to go to that evening.

A young engineer that Max works with, Slava, turned 30 the previous week.  As is the Russian custom, he threw himself a birthday party.  It was at a really nice Ukrainian restaurant.  When we first arrived, a lady in a traditional Ukrainian costume met us with a welcoming drink and an appetizer.  Then we went into the actual dining area.  The food was really interesting and quite good.

The dish towards the top of this picture is fish mixed with rice and other things and laid out behind a real fish head.  It was very good.  There is some kind of raw fish and/or cheese in the foreground and a pitcher of a fruit drink.  There was a ton more food that I don't have pictures of.  The tablecloth and napkins are traditional Ukrainian.

You can see Max and I in this picture along with some of the others who came to the party.  There is another whole table of people not in this picture.  One interesting thing they had was Ukrainian moonshine.  In this picture you can see two decanters.  The green one is mint moonshine.  The red one is cherry moonshine.  There was a third one:  spicy moonshine.  They were sort of liked flavored vodka.

There was the normal toasts and speeches and giving of birthday gifts and cards.  There was also live music so everyone danced a lot:

One of the highlights was a surprise for Slava.  His wife, Svetlana, hired this saxophone player to play a couple of songs.  We'd heard her play before, last year, at a Thanksgiving dinner that we went to at an Italian restaurant.  She was really good.  Svetlana showed me her business card.  It said "Sexshow".  Maybe that's how she describes her outfit?

 

Here is a photo of Slava (the birthday guy) and his wife Svetlana.  They are an extremly nice young couple and we've become friends with them.

Here is a photo of the beautiful birthday cake.  It was very good but by the time we ate it, I was so full, I could barely take a few bites. 

After dinner we walked upstairs to see the rest of the restaurant.  There was another private party going on there, but the folks were very nice to let us see the room which was decorated with animal skins and (real) stuffed animals.  (Seems to be a common decorating theme in restaurants.)   Here is Max trying to "scare" me with a stuffed wolf.  There were also a lot of murals on the walls as you can sort of see in the background  of this picture and one of the previous pictures.  It was a really nice evening.

On Sunday, we decided that we were not going to let our pitiful skiing on Saturday get us down.  We were going right back out there and were going to give it another go. We are determined to become skiers.  I was pretty nervous that second day starting out.  After falling about four times, I sort of got it and was able to stay up most of the way down the slope.  After my last fall, this one man stopped and gave me some pointers which really helped.  Max did really well, too, maybe falling only once.  We just went down the one time on Sunday.  We plan to go back each weekend and maybe even some during the week in the evening.  The ski slope is lit up at night and a lot of people go during the week.  I think I'll take some lessons after I feel a little more confident about not falling down every few minutes.  Hopefully, I'll get some pictures of the ski slope soon.

We were so proud of our skiing (or at least proud of our not falling down) on Sunday, that we decided we needed to reward ourselves.  That afternoon we went into town to this British pub that caters to expats and has the best good ole fashioned cheeseburger and french fries around.  The pub is decorated in a sports theme with lots of flags, jersey's, etc.  There were a few guys hanging out there playing guitar and singing songs from Led Zeplin, the Eagles, etc.

 Max is enjoying himself singing along with the guys, having a beer and a cigar.  It was a nice weekend.

Love to you all,
Karen

SNOW!!

I think you can tell by my previous blog and Facebook posts (mine and Max's)  that we have a lot of snow here.   Weekend before last we got so much snow we literally had to dig ourselves out of the house.  In this blog post I thought I would just show you a lot of snow pictures around our house.

Here's a picture of me Saturday a week ago trying to get off the front porch so that we could go grocery shopping:  This was before Max did a lot of shoveling.

Max was trying to go around to the back of the house to take a picture of the back porch.  I was trying to follow him, stepping in the holes he made in the snow.

In my first post I showed you a picture of the back porch covered in snow.  Here's how the back porch looks now.  You can't even see any of the patio furniture.  I took this picture out of the patio door.

