Happy New Years World
I will tell about my new years eve and my new years day. It was very interesting. We discussed and decided to spend new years together in the hotel room, and have a private celebration. We asked the reception for the location of a grocery store so that we could buy supplies. They directed us to a large mall, some 12 Kilometers past the last metro stop. The mall operates its own buses to bring people from the metro to the mall.
The mall was very large, about the size of the Rosedale mall. It had a giant IKEA attached to it, and there was as Masha calls it, an "ice riding field" inside the mall so people could skate. It was a very nice mall. Like how US malls have large department stores attached this mall did also, only they were not department stores, it was the IKEA, and a very large grocery store. In the mall we found Europe’s answer to Best Buy. A large, and very pink store, called "Media Market" (pink in the same way Best Buy is blue). Here we found the camera that I got to replace my lost one. We had looked at cameras in some touristy areas around the center of St. Petersburg, but at Media Market the same camera cost 1000 rubles or more less than at these shops.
The grocery store was a lot of fun for me. It was exactly what you would expect of a large grocery store. Other than the products being quite different the organization and function are identical. Many of the products are very familiar and some are so very different. They had a stand at the entrance of the store where they bagged and sealed anything you may have bought in a different store at the mall. I hardly know where to start about the things that are different. Butter is as good as any place to start. The butter itself is the same, but it is not packaged by the stick like it is for us. It is in packages that are almost precisely the size of two sticks of butter. At home there are many drinking products in plastic containers, some in glass, and a few in cardboard. Here almost all are in cardboard some in glass, and a few in plastic. The most noticeable difference was the packaging of frozen foods, particularly vegetables. The part of the store with such items was the same. Large freezers with the tops open, frosted around the inside edge, very much the same. However here there are loose vegetables, pees, chopped carrots, broccoli, whatever, and scoops. You take a plastic bag, and you fill it with the scoop, and then bring it to a stand. The stand has a bunch of numbers you can press, to correspond with the different products. You places your item on the scale, push the button and the price prints out on a sticker.
After we bought our goods, Маша wanted to take my picture, so I pulled the camera out and she snapped a couple befor a sucurity guard came and told here to stop. She didn't, and took another. He came back and said it again. She ignored him, and took another. He then said in Russian "He girl, can you under stand Russian?", and she said in English "yes, yes we understand"
I have noticed a few things about Russia, and I will list them at some point, but I think they are the fundamental resons our countrys do not seam to get along. One is lines. People to not wait in lines nicly, they barge. You must hold your spot firmly and not leave any space between you and the next person or you will lose your spot and some one will barge infront of you. Yes, even with shopping carts. I watched Маша do this at one point, and I thought how rude of here. Then I noticed it was how every one was acting, so I adopted the methodology. It helps so that we do not get seperated on escalateors. The metro is very deep and there is a long excalator ride up and down to use them.
I see many nice things here. Some kind gestures that when I mentioned Маша told me they were not kind. Here there is a large moffia, and they use invalids and homelesspeople to beg for moeny. I don't exactly understand how it works but she told me it was some kind of slavory. So the guesture is kind when they give the oneleggad man money, but it is not kind since he is being used and it is not helping him. But still there are many kind things, an olderman got on the metro and a younger fellow gave him his seat. A man fell down and hit his face on the floor. To other men helped him up, and a woman gave him some tishue from her pag to wipe the dirt from his face. The people seam to have much more intuition to eachother, it is not a colection of individuals as it is in the US.
So our shopping trip was fun, we walked about 2 miles, took a train about 6 then road a bus for 5 bought many supplies and carried everything back on this same trak. We unpacked out things, and prepaired for our celibration.
Our dinner consisted of, "Red Fish Children", two traditional russian salads (in the same bowl, on red, one green), smoked sammon, and some kind of Russian salami. We had grap juice and pinable juice. The hotel gave us a bottle of shampain, and shmpaine glasses, but Маша does not drink so we did not open it, we had the grap juice in the shampain glasses, I was going to make a joke about us having wine, but then I desided not to. Also, mom, sorry about the joke with the mineral watter. When we told you we were having champain, and we showed you the funny bottle, it was minreal water. Маша is like you mom and likes mineral water a lot.
More to come at a later dae.
We have tickets to a couple of shows at the 
