One Month in Russia

Happy Mother's Day! Russians celebrate it a different day, so there were no Primary children in church today singing sweetly and/or embarrassing their mothers.

We've now been in Barnaul a month and have learned a lot. I thought I'd list the things that are really different from home and tell how we're adjusting. For the most part we've enjoyed it. Hope you enjoy these new insights:

Clocks. Besides being a half a day different from Salt Lake, they use a 24-hour clock. Of course, that's only noticeable on digital clocks. It's really weird to roll over and look at the clock during the night and see 0:02 (2 minutes after midnight.)

Bottles of vanilla vs. powdered vanilla. It took us quite a while to find vanilla, but now that we know to look for the packets instead of bottles, we can find it easily--if the store stocks it. The only problem is that we've gotten several different answers as to the equivalent, all the way from one drop of liquid vanilla is equal to one gram (the size of the packet) to 1 tsp. equals a packet to "I just guess" or whatever.

Brown sugar as we know it vs. granulated brown sugar. The big benefit is that it doesn't go hard. The flavor is milder. Dave thought it made the chocolate chip cookies sweeter. I think it's that the brown sugar granules are big and don't dissolve into the batter and that adds a little crunch to the cookies. Either way, the cookies are different but good.

Powdered sugar vs. slightly granulated powdered sugar. It works, but frosting doesn't have quite the same smooth texture--it's slightly crunchy. It also comes in flavors like chocolate. Mostly it comes in small packets, enough to lightly dust the top of a cake, so we were excited to find one store that sells it in 1/2 pound packages. We won't say how much it costs but it is more than a 2 pound bag at home.

Ground spices vs. whole cloves or allspice berries and a hammer. Interesting results.

Chocolate chips vs. chocolate bars and a knife. We've learned that freezing the chocolate bar and then hitting it on the counter produces big chunks and lots of little chocolate splinters. It's easier just to cut it into small pieces with a knife.

Campbell's Soup vs. creative cooking. I know it's healthier to make your own sauces, but sometimes you just plain need the familiar flavors of comfort food. I keep trying new things. I've told the missionaries they're my guinea pigs, and so far they've finished off EVERYTHING we've fixed for them, claiming it's delicious. I'm glad Sr. couples aren't limited in their internet use, since we often look for recipes there. We're also grateful for our computers and a very quick internet connection. By the way, if you have any quick, easy recipes with ingredients ALL from scratch (i.e., nothing like taco seasoning or a salad dressing), especially cookies/snacks and main dishes, please send them to me at arlinejh@gmail.com.

Rules for young missionaries vs. Sr. couples. Different responsibilities and situations, hence some of our rules are different. For example, it's ok for us to send and receive personal emails from friends and family--we'll read every email and letter. Just understand that we might not be able to respond right away. We can also have people come and visit. (Hint hint. Changing 13 time zones isn't really all that hard and it only takes a week or two to adjust)

Maple syrup vs. homemade fruit syrups. No syrup and no Mapleline, which is fine with us. They have really good fruit juices here that are easy to make into delicious syrups.

Green bananas vs. a day away from being overripe. It's a good thing the Elders love banana bread and so much and wolf down all we make.

Convenience foods vs. everything completely from scratch. Bummer, we even have to grate our own cheese :) and there's no such thing as sliced meats for sandwiches. The biggest problem is that there are no instant mashed potatoes and Dave has a favorite bread recipe that calls for potato flakes.

No car vs. public transportation. Not a problem We're about a half a block from a bus stop at the end/beginning of a bus line, so when we go anywhere we can always find a seat. We can take public transportation just about anywhere, be it a bus, a minivan, a trolley car or electric bus. They come by every few minutes and pretty much cover the whole city. There's no such thing as a transfer where you only pay once and can change to a different bus if needed. Here you pay every time you get on. However, bus fare is less than 50 cents and the trolley car and electric bus are even cheaper. Dave found a neat website that shows where each bus is along the route at any given time. That will come in very handy in the winter--we can check it and then run out just in time to climb on the bus and not have to wait in the cold. Of course there are taxis as well.

No ice maker or even ice cube trays vs. putting 1/2 empty water bottles in the freezer overnight. In the morning we just add water. It lasts for a couple of hours. Those of you who know Dave well know how hard that must be on him. Those of you who don't, well, suffice it to say that we remodeled our kitchen a few years ago because our ice maker broke.

Grandkids vs. tears. We look at pictures and blogs. A lot. And treasure our Skype calls for Mother's Day.

When I started this I thought it would be a fairly short post, but as I got going I realized how much we've learned in the past month. Tune in again mid-week for more!