Suntanning in Siberia

Of all the things I thought I might bring back from this experience in Siberia, today I got two things that I never would have predicted – about a dozen mosquito bites, and a sunburned nose. (Don’t worry too much mom, I used 30 SPF!!)

We met about 10 a.m. and headed out to a nearby lake for the day. Ruslan (the Russian team member from Chita who came to Texas, and also Ora’s host for our time here) has a dacha out there. It’s really interesting the varying degrees of dachas. As opposed to the first one we went and saw (Yelena’s), his is more of a “starter” dacha. It’s only one room and a porch, and there is no running water – I’m not even sure if there was electricity. Which, of course, meant another day of outhouses – I’m learning more and more I’m not a camper at heart.

The weather was amazing. We got to the lake about noon, and basically sat around all day. We bumped the volleyball around a little, waded up to our waists – the water was still a bit chilly, but nothing compared to Baikal. Dasha said there was still ice on the top two weeks ago.

While we were down on the beach, we randomly ran into the woman who changed our traveler’s checks for us at the bank yesterday. Her group was just down from us, and she recognized Ora and me. They invited us over for a little bit of vodka and food. I felt bad because we hadn’t spent much time with our hosts, so we didn’t stay with their group long.

We went back up and had some sashleek. No hamburgers or hot dogs at the cook out, but pretty good anyway!

On the way back, Mark and I jumped in with Ora to run by Ruslan’s and take advantage of his high speed internet. The plan was to download Itunes and upload some photos. After that, we were going to head downtown to a discoteque. But, again, I think we had a little lost in translation moment. Instead of heading back to his house (it was about 8:30 at this point), he took us to the other side of the lake where there was to be an “Open Lake” concert – the first concert of the season out at the lake, marking the opening of the season. We got there about 9 p.m., and found out it wasn’t starting until midnight. Thankfully, we decided not to stick around. Ruslan had said all the tickets were sold out anyway, but he was going to try and get us in until he found out when it was starting. It was a big outdoor event, with a large stage set up at the front of a field.

We got back on the road, and after about 15 minutes, he said, “Maybe you are hungry?” Ora was, and we thought Ruslan and his friend might be, too, so we said sure, we can stop. It was about 10 p.m. by now, and I knew there was no way I was going to make it to the club by this point. We had some posey and blini, and got back underway around 10:45. I gave Mark my flash drive to download ITunes, and hope I’ll get a chance later to get some pictures up. It didn’t sound like anyone was going to be going out to the club, as Ora was also tired, and Mark’s host family was very worried about him going out. He was pretty peeved, feeling like they don’t respect his age and experience. I can understand that they feel responsible and don’t want him to get in a bad situation, but being a police officer and speaking Russian, I think he’d be a lot more capable than any of the rest of us. Anyway, Ruslan dropped me off and when I came up, Dasha was getting ready to go back out. She said people don’t really get started until about midnight. She’s 23, and maybe when I was 23 I would have jumped on board and gone out with here, but apparently I’m getting old before my time.

It’s 12:15 a.m. now, and I am ready to spot (sleep). See – another couple words everyday! My other new one is Ya Nyeznayu (I don’t know), another one I really should have learned earlier in the trip… And, I finally got a toast down – Nasdarovia. J