Back from the USSR ... errr ... Russian Federation

We are back home! Jeff was released from the job in Ryazan on Friday and Saturday we headed to Moscow for a little bit of work and a little bit of sight seeing. We will definitely be posting pictures and a blog about the trip soon. We left Moscow on Wednesday afternoon and got back here on Wednesday evening.

We're not sure how long we'll be back or where we are off to next, but we will let you know as soon as we find out!

PS - Watch out for Mia's London post with pictures ... coming soon!

Apparently Daylight Savings Time Has Started

So apparently yesterday (Sunday) daylight savings time started in Russia, a fact that Jeff and I learned this morning (Monday) when a co-worker called telling Jeff that the van to work was waiting for him. We were still asleep and were very much confused. After taking a few moments to clear our heads we realized that it must have been daylight savings yesterday, as we thought it was 7:10 a.m., but the co-worker on the phone said it was 8:10 a.m.

That got me to thinking, how do you know its daylight savings? Maybe some people out there pay close attention to the dates, but for Jeff and I daylight savings always just sort of rolls around without either of us really knowing about it more than a day or two in advance. When you are in the States you normally hear about it on the news or someone who heard it on the news reminds you (we were in Russia when daylight savings started a few weeks ago back home, but because we read US news, we knew that clocks were changing). Even if for some reason you failed to hear about daylight savings before you wake up Sunday morning, there are usually a myriad of things that will clue you in to the new time, such as an automated clock (cell phone, computer, cable box, etc.) displaying a different time than your watch, tuning into your favorite TV show only to see it is not currently on, or even showing up at an event at the wrong time. In any case, we are willing to bet that by the end of the day Sunday most people have managed to figure out the new time (after all, neither of us can remember a time where we didn’t figure it out in our 50 combined years of life on this planet).

With all of that said, how in the heck did we fail to figure out that the time changed? Well, for starters . . . how are we supposed to know which countries observe daylight savings time? Honestly, I couldn’t list the countries that do and do not spring forward and fall back each year (even though ironically Jeff and I saw a map with that exact information earlier this week – but we were just looking at it to see what time it was in Brazil, not to see if daylight savings was coming)! But besides that, all of the normal things that would clue us in back home are absent here. Jeff didn’t work on Sunday, and we spent the day relaxing in the hotel for the most part. When we went to eat, we were well within the hours that the restaurant was open, so there was nothing to clue us in there. We don’t have a cell phone that is synched up with Russian time, and both of our computers are set to Central Time. We don’t speak Russian or follow Russian news, and we don’t get any English news stations that might have tipped us off to the change. We watched American TV through our Slingbox, but because the time didn’t change in the US, all of our sporting events and shows were on at their regularly scheduled time. Finally, there is only one clock in this entire hotel, and it is in the lobby above the elevators. Since we didn’t take the elevators from the lobby, we didn’t see the new time (not that we would have been looking since we had no reason to suspect we were off by an hour).

I guess we have learned our lesson for future travels!

Adventures in Guildford

I had to do my paperwork for my visa renewal Monday morning, but I got to spent the afternoon exploring Guildford. The town was founded almost 1500 years ago, so I knew there was some history to explore. I wasn't quite sure where to start, so I decided to head out to the tourism office, which was really helpful. I got a few maps and found one for a historical walking tour of town. The tour took most of the afternoon, and I got some amazing pictures. I won't show all of them (though they are up on our Yahoo site), but here are a few of my favorites.

This is a picture of the Great Tower, which is part of the old Guildford Castle. The Tower was built in 1130 by the Normans (though the castle was built much earlier). I guess it never was really used for the military purposes, but it was the primary prison of the region for some time.

This arch, which was built in 1256, served as the main entrance to the Guildford Castle.

Here are a few more pictures of the Castle Grounds.

This is St. Mary's Church, which is the only remaining building in Guildford that dates back to the Saxon times. It was build in about 1050 and had some really old looking gravestones outside. Unfortunately, the grounds were closed when I was there, so I couldn't walk through and take a closer look.

This is the Holy Trinity Church. I'm not sure when it was originally built, but I guess at some point in history the spire collapsed, so they rebuilt it. This is the rebuilt church, which was finished in 1761.

