Well today was the day. While our jobs in Cost Rica hung in the balance Ian and I decided to dip our feet a little deeper into the water and try out white water rafting instead of pondering our future.  What better place to do this than the Pacuare River in Costa Rica?  Here is our story. . . 

The scene was set beautifully with a two hour drive through some of Costa Rica’s perfect landscape of rolling volcanic hills.  We set off from our hotel in Escazu, San Jose at 6am on the dot. Of course quite a bit earlier than we were used to however, the breakfast stop just near Bueno Vista at about 8am was a picture perfect place to wake up and smell the super fresh air. 

Scoffing down eggs, fresh fruit and Pinto Gallo (some local dish consisting of mushy rice, meat and beans) which they assured us was a normal local breakfast, we spent most of our time marveling at our next one day trip, the volcano Turrialba.

About 30mins after breakfast we arrived at our launch point into the river Pacuare.  Suited up in our geeky but all important safety gear we listened intensely to our guide, Ali from Cost Rica Expeditions who was explaining the commands that would help us to Read more…

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Filed under: Costa Rica, Travel

I found these helpful hints from Focus on the Family on a tag stuck to some clothes.  I liked it a lot so put it up here to share with you.  I didn’t ask the authors, James Dobson, Inc. for permission but I’m guessing they will be ok with me sharing thier thoughts amoungst my friends.  I had a look for thier website too but couldn’t find it.  Maybe they will contact me if they get upset with the reproduction???

1. Children thrive best in an atmosphere of guenuine love and undergirded by reasonable, consistent discipline.
2. Heredity does not equip a child with proper attitudes: children learn only what they are taught!
3. The footsteps a child follows are most likely to be the ones his parents thought they covered up.
4. Praise and criticism at home should be distributed as evenly as possible.
5. It is through loving control that parents ecpress personal worth to a child.
6. If you never allow a child to want something, he’ll never enjoy the plreasure of receiving it.
7. There are so many necessary “no’s” in life that we should say “yes” whenever we can.
8. Grandparents can be invaluable to the world of little people. For one thing, “They are the only grown-ups who have time.”
9. trying to control children by yelling is as utterly futile as trying to steer a car by honking the horn.
10. Loving discipline cncourages a child to respect other epople and live as a responsible, constructive citizen.

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I can’t remember so far back but I don’t think that 7-8 year olds were doing such complicated dictation at school. Maybe someone who supervised me at school can can correct me?

Anyway Richard had a difficult time about
a week ago and achieved a 3- out of 5
for his dictation at school.

I can’t go into the details of what the mistakes were because I really have no idea.  My Russian reading is OKish with the big letters but the little ones get confusing.  I mean take a look at the last word in the picture below right, what the hell is that?  Well I can tell you, it says ‘mishi’ which means many mice!

So getting back to the dictation, after getting in trouble from Mum and Grandma Richard put in a fantastic effort and proudly brought home a 5 for signing! Now not only was there a proud kid but also an even prouder Mum and Grandma.

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The metro in Moscow is full of suprizes.  Usually not very pleasant ones but the pictures below tell a different story!

I’m not sure how long this train was running but it certainly was nice to ride on.

I’ll try to get a comparison picture in the next few days so you can see the difference!

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Filed under: Living in Moscow

1120pm sitting in a wagon at Kievskaya station (central Moscow) with several other youngish folks.  Doors still open waiting to move off toward Smolenskaya station one stop down the line (also central Moscow) and a purposeful, intelegent looking lady in her mid 50s steps in.  Announcing to the whole wagon and to nobody in particular ‘is this central?’ (Eto v senter?).  

Being completely ingored was to be expected with a question like that on that train at that station as we were in the center of Moscow on a train line with several central stops either side of our station one of which is the end of the line.  So in short she was already in the center and only going to stay in the center or stay on the train and head out of the center.

Anyway the whole carrige kept blank faces or continued thier conversations only to be interrupted by a now agressive and not so intelegent looking lady repeating her question only louder, ‘is this central?’ (Eto v center?). 

Another pause with still no answer saw her demanding, ‘answer my question!‘ (atverchaet moi vopros). 

The guy opposite me broke the impass and asked her politely, ‘center of what?‘ (Kakoe v center?)

 Snapping back, ‘center of Moscow!’ (vsenter Moskva).

Still politely the guy replied ‘this is the center!’ (eto vsenter Moskva!)

Realizing that she wasn’t going to get the information that she was looking for she got off.  The guy didn’t say anything after that, just looked as amazed as I think I looked wondering what the hell just happened there.

Moscow Metro is great!

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Filed under: Living in Moscow

Today I dropped into an upmarket supermarket Azbuka here in Moscow.  A brand new location for this famous chain but none the less they managed to fill it up with cashiers with diplomas in antibusiness majoring in organizational destruction.

 As I aproached the line of shiny new cash desks I was faced with a choice of at least five neatly uniformed young to middle aged cashiers.  How to choose?  Well the cashier closest to me was an easy option which I soon regretted.  As I placed my 112ruble ($4.35) loaf of freshly baked wholemeal bread on the conveyor she caught sight of the 1,000 ruble note that I was preparing to pay with. . . .  This is where the troubles started!

Quite calmly but matter of factly she announced ‘Without change I won’t’ (bez zadacha, ya ne budu)!  Quite often it is the case that shops run short of change but it’s just as common for the cashier to ask for small change quite politely, even in Russia.  So I showed her all the small change I had, which wasn’t enough of course and we stood staring at each other wondering who was going to break sentense next.  I knew if it was me she would come off much worse.

Before long she said, ‘give me the 10 rubles’ refering to the note that she saw in my small change.  I handed it over knowing that it didn’t help her reduce the amount of change that she had to give me. Snatching it from me and angrilly punching the amount into the key pad was expected and acceptable behaviour from her now so I let it slide without incident.  Next though was different.

When she opened the till to place the money and get the change I noticed that there was money of all denominations in plenty sufficient quantity for our transaction.  Here is the exchange that followed:

[Me] Rudely but not as bad as I could have been ‘what’s that’s not enough?’

[Her] Point blank ‘If I give this to you then there will be nothing left for the next customer!’

[Me] ‘There is plenty there so what was the point in telling me that without change you won’t sell it?’

[Her] No response, just a stupid direct stare.

[Me] Still calm but getting ruder ‘this is complete rubbish, not my problem and anyway doesn’t mean you have to talk like you did!’

By this time I had my change, had made my point and was on my way with my toasty warm and expensive bread.  Looking back the cashier was of course recounting our conversation from her perspective to the remaining cashiers.

Each time I make it through an incident like this I think, how much money can a good well run business with polite staff make in this town???

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Filed under: Living in Moscow

Today we went to a market (Rinok) near our house and found out what really happened to the three little pigs! One of them was being prepared for dinner and the other two were ready to go!

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Filed under: Funny, Living in Moscow

This morning Elena walked Richard to school. The usual way it goes is that whoever walks him to school carries his bag until they get close to the school grounds. Then there is a pit stop where he takes of his hat and gloves and puts on his school bag to look ‘cool’ when he arrives.

Today went just as planned except during the pit stop a cute little girl from his class poked her head inbetween Elena and Ricahrd smiling at Richard without saying a word. She then turned and hopped off to school.

Richard with his usual little boy vs little girl aggression said something under his breath. When Elena questioned him about why he isn’t nice to the little girl he said he said “nothing, I’ve just had enough of her and her chocolates and candies every day!”

Aparently her name is Dina and he has complained to Babuliya before that she isn’t a girl she is just Dina.

Let’s wait to see how he likes Dina in 10-12 years!

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Filed under: Richard, School