Instant Coffee and Sock Baths, what a world! 09-22-09

Grain silos near orphanage

Hello again from the far east, America. First thing first. If you all sign up with Skype and e-mail us and tell us your skype number or better yet while on skype look for eymuller@optonline.net there will be two numbers, one home and the other the laptop. You can call us and better yet if you have a camera ($20.00 Microsoft) at Target we can video call and it is for free as long as you go computer to computer. I tried this once in the dark ages and got a camera and my buddy and I did video calls and it was a pain. The new camera’s are smaller and don’t need to be programmed. It’s really great stuff.
Now it is time for the new game show called what third world event happened to Joe and Teri today. You guess the question after I give the answer. Ready go there is no hot water in the town. You are right, the answer is what? Next question, ready, go they pipe hot water to the entire town. You are right the answer is what? The next question is the internet net is down also are they connected. Again you are right that is a question and you can’t answer a question with a question unless you are a child talking to an Adult.
I don’t know what the problem is, but yesterday we had a rainy day and the streets flooded and we were at the Pit Stop this time it was our choice, I’ve related this story except the rain part and the fact that the girls had no hats and got soaked and we felt like poor parents. Well today there is no hot water and the internet is down. Is this our punishment? I don’t know Teri tried to shower this morning but said it was too cold so she took a sock and hot pot bath and if you don’t know what that is I will tell you. She took a hot pot that boils water and warmed some water in it, saving enough for a cup of coffee. With the difference she cleaned a pair of socks and then used them in a nonsponge type bath. It was the start of another day in paradise, except it all ready left.

interesting graffitti near Passport Office 

We spent the beginning of the day doing paperwork for the girl’s passports until about 1pm. After that we had time for lunch and time to walk around the open air market out the back of the hotel. We bought the girls grapes and just walked around the market looking at all the stalls or kiosks (Russian word, we stole from them in the eighties and it must mean small shop.) After that we went to a passport office which was in the ground floor of an old soviet housing complex. It is surrounded by apartments and is over near the massive grain silos that are no longer used. I guess it is cheaper to import then to grow. You can see in some of the pictures I’ve taken where the land looks like it used to be fields just like upstate New York. After the passport office we went back to the square to get some copies made and then over to a government office so Teri and I could sign some papers. Then we went to pick up the girls and they still had that poor scrawny cat with his bad eyes and skin and bones personality. We hung out with the girls again at the riverside park until it was about 5pm so we could get some paperwork from another passport office which had at one time a pretty nice mosaic made out of cement on the floor. The office was filled with about 40 people and the majority are women. This town is experiencing a man shortage or all the men are in hiding. At the passport office Nadeshda’s influence came into effect for the first known time. We waited at a door with about eight people and when they were ready we went in first, pretty cool. The apartment is still not worth 100.00 a day. When we got in there a guess someone didn’t take their morning cold shower or use deodorant, enough, she was too pretty to smell that bad. I kept checking to make sure it wasn’t me. Like I said enough about that, but she really did smell, really.
We went out to dinner to the Chinese restaurant around the block and dinner was good. This is the second to last night CJ and Fran will be in town. They leave on Thursday, we leave Saturday and end up only a day behind them in Moscow, I think it’s because of the time change or maybe it’s the weekend.
It’s now time to take a cold water shower. If you do not ever hear from me again you will know I didn’t make it.