Across the street from the Church is The Hospital of the Blessed Trinity, which is commonly called Abbot's Hospital. It was founded in 1619 by George Abbot, who was the Archbishop of Canterbury.

While it may look sunny in that picture, the weather quickly changed, and I was caught in a freak hail/snow storm. It was too funny, and I just had to take a picture!

After that I called it a day and high tailed it back to my hotel room to dry off and warm up!

Russian Photos

We never were able to upload our photos from Ryazan into our old blog, so I thought while I have free internet I would post some of them for you all to see.

This was the view from our hotel when we first arrived. Now all of that snow has melted and we can see that most of that icy area is actually a parking lot!

This was our super small first hotel room (minus a small bathroom, this was it - not even a closet!):

Here are a few pictures from the Ryazan Kremlin:

There is a pretty cool memorial to World War II Veterans on one of the main streets. Every Saturday we have seen Brides, Grooms, and entire wedding parties at the memorial (we are guessing to pay homage?). Here are some pictures:

In Case You Didn't Already Know . . .

Okay, so I am sure many of you guessed it already (or logged onto AIM where I proudly proclaimed it), but yes, I am in London! I have free internet here, so I will definitely be posting a few new blogs for our loyal readers.

First of all let me tell you about my trip here. On leg one of the journey I had a driver pick me up at the hotel in Ryazan and drive me to the airport in Moscow. It was a really interesting drive. The drive spoke English pretty well, so we chit-chatted a bit. He gave me a lot of the history of Ryazan (it used to be really important), and explained that while most of the country modernized after the fall of communism, Ryazan is exactly the same. This is pretty consistent with what Jeff and I have noticed, namely that it seem like the town is just about 15 years behind (for example credit cards are accepted in only a few isolated stores, restaurants, etc.). My driver, along with many we have talked to from Moscow, didn't think too much of the city as a result of the stagnation. The drive was pretty quick compared to what I thought it would be (only about 2.5 hours), but probably because we were going about 140 kilometers/hour (almost 90 mph) for most of it! I seriously felt like I was in a race car at times!

Leg two consisted of a flight from Moscow to London. It took about 4 hours and went pretty smoothly, minus the dude next to me who was yelling at the flight attendants before we were even off the ground (he felt his view of the TV was inadequate). The final leg of the journey was a drive from London to Guildford, where I am staying. I was picked up at the airport by the NICEST driver who drive me out here (about a 45 minute drive southwest of London). The driver had the nicest car and I seriously felt like a VIP.

So my plan is to take care of the visa, explore Guildford and hopefully spend some time in Central London! More posts to come . . .

Where in the World is Mia???

My Russian visa has expired, so I was forced to leave Jeff in Ryazan while I left the country to get a new visa. Stay tuned for more information on my present location. Oh, I think when Matt Lauer does this he gives a few clues, so here you go:

1. I have never been here before.

2. The flight here was about 4 hours from Moscow.

3. There is a lot of history here and I can't wait to do touristy things.

I think many of you already know where I am , but I will take guesses! Stay tuned!

Happy (Belated) St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! Anyone who knows my family knows that St. Patrick's Day is close to THE most important holiday in the Hoffman household. Although Russian's know March 17th is St. Patrick's Day, they don't know much about why and how it is celebrated. In Ryazan, we did not see any celebrations or indication that it was a holiday. In fact, some people didn't know that Jeff and I were wearing green to celebrate, not because we are that creepy couple that likes to be matchy-matchy. However, we did some research online and read that in Moscow the holiday has gained popularity since the fall of communism and that there is at least one parade in some area of Moscow (I don't think we are talking the Boston Parade by any means) to celebrate the day. There's an interesting history of the holiday in Moscow if you follow the link above.

