Our Home

It is the first day of rain since I arrived in Moscow, and in a way, the downpour is refreshing.  I'm sitting at the desk in our office that looks out over the market across the street from our apartment.  It's a large building full of vendors inside, but also has a row of outdoor vendors.  They all have matching blue and yellow umbrellas that cover their produce stands, and I have no doubt that every one of them is completely soaked under there.  There is an occasional gusty breeze that accompanies the pouring rain and every time it blows, the umbrellas dump their accumulated puddles of water.  Still, the people are out doing their shopping, darting around with their coats held over their heads in a futile attempt to keep themselves dry.

There is a crammed parking lot right in front of the market where a single row of cars must park diagonally in order to leave enough room to drive down the single lane.  The lane is supposed to be a one-way, but cars are constantly trying to break the rules resulting in a constant threat of parking lot accidents.  The chaos of this parking lot is compounded by the fact that there are people pushing over-sized carts around as well, some of which seem impossible to accurately steer.

Sitting here makes me think it might be time to share a bit about our little apartment.  We are staying in an AirBnB that belongs to a Russian woman named Dasha whose parents are currently managing the property for her.  Dasha is an aspiring popstar currently living in Thailand and working as a dancer while she waits for her singing career to take off.  We have only had email communication with her, and I'm sorry to say that we will not get to meet her before we leave.  She has a lovely place in a nice part of town that is conveniently close to public transportation, grocery stores, coffee shops, shopping centers, and anything else we might need.  

This is the office where I am currently sitting to type this post.

Our bedroom is colorful and complete with a disco ball.  I guess you can't really call yourself a true popstar until you have a disco ball hanging in your bedroom. 

Our kitchen is small but cute.  I must say, there is a frustrating deficit of functional pots.  There are 3 pots in total.  The first is a useful frying pan that has a corresponding lid.  The second is a medium-sized soup pot whose lid had a handle that somehow melted into itself leaving nothing to grab.  The handle must have been made out of plastic and perhaps someone left it in the oven on high heat at one point - we can only guess.  The lid is easy to put on, but once everything heats up, there is no safe way to check on what you're cooking without burning your hand.  The third pot is small and had a handle at one point, but that must have broken off so now it's just a bowl with some screws sticking out the side of it.  There are also no potholders in the apartment so we just use dish towels when we are trying to pick up the handle-less pot.  It's not a perfect set of cooking tools, but for the most part, we have been able to prepare nice meals and cook everything that we want using the funny assortment of pots that we have.  

My favorite thing about the apartment is that it has plants in every room.  I strongly believe that no home is completely without an assortment of plants, and this collection is delightful! Dasha has asked us to water them for her while we are staying here.  

Well, in the time it has taken me to compose this post, the rain has stopped and now the sun is shining in Moscow once again.  Just in time for me to walk over to the grocery store (it will be my first time going without Fritz).  I want to bake some apple crumble bars to bring to the pottery studio as a way to say "thanks for letting me work here".  I will be sure to bring my phone so I can translate all the products before adding them to my cart.  The last time Fritz and I went to the story, we were trying to buy toilet paper and ended up coming home with 2 rolls of paper towels.  Oops!  Needless to say, toilet paper is on my grocery list again.  Wish me luck!