This week we have been working hard again, but it was only a four day week – Monday was another bank holiday.
We’ve been doing a lot of paperwork and general planning for future projects, so nothing particularly exciting to report. Just lists and designs for enrichment timetables and projects for the university students. Also, a few “catch-up” meetings with the Zoo Director.
On Thursday evening we went to Paska’s house for some beers. Paska works at the zoo in the shop and is also the zoo photographer. He has a small house on the other side of the zoo to us. His little boy (also called Paska) is about 6 and very funny. Steve and little Paska pull faces at each other and do lots of “high-fives”. Paska speaks good English, but no one else there did, so little Paska decided that he would entertain us by showing us every ornament in the apartment and drawing pictures to explain things to us. Very sweet.
The baby tigers had a good day on Thursday also; they destroyed a sapling in their enclosure and took bits of it for a swim in the moat. The only sensible thing to do on such a hot day! I apologise in advance for all the tiger photos today.
Friday was another super hot day. We were busy in the office most of the morning followed by a TV interview. They just wanted to find out all the new things at the zoo so spent the morning filming, Steve and I had to answer questions about if the zoo was good, how the zoo does conservation work and how the people of Ukraine can help animals. It went really well.
Friday night was Canadian Embassy night again. We spent the evening drinking beer and chatting with lots of people, whilst trying to shelter from torrential rain and very loud thunderstorms.
I know I’ve said it a lot, but it’s really hot here at the moment. So hot in fact that it was almost impossible to sleep during the week. Steve very kindly lets me “borrow” his surfing shorts in the evenings as I didn’t bring any with me. During the day on Saturday we wandered to the local shops to see if I could buy some shorts and let Steve have his back again. It would seem that if you want to buy women’s shorts, you have two choices here (in a variety of colours and variety of rhinestone patterning) 1 – teeny tiny shorts that really don’t cover anything at all or 2 – slightly longer shorts that are skin-tight. Neither option appeals to me really. The shop also had men’s clothes, and a good variety of surf-type shorts (good length, not skin tight and no rhinestones – great!). The girl at the shop now thinks I am completely mad as I didn’t want any of the women’s shorts and insisted on trying on the men’s ones instead. I found a good pair and am very happy as is Steve who can have his shorts back now.
We went out for a meal on Saturday night to the same restaurant we went to last weekend. Steve ordered one of their beers, and expected a pint or half litre beer, but was greatly surprised by a full litre of beer. So big he could hardly lift the glass! Very funny and apparently very nice beer.
Today we took the bus to a big shopping centre (yes, that’s right, we took the bus – managed to read the signs in Russian and managed to get on the right bus all by ourselves!). We decided when we were at the supermarket to treat ourselves to a bottle of red wine and some blue cheese as you don’t get them that much here. They only have one variety of blue cheese – no stilton unfortunately, so if anyone fancies posting me some, I’ll be extremely grateful. Anyway, we are now the proud owners of what is probably the most expensive piece of cheese I have ever purchased (I’m not saying how much it cost, but I feel very decadent) and a bottle of good red wine and NO corkscrew! I have also bought alphabetti-spaghetti, I am not sure if it is in Cyrillic, but I’ll let you know.
We’ve been doing a lot of paperwork and general planning for future projects, so nothing particularly exciting to report. Just lists and designs for enrichment timetables and projects for the university students. Also, a few “catch-up” meetings with the Zoo Director.
On Thursday evening we went to Paska’s house for some beers. Paska works at the zoo in the shop and is also the zoo photographer. He has a small house on the other side of the zoo to us. His little boy (also called Paska) is about 6 and very funny. Steve and little Paska pull faces at each other and do lots of “high-fives”. Paska speaks good English, but no one else there did, so little Paska decided that he would entertain us by showing us every ornament in the apartment and drawing pictures to explain things to us. Very sweet.
The baby tigers had a good day on Thursday also; they destroyed a sapling in their enclosure and took bits of it for a swim in the moat. The only sensible thing to do on such a hot day! I apologise in advance for all the tiger photos today.
Friday was another super hot day. We were busy in the office most of the morning followed by a TV interview. They just wanted to find out all the new things at the zoo so spent the morning filming, Steve and I had to answer questions about if the zoo was good, how the zoo does conservation work and how the people of Ukraine can help animals. It went really well.
Friday night was Canadian Embassy night again. We spent the evening drinking beer and chatting with lots of people, whilst trying to shelter from torrential rain and very loud thunderstorms.
I know I’ve said it a lot, but it’s really hot here at the moment. So hot in fact that it was almost impossible to sleep during the week. Steve very kindly lets me “borrow” his surfing shorts in the evenings as I didn’t bring any with me. During the day on Saturday we wandered to the local shops to see if I could buy some shorts and let Steve have his back again. It would seem that if you want to buy women’s shorts, you have two choices here (in a variety of colours and variety of rhinestone patterning) 1 – teeny tiny shorts that really don’t cover anything at all or 2 – slightly longer shorts that are skin-tight. Neither option appeals to me really. The shop also had men’s clothes, and a good variety of surf-type shorts (good length, not skin tight and no rhinestones – great!). The girl at the shop now thinks I am completely mad as I didn’t want any of the women’s shorts and insisted on trying on the men’s ones instead. I found a good pair and am very happy as is Steve who can have his shorts back now.
We went out for a meal on Saturday night to the same restaurant we went to last weekend. Steve ordered one of their beers, and expected a pint or half litre beer, but was greatly surprised by a full litre of beer. So big he could hardly lift the glass! Very funny and apparently very nice beer.
Today we took the bus to a big shopping centre (yes, that’s right, we took the bus – managed to read the signs in Russian and managed to get on the right bus all by ourselves!). We decided when we were at the supermarket to treat ourselves to a bottle of red wine and some blue cheese as you don’t get them that much here. They only have one variety of blue cheese – no stilton unfortunately, so if anyone fancies posting me some, I’ll be extremely grateful. Anyway, we are now the proud owners of what is probably the most expensive piece of cheese I have ever purchased (I’m not saying how much it cost, but I feel very decadent) and a bottle of good red wine and NO corkscrew! I have also bought alphabetti-spaghetti, I am not sure if it is in Cyrillic, but I’ll let you know.
God I love tigers.
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