In honor of St. Patrick's Day Jeff and I ate at a Mexican restaurant :) It may sound odd, but there are not a lot of really nice restaurants in Ryazan, and there are even fewer that have an English menu (believe me, it takes forever to order when you are trying to use a Russian Phrasebook to translate the menu.) Jeff asked around to find the best restaurant in town that also has an English menu, and when we told people we were going to the "Gin Mill" restaurant they were like "Ohhhh, that's so expensive!" It was a cute place that reminded us of a Chili's back home. The food was really good (nachos, tacos and chocolate milkshakes), and it was so nice to have something different for a change. We then returned to the hotel to watch NCAA basketball online while enjoying a few beers (no St. Patrick's day would be complete without them). All in all it was probably the most fun day we have had since we were here!

Love and Marriage, Love and Marriage …

… it’s an institute you can’t disparage.

So a few weeks ago while channel surfing, Jeff came across the intro to the now-defunct show, The Nanny … or so we thought. However, we noticed that instead of Fran Drescher and her annoying voice/laugh, it was a Russian doppelganger. The same characters it seemed, but not being a big fan of the original show, we didn’t focus in on it.

So yesterday, again while channel surfing, we came across this scene (and yes, we photographed the television).

For all the fans of Married with Children out there, let it be known that the show is alive and kicking here in Russia. Since Mia and I were big fans of the show when we were younger, we watched the episode. It’s a complete knock-off re-make with Russian actors playing the Bundy family. The plot line had Kelly Bundy dance in front of everyone which she turned into a provocative stripper-esque routine. Maybe you remember the same episode in its American form. As you see, they don’t even make up new material! Now maybe Russian standards are different, or maybe because its 15 years later, but it seemed Kelly showed a lot more skin than we remembered. Other than that, the plot line was the same. The show even has Marcy Darcy. Sadly, they left out the opening Sinatra song and Buckingham Fountain scene.

We’ll have to keep our eye open for the next Russian knock-off. Harry and the Henderson’s? Mr. Belvedere, is it you? Charles in Charge, I am looking in your direction.

Happy International Women's Day

March 8th is International Women’s Day here in Russia. On Women’s Day men traditionally shower the women in their lives (mothers, wives, etc.) with flowers. It is similar to Mother’s Day, which they do not celebrate as a separate holiday here, but lucky for us ladies more than just mothers are honored. Many employees have Women’s Day off work and it is seen as a day to relax and be with family, which I certainly did. And in case you were wondering, no, Jeff did not shower me with flowers, but I’ll cut him some slack since there aren’t any flower stores around here. He did however figure out that you can order French Fries in the café at the hotel, so I was as happy as can be!

Men, don’t feel left out, there is also a men’s day of sorts celebrated on February 23rd, which just so happens to be the day we arrived in Russia. Unfortunately for Jeff, he didn’t get showered with my praises since we didn’t know the holiday existed! Its called Protector of the Motherland (or Fatherland depending on the source) Day, and from what I can gather it is similar to a Veteran's Day combined with Father's Day.

The Soul of Korea

The Soul of Korea – that’s the slogan for the city of Seoul. We know this is a little delayed, but we wanted to still post something about our short trip there before leaving Korea back in January. First off, we stayed at the Westin Chosun Hotel, which was awesome. It’s listed as one of the top 100 hotels in the whole world and is the oldest hotel in Korea (as proved by the following plaque on the side of the building).

Seoul was quite different compared to Ulsan. There were a lot more American restaurants and stores (we ate at Subway and Cold Stone – so good!) and in general a lot more Americans.

As we said in previous posts, we were (okay, at least I was) really excited to see the Myeongdong Cathedral, which was the first Catholic Church in Korea, built in 1898. It was really close to our hotel, so as soon as we arrived and unpacked a bit we headed out towards the Cathedral. Unfortunately, when we got there we realized that the whole outside and front of the church were under construction, so we didn’t get to see the tower portion. However, to not disappoint the many tourists who come to visit the Cathedral, the church raised scaffolding all around the Cathedral and hung a canvas that was painted to look like the real Cathedral underneath.
It wasn’t quite as impressive as seeing the real thing, but it was still pretty cool that they tried to give you the effect of what it would look like. There were tons of people milling around the Cathedral, and it was hard to tell if we could go inside with all of the construction. We saw some people going in and out of a construction entrance, so we decided to try and go in. We entered through the side only to realize that we were crashing a wedding. Jeff wanted me to take a picture, but I just felt a little awkward, so we booked it out of there. We came back on our last day and were able to get some pictures of the inside, which was gorgeous.

