One Month in Russia, Part 2

Here are some more things we've learned and adjustments we've made:

Spring in Salt Lake vs. spring in Siberia. According to the online forecasts, except for Mother's Day weekend when we woke up to snow, the weather in Barnaul since we got here has always been warmer than in Salt Lake, sometimes by only a few degrees, sometimes by 20+ degrees. How does it feel to know you're colder than Siberia? Unfortunately that won't always hold true. They've told us that it almost always gets down to -40 here at some time every winter.

Thermostats vs. government provided heat or lack thereof. When we first got here the temperatures were in the 70s and the heat in the buildings made things miserable. We turned off the radiators in our apartment and always left the windows open. Sometime in the last few weeks the heat that is piped throughout all of Russia via hot water pipes got turned off. No announcement, no fanfare, just turned off. We didn't notice it at first, but as is typical with spring weather, it's turned chilly again. However, the heat is off now until they decide to turn it on again in the fall. We have a small electric heater we can use in our apartment if necessary, but church is another matter. It's downright COLD in our meetings now. Oh well, at least no one falls asleep.

Large quantities of any item vs. frequent shopping trips, which is fine because there are grocery stores on nearly every corner and we shop often. Since we carry everything home (sometimes taking the bus depending on where we shop) and up 3 flights of stairs, we don't want big packages of anything. It's taking us less time to shop now than it did three weeks ago as we're becoming more and more familiar with their products and don't have to spend quite so much time trying to figure out what things are.

Clothes dryer vs. drying rack. Now instead of sitting in a laundry basket getting wrinkled, the clothes come out of the washer that way :) Because the best place for our drying rack is in our front entry, we put clothes away as soon as we can after they dry so we can move around the apartment again. One of the missionaries said he's never seen a dryer here, either in stores or in anyone's home. When we first got here I looked and looked for dryer sheets to help with some static problems. Now I know why I can't find them! I've learned how much tumbling clothes takes out wrinkles. I've also learned to time the laundry so I'm home when the washer stops and can hang things immediately, which helps a little, and iron Dave's shirts while they're still damp, which helps a lot. We're just glad to have a washer in our apartment. It takes about 2 1/4 hours to run a load, and it holds about half of what my washer did at home. That's nice--we don't have room to dry more than one load at a time.

Bread mixer vs. kneading dough by hand, another thing that helps me realize how much we take for granted. We do have a hand mixer that's great on higher speeds and works for making cookie dough. The slowest speed is broken so I'm still trying to figure out how to add flour to things without covering the whole kitchen in a fine layer of dust. But Dave kneads his bread by hand. It's a good thing he's so strong!

Bags of Grandma Sycamore's bread vs. bags of refrigerated bread dough. Quick and easy, but not quite the marshmallow texture of Grandma Sycamore's bread. They do have a lot of different kinds of bread here, and we'll be trying out some in the months to come. However, the bread is good the first day, dry the second, and goes moldy within a few days.

Skim milk vs. 2.5% milk. Milk comes in approximately 1/2 liter bottles or bags. We wouldn't want them much larger than that because they have very close expiration dates--the bags are good for about 4 days, the bottles about 5-6 days.

Ziploc bags/containers vs none. I like to use them for a lot of different things. I'm hoping some bags are on their way in a package that is coming from home. They do have some small containers that can be used for leftovers, but not the big ones we're used to.

Aluminum foil and plastic wrap in boxes vs. on rolls. It saves room in the drawer, but it's harder to deal with.

Crisco vs. butter. They don't have shortening here, just butter and margarine. Fortunately, so far all of the things I've made have turned out just fine.

Cool, clean water vs. cool clean water. For the first two weeks we were here our water filter wasn't working so we had to use bottled water. We boiled water for washing dishes and tried drinking it after it cooled, but one sip was enough to convince us bottled water was worth the price. It's very rusty and has an awful taste and not safe for Americans to drink unfiltered/unless boiled. We finally got the missing part and hooked up the filters. It hooks on the faucet on the sink and runs water through 3 filters--one we change every other month, one every 4 months and one yearly. We have to be careful to run only cold water through it or the filters melt. There's a little tab we pull out to make the water run through the filters. The water tastes SO much better with the filter. The Elders have told us the filters look awful when they change them. Here's a picture of what the set up looks like (sorry I can't get the picture to turn). The filtered water comes out of a separate little spout to the right of the faucet. When we push the tab in, water comes out of the faucet normally.

A dishwasher vs. small plastic dish tubs (slightly larger diameter than a dinner plate). We don't have enough dishes to fill a dishwasher anyway. The small size of the tubs makes it a little tricky to wash pans. We wash dishes often enough that it takes longer to heat the water than it does to wash, dry and put the dishes away. Most of the missionaries just put soap on a sponge, wipe the dishes and rinse under running warm water, but I feel better using the tubs and hotter water. They have a neat appliance here called a Chineck that heats water quickly. Although it looks like a big coffee pot, you can't heat anything in it but water. It's that black thing behind the plate in my hand.

English vs. Russian. Oh well, we haven't quite found solutions to everything just yet. No, we don't always have interpreters like they originally told us we would. The missionaries are REALLY good at simultaneously interpreting during meetings, but they aren't always around when we need/want to talk to people on the street, in stores or on the bus. We just need to spend more time studying Russian in our down time.

All in all, we can't complain. We have running water, rugs on the floor, decent food, an air conditioner in our bedroom that we hope works in the summer, email & Skype, a new-found appreciation for what we had at home, dedicated missionaries, and most of all, the gospel. We are truly blessed.