Marine Corps Birthday Ball - 9 November 2013

This is a short post...just wanted to share that we went to the Marine Corps Birthday Ball on 9 November. It's a neat event because all around the world, the Marine Corps honors its birthday in exactly the same way, with a fancy dinner ball, a ceremony honoring the youngest and oldest Marines in the room and of course, a birthday cake. This was birthday #278 and we were proud to have the chance to participate.

Us heading out to the ball

Mimi was still in town so Scott and I left our boy knowing he was in excellent hands. Bonus!

A little bedtime reading.

Nice is so nice

So after Cannes, we spent about a week in Nice, waiting to get Beau's passport back from the Russian Consulate in Paris. The first two days were sunny and beautiful. Our hotel was directly on the Promenade des Anglais, that iconic C-shaped pedestrian walkway on the Mediterranean Sea that you see in every photo of Nice. The rest of the days were unfortunately overcast and/or rainy, but it still wasn't very cold compared to Moscow and since we were on vacation it really wasn't that big of a deal.

Jogger on Promenade des Anglais @ sunset

Nice's Park Messena water fountains in full glory on a glorious day.

The no-sleep, short-nap party continued in Nice, so the days were not AS action-packed as they used to be when it was just Scott and me visiting a new city (depends on how you define the term "action-packed," because we were really quite busy waking up every 3 hours, ugh.). So again spent a lot of time in the hotel room. 

Me and Beau, hangin' in the hotel room.

Beau demonstrating his maaad sitting skillz (and 'jazz hands' lower right)...

what, me SLEEP? what is this thing you call Sleep???

Nonetheless, we did still manage to hit up some museums and do a lot of strolling, people watching, and sipping of wine, coffee and FREE, POTABLE tap water, something you can't get in Russia! It's the little things, really. 

We went to the Matisse Museum and the Chagall Museum. Beautiful. 

There was a special chocolate 'show' in town that we'd seen advertised in Cannes for the following weekend (and we had actually lamented that we were *just* missing it, because we were going to Nice - little did we know!) and it turned out to be conveniently located right across the street from our hotel. We took it as a sign we were meant to go. Yum. 

mmm, chocolate!

Holiday chocolate figurines

Macarons at the chocolate show. 

We took a cute, old train called "Le Train des Pignes" on a picturesque ride up into the mountains to a quaint little village called Puget-Theniers, had a coffee / soda and walked around. 

old-fashioned train, old-fashioned photo

father and son ridin' the train :)

view from the train

Puget-Theniers and foggy mountains

happy little boy after his first train ride!

And then there was the eating...in Nice I was better about taking food photos vs Cannes. :)

Creme brûlée dessert from Yuca Mia. Gorgeous presentation and delicious tasting.

Food, glorious foooood!

So tired....but...Must. Eat. Moules.

All in all, a fun trip and a nice break from the grey-ness of Moscow in November.

"Merci, Nice, j'espere revenir bientot! Et encore, vraiment, je ne suis pas fatigue!!"

Bonjour!

Hi from La Cote d'Azur! Scott had a conference in Cannes, France this week so what better idea than for Beau and me to accompany him to the South of France?

Coincidentally, Beau's Russian visa is about to expire next week (because of various snafus, in October we were only able to get him a tourist visa which is good for 28 days) and then we learned late in the process that we actually had to leave the country to get his longer term (ie 1 year multi-entry) visa. So why not get it from France, where we planned on being for a week in November already?

View of Nice from airplane on our way in.

As a result, this week I've been eating my way around Cannes with my sidekick Beau. I'm only half-kidding. I seriously cannot. stop. eating. the BREAD! It is SO good. Alas, no real foodie photos because I keep eating everything before I can take any. Oops.

But here's a photo of the water from the hotel room and one from one of our walks. Pretty terrific location! I'd appreciate it a lot more if I wasn't always closing the curtains to get the boy to nap for more than 30 minutes at a time.

hotel room view (curtains parted temporarily for this shot)

not bad, not bad at all.