On the last day we also took some pictures of the statues outside since there weren’t too many people milling around outside. I especially loved the Grotto, which was a shrine to the Virgin Mary.

Something really distinctive about Seoul is all of the ancient sites scattered throughout this completely modern city. In addition to the Cathedral we visited Gyeongbokgung Palace. It was this huge ancient palace and we spent an entire afternoon walking through the grounds. The buildings were all so cool and different, but they all seemed to have these dragons built into the roof for protection.


There were also a bunch of statutes and carvings on all the stairways and scattered throughout the palace grounds.
Jeff loves this little guy and ended up buying a statute of him to take home with us!

Another really unique tourist attraction is the Cheonggyecheon Stream. which was recently reconstructed a few years ago. It is a site of an ancient stream that formed the class-boundary in the city. On one side was the Emperor and the upper class, and on the other side the peasants. Over time, the stream became dirty and a locale for the homeless and other "undesirables." The city then covered the river to eliminate the problem. In an effort to beautify the city and recover a piece of its past, Seoul invested a ton of time and money reconstructing it. They laid down stone and carefully controlled the flow, which starts with a big waterfall on the north side of town. Jeff actually saw an hour long show about the engineering of it on TV (Discovery Channel?) when he was in Saudi Arabia. The grand reopening was just about two years ago. The end result was really cool – basically a man made river through town that looks completely natural. We walked down different parts of it every day we were there and took a ton of pictures.
The final touristy thing we did was taking a tram ride up to Seoul Tower, the highest point in Seoul. It’s basically a spire located on top of a big hill.

We got some gorgeous views from the observation deck of the tower (it wasn't the clearest day, but oh well).
Instead of taking the tram back down the hill, we decided to walk down and got some more great pictures along the way.

I guess the walkway down the hill is quite famous for Koreans. They call it a lover’s trail and its said that any man who proposes along the walk will not be refused. Towards the bottom of the hill there was this bench that I couldn't help but take a picture of.

In case you can’t read the bench, it says “stand on this bench and sing a love song." In case you were wondering, no, Jeff was not singing (but it does look like he might be drawing a tear).

Wow, this has been one heck of a long blog! I guess we really packed a lot into those three short days!

Fun Observations

My favorite thing about traveling is observing all of the little things that make the country we are in unique. We haven’t been here too long, but I thought since we have internet access for the next few days I would post a few of the observations we have made so far. I am sure we will post another blog with more later.

1. We are not sure if it is nation-wide or just in our hotel, but the elevators here are really tiny. The door is about as wide as our suitcase and no more than four people can fit in the car. Also, there’s not an up or a down button, but just one button to call the elevator. Thus when you get in you are taken directly to your floor without stopping (besides, there wouldn’t be room to stop and pick up people on other floors!). It definitely makes the ride a lot quicker!

2. Despite the fact that it’s winter and pretty cold here, people seem to walk a lot more than they drive. Now because it’s winter, there is a lot of snow and ice all over the sidewalks, which makes it really difficult for parents to push children in a stroller or pull a cart with groceries or other goods. The Russians have an awesome solution to this problem: sleds. When you walk down the street you see all kinds of sleds, from the commercially produced to the cleverly homemade. I don’t know why, but every time I see them it makes me smile, especially when there are children aboard because they just look so happy.

3. Whereas Americans line up behind the person in front of them, Jeff and I have noticed a lot of people here line up next to you instead of behind you.

4. When exchanging dollars into rubles, Russian banks will not take dollars unless they are perfectly crisp and free of any defects. This makes perfect sense, because if you don’t deal in the currency often, you might not know the difference between real and counterfeit, so to avoid problems, you just take ones you know are perfect. Jeff and I learned this when several of our dollar bills were rejected at the bank for defects. We then decided to look at every bill we had and realized how many of them had writing or other ink blotches on them! It’s really funny, because it’s something that you rarely recognize when you’re in America, but I guess we have dirty money! Seriously, look in your wallet and compare the number of perfect bills to the number of bills with writing or ink or tears, etc. I think you’ll be surprised. In conclusion . . . stop writing on your money!

