I will be boarding a train this evening to travel further into Siberia. This will be closer to the real, stereotypical Siberian experience but not all the way just yet. I think they’re plan is to ease me into it and reduce the shock and i’m fine with that. I’ve found that even though I’m technically the only person in this position here and am responsible for all of Russia that I will primarily be dealing with three locations. Nefteyugansk, Usinsk and Astrakhan. I will split my time between the office in Tyumen and these other locations. My first project is to go to Nefteyugansk and determine their compliance level with our standards and policies, to train their engineers for promotions and to help set up our satellite communications system in that base. It will be a busy trip and even though I’m anxious to work out there, I look forward to coming back to Tyumen because a day later I’ll be boarding a plane for Seattle. All in all, with this train ride and the return flights to Seattle…I should rack up about 80 hours of travel time in the next two weeks. I’m less excited about that face.
On the Tyumen homefront, I have finally moved out of my hotel and into my apartment. The story, told by the landlord, was that it was his personal project when he purchased the apartment many years back. Later on, he was divorced from his wife and decided to build this place for his own personal bachelor pad. As he neared completion, however, he found a new love and moved in together with her. That put this place up on the market without even being lived in. perfect timing for me. There are still some imperfections with the place and he has some of the oddest color choices (as pictures will soon support) but it has plenty of space and a different look to it than any other place I was shown.
The other subject I haven’t touched on is Russian cuisine. The food here is decent, nothing overly inedible but also nothing that really has me coming back for more. People from work have often taken me to this pizza place close by and I attempt to try different ingredients each time but one that I’ve stayed away from is described as Pizza with ‘Beef’s Neck’. It doesn’t even make sense and that’s an extra reason for me not to taste it. Most local restaurants have a few traditional Russian items such as Borscht, fish, blinis for breakfast and then lots of different styles/parts of meat. Fills the stomach but doesn’t get my mouth watering. Although, I did have some soup this weekend, while smoking some Sheesha at 5am after a night out and it was heaven. I can only describe the flavor as ‘hot dog soup’ but it was delicious. Maybe it was the vodka, maybe the Sheesha. I’ll try to narrow it down next time. Since there are a lot of foreign people who work and travel here, they have a few Americanized places to eat, also some Irish pubs, etc. I usually get lunch from a place near work that has some long Russian name to it but when you open up the door, it’s identical to Subway, with pictures of NYC on it. There are no Subway signs anywhere so either they’re not allowed to call it Subway here or it’s a very good spin-off. I learn a lot of my Russian while they build my sub, I never thought Subway could be such a valuable learning institution.
Off to learn more Russian…so long
On the Tyumen homefront, I have finally moved out of my hotel and into my apartment. The story, told by the landlord, was that it was his personal project when he purchased the apartment many years back. Later on, he was divorced from his wife and decided to build this place for his own personal bachelor pad. As he neared completion, however, he found a new love and moved in together with her. That put this place up on the market without even being lived in. perfect timing for me. There are still some imperfections with the place and he has some of the oddest color choices (as pictures will soon support) but it has plenty of space and a different look to it than any other place I was shown.
The other subject I haven’t touched on is Russian cuisine. The food here is decent, nothing overly inedible but also nothing that really has me coming back for more. People from work have often taken me to this pizza place close by and I attempt to try different ingredients each time but one that I’ve stayed away from is described as Pizza with ‘Beef’s Neck’. It doesn’t even make sense and that’s an extra reason for me not to taste it. Most local restaurants have a few traditional Russian items such as Borscht, fish, blinis for breakfast and then lots of different styles/parts of meat. Fills the stomach but doesn’t get my mouth watering. Although, I did have some soup this weekend, while smoking some Sheesha at 5am after a night out and it was heaven. I can only describe the flavor as ‘hot dog soup’ but it was delicious. Maybe it was the vodka, maybe the Sheesha. I’ll try to narrow it down next time. Since there are a lot of foreign people who work and travel here, they have a few Americanized places to eat, also some Irish pubs, etc. I usually get lunch from a place near work that has some long Russian name to it but when you open up the door, it’s identical to Subway, with pictures of NYC on it. There are no Subway signs anywhere so either they’re not allowed to call it Subway here or it’s a very good spin-off. I learn a lot of my Russian while they build my sub, I never thought Subway could be such a valuable learning institution.
Off to learn more Russian…so long
No comments:
Post a Comment