Shrimp, $3.33 each

Hello again! Today's visit with Jill went very well considering we decided we should start disciplining now so as to not have as much trouble in the hotel. For example, she continued to stand on the couch to touch these posters they have hanging up and the one poster kept falling down. (this was yesterday) So today, when she would stand up on the couch, we would sit her down or take her off. She of course would climb right back up. She would throw a tantrum laying herself down on the floor crying (kind of fake crying) or would sit against the couch and cry sucking her thumb! But, eventually, she no longer tried to stand on the couch! Another for example, she kept hitting toys against the mirror! The director says she does not act like this in her group; she listens and is very well behaved. So, today when she hit a toy against the mirror and we said 'nyet' if she kept doing it, instead of just continuing to say 'nyet' like we have been, we took the toy away. It was the smallest cup in her nesting cups she loves that we took away; this caused a pretty long tantrum. She tried to go get it out of the backpack, but we wouldn't let her, so the tantrum went on a little longer, but when she calmed down and got back to playing....She took a plastic police hat over to the mirror, looked at us, pulled her arm back like she was going to hit the mirror with it, we said 'nyet' and she didn't do it!!! She went and put it back!!! Whewww. So we'll keep this up and hopefully won't be starting from square one when we get to the hotel.
After the visit we came back and I took a nap (I'd been up since five working on the school yearbook, it's getting VERY close!!!)Then we walked to the place where my dad and I went twice on our first trip, Kamilla's. This was the place that had the turkey kebobs and shrimp kebobs, oh and the good banana cheesecake! We asked for the english menu, Wade ordered chicken kebobs where each piece of chicken was wrapped in bacon, (180 rubles= almost $7) and I got the shrimp kebobs again. (260 rubles= a little over $9)We also ordered bread, butter (which costs extra!),fried potatoes, and two drinks. It took a long time for the food, but I knew this would happen as this was the restaruant that took the longest of all we visited last trip. But, it was worth the wait! The shrimp came with a soysauce like sauce that was really good, Wade's chicken came with a good sauce too, the potatoes were like french fries; it was all good, big portions, and filling! Then the bill came...and it was much higher than we expected. We looked it over and found that they had charged 500 rubles for the shrimp kebob. We questioned this and asked for a menu to point to what I had ordered and where it said 260 rubles. She said, 'new menu, umm, new price'. She went and got the Russian menu and showed us the same meal and the 'new price' 500 rubles ($20) We couldn't speak enough Russian to tell her that if we would have known it was over double the price we thought it was that I would not have ordered that! All I could do was point out the word 'expensive' in my translation book. She agreed. She did talk to a guy who maybe was a manager, but we ended up paying the 500 rubles/$20 for the 6 shrimp (they were big shrimp, but still!) We wish we spoke enough Russian to tell her that if she would give us the shrimp for the price the menu stated that we would bring the two families that are arriving tomorrow with us to their restaurant (as we had planned out while we were eating), but if they did not, that we would not be back and we would tell the two new couples coming in tomorrow to not go there! But, we didn't know how to say that in Russian, so, we won't be going back.
We may hit the French Restaurant tomorrow, another cafe a friend recommended or The Academy of Beer that so many people on the Astrakhan Kids website recommend. We are excited to meet the two other families that come in tomorrow, though I know they will be tired as they are taking the 28 hour train like we did. The airport should be open for us to go back, but they leave next Saturday and will have to take the 28 hour train back to Moscow too! Speaking of the train I will post some pictures of the train, compartment, and view!