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A day off...
Jan. 9th, 2005 06:47 pmI've been on the job since December 26, at varying levels of effort, but without any day completely free of work responsibilities. Technically, I was to accompany some folks on a trip to the Russian Orthodox Church in town this morning, but the trip was called on account of weather, despite the fact that the weather made a marvelous comeback in the period prior to this morning.
So as it turned out, nine of us ended up taking two vans into town. The first stop was the market, which I have written about during the previous campaign. I was surprised to see so little changed, except for the extent of the produce market (no tomatoes or cucumbers this time of year) and the weather (everything was pretty slick with ice).
I helped one of the Pinkerton guys buy some clothes, as his experience with lost luggage was much worse than mine (although the bag is promised for some time next week). The hardest part of the effort was convincing the vendors to write out a simple receipt so the fellow could get reimbursed.
The market was a "target rich" environment for photography, but as I don't like to make a spectacle of myself taking pictures of people (and since most people in this part of the world want to pose when having their pictures taken), my inventory of resulting photographs is fairly limited. Here's a shot of a broom seller (yes, those things are brooms).
After exhausting our interest in the market, our group of six (the three members of the French team had split off) made the fairly long walk over to what is called the "Arbat" district, to get something to eat at the Palermo Pizzeria. Here's a shot of some street art on the way to that venerable establishment.
The fare at the Palermo was quite good. I had a bowl of soup (solyanka), two beers, and a pizza with mushrooms and smoked salami (the local equivalent of pepperoni, I guess). The food was very filling -- one might even say I overate -- and the bill for my share was a modest 160 rubles, or about $6.00.
We then made the trip back to the market area, where I split off from the group to go find the fellow selling camel's hair shoe inserts (my boots are a little on the big side, even wearing two pairs of socks), before rejoining the crowd at a liquor store where I was able to find some of my favorite beer, Baltika No. 4, which is a dark brew. I was certainly not the only person in the group to leave the store with a bag that, um, clanked.
Talking about camels, on the way out of town we encountered the following traffic hazard:
We first saw this herd as we approached the town limit, a sort of Berlin-wall looking kind of border, with concrete slabs and barbed wire running perpendicular to the road on both sides as far as the eye could see. After passing through the gate, which is staffed by the military, our driver stopped the car about a half klick past the city limits and allowed us get out and photograph the animals, who were about 80 yards away and moving roughly parallel to the highway. As they moved down the road and we got back in our car, however, it became apparent that the herd was angling closer to the highway and was actually going to cross the road in front of us, and the shot above is one of several I took from a back seat through the windshield as that happened.
It's back to the regular schedule tomorrow, and I feel renewed. The trip did me a great deal of good.
Cheers...
So as it turned out, nine of us ended up taking two vans into town. The first stop was the market, which I have written about during the previous campaign. I was surprised to see so little changed, except for the extent of the produce market (no tomatoes or cucumbers this time of year) and the weather (everything was pretty slick with ice).
I helped one of the Pinkerton guys buy some clothes, as his experience with lost luggage was much worse than mine (although the bag is promised for some time next week). The hardest part of the effort was convincing the vendors to write out a simple receipt so the fellow could get reimbursed.
The market was a "target rich" environment for photography, but as I don't like to make a spectacle of myself taking pictures of people (and since most people in this part of the world want to pose when having their pictures taken), my inventory of resulting photographs is fairly limited. Here's a shot of a broom seller (yes, those things are brooms).
After exhausting our interest in the market, our group of six (the three members of the French team had split off) made the fairly long walk over to what is called the "Arbat" district, to get something to eat at the Palermo Pizzeria. Here's a shot of some street art on the way to that venerable establishment.
The fare at the Palermo was quite good. I had a bowl of soup (solyanka), two beers, and a pizza with mushrooms and smoked salami (the local equivalent of pepperoni, I guess). The food was very filling -- one might even say I overate -- and the bill for my share was a modest 160 rubles, or about $6.00.
We then made the trip back to the market area, where I split off from the group to go find the fellow selling camel's hair shoe inserts (my boots are a little on the big side, even wearing two pairs of socks), before rejoining the crowd at a liquor store where I was able to find some of my favorite beer, Baltika No. 4, which is a dark brew. I was certainly not the only person in the group to leave the store with a bag that, um, clanked.
Talking about camels, on the way out of town we encountered the following traffic hazard:
We first saw this herd as we approached the town limit, a sort of Berlin-wall looking kind of border, with concrete slabs and barbed wire running perpendicular to the road on both sides as far as the eye could see. After passing through the gate, which is staffed by the military, our driver stopped the car about a half klick past the city limits and allowed us get out and photograph the animals, who were about 80 yards away and moving roughly parallel to the highway. As they moved down the road and we got back in our car, however, it became apparent that the herd was angling closer to the highway and was actually going to cross the road in front of us, and the shot above is one of several I took from a back seat through the windshield as that happened.
It's back to the regular schedule tomorrow, and I feel renewed. The trip did me a great deal of good.
Cheers...
