My Adventures Where in the world is ….

When you first look at outlets here they are very different and yet similar.

A four outlet section in our bedroom – the first is a phone or internet outlet, not sure what the second is, but the last two our plugs.

Washing clothes is nice in that the washing machine is in our apartment bathroom.  It is small and very compact and a front loader.  I have translated the cycles into English and have it posted on the wall next to the washer so I can easily know what to do but it is different.  As you can see in the one picture the cycles are mostly long – some three hours, some just two – both of those seem too long to wash clothes to me so we have researched more and found the cycles we like.  The water heater for the washer and for the bathroom sink and shower is hanging over the washer.

Here is our cute little washing machine. It has many cycles and holds two bath towels or the equivalent thereof – not much.

This shows one cycle that goes for 3 hours and 30 minutes but you can push the buttons under and lower the time to one hour and five minutes – that is the lowest it will go. We did find there is a cycle that is only 30 minutes which seems more reasonable.

Here is the water heater hanging over our washer. You can also see we have Tide – there is only one variety but it works fine. The other bottles are fabric softener, Vanish, and toilet cleaner.

Doing the wash is easy in that the loads are not not large so then we just hang them on our drying rack and usually within 24 hours they are all dry.  It is nice to have such a nice large drying rack.

One morning I took my camera and took a picture of the building our office is in.

It is on the top floor you can see the circular lobby area which is often well lit.  When the elevator is working we enter in this lobby and look out on the city.

Here is a picture of the building our office is in – it is on the top floor and has a large circular lobby entrance – when it is lit it is very welcoming. The building is on the corner and the bottom floor is an office, the third and forth floors are a day care.

Here is Carl all bundled up outside the entrance to our building. Notice his nice warm hat with ear flaps and his new scarf. The bag holds the dough I made for making rolls for our mission leader luncheon.

In the middle between the two streets of traffic is where the trambaii goes.  There is one going each direction.  Here is a picture of one.  I wish I could a get a picture of the one that is all lit up for Christmas – maybe I will another day.

Trambaii coming just across from our office.

The snow just stays on the ground as it has not been above freezing since we arrived.

It has only snowed three times but not much each time.

The snow just stays around where it is not driven or walked on.

We are able to find most things here but they are packaged much differently.

Here are a few examples ~

This is my baking cabinet, bottom shelf. From left to right: baking powder, baking soda, basil, chicken broth mix, sugar. Behind the sugar is brown sugar and salt. Also I have a few other spices (oregano, cinnamon and cayenne).

This is inside the refrigerator on the door. Top shelf: Philadelphia cream cheese, strawberry jelly, apricot jelly, yeast. Bottom shelf: two bottles of milk (1 liter each – sometimes it is sold in cardboard wax containers but we like the bottles best), mayonnaise, orange juice.

Chocolate, vanilla, and cherry ice cream.

For the ice cream – you can slice it or squeeze out in small lumps.  We usually slice it and it tastes very good.  The vanilla is especially creamy.  We haven’t tried the chocolate yet but the other one you see is cherry and it is delicious.  We also have a large bag of frozen strawberries that we take out for cereal and we have put them on ice cream as well.

Meat is usually sold in vacuum packed bags.  I bought some chicken breasts and they were so large we got two meals and several days of sandwiches out of one breast.  We also had a roast which was very good and we had several days of sandwiches, three meals of beef stroganoff  and I made a big pot of stew which we still have.  We bring our lunch to the office most days as it is just easier than going out.

We have not yet gone out to eat but we will.  We have heard there is a Ukrainian “cafeteria” near here that has lots of delicious foods and the Clendenings usually eat for under $10 for both of them with lots of food and even taking some home.

This morning we had oatmeal with apples in it.  The apples are very good here.

There is a sweet woman who making nativity nesting dolls and they are really beautiful so I decided I would get one for myself.  When she delivered them she got three more orders from two missionaries and the other senior Sister missionary so she was very happy.

She also puts the faces of family on them and some of the missionaries have gotten them to take home to their families.  One had such a large family he had to get two sets as she only puts six dolls in each set.  They are computer generated but very nice.

Five of my nesting dolls set together – the largest one is Mary, Joseph and Jesus, then there are two with shepherds on them and the smallest ones are sheep and donkeys.

I set these together on the other side of the room as it is Mary and Jesus and the other one is the wise men. Since the wise men came to visit Jesus later I like having them separate.

I probably will keep them up all year as they are so beautiful.

The flowers are from our mission president’s wife.

There were white flowers as well but they already died and these are not far behind.