Weekly Review
Sunday was sunny with clear skies, and we had
a nice trip to and from church! After church we watched a conference talk
and had rest time and then a yummy dinner before our weekly family Skype
sessions and a quiet evening. It was a
good day.
Since my MBA class is now over, I really don’t
have much work at the university. This
means I don’t go in very much and that much of what I do can be done remotely
from the apartment. Monday morning I got
some work done, Jacque did the weekly shopping, and then we went to the
underground mall to look around, get some souvenirs, and mostly to just get out
of the apartment. Our first stop was
actually to stop by the train station to look at getting tickets to Vilnius,
Lithuania. We were hoping to go on
Tuesday and new the times and knowing that language might be a barrier I
pre-loaded my iPad Google Translate app with the phrases/sentences I thought we
would need. It kind of worked, but
mostly the lady behind the counter was just annoyed/upset that she had to make
any effort with me. After I had waited
my turn in line for 5+ minutes, when it was my turn and she saw I didn’t speak
Russian, she was done with me in about 30 seconds and then kept motioning for
me to move away to let those behind me in line get their tickets. However, I wouldn’t move and kept trying, so
she just ignored me and started helping others behind me. After a minute of this, someone from line who
spoke English came up to try and help me, but the lady behind the counter was
not having it. Thus ended my first
attempt to get train tickets by myself.
Tomorrow we will try again and hopefully have a native Russian speaker
there with me so things can go more smoothly.
After the train station, we had a nice time at the mall, got a few souvenirs,
had a good lunch and ice-cream for treat, and then we came home for a late rest
time. That evening we had dinner and a
fun FHE and Jacque and I enjoyed our evening together after the kids were in
bed.
Tuesday was another souvenir day. This time we hit the mall downtown and the
outdoor souvenir market, where we got lots of neat stuff. There are so many pretty things here and we
are excited to do a little decorating when we get home. The kids are also excited to have their own
little Belarusian souvenirs! The rest of
the day was fairly typical and we had a nice evening.
Wednesday was the beginning of the hot weather
(earlier in the week was very sunny, just not as warm). I had a terrible night’s sleep and then was
up super early with David and Kaylie, so all together I was running on about 3
and a half hours. My morning was very
lethargic, but we were able to get some things done and then we had our big
outing in the afternoon’ we went with Sergei and the senior couple to the
Belarusian Folk Village, about 30 km outside of Minsk. We spent the afternoon there and had a great
time. We had an English speaking guide,
which was awesome and she was so nice and super informative. It was really neat to see how the people
lived a hundred years ago and the girls had a great time running around (until
the last hour, by which point they were hot and tired and pretty much just complained!). You can see a bunch of pictures here. By the time we got home we were all worn out
but glad we had the adventure. We had a
quiet evening and Jacque and I went to bed a little early.
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were fairly
nondescript days. It kept getting hotter
and hotter in the apartment, so we tried to get out a bit. We had a nice long picnic on Thursday at the
park and I took the kids to the park for quite a while Friday afternoon. Mixed in there I was able to get some work
done and Jacque and I have been continuously looking at homes online (many very
nice homes in our price range, so we are just hoping there is still a good
selection by the time we get home so we can go looking and put an offer on
one). Saturday we had the Olympics
running on the TV in the background for a good part of the day and we had a pretty
quiet day. The kids have had fun
watching some of the events and it is fun to see them get excited!
Today is another hot day. The air conditioning at church is going to
feel really nice! Hopefully it will be
working today!
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