Tea at Vanessa’

Colorful houses in Krasnoyarsk

About 9:30 we (Jamie, Roger and I) headed to the bus that would take us to where Vanessa lives.  It is in an area that has more houses.  Many of the houses are divided into apartments that are owned like condos.  Lena (the girl she lives with) and her mom live in one of these apartments.  Vanessa met us at the bus stop to show us the way to the apt.  It was a few blocks away.  A lot of the buildings were painted bright colors that were fun to see…especially in a place where there is not too much color.  Although I must say that since the weather has warmed up the grass is turning green (tho there is not much of it) and the trees are beginning to open their buds.  Also people have cleaned up yards and common areas and it looks so much cleaner and brighter than when we first came.  I guess it helps that the snow is melted and mud is dried up as well.  

Jamie, Lena and Vanessa

So we enjoyed the walk to Vanessa’s and loved having tea there.  We were told that it would be rude not to provide a spread of several salads and goodies but she did a great job with cookies, cucumber sandwiches and tea.  It was nice to see a Russian home and I have to say that when Lena asked me about our home in America and how big it is I cringed to have to say we had 4 bedrooms…and then she wanted to know how many bathrooms and what the yard was like etc…It just reminded me how much we have that we don’t really need…a simpler life is sometimes so much easier…but also harder. 

Sam and Sophie having fun on the swings

We were there a couple hours and then took the bus home.  Jamie and Vanessa were going on to class but Roger and I had no trouble finding our way home…so proud of ourselves J Actually Roger is so good at figuring out how to get around places that it did not surprise me in the least. When we got back to the apt. we met Lucas coming out to go pick up Sam from preschool so we went with him.  Sam was thrilled to see everyone there to meet him.  After naptime Jamie came home and brought a friend who is a student with them.  He is from Inner Mongolia (China) and likes to come practice English with Lucas and Jamie.  He wanted to see some of our pictures from our trip so we showed him some. 

Enjoying playing in the car

Then Roger and I took Sam and Sophie out to the playground and had a great time with them.  Sophie will be walking soon and it will be helpful because right now she wants to keep up with Sam but its way to muddy or dirty to let her crawl around.  But it was fun anyway.  Sam was having fun going down the slide as fast as he could and would land on his bum each time... bouncing hard and then would run to the ladder rubbing his bum going “oi oi oi (ouch in Russian).”  After about a dozen times Roger suggested he land on his feet and showed him how…Sam was quite thrilled with that.  We later found out that the reason he was bouncing on his bum was from going down ice slides where there is a large extension and you could keep going off the end of it.  Why didn’t we think of that?  Ha ha!  I guess there are some things you only learn from living here in Siberia.