Back from T-land!

We're back! And if my visitor-counter thingy is anything to go by, not posting anything for two weeks is killing the traffic to this site. Also, our comments have gone way down, so we obviously are doing something wrong. And, while some of you might argue that leaving the same content up on the blog for weeks on end is doing something wrong, I would counter that, ... um, ... well, ... OK, you're right, that's probably what the problem is.

But, as a reward for sticking around, I give you the trip to T-land, complete with pictures and video:

Most of our time was spent preparing documents for our residency application, but since I didn't take any pictures in their office and you don't want to hear about the frustrations with translation and spelling and notaries, I'll just skip all that stuff and stick to the fun.

We probably already whined enough about the length of the trip out there, but it was long. 3 days in a train coupe with two little boys - well, let's just say it's a good thing Mommy was there with some books and other distractions or it could really have gone downhill.

Then, when we had finally gone as far as the railroad could take us, we packed up the family into one of these:

for the 5-hour drive into T-land. Fortunately, the drive was broken up by a stop at the shashlik stand halfway there, where we enjoyed a nice skewer of shashlik and plov.

The scenery on the drive was breathtaking. Mountains, forests, snow - my absolute favorites, all in one place. Reminded me a bit of Colorado back in the US.

Once we got there and got settled in, we needed to explore the town a bit. One of our first days there we headed out to take in some of the Shagaa (T-land's New Year) celebrations. Our first discovery: it's cold in Siberia in mid-February. Who knew?

-38 was as cold as it got. Apparently, it regularly gets below -40, but not while we were there, thank goodness. Here's a shot of the square in front of the national theater, complete with prayer wheel and mountains in the background.

The prayer wheel is an interesting thing, and one that we'll obviously need to get some more cultural data on, but it seems to be something that Buddhists will spin in order to send prayers upward and thus improve their standing in the spiritual realms somehow. I think I mentioned it in the blog we posted there, but here's the missing picture.

I liked this sign at the market downtown: "Specialized Market: Things." I guess I just like the creativity of the signmaker, who, when asked to put up a sign designating the specialty of the market, went with "stuff" as his answer.

I have lots of pictures of just regular street scenes that we shot, but I really like this one of the little girl bundled up. She's even wearing gloves, something that somewhat counter-logically is actually rare there.

Anyway, we also managed to get in for a performance of the Shagaa dances and cultural presentation at the national theater. We were the only white faces in a full house, so apparently this is just a T thing and not a Russian one. Here a shaman performs a dance.

One of the things we needed to do while out in T-land (besides handing in our documents for residency) was to meet with our teammates and make some team decisions. Here, we're hard at work making decisions. I believe that I decided to go with the grape juice, while David finally decided to eat the last chocolate cookie. You know, important team decisions.

We did manage to get out and try the local cuisine as well. Actually, it had been a while since we'd eaten in a restaurant (Moscow is prohibitively expensive in this regard), so we did quite a bit of this. I found this lower-end place and got quite a few stares, as, once again, I was the only white face there. The lady at the checkout didn't understand my Russian, either (she only spoke T), but eventually I managed to get a bowl of soup, a roll, and a piece of meat for about $1.50.

Our coworkers introduced us to this place: the T-land Krispy Kreme. And, can I just say, delicious. Who knew that putting sweetened condensed milk on doughnuts would be so good? Actually, thinking about it, who wouldn't know that would be good?

We had some time to relax between stressfully filling out paperwork and waiting for the office to open again so we could resubmit said paperwork and have it denied for a misspelling again. Here we're playing cards, again under the auspices of "team bonding" time and calling it work.

One of our coworkers bought a Nintendo Wii, so we also managed to spend some time getting fit indoors, which is nice when it's so cold out. B took the boxing game, well, let's just say seriously.

Finally, all of our paperwork was accepted (thanks for thinking of us!) and now we just have to wait for the application to be processed. Hopefully, if all goes well, we'll be able to move out there in the summer.

Once everything was done, it was time to get back in the car and head home. We went past this hill, which I remarked looked like a stegosaurus' back. The driver then informed me that it's known as "Dragon Hill" by the locals.

Actually, our trip out got a bit interesting. We opted to fly, as it was about the same price as the long train ride, but the night before our flights left, they closed the main road to the town where the airport is. Our taxi driver told us of an alternative, but it takes 11 hours to drive that way. Fortunately, at the last moment, we got a call saying the original road might be opened.

We decided to chance it, it seemingly being far from a sure thing that the long road would even get us to the airport in time. We eventually maneuvered to this tunnel, which was apparently the main obstacle, since funds don't permit sealing it off completely, and in its current state it's vulnerable to snow buildup.

We had quite a slog through some of the worst bits, much to the enjoyment of our boys, who managed to get hungry, dizzy, and bored all at the same time.

Anyway, since you're watching videos and seeing pictures, you know we have decent internet again, meaning we made it to Moscow, so it's obvious we did make it to the airport. And quite the airport it was. This is the main terminal area, around 3 in the afternoon: a full house. I found it a bit odd that in the middle of the day, there would be a total of 3 other people in the entire airport, counting staff.

Anyway, I think that's it. Again, thanks for thinking of us during our time out there. I have so much more I want to say about how excited we are to be this close to our final destination, but I'll save that for an email maybe. Thanks and see you again next week.