Monthly Archives: August 2012

(How cool is this guy?  The beard alone…) All happy families are alike; Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.  Blah Blah Blah.  When you’re at the Tolstoy House, you don’t get into all that.  The focus is on how “ironic”, but in a cool way, this guy was. Don’t believe me?  CheckContinue reading “Tolstoy…The Stylish Hipster?”

Adam’s Russian pampers have been the cutest thing here in Russia.  They say ‘Our little champions’ on them and ever since I found that out it makes me smile every time I change his pampers.  It is such a sweet and idyllic way to describe babies – ‘Hawu Maleenkuu Champehonblu’. My little champion’s butt 🙂

Not everyday you get to visit a North Korean restaurant.  In Moscow no less! An extravaganza of Socialism!  Workers of the World Unite! It’s my first taste of North Korean in 31 years!  And Adam’s first in less than one… It’s disconcerting entering a North Korean restaurant.  Monitoring our every move?  Imposing quotas?  Restrictions on orders?Continue reading “Hanjeongsik!”

It’s hard to believe it’s already been three weeks that we’ve been in Russia. Tomorrow is our last full day here and we’re back in DC Sunday afternoon. What have we been up to these last few days you ask? Yesterday we went to Detsky Mir. This is the Buy Buy Baby of Russia.  We’veContinue reading “Last few days”

Wednesday night Randy’s work colleague invited us to dinner.  I couldn’t bring my camera and document the night for you all, so we took a couple pictures before hand to show you how nice we clean up 🙂 Dinner was delicious and it was great to meet a family who have been in the foreign service for yearsContinue reading “Dinner Out”

Last Tuesday, Randy mentioned he wanted to go to Gorky Park. It was a beautiful night so I thought why not. We packed a picnic dinner, sandwiches for us and some banana and carrots for Adam.  We thought we’ll go have dinner, take a quick walk around and come home. Gorky Park is mentioned inContinue reading “Gorky Park”

As soon as we found out we were going to Russia we knew we had to visit St. Petersburg.  I hadn’t been in 16 years since I had lived there as an exchange student and I wanted to see it again as an adult. Randy had never been and he didn’t want to miss out.  Randy couldn’t take any timeContinue reading “36 Hours in St Petersburg”

I’ve always been a bit of a nervous traveler.  I know that may be hard to believe, but it’s true. The week leading up to a departure I make lists, pack, make countless trips to CVS and make more lists, all to make myself feel more prepared.  I pack our suitcases days in advance and plan ourContinue reading “Reasons I love Randy”

When we were in St. Petersburg this past weekend we spent an afternoon with Polina. Polina had been my exchange student sophomore year of high school.  She came to Staten Island for a semester to stay with my family and I stayed with her family in St Petersburg for a semester. I haven’t seen her since. That’s 16Continue reading “Reasons I love Randy”

You may be sitting at home wondering how the Ali’s decide where to go and what they see. Well, before we head out for a trip, there is a lot of research that goes into what we see and do. Here is a little snippet of our intense St. Petersburg research before we started hittingContinue reading “Trip Planning”