Sorry I skipped a day. I had a crisis to take care of with my housing situation in Baltimore. I think I took care of most of it. There were termites in the old house, and this was unknown to any of the buyers or renters. An inspection took the house off the market. I found an apartment building called the Stafford House, which might work out well.
Let me see if I can remember what we did yesterday. We ate. Food is pretty good here when it is made right. I can't partake in all of the tastiness due to self-imposed dietary restrictions against fat and sugar, but I eat well. Breakfast here is usually the same, yall saw a picture of it earlier. We have coffee or tea, bologna, and different cheeses with butter and different breads. I like my breakfast sandwiches with old style mustard, cheese, and doctorskaya kilbasa. My grandma always wants me to drink my tea or coffee with sweets, but I hate having sweets in the morning because it sets me up for failure for the rest of the day in terms of eating well. I asked for fruit, and I had to go buy it. My grandma said she is not used to eating fruit in the morning. Can't change that now :). We bought bananas, apples, strange disk shaped peaches, and oranges. my grandma complained that the oranges had no flavor, but I sure did love them.
After breakfast yesterday, I went with my cousin Ira and her son Alex to the forest. He had a cool stroller that can turn into a bike when he gets older. He really enjoys going for walks/rides in his stroller. The forest is just a few minutes walk from their apartment and it is beautiful. The air immediately changes as you enter it. The trees soak up all the pollution and cleanse the air. No more cars or machines, it's pretty quiet in there. There aren't any animals except for insects. People bring their pets and children mostly. There are lots of small hills and trails, lots of green shrubbery and weeds growing everywhere. It's pretty wild. People go into the "rosha" to have picnics and relax. The trail is rough so the stroller had to be able to withstand the bumps. One of Alex's favorite things was to be pushed fast in the stroller up and down hills. Once we reached a big clearing with some playground equipment, Alex was let out of the stroller. We played chase and he loved trying to escape into the forest. Normally he isn't allowed to run around, but since I was there, I kept an eye on him. He fell several times and looked at the dirt on his hands, he showed me and said "Foo." The walk was about an hour long, which was nice. I could've kept walking. We went back to their apartment and Alex was fed and changed. Then it was time for more playing. He enjoys soccer and cars. He is a natural destroyer and takes pleasure in toy car crashes and throwing things where he knows they will make a racket. Later that day we had dinner at my grandma's. We had lots of leftovers from the barbecue, and green borscht called "Shi" made with boiled egg whites and greens eaten hot and mixed with sour cream or yogurt.
Today was extremely fun and entertaining, but hot; around 30 degrees Celsius. I forgot my sunglasses and hat so I was squinting the whole time. We took a trip to the city of Borovsk, founded in the 1350's. The name Borovsk has the word boar in it. Wilderness around Russian cities and towns have very few wild animals, but they do have boars. Did you know if you let a pig into the forest it will go wild, grow hair and tusks, and be super aggressive? The city has many cottages built by wealthy Moscow businessmen who go to their dachas to relax. Summer houses are very popular here.
In the outskirts of the city is a placed called Etno-Mir, which translates to Ethnic World, built by people from Moscow. The area is surrounded by forest. The forest in the area was cleared to make room for all the things. Not too hilly, it has exhibits from cultures around the world, but mainly shows some of the ethnic culture of the early settlers in and around Russia.
The place has one main building with souvenir shops, a cafe, and then a big hall with different rooms created to represent many different nationalities and cultures. Some of them include Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Brazil, India, Central Asia, Southeastern Asia, China, Japan, Korea, North America, and several more. Much of the place is still under construction because the place is new, but still open to visitors. Inside the different rooms are master classes, including pottery from Iraq and origami from Japan, and bead making in India. The rooms were furnished with furniture from the culture as well as from more ancient times.
After leaving the main building, we came across many log cabins representing the different sorts of tribes that settled around Russia. The main differences between these sets of log houses were the placement of the fireplaces and style of the roofs. In the center of the whole area was a big building where they bake the pottery. The pottery is made by master potters and is taken very seriously. One of the houses was a music house. The person inside their invited us in and we sat down and listened to him play different sorts of wind and string instruments from the ancient times. The coolest part was that he makes the instruments themselves out of wood. He had a mic setup with effects and a very awesome Passport speaker. I recorded some of the songs and explanations on my phone.
In every area of the park there were scarecrows. I took pictures of several of them. Next we came upon lots of other log cabins and from Belarus and Ukraine. I found out that this Ethnic World park also serves as a hotel. And people come from all over Russia to live in the cabins of their ancestors. These cabins and fantastic because you stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter. The air is fresh and it is an awesome escape from the busyness of city life. In this area they bake bread on a daily basis in classical slavic ovens. We had some piroshki with jam and powdered sugar on top (towards the end of the trip) and it was the best baked good I have ever had. We came across some Siberian huts and Indian teepees as well. The huts had very few bugs and flies because they used reindeer fur which is apparently a natural insect repellent.
Some of the other activities included shooting bows and arrows, throwing spears and axes, climbing into a watchtower/house, and looking at a bunch of awesome huskies in a shelter. They keep them for breeding and for show. On the trip back we took a shorter but more scenic route with less cops and more S turns. It was a very awesome day. In the car I couldn't stop smiling, and that hasn't happened in a long time. Once I got home I got back to searching for a house and was very tired.
Pictures: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150331251155041.389519.507325040
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