Off to Estonia!

Yep, folks, you read that right. The Wandering Family is officially off to do some, well, wandering. Only this time it's required wandering - it says so right in our passports. Oh, and the picture above is just so you can quit pretending you knew right where Estonia is.

Actually, it's like this - our visas last for a whole year, but Russia also requires everyone here to be registered somewhere. We can get year-long visas, but only six-month-long registration, meaning that we have to leave the country and come back in every six months. Since our six months is up on Monday, we're headed out tomorrow to Tallinn, Estonia, home of the "Cheapest Ticket Out Of The Country From Moscow." We will hopefully be back on Sunday, bearing shiny new immigration forms to take to our registration place. Then, if all goes well, we'll be legal again until May (what will happen then is a bit unclear presently, since things are a little different than when we came).

At any rate, the next blog should hopefully have some nice pictures of beautiful Tallinn, although maybe not as nice as this one:since it's unlikely that it will suddenly morph into late spring while we're there. And let's not even get started on the subject of weather. It's been below zero for a while now, and now we have a good 8 inches of snow on the ground.

In fact, last week some buddies from our family group told me about their weekly football (or, if you prefer, soccer) game with some lads from the neighborhood (note: I'll give you the word "football," English readers, but I'm not going so far as to spell this one "neighbourhood"), and invited me to attend. I showed up early on Saturday morning not sure what to expect, since we were playing outdoors and the forecast was for snow. And snow it did, all morning, but this did not affect the hearty appetites for more football, and more football, and even more football. We played for three solid hours (the last of which I played primarily in goal, since I was too tired to run any more). It was a great game, however, and I'd like to think that I didn't embarrass myself.

It is a bit tricky, in case you're wondering, to play on a concrete surface in the snow, especially when some of the opposition seem to have worked up a good beer buzz before the proceedings started. Maybe made a bit more tricky when everyone there knows you were born in the same country as Ronaldinho, and you happen to score an amazing (and possibly slightly lucky) goal about 10 minutes into the game. Sorta ups the pressure, if you will. Not sure I managed to live up to the expectations after that, but oh, well, what can you do. Admittedly, I'm not about to knock Ronaldinho off the national team any time soon (though I'm not sure I could be much worse as a defender than Roberto Carlos - and now 90% of my audience is saying "What? Who are these people?"). Since I'm on the subject of football, thus giving me an excuse to post this, I assume all of you were duly impressed with Liverpool's 8-0 victory in the Champions' League. If you happened to miss it, the highlights can be found here.

I don't have the time or energy to hunt down a What Is It for the week, so you'll have to make do with a simple video. Steven seems to enjoy the spin cycle with a passion that borders on the maniacal. Hope you enjoy, and we'll try to post a more significant offering next week, hopefully with pics of our trip included.