Time for exploring...

Well with my Exam and studies finally over for another year, yesterday Sonja and I decided to explore a part of the city we hadn't been to before. It's a little funny though, because this part of the city is actually one of the first parts you see when coming from the Airport. So we've been meaning to visit it for a while. The place is called the monument to the heroic defenders of Leningrad. It's located on a round-a-bout in the middle of the main road to the Airport, but really needs a visit to appreciate the monument. St Petersburg in World War II was surrounded for 900 days by the Germans, and nearly a third of the population died from the war or starvation. The museum was rather interesting and a nice break from the weather on this gray dreary day. As you can see from the photos...

Bratwurst, lederhosen and the wrong train!

I (Sonja) traveled to Germany, Kandern and Giessen, for training in my new position at work. The town of Kandern (pronounced Kon-dern) is so charming and quaint that I want to bottle it up and take it home with me. Kandern is the birthplace of John Sutter who later moved to California and was one of the first to strike it rich and find gold. Everything about Kandern is clean, all the houses are clean and freshly painted, the streets, the cars, even the kids faces are clean. Some buildings are hundreds of years old yet hold a classic modern charm that only well-kept buildings could possess.

When I was leaving from Giessen (pronounced Gee-son) to catch the plane in Frankfurt I traveled by train. I had to make a transfer and I got onto the wrong train! It was going in the direction that I wanted to go but it by-passed the Frankfurt airport that I was headed for! I ended up in some town and had to wait 30 minutes for another train going back to the main station and then had to get another train to the airport. I arrived only an hour before my plane left and had to wait 45 minutes in line at the security check; I made it to the gate right when the plane was supposed to leave and found out that the plane was delayed a few minutes. I made it home just fine!

Babushka in training

This is Sonja dressing up as a "babushka" or Russian grandma; in the stairwell of Sally and Sean's apartment. A lot of old ladies dress like this, and carry buckets, NO KIDDING!

Octobrrrrrrr!

October 07 – Brrrrr, it’s getting cold. Cam’s been studying for his Masters degree for a couple of months now and that means that every weekend has been full of books and studying and not to much of adventure. We finally had a free Saturday to do whatever we wanted and so we went to a park called Pavlosk. We took a local train out to the town on Pavlosk. The park was for the Tsar (empirical) family in Russia but was taken over by the Germans in World War II. It’s a very naturally landscaped park with hills and lots of trees and lakes and small palaces and hermitages around every corner. It was rainy when we were there but we didn’t care. On the way home we took a taxi-van called a “mashrutka” and got stuck in a traffic jam. Luckily for us our driver got his license while working on a safari and decided to take all 20 standing and sitting occupants off-road on the side of the highway to get around the back-up. This happens quite often and unlucky for you if you’re a pedestrian and the taxi driver decides to go on the sidewalk (Australian: footpath) to get around the traffic jam. In the end we got home and had a cup of hot cocoa and rested for the rest of the day. We plan on going back out there when it’s snowy.

Let's go to Moscow

September 07 – Cam’s parents, John and Trish Gibbons, came and visited us for three weeks from the end of August to the first part of September. We had a great time. We were cramped in our tiny one bedroom apartment, but it worked out okay. John and Trish were real troupers, they went out by themselves and walked and explored and walked some more all around the city while Cam and Sonja went to work. We did go to Moscow one weekend and it happened to be Moscow’s birthday, 860 years! Would you believe that they control the weather here? They put silver nitrate in planes and fly around and drop it on the clouds and they go away. Yeah, they actually do this. So everyday in the morning it was cloudy and cold but by 11AM it was blue skies the rest of the day! We’re not sure of the effects of the nitrate so the next time you see us we might each have an extra arm or something. Anyway, we all had a great time and took the train to and from Moscow. We went to all kinds of yummy restaurants while they were here so they could try some local cuisine. We were sad to see them go; but they were able to meet up with my aunt in Norway while they were there and they traveled through Europe on their way back to Australia. Trip of a lifetime!

Make a Wish and blow out the candles!

August 07 – 1 Aug was Sonja’s 25 birthday! Very low key this year. Cam knows better now and will make up for it next year :o) About a week after Sonja’s b’day we went with friends to a beach in St. Pete (don’t get too excited, when we say beach we mean a bit of sand by the water with trash all over it), and had Russian “shashlik” which is meat on a stick like shish kabobs (for Australians: kebabs). It was so good! At the end of the meal a old lady came up asking us for help with money and we sent her home with all the left-overs, even a piece of cake. That really made her day.

Simply Sweden

July 07 – We had a church conference in Sweden for the Nordic vineyard churches. We drove from Russia through Finland and then took an overnight ferry to Sweden. We had a full day in Stockholm and the weather was fantastic. We roamed around the city and wanted to see a movie in English, but they weren’t playing at the time. We were actually trying to beat the heat; it was really sunny and warm that day. The church conference was great. We camped outside at the conference, which was held at a small college. It rained so hard one day that people’s tents started to float away. It was so beautiful and peaceful. This was my (Sonja) first time in Sweden and I met a lot of people from Norway so I wasn’t shy to speak Norwegian with them even though it’s been 7 years since I spoke it.