We get these crazy icicles here.  It is really bright and sunny most days.  The snow then begins to melt and drip and icicles form, each day getting a little bigger.  There are some huge ones hanging on some of the buildings in town.  In fact, people have been killed while walking under one when it's fallen.  Here in Zima, workers walk around knocking them off the houses.  Here is a closeup photo of some pretty big icicles on the house across the street.

Midweek I decided it was time to dig the car out in case I wanted to go someplace.  Not really a good idea to wait till the last minute.  Zima will clear your driveway when your car is not in it.  When we got the big dump of snow the previous Friday, we moved the car to the rec center around the corner so that they would clear the driveway.  We moved it back but then we got a lot more snow.  Here's the car before I cleaned it off and dug it out midweek:

I cleaned off the car and cleared enough snow so that I could move it and then the workers came and cleared the driveway.  This is the day that I posted on Facebook that I shoveled snow for the first time. 

Since I took the above picture, I had the workers come back to get a little more of the pile in front of the garage.  They have a big huge shoveler used to clear the roads and also a smaller bobcat.  The bobcat was busy and couldn't come, but the big one moved more snow so that I was able to shovel enough so that we can go in and out of the garage.  I shoveled a lot that day.  It would be nice to keep the car in the garage.  The bad thing about that is, if it's a warm day, the snow will fall off the roof and there will be a big huge pile in front of the garage.  Then it takes a really long time to get your car out.  We leave ours out and just clean it off each time we want to go someplace. It's crazy when the snow falls off the roof.  The first time I heard this big loud thump, it scared me to death.   I didn't know what it was.  Even now, it still surprises me because you never know when it will happen.

Love to you all,
Karen  

Lunch in a Blizzard

At the time I posted my first blog, we were just starting to get the biggest snow of the winter so far.  On Friday we were having a real snow storm.  Some of the ladies and I had planned to go into town for lunch that day and decided that blizzard or no blizzard, we were still going.  Even though I had driven on the snow and ice before we left for the holidays, I had never driven in a blizzard and decided against driving that day.  Good thing, as it was crazy.  I rode with a lady who's lived here for 5 years and was used to it.  A lot of the traffic lights were out and we saw several fender benders on our way there.  The restaurant we went to is called Old Friend Cafe or Старый друг Кафе for my Russian speaking friends.

The restaurant was small, just a few tables, and had typical Russian food.  Here are just a few of the interesting decorations on the wall.  We sat at a table right under these guys:

One of the ladies had a birthday the next day, so someone brought a cake for her.  It was a nice lunch and the first time I had been to this restaurant.

  
We were in the restaurant for less than two hours but had major car cleaning to do before we could drive home (still in the blizzard).

Love to you all!


Karen

New Blog

I've finally decided to start a blog.  I've wanted to start one for a while now but kept thinking I would wait until I came up with a clever blog title and a great web page design.  Even though I don't have either, I've decided to just go for it and hopefully I'll get creative as I go along. 

With this blog I hope to share my experiences, adventures and even just daily life here on Sakhalin Island with family and friends.  When I first got here in October last year I was writing individual emails to everyone sharing my experiences.  I've since gotten involved in quite a lot of activities and volunteer work and don't have as much time as I did at first.  This blog will hopefully be a great way to let you know what's going on and I'll try to post regularly. 

We arrived back on Sakhalin Island January 7 after a wonderful three week Christmas holiday in Houston.  It was really great to see family and friends.  It snowed quite a lot while we were away, but up until this morning it hadn't snowed at all in the week since we've been back.  I'm told that normally at this time of year there is a lot more snow on the ground.  Here's a picture of our back porch taken out of the patio door yesterday afternoon.  Seems like a lot of snow to me.

Last Saturday we went into town to do a bit of shopping and Max took me to see the ice sculptures on display in Lenin Square.  He saw them when he was here before and I think they have them every year at this time.  They are really beautiful and quite detailed.  Max posted a couple of photos on Facebook but I thought I would share a few more photos of the sculptures here.  The sun was really not in the best spot for the photos, but I think you can still see them pretty well.

This is a cool maze where the kids can play.  In the background you can see a sculpture of the three little pigs.

 

Santa Claus

 

Love to you all! 

Karen