Two Sides of Russia

We left at 10 am for our visit today, but we took a different route! I was excited in the change of scenery. I was even more excited to find that the new route took us by the 'big, nice houses' that we can see in the distance via our usual route. I did find, in seeing these houses up close, that they were not as nice as they looked from a distance. On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being a heap of wood that used to be a house and 10 being 'like the houses in our subdivision', these were probably a 7. Pretty good for around here. They were straight and upright, a few of the wooden ones slanted some, most had straight shutters and the bricks were only a little worn. This is as opposed to the homes by the hotel that would be anywhere between a 2 and maybe a 5. Shutters are either crooked or falling off, and the roofs aren't constructed in a fashion to keep the rain out. Wade mentioned one walk that just as he thought that a house must be abandoned, we heard people talking. We squinted through the gate, and sure enough, people were outside eating. Now there was one strip of housing that we passed, probably about 6 houses total, on a small river off the Volga that were BEAUTIFUL! I'd rate them over a 10! All brick, HUGE, kept up, garages, fancy fences, fancy cars out front and, as I said, on the water! WOW! Then the area got gradually more and more run down as we grew closer to the orphanage. I'll tell about our visit in a minute, but to tie in with the variety of houses we've seen, I'm going to fast forward to tonight's dinner experience. We walked to the Chocolate Cafe that we like so much (AKA The Chicken Hips Restaurant)and opened the door to find...a child's birthday party! All of the tables had been moved to one side of the room. There were balloons all over, girls in fancy dresses, some boys were there too, a teenage girl dressed as a clown and a teenage boy dressed as a pirate who were leading games, tons of fancy food on the tables, juice in champagne glasses, etc! They were having so much fun! We weren't sure if they were open to other business or not, but they motioned for us to go upstairs and sit, so we did. It was very noisy, but fun to watch. I would guess the birthday girl was turning 8 or 9 years old. The mom, in a fancy black cocktail dress with glass heels had a diamond ring on her hand that was approximately 5 carats! The dad brought the birthday girl an enormous boquet of flowers. They served hot tea and huge pieces of cake, each piece decorated with lots of different bright colors of frosting. Almost every child had a cell phone and they were calling each other on them, taking pictures with them and playing games on them. It was like nothing we've seen here before. The car parked outside was a Land Rover! So, we assume they must live in one of those 10+ houses! Then, in the very same evening, walking home, we passed the "2" houses, "3" houses, and a lady sleeping on a park bench using her purse as a pillow. I know in America we have rich, poor, and every step inbetween, but to see two so very different pictures of Russia in one short walk....

Now for the visit! It was a beautiful day today! I think the bugs have finally subsided and it's so crisp and cool in the mornings, so we chose to walk around outside. We knew she had a bath yesterday and were hoping for a new dress today, and we got it! A very cute pink dress with a nice embroidered hat. We went outside and she walked right to the gate. We told her no (well, we told her nyet)but she whined and shook her head and continued to try to get out. Galina closed the gate (It was open and I think when she saw Voloya and the van from yesterday she wanted to do it again!)so Jill grabbed the bars of the gate and shook it and shook it. She wanted out! It took a very long time to coax her away. She finally did, but had to suck her thumb then (which is what she does when she doesn't get her way). After that we had a lot of fun walking. Her group was outside and she talked to all of them every time we walked by. She gave her caretakers hugs, we got pictures of them together too! Then Wade tried to teach her her name. He would point to me and say "mama" then he'd point to himself and say "papa" then he'd point to her and say "Jill". After he did this about five times, SHE SAID JILL! The J wasn't too clear, it sounded a little like "oil" sometimes, but we praised and praised her and she kept trying. I think it got closer and closer to sounding like Jill every time she said it. We did get it on video too! Very cute! I remember that one of the first things they told me about her on our first trip was that she 'likes to learn and is proud of her accomplishments'.

I know this is very out of order today, but I wanted to mention that after dinner tonight we stopped at this park area on the way back to the hotel that has food and a children's play area. We ordered milkshakes for dessert. We were happy to find out that you sit down and they bring you menus because it's hard for us to order things on a board, which we thought might be the case with this outside BBQ type place. We looked through their menu and think we'll go back sometime and have Shaslik (shishkebobs). Whatever they're grilling out there smells fabulous, and having the children's playset there for Jill to play on while we wait will be fantastic!