5. At the hotel here there is no such thing as a room tab. You pay for your room in advance, so every couple of days you go downstairs and pay for a few more days. Also, when you go to the café you can’t just charge something to your room. That’s definitely one way to make sure people don’t run off without paying their bill!

6. Before we left everyone asked us to see if the “traditional Russian hats” (you know, the big furry ones with the earflaps that tie on top of your head) are actually worn in Russia. Now it has been relatively warm here (nothing close to below zero Fahrenheit), so we can’t say for sure, but walking around I would say that about 1/3 to 1/2 of the people we saw were wearing the hats. They are so fun and Jeff and I definitely want to try and pick some up before we leave!

Musical Rooms

When we switched rooms last week the hotel forgot to note that the larger rooms were all booked this week for a children’s musical festival. What did that mean for Jeff and I? That we got to switch rooms again . . . back to the smaller room we started in. We are only here for two nights, so it’s totally not that big of a deal. Plus, this room is actually a little better than the first room we were in because it has two twin beds, so we can store our luggage on one bed during the day and it does not seem quite as cramped. However, the best thing about this room is that we are just below the café and we can get wireless internet access in our room (though the signal strength isn’t the best)!!! It is still really expensive, but at least I can spend a little time over the next two days keeping in touch with people back home and posting new blogs (I have been writing them offline so I can just copy and paste as soon as I get online). After that we are back to a larger room (probably without internet access) hopefully for the rest of our stay here. With all of this moving Jeff and I were really happy that we were able to cut out one suitcase from our last trip!

We're Here!

Greetings from Ryazan, Russia! We left on Thursday afternoon Chicago time, and after a 8 hour flight to Frankfurt, Germany, a three hour flight to Moscow, and a three hour car ride to Ryazan we arrived late Friday night Russian time. We had initially thought that we would be able to spend a few days in Moscow on our way in, but as things tend to go with Jeff’s job we had to skip Moscow and head straight here. I guess we’ll just have to try and check out Moscow on our way out instead!

The hotel we are staying at is nice, though not quite as luxurious as the Lotte in Korea. It has a security guard (which is nice), a little breakfast restaurant, a small bar, and a café/bar on the top floor. When we first checked in, they gave us a room that was, well . . . tiny - there’s really no other way to say it! It had no closet or dresser, and barely enough room to fit all of our luggage on the floor (not to mention that we couldn’t walk since our luggage took up all the floor space). I snapped a few pictures, but they aren't loading for some reason here, so I will try to post them later.

Jeff had to go to work first thing Saturday morning, but when he got back around noon he talked to the front desk and they had a much nicer room available for us (and the price is really not all that much more), so we moved right away. Our room now is perfect! We have a huge closet with plenty of room for all of our stuff, a big desk for the computer (and for scrapbooking!), a refrigerator, and a luggage bench. We also get cable TV, but the only all English channel we get is CNN World. There are a few movie channels that play American movies, but unlike in Korea where we were spoiled by subtitles, the movies here are all dubbed in Russian.

Since we arrived on the weekend, Jeff worked only half a day, so we spent Saturday and Sunday afternoons exploring Ryazan. We don’t have a car here, so we made sure to bundle up for our walking. The weather here isn’t as bad as I had expected (thought I heard they are having a warm streak right now, so that may change), but it was certainly cold! There was an employee from the office in Moscow here for the first three days we were here and he told us where we could find the Kremlin here in Ryazan. We walked over there on Sunday afternoon, and it was really cool. It was made up of about 8 different buildings, all of which were really different and unique. Again, I will try to post pictures when the upload feature is back and working.

Finally, internet is only available in the lobby and the café at the hotel (and is really expensive), so we definitely won’t be online nearly as often as we were in Korea. We will try to post as much as possible, but don’t be worried if you don’t hear from us!

The Wery's Are Going to Russia!

Jeff found out a few days ago that we are heading out to Ryazan, Russia. We will be leaving on Thursday and are scheduled to be there for about three or four weeks. It's been awesome being at home, but we are really excited to go! We should be staying near the Red Square in Moscow for a night on the way in, so we'll definitely post more when we get there!