2008-08(Aug)-15 Summer Garden

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Hi everyone, I have been here a week or so and finally am sleeping through the night. I guess I have adjusted to the 9 hour time difference!


Our apartment is beginning to feel like home after more trips to IKEA and other stores. I now have all the basics for the kitchen, decent towels, etc. This weekend we are getting one new mattress, a rug for the living room....each shopping trip is an adventure - we need a driver and an interpreter in case anything happens. At each store 'security' greets you (the opposite of the Walmart greeter) and if your bag is too big, you must check it. Which is a little confusing because many people bring bags in with them since you must buy the bags you take your items home in.


I have been grocery shopping and have identified stores I like better than others. Containers are smaller - only small bags of chips, one liter of milk (at home I buy a gallon at a time; so far, no skim milk that I have found), small boxes of cereal (but we have bought Special K, honey nut cherrios and Kellogs corn flakes). You can get the cleaning stuff you need-just takes experimentation to figure out what you have bought! The fresh fruits and veggies seem to be even more flavorful - perhaps not so many preservatives? You can buy them from stands on the streets in our neighborhood, along with fresh flowers. Everything is expensive - I paid about $5 for strawberries I served as desert to a group of guys from the office, and three spider mums cost about $12 from the flower stand. But I guess that is what we would pay on the streets of NYC. However, beer is cheap. John says it is the best he has ever had and he is enjoying it.


I took the pictures that are coming next email while walking to and in the Summer Garden yesterday. This park is 250+ years old and has lovely trees, wonderful statues. It is on the Neva River, in the older part of downtown. We live close to it as well. The flowers here are not as pretty as some I have seen here but there is a lot of shade, so that may be why. One display of begonia and hosta was especially pretty. However they have many of the same flowers we do - petunias are in flower boxes along the main roads (Prospects), you see dusty miller and ordinary begonias in one of the pictures, there is lots of astilbe. While I was in the park, I noticed a wedding party. In St. Pete, once you decide to get married, you apply at the government office. They give you a date and time to come back for the ceremony. - I understand there is an allotted amount of time (15-30 minutes) for each wedding and there will be weddings going on all day at the office. So your family and friends wait outside while the ceremony takes place and then you all go to places around the city for pictures and 'toasts' at each spot. I didn't want to take too many pictures of the party in the park so as not to insult them, but you'll find a couple coming. On Monday I walked in the gardens closer to our apartment and saw another wedding party - they were sharing champagne, juice, chocolates, and fruit as they went from one spot to the next taking pictures. There are huge limos to drive them around. Finally there is a celebration at a home, hall or restaurant. When we told the interpreters that work with John about Rachel's wedding, they were amazed that we expected a couple hundred people to come. Twenty is a big crowd for a wedding. Also, since you really don't know exactly when the wedding will be until a few weeks before, there is not time to plan much. You are very lucky if it is not raining on your day! One of the ladies from John's offices married last month on a Tuesday. She came to work the next morning (albeit about 30 minutes late!)


The other pictures are on the walk to and from our apartment. Pay attention to the U turn picture. We cannot get over the craziness of the driving here. If you are at an intersection that does not allow a left turn, you just drive a little up the street and, when the oncoming traffic clears, make a U turn, go back to the intersection and turn right! I noticed about six cars in line to do just that and hope the picture shows what I am talking about


Love to all, Terri