Staycation

I was lucky to grow up in a family that vacationed most years - sometimes twice.  Whenever we were living in the U.S., we took a summer vacation - either to the beach or the mountains - and sometimes a winter cross-country ski vacation.  When overseas, we always used our R&R tickets to travel home and spend quality time with the grandparents.  In the days before Skype and Youtube, and when McDonalds was only found in the United States, my father felt that yearly trips home were important for his children to stay in touch with their American roots.

In the global age, the latter point isn't such a concern for families anymore, and since we are moving back to the States this summer, we had actually planned to take an R&R to Israel in late March or early April of this year.  But due to some unforeseen circumstances at work for J, he ended up taking last week off.  Our family has been thoroughly beaten with the sick stick this winter, and we couldn't even contemplate packing up the kids and dragging them somewhere (even by car) for more than a day trip.  Seriously, I feel like my entire house is covered in snot.  And other stuff.

So a staycation it was.

We kicked off our staycation with a planned day trip to Stepantsminda. 

That line at the top of the map is the Georgian/Russian border.  Stepantsminda is the nearest town to Mount Kazbeg, which is the highest mountain in Georgia.  There is a famous and oft-photographed church there which we were hoping to see.

It is worth noting that we took this trip the day after we worked in the garden without our jackets on.  I remember hearing stories of life in Beirut's glory days, when you could swim in the morning and ski in the afternoon.  Georgia sometimes feels like that.  There is a lot of varied weather within a short radius of Tbilisi.

Gudauri, a ski resort on the way to Stepantsminda, had gotten a fair dumping of snow that morning, with total accumulation of 12-18" forecast for the day.

Not long after we passed through Gudauri, we were stopped.  The pass between Gudauri and Stepantsminda was closed for plowing.  The first officer we spoke to said it would not reopen until 7 p.m. (we arrived at 11 a.m.). The next officer told us it would reopen sooner, but he wasn't sure.  We waited for about 40 minutes.

After the Tinkerbell movie had ended (in-car DVD players are the best!), we decided to cut our losses and head for home. 

Day trip fail.

We arrived home pretty tired; I think I went to bed at 8 that night.  The rest of the week we sent the kids to school and were much more low-key. 

Stay tuned for more exciting staycation adventures.

In case you care about what we did 15 months ago ...

I never did blog about our trip to Yerevan in November 2012, and I really want to. 

If you have been reading this blog for awhile, you may know that Jeremy and I met in Yerevan in 2005.  I was at the Embassy for my first tour, and Jeremy was finishing up three years in country - two in the Peace Corps and one teaching 5th grade at the international school - when we met at a poker game.  Shortly after I departed post, we got married.  So for me, Yerevan is filled with memories of early dating, falling in love and wedding planning.

We wanted to take our kids back to the place where we had met, so we drove down from Tbilisi over Veteran's Day weekend.

View on the road:

We spent two nights at the Aviatrans hotel in downtown Yerevan (good location, reasonable accommodations for a reasonable price) and spent most of our time reacquainting ourselves with the city and making the rounds to see old friends.

The girls in front of my old voice teacher's apartment building.

My teacher, Susannah, and her daughter Astghik had us over for lunch.

Natasha was into sticking her tongue out in pictures.  Thank goodness that phase is over!

Just strollin' around town ...

Taking in the sights ...

Posing for old time's sake in front of Mount Ararat.  Seeing this photo made me feel so old.

We took the girls to Square One, the "American" burger joint that really isn't, but which was the closest thing available eight years ago.

And to Tumanian Shwarma, which was one of our favorite spots for a quick lunch back in the day.  Natasha liked the shwarma.

Zoia, not so much.  (I was about six months pregnant with Gabriel at the time of this trip).

We took in a great music and lights show at the Republic Square fountain one night.

And had dinner at another old friend's house.

Then it was time to go home.  Past Lake Sevan ...

... and stopping over in Dilijan, to have lunch with Jeremy's host family from Peace Corps language training days.  

It was good to visit, but hard, too.  Georgia has made such strides since the last time I had been here.  I had forgotten all of the challenges Armenia faces - its geographic isolation, closed borders, extreme poverty and the ongoing tug-of-war between Russian and Western influence.  Sadly, not much has changed there.

Weekend in St. Petersburg

  

Sunday morning, we got the kids up at 5:15 a.m. (ugh) to catch the high-speed train from Moscow to St. Petersburg.

 

Neither kid slept on the train (ugh).  Natasha passed the time on the train by playing with the automatic doors separating the cars.

 

We arrived after four hours on the train and checked into our hotel, the Pushka Inn, around the corner from the Hermitage.

Then we took the Metro to Smolensky Cemetery on Vasilievsky Island, where St. Blessed Xenia is buried.  There was a huge line to visit the chapel built above her grave.

Natasha made friends with one of the babushki working in the garden, and she escorted us to the front of the line.  Kid knows how to make connections!

Outside the cemetery, we saw the manliest Hummer ever.

Then we returned to the hotel, which had the smallest elevator ever.

... and tried to put the girls down for naps.  Total failure.  So we went to dinner.  The restaurant had a kids' room with an attendant right next to our table.  Natasha loved playing with her and we got to eat in relative peace.

The next morning, we headed over to the Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood.  It was apparently built solely as a monument to commemorate the assassination of Alexander II, and has never seen a service.  Like a very ornate pyramid, I guess.

Everyone says St. Petersburg isn't like Russia.  They're right - in many ways it really doesn't feel like Russia at all.  I was reminded at different turns of Venice and Prague.  With lots and lots of mosquitoes, since the city was built on a swamp.

Then we headed to a nearby park to chase some pigeons and hang out.

We also decided to take some Russian-style photos among the flowers.  They really pose like this.

That afternoon after successful naps (yay!), we walked across the bridge to the Peter and Paul Fortree to check out the cathedral.












By some accounts, the (again, very un-Russian) cathedral contains the remains of Tsar Nicholas II and the rest of his family, who were murdered by the Bolsheviks in 1917.  Others believe that the remains are still unaccounted for.  In any case, this is the room where they are allegedly buried.

On Tuesday morning, we had two hours at the Hermitage before catching our train.  We managed to see just one level - the second floor - in that time.  Even if we'd had more time, I don't think the kids could have taken any more.  I would have loved to see the rest, though.

Then we got back on the train to head home.

Overall, a successful trip.  Now that we know we can travel with the babies without wanting to wring each other's necks, we are starting to think about where to go for the next three-day weekend!