  And look at how cute he is most of the time when he's awake...irresistible!

Captain Beau reporting for duty on the French Riviera!

Anyway,  due to his lack of schedule right now, Beau and I have spent a lot of time in our little hotel room, nursing, pacing, rocking, singing and trying not to go crazy from lack of sleep. On a side note, how cute is this hotel room chair? I love it.

It swivels, too! Cool-looking AND comfortable, especially for nursing.

"home" for 5 days

Here's a nice shot of Scott giving Beau a bottle while I ate dinner. 

Once Scott's conference is over, we're going to Nice for another week or so (still waiting for the visa...I know, such a rough life...), which should be very 'nice.' :)

Diapering in Moscow

Ah, the joys of being a New Mom and an Inexperienced Expat.  My latest challenge is buying disposable diapers in Russia. Once again, it's a learning experience and something that stresses me out.

Why? 

First off, sizing. They put 1, 2, 3 etc on the packages just like in the US but the weight ranges are slightly different. AND they're in kilograms! Not a huge deal, but I didn't realize it at first and it makes all of them seem teeny tiny (e.g.  some size 1s are 3-6 kg)!

Second, brand availability. In the stores near our apartment, it seems that Huggies and some Japanese (I think?) brands are the only diapers they sell. Mind you, PAMPERS is the brand I like! Let the sweating begin.

If you like Huggies, lots of choices.

And here are some Japanese(?) kind that are everywhere, inexplicably called "Merries."

Third, naming. This one is kind of weird/funny. All disposable diapers are actually called "Pampers," (weird!) but the Russians pronounce it "Pompers" (funny!). And from prior experience, I've learned that they won't understand you unless you say it their way. So you go to a store, ask for "Pompers" and they point you to the Huggies display. What?? That's right, more sweating.

Fourth and final issue (so far) is styles. They don't seem to use the same names for the different diaper "styles." Once I finally found the Pampers Pompers (haha, still makes me chuckle) instead of Huggies, I didn't see "our" style. No Swaddlers, no Sensitive and no Baby Dry. Instead they sell "Premium Care," "Active Baby" and "New Baby." Yikes, now what?

After testing out a few different kinds, I think I've settled on "Premium Care" which looks and is sized close to the States' "Sensitive" line, just without the little indicator strip that turns color when it's wet. Strangely, both "Active Baby" and I believe "New Baby" do have the strip (but the sizing on these was just a bit too big for Beau) so it's hard to tell what is actually so premium about them. Oh well.

I do feel like I've worked it out now, so the score is now Moscow - 25,000, CB - 1. :)

Success! Pampers Pompers! :)

Siena, the Pill of Apartment 44

I had no idea what a smart and opportunistic dog we had until my mom came to stay with us! In the past 10 days Siena has managed to steal the following from the kitchen table and counters:

-- half a small loaf of bread

-- 2 large pieces of cheese

-- 1 big rugalach cookie from Zabar's that was hand-carried to Moscow all the way from NYC

-- 2 small Russian meat pies (partially eaten)

-- 3 semi-cooked pork sausages
-- countless socks and several shoes from the floor and laundry bin in mom's room

This fantastic pill of a dog figured out that mom was making all sorts of delicious things in the kitchen and stuck real close by, waiting for the perfect moment to attack. And because mom was multi-tasking between taking care of Beau and cooking (giving me a break because of Beau's horrible jetlag) there were lots of opportunities.

This would all be marginally funny except that:

• we wanted to eat those things ourselves;
• it's enough of a hassle to get good food in Moscow without having to worry about your dog stealing it;
• the fact that it hasn't happened to us before now embarrassingly highlights how little cooking I've been doing (sigh. oh well.)...and;
• we live on the 8th floor, so the, ahem, 'side effects' of eating all that people food are kind of a pain in the neck for those of us who have to take Ms. S outside to do her business!!

Needless to say, Siena has lost all her kitchen privileges and her food / water dishes have been moved to the living room so she has no excuse for hanging out in the kitchen.

Done and done.