It's Tuesday in Birobadijan and I'm out of witty openings 09-15-09

It’s Tuesday in Birobadijan and I’m out of witty openings
Oh, wait I just got one, let’s see if you get the reference. It’s day eight, America held hostage.


Yah, it’s been eight days in Birobadijan and I have to say I have still not met a person who has been nasty to me. They have been very pleasant and I have tipped well. Is there a connection? That’s just a bad joke the reality of the situation is we have gone to dinner with CJ and Fran and CJ has decided the tip so I guess we can still go back to these restaurants. Tonight was a Chinese restaurant and surprisingly there is little difference between Chinese American food and Chinese Russian food. Maybe they use a little more mayonnaise here. OK, cheap shot, for the uninformed Russians use mayonnaise in a lot of things. If you order a salad it has mayonnaise in it, Russian dressing has mayonnaise in it, and if you want you can get a little mayonnaise on the side with your potato pancakes which are actually very good. All of the mayonnaise based salads are pretty good; there is no salad that I have come across here that has lettuce in it. The appetizers have more lettuce in them then the salads, but it is a garnish and I’ve never been sure if you can eat the garnish. Back to Dinner, We had sweet and sour chicken, a first, it’s been mostly pork we’ve eaten, Pork and something, a noodle dish with clear noodles and a brown sauce, also good and stuffed, fried eggplant, another thing we’ve eaten a lot of was good. We asked for egg rolls and they said they didn’t have them, I thought it would be something that would have gone over big it is cabbage stuffed with pork and other things and it is fried. It should have been a hit. We had beer (CJ and I) and it was the first beer that didn’t taste good, this one was a little skunky. Dinner was quickly over so we went to a coffee shop where we had coffee yesterday and afterwards we swatted mosquitoes while waiting for our ride. It was a good, if short night.
Now about the girls, it was another repeat of the previous day. We went to Pit stop for lunch and while there (we went because it was raining) Yulila went to take care of some of our paper work for the girls visas and passports. We ate met CJ and Fran with Max there and Max and the girls went into the maze and spent enough time there to work off lunch (the girls) or to get so wound up and refused to eat (Max). CJ and Fran left and we waited for Yulila to return. We were at the pit stop until about four when we went to our apartment and received not then, but now the biggest laugh when the girls went ‘wow’ when they saw the apartment; they then proceeded to act out just like they did yesterday at the orphanage. I tried a different tack with them instead of yelling at them and taking stuff away as punishment I wrapped one of them in my arms and said in my best Russian, that Teri had to correct ‘I love you’ I then kissed them and let them go to see what effect it had. It had none. Well none visible, but I will keep trying it for now.
We left to bring them back and on the way we got them some fruit for their group. We have to figure out some way to hold the fruit and let it ripen. They get it and serve it the same day and it is not ready to eat. Maybe we can talk to them about holding it? Maybe.