International Women's Day

Today is a International Women's Day, celebrated very seriously in Russia and is officially a day off from work.  It gets a bit complicated after that since, in Russia, they seem to always try to tie a day off into the weekend. In this particular case since today is the holiday everyone worked on Saturday so that they would have Monday off and the holiday becomes a Sun-Mon-Tues set of time off.

Aside from the time off, it is a tradition for the men to shower the women with flowers, chocolates, cakes, champagne, etc. I got caught off guard by not knowing the tradition and, since it's a day off today, all the gifts at work were being handed out on Saturday at work.  I wasn't going to be shown up by all the other guys in the office so I made a quick trip to the store and bought some Belgian chocolates for the women who I've gotten to know in my time here.

There was also a gathering held last night by our spousal association, partly as a send off for my boss and his family as they are moving soon, but also to celebrate Women's Day Eve and give everyone a chance to celebrate the great women we have here.  I have nothing but wonderful things to say about the families I've met in Russia and the always welcoming SSA (and I'm not just saying that because I know they're reading my blog ;)  For some reason they keep inviting the shy Canadian with no spouse out to their parties and I'm very grateful.  

So to all the women out there, in the words of a promiscuous male foreigner in Thailand after a night of risky decisions....

'Thank you for being